idubilu

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[woncheolisms]

ANAMNESIS. (cyborg!choi seungcheol x human!reader)

synopsis: five years ago, your company became a big enough threat to the existing tech ecosystem to cause an attack on your life. five years ago, said attack killed your husband. after spending so long picking up the pieces, you are quickly racing to the top again, which means your life is threatened once more. but the assassin sent your way is a little too familiar, even if he’s not exactly the same as the day he got “killed”.

warnings: mentions of death and violence, assassination and murder, corrupt business practices, amnesia, brainwashing and manipulation, mentions of mental health, suicidal ideation, sexually explicit content

smut warnings: 18+, multiple orgasms, choking, praise kink, use of petnames, they almost cry (lol), mentions of body modifications (in case of cyborg!seungcheol).

word count: 17.2k

a/n: this is part of the Cyberpunk: Reload Collab hosted by @studiosvt . Thank you to the organisers and everyone involved in the collab, this has been such a unique and stimulating writing experience for me, especially for a concept I’ve never done before. Seungcheol in this is loosely based off the winter soldier, I hope you all enjoy!

Inside the sleek but small building wedged between two skyscrapers, a single light illuminates a window on the second floor. Around it is nothing but darkness, and the streets are strangely quiet for a Friday night. Inside the office, the golden light falls over a keyboard, the clack, clack, clack of the keys rhythmic and continuous. Fingers move deftly over it, and the artificial glow of the monitor adds to the lamp in an unpleasant way. You don’t seem to mind.

A knock on the door does nothing to break your concentration. Your fingers don’t so much as falter. Joshua pokes his head in through a crack in the doorframe, frowns when he sees you, and finally speaks up.

“Any chance you will be wrapping this up soon?”

You don’t look up, but you hum in acknowledgment. “Just a little bit more. I’m just finishing up on….”

Your voice trails off. You don’t attempt to finish the sentence. Joshua sighs.

“It’s Friday night.” He reminds you, gently, still lingering in the doorway. “How about you and I get some dinner? You can sleep in tomorrow.”

He knows his suggestions will fall on deaf ears, but he tries nonetheless. He is hyperaware of his boss at this point. There’s no convincing you to slow down, to take a breather. You won’t allow yourself to. Slowing down means letting your mind wander. And you haven’t let that happen in five years, lest you are reminded of what you have lost.

“It’s okay for you to head home, Josh.” You break him from his thoughts. “I promise, I’m almost done. Maybe an hour more.”

There’s no point in arguing. Joshua sighs and steps out again. He reminds himself to call you an hour later to make sure you have, in fact, left the office. His satchel is already packed, so he just pulls on his coat and steps out.

You know Joshua worries. He’s the only person on staff who can see your struggle. You pride yourself on being composed and shut off from the people around you. If you’re drowning, no one really sees it. Except Joshua, of course. He has been there since the very beginning, so he knows. The rest of the staff though, you did a complete turnover half a decade ago. They don’t know what actually went down or what you’ve been through.

True to your word, you’re wrapping up forty five minutes later. It’s well past midnight, and you know Joshua won’t take kindly to you still working when he inevitably calls in fifteen minutes. There have been occasions where he has dragged you out of the building himself, when he is particularly frustrated. He keeps speaking about ‘work-life balance’, reprimanding you for not having it. You always bite your tongue instead of telling him that you have no ‘life’ to go back to. The only person you ever loved is gone, so your work is all you have.

The drive back is inconsequential. The roads are empty by this point, despite the weekend. Your apartment building is silent and looming as always. You don’t really like your neighborhood, but you had moved here after everything happened for a fresh start, and at the time, you weren’t in any headspace to pick out a nice place. Joshua often complained about how drab and uninspiring your apartment is. You pay him no mind. He has always been all about flowers and rainbows. His desk at the office is so colorful it makes your eyes hurt sometimes.

You leave the light on in the kitchen landing so you don’t have to stumble through the dark to get to the switchboard. Again, you can hear Joshua complaining in your head about how you can easily afford an AI home system, considering how well the company has been doing. You are least interested though. You don’t want to put anything in this apartment that can mean you are planning to live here long term. You don’t even know why you’re still here. Most days, you have no clue where your life is heading anyway.

You toe off your shoes and plop your heavy trenchcoat over the back of the couch. You wonder what you can make yourself for dinner. Something minimal straight out of the packet, probably. You’ve got dozens of those prepackaged meals in your pantry. You beeline for the sink, washing your hands and wondering bleakly what you are in the mood for stomaching. Through the window over the counter, you can see the city’s skyline. Thousands of tiny, yellow dots from people’s windows, the backdrop formed by the sleek, poised buildings of the business sector looming beyond. Straight edges and smooth lines. But one building, not even two blocks away, shows an irregularity.

You squint for a second, hands held under the sink still. It looks like a person. Tall, but very broad. You half think you’re imagining it, but then the silhouette moves, and your eye catches on a gleam of silver over the shoulder.

The water is still running. You shut it off, looking back up. He’s gone.

You blink a few times. Then you glance at the clock. It’s nearly three in the morning. You huff and step away from the sink, shaking off your hands. It’s too late at night for your brain to be functioning properly. You need sustenance. And then you need to sleep.

It’s easy enough to pop your chicken dinner into a dish and slide it into the oven. You set fifteen minutes on the digital counter, and then busy yourself with hopping into the shower for a quick wash. Fifteen minutes on the dot, you’re back in the kitchen, peering into the oven with dripping wet hair and a bathrobe covering your drenched body. Everything around you is silent, so deafeningly still that you immediately hear the click and whir of metal. Right behind you. Too close.

The hair on the back of your neck stands. You whirl around.

Something smashes, hard, against your nose. Pain explodes and you gasp, stumbling back into the counter. Your eyes water, something warm and liquid drips over your lips and down your chin. You’re dizzy, you can’t see properly. You can barely breathe through the excruciating hurt. But alarm bells are ringing in your head, and fight or flight takes over. Backed against the counter for support, you kick your legs out hard. Your feet make contact with something sturdy. There’s a grunt, and the man stumbles backward, his back hitting the refrigerator with what sounds like a deafening crash. You’re already scrambling to run from the kitchen.

You can barely see, but you know the map of this house like the back of your hand. Your ears are ringing, you’re gasping for breath, but panic is fueling you. You’ve had this feeling before, your life has been threatened once, a long time ago, and somehow, the second time around is giving you more clarity.

It also means that you are better prepared this time around.

You can hear the thuds and bangs behind you. Your attacker will be right on your heels soon. You barely manage to wretch your door closed, locking it, before a startling bang shakes it at its very hinges. Your yelp is involuntary. You know you have only bought yourself mere seconds.

Inside your drawer you find what you’re looking for, a tiny, unassuming device, shiny and silver, resembling a lighter. It comes with two silicone ear buds that you shove into your ears. Then, your hand on the solitary button on the device, you turn around.

The door comes down after just two bangs, splintering the doorframe completely. Sawdust rises, clouding the air. You don’t wait to see your attacker, pressing the button immediately.

You can’t hear it, owing to the buds in your ears, but you know a high pitched screeching has filled the air, nearly unbearable because of how high the frequency is. But it does its job. The man howls in pain, dropping what looks like a gun on the ground and using both hands to cover his ears. His knees buckle and he falls on them. You can see, even from a few feet away, the veins in his neck bulge hard, disappearing behind the black mask on his face. He crumples on the floor, clutching the sides of his head. You snatch your phone from where you had thrown it on your bed, frantically dialling three digits.

The man is still writhing, his body, clad in black and silver, contracting and arching painfully as he tries in vain to keep the sound out. As he moves, metal thuds against the ground. There is more clicking and whirring, like machinery buzzing with life. You realise he’s not entirely human. His shoulders tighten as you step closer, trying to make out who it is.

“911, what is your emergency?”

A single brown eye pops open on the stranger's mask-covered face. The other half, you realise, is covered in silver metal. But you don’t care about that, because your blood is running cold.

You would recognise that eye anywhere.

Your grip falters. The device in your hand gets silenced. The man on the ground relaxes, his hands falling down as he quickly tries to scramble to his feet. He is still swaying, his short cropped blond hair matted to his sweaty forehead, the after effects of the sonic attack making him stumble, but for the first time, you register his stature. His height, the breadth of his shoulders. And his one, visible eye.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

The woman on your phone seems to break your trance. Before you know it, the man is rushing out over the broken wreckage of your door. Your hand shakes, your eyes are still watering from the blow you took. Both your phone and your device fall from your hand. You scramble after him.

“Wait-”

But he’s gone. Out of your living room window, which you didn’t notice was wide open when you first walked into the apartment. You can’t see him on the street below, which is glaringly empty. It’s like he was a ghost, vanishing before you can blink. You are left staring at nothing, blood dripping steadily down your chin now, staining your bathrobe, your hair still damp from the shower, sticking to your face and neck. You can’t even register the pain anymore, can’t think of anything else except the cold depth of his one brown eye.

……………………………

“That’s impossible.”

“It was him.”

“And I’m telling you, that’s not possible.”

“I know what I saw, Josh.”

“Y/N, he’s dead. We had a funeral. We buried him.”

“Only parts.” But your voice cracks. You don’t like remembering that day. “We had an arm and a leg. Some teeth. And this man…. half of him was metal. He’s been modified.”

Joshua doesn’t reply, staring at the TV playing across the room on low volume. You follow his lead, gaze blank. You don’t really register much of anything since the pain in your face is too overwhelming to take in much else.

When you woke up this morning, you almost forgot what happened in your apartment mere hours ago. One look at the broken mess of your door, the twinge in your face that made your eyes water, and all the events came rushing back. The punch you took, running to your room, your door broken down, driving your attacker away.

Clear, brown, almond shaped eye. Just one eye, while the other half of the face was covered in what looked like a metal plate, and a mechanical, white circle where the other eye should have been.

“The Secretary of Defence has a bionic arm.” You add, absentmindedly.

“Just one arm.” Joshua counters. “Not half the entire body.”

“It wasn’t the entire body. I could make out the arm and leg. Some part of the face-”

“My point is,” Your friend cuts you off, “why would it be Seungcheol? And if by some miracle it was him, why would he attack you?”

You don’t answer, because you don’t know. You’ve been mulling over the same questions for hours, long before you finally called Joshua to come over. You know bionic prostheses are very much an emerging field in biotech circles. Everyone is racing towards this kind of technology because of how much revenue there is in the medical applications. The other, more sinister angle is weaponry, and you know that a lot of your fellow developers and companies want to tap into that potential. There have been rumors for months, covert projects underway by both government and private agencies to develop this exact kind of thing.

Maybe what you saw last night was an application of that weapon.

It still doesn’t explain why he would attack you. Doesn’t explain why the person who would never so much as raise his voice at you could hurt you so severely that Joshua balked at the sight of your purple and blue face, nose swollen and bruised in ugly colors that told you that you would have to work from home for the foreseeable future.

The Seungcheol you knew had been so gentle. That’s how you met him, actually, so many years ago that you don’t even recognise that time.

He’d spilled coffee on you, as cliché as it sounds. Thankfully, it missed any part of your skin that was bare, but even through the cloth it burned a bit. He was so apologetic, dark brown hair falling into his eyes, messed up by the wind in a look that reminded you a little bit of a gentle dog. He had panicked, tried to wipe you down, but you were too distracted by this giant of a man who talked so softly, dabbed your sleeve with a grip on your wrist uncharacteristically gentle for such large hands. He wanted to pay for dry cleaning, and you agreed only if he would let you buy a coffee to replace the one he had spilled on you. Of course, he didn’t let you pay even after agreeing to it.

“I spilled it on you.” He argued. “What kind of man would I be if I let you pay for it?”

His lips, full and pink in a way that you immediately wondered about the feel of them, ticked up, and a little dimple dented his right cheek. You felt the squeeze of your heart, fluttering wildly in your chest, a feeling that was replicated every day after that, for Seungcheol never left your side since then. Until the day he died. Or did he?

Joshua is watching the screen more intently now, eyebrows furrowing.

“Yoon Tech is doing a demonstration at the New York Expo? I had no idea.”

You blink to focus on the screen. Sure enough, Yoon Tech’s CEO, Yoon Jeonghan, is speaking to the audience and cameras with that sly, charming smile on his face, talking about unveiling a project that can revolutionise the field of war weaponry and put their military supremely on top of their competition around the world. You know Yoon Tech is the military’s primary contractor, and their focus is weaponry. You know this because before Yoon Tech, your company was approached for a military contract, one that you turned down because your prime focus was not weapons. Joshua still thinks you should have said yes, but you don’t want to take the company in that direction. Besides, things get messy if you have the government as your big boss.

“You know Jeonghan doesn’t say anything about projects until the day he unveils them.” You mumble, only half focusing. “He’s secretive that way-”

“Wait, shut up.” Joshua sits up abruptly, scrambling for the remote to turn the volume up. Behind Jeonghan, several people are stepping onto the stage. He’s introducing them one by one as military veterans, and your eyes catch their forms immediately, breath stilling. Protheses, lots of them.

A man with a bionic arm, quite like the one the Secretary of Defence has. A woman with a below knee prosthetic leg. There’s more, attached limbs and shoulders, half a pelvic girdle, part of a jaw. Jeonghan is still talking, gesturing to the people now lining up behind him. The silver gleams, just like it gleamed on Seungcheol’s body last night. The only difference is the Yoon Tech and Military logos stamped on the ones on your screen. Jeonghan announces a demonstration, steps off the stage, and you watch, completely silent, as all of them demonstrate feats of extraordinary strength, aided by their metal attachments, some even showing installed weaponry between the plates of their limbs.

“A formation of advanced humans,” Jeonghan is saying somewhere off screen. “Man and machine combined, that will allow these soldiers to serve their country in ways they did not even possess before their unfortunate injuries.”

“Josh…” Your voice trails off.

Joshua looks pale, confused, and a little frightened when his eyes meet your beaten and bruised face. It looks like he dared not believe, but you know he has reached the same conclusion as you.

“Jeonghan sent Seungcheol to kill you?”

…………………………

The only sound in the large, swanky office is the tea as it pours slowly into a cup on Jeonghan’s desk. It steams, and the scent of chamomile hits his nose. He watches it absentmindedly, and then waves his hand to dismiss his secretary. She places the tea kettle down gently and leaves without a word, and the room falls into silence. There is only him, and the man sitting opposite to him across his large, mahogany desk. Half his face is shrouded by darkness, the other half reflects the light as it hits the cold, unforgiving metal.

Jeonghan tuts.

“Well, this is definitely a setback.” He hums, picking up the cup so he can take a small sip. It warms his throat, perfect for the cold weather. But his mind remains distracted. “After the demonstration at the Expo yesterday, she will definitely know it was me who ordered the hit. After all, who else is making bionic weaponry?”

The man across from him doesn’t respond. He rarely talks unless directly spoken to, one eye blank and unseeing. Jeonghan doesn’t claim to know much about how the human brain works, but he supposes extensive memory modification can do that to a person.

“You always used to have something witty or crass to say, Seungcheol.” Jeonghan sighs. “Oh well. It was either that, or your willingness to kill her. I will take what I can get.”

Again, no reply. Jeonghan focuses on drinking his tea, thinking. His eyes are trained on his former business rival, the presumed dead husband of his current business rival. The soothing chamomile does nothing to take the bitter taste out of his mouth. He still feels the resentment, the bruise on his ego. For your company to be pursued as a first choice in a military partnership, when his own efforts are much grander, much more advanced, for you to turn that opportunity down (you’re a dumbass, he thinks), for him to be second choice, despite where he stands in tech circles…

A company that was a mere baby not even a full decade ago to beat something it took his family generations to build. It irks him. It burns him.

So he will burn you.

He did it once, in the explosion that took away what you loved the most. It should’ve been enough to deter you, but it clearly wasn’t. No matter, he plans to destroy you directly this time.

“You know what you need to do.” He says, mutely. The man before him stirs, nods. Jeonghan scowls at him.

“Make sure you finish the job this time.”

……………………………..

Seungcheol had always been a mega-nerd about tech. And his dream was to own his own company.

He would tell you about it, both of you sprawled on the uncomfortable rooftop of his college dorm building, staring at the sky. He’d talk and talk about his plans after graduation, about how he wanted to build something from the ground up, something he was proud of. You would listen, not just because the sound of his voice always made you so happy, but because you were genuinely interested in it. You had a business major, and while Seungcheol didn’t know how to run things, you did. Even then, it felt like a match made in heaven to you. Seungcheol knew the substance of the company, you knew how to run it. It almost felt like a no-brainer that eventually you would do this together.

Back in his dorm, you would plop yourself into his lap and look over the little gadgets he had designed, the many, many files in his computer of inventions you didn’t even know could exist. You would tease him, calling him a glorified mechanic.

“Engineer.” He would pout. You would kiss it off him through a million giggles. His laptop would be pushed off the bed, forgotten, as you sunk into each other’s arms.

The company was his baby, truly. While you were CEO because you ran day to day operations and focused on logistics, any product you pushed out was crafted carefully in Seungcheol’s hands. He would bring every prototype to you, you would run it by focus groups and tweak it, and eventually, it would hit the market with great success. Seungcheol always thought it was because of you.

“You run your magic over it, and it becomes a hit.” He would say, kissing your cheek over and over. You would just grin and take it, never ever pushing him away.

It was all Seungcheol, everyone knew this. But when he looked at you so softly, that glint of awe in his beautiful eyes, you would just indulge whatever he had to say.

“You wouldn’t know what to do without me, mister.” You would tease. He would squeeze you so tightly.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

All those memories are ghosts now. The truth is, you don’t know what to do without him either. He was part of you, intertwined with your soul, and he was painfully ripped away after so many glorious years together. Sometimes, you think you imagined that time in your life. It feels so far away. But then you walk into your office, you look at the logo he designed, the furniture you picked out, the many, many unfinished files in your server that you are still working on, his creations, and you would be reminded that he was real. All that time, all that delirious bliss, was completely real.

Jeon Wonwoo is the current head of your Product Development branch, Seungcheol’s previous post. You had brought him in after the tragedy that killed your husband. Well, not you, but Joshua, who suggested overhauling the entire team after the attack. He is brilliant, quiet and a little reclusive, but whip-smart. He became intimately familiar with Seungcheol’s work when you brought him in, and he respected the integrity of it, which made you respect him even more. He’s no Seungcheol, but he’s the closest thing, and you think he might be the only one you can trust to answer the questions in your head.

“Bionic weaponry isn’t exactly novel.” He murmurs. “We know it exists. Not openly yet, but it’s being manufactured in a lot of places. Companies we know as well as around the world. Yoon Tech is just the first one to unveil it publicly.”

Joshua is pacing your living room floor, and watching him makes you feel dizzy, so you close your eyes instead. Your face is still tingling with pain, and you’re so tired that you just want to sleep. But you also need some form of explanation.

“So it’s possible? Modifying Seungcheol’s body like that?” Joshua asks.

Wonwoo hesitates, holding his chin and staring at the far wall. “Theoretically, yes. Practically, I haven’t seen or heard of it yet. Not to the extent you describe. Establishing neural connections in that many body parts and making sure they work in perfect coordination is a huge undertaking.”

Joshua looks at you pointedly, as if to say ‘I told you so’.

“But,” Wonwoo clears his throat, “if anyone can accomplish it, it would be Yoon Tech. Their R&D team is the best in the game.”

You return Joshua’s look the best that you can through your marred face. He huffs.

“What about the fact that he attacked her? Why would he do that?” He asks.

Wonwoo blinks. “Oh, that’s easy. Memory modification. Brainwashing. CIA has been doing it for years. A lot of assassins operate under that frame of mind. It’s easier to control them that way.”

A small silence stretches over the room. Joshua is chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“So he doesn’t know who I am.” You mumble. “I’m just….. what, a target?”

Wonwoo nods. “Likely, yes. And you know Jeonghan way better than me, ma’am. It’s very like him to toy with you by using Seungcheol specifically.”

You can’t argue with him on that. You know how ruthless Jeonghan is about his company, about his standing in tech circles. You’re catching up, dangerously close, and some would say you’ve even surpassed him. You won't put it past him to knock out competition under the table.

You never did find out who ordered the hit on Seungcheol five years ago. But now, you think you know.

“Can we undo it?” You ask. “The memory change, or whatever?”

Joshua stares at you. “What do you mean?”

Wonwoo answers you, though.

“I think so, yes. It’s not my area of expertise, but I know people who can tell us more about it. The memory isn’t the problem, though. He’s basically a walking weapon. Subduing him long enough to do anything about his brain is going to be an issue.”

“Whoa, hold on.” Joshua steps closer to you, cutting off your reply to Wonwoo, holding a hand up. Both of you look at him as he stares at you in bewilderment.

“What the hell are you planning? Are you insane? He almost killed you!”

“What do you want me to do then?” You grit your teeth. “Nothing? Should I just lay down and let him kill me?”

“We need to call the police-”

You laugh dryly. Your face twinges with pain.

“I have no proof. You think any agency in this city is going to mess with Yoon Tech? And by some miracle if they do believe me, do you think any of them are going to spare Seungcheol long enough to save him?”

Joshua’s mouth opens and closes, like he wants to protest, but no words leave him. He huffs and shakes his head, running a frustrated hand through his hair. You turn your attention back to Wonwoo.

“I know you’re not a biotech expert, but you’re the best IT guy I know. Any ideas on how to hack into Yoon Tech’s mainframe?”

Wonwoo looks a little taken aback. “That’s….. illegal.”

You roll your eyes, ignoring the pain that comes with it. “I’m pretty sure trying to get your business competitor killed is illegal too. Jeonghan seems comfortable attempting it twice.”

He nods slowly, still slightly hesitant. “I will need help…”

You stand up, essentially declaring the meeting over. You’re tired, as you often are these days. Your injury might look like it affects your face only, but you feel the exhaustion bone deep in every part of you. You want a soothing cup of tea and then a million blankets to lie down in. That's it.

“Call in anyone you need.”

…………………………

You know he will come again. The only question is when.

The bruises around your nose and under your eyes take a long time to fade. The slow move from a deep purple, to blue, to a sickly green and then yellow surprises you every day. You’re breathing easy now, only a week later, but you know going to the office looking like this will raise serious questions. You can’t risk any eyes on this right now, since getting Seungcheol back needs to be as discrete as possible.

That’s what you plan to do. Get him back.

It’s idealistic, almost. Maybe something out of a movie. He has been altered, mind and body, for years. You don’t even want to imagine how much he was been put through. How convoluted must his mind be now? How dangerous would tinkering with his body be?

Every few minutes, your hand reaches into the pocket of your jeans, toying with the small, rectangular chip that Wonwoo had given you a couple of days ago.

“You need to get close enough to him to get this on any bionic part of him.” He told you. “Arm, leg, doesn’t matter. We can’t hack into Yoon Tech’s mainframe, it’s too secure. But we can isolate him from it. This chip can do that. Once that’s done, we can figure out a way to rewire his mechanics.”

It’s easier said than done, of course. For one, Seungcheol is nearly twice your size. He’s always been massive, but he seems even more so now. You wonder if he has worked covertly for Yoon Tech to do other dirty work. How long has he been their weapon? How much training does he have? Can you, a novice civilian, even get close enough to him to do any lasting damage?

“You managed it once, didn’t you?” Joshua replied to your mind’s worries. “You got out of that alive, somehow. I’m willing to bet you can do it again.”

“He’ll be more careful this time.” Wonwoo mumbled. “For one, he won’t try again until you’re completely alone. For another, he will make sure you are isolated from any weapon you might be able to access.”

So now here you are, meandering in your kitchen, watching your television blankly, staring unseeing at your laptop. Anything and everything to make yourself look as unassuming as possible. He’s watching, you know he is, and every fiber of your body is silently asking him to come to you. You wait, and wait, because you would wait endlessly for him. Somehow, you’re not afraid. In your head, this ends in one of two ways. Either you get the love of your life back, or you die trying. You’re good with both options.

It’s Tuesday by the time he finally shows up.

You think you sense him, because the hair on your body stands. You feel the chill, and then, that very soft whirring sound that comes when he moves his limbs.

You stare at the contents inside your refrigerator. You don’t turn around. And yet, he doesn’t shoot. He doesn’t swing.

“I was expecting you sooner.” You finally say.

When you turn to look at him, your eyes catch his visible brown one. Your breath hitches. He has ditched the mask, and you can see his face. Well, what’s left of it.

Metal pieces are carved into the shape of his right ear, curling forward to form a cheekbone, encroaching all the way over his eye and stopping right before his nose. It covers the ridge of his right eyebrow as well, but spares his forehead. A white, flat circle is fitted where his eye should be, and now that you look closely at it, it swirls and moves, no doubt mapping your every move.

The rest of his face is gloriously, warmly human. It’s him, it’s his left eye, his thick, furrowed eyebrow, the strong bridge of his nose, his lips, set in a hard line on his face. His hair has been cropped right to his skull, dyed a dirty blond with brown roots already growing out, slightly spiked and dishevelled around his head. Finally, your eyes dart down to the pistol in his hand, pointing directly at your chest.

You clench your teeth.

“Shoot me.”

He doesn’t reply, but his mouth tightens. From your chest, the gun rises to your head. The shifting of his aim is your window. Your hand shoots back, grabs and throws the first thing you can find at him. It’s a glass. His metal arm comes up, makes contact, and the glass shatters. His stance does not falter for even a second, but he flinches at the shards of glass, and before it even makes contact, you are sprinting forward, hand curled tight around the chip, and with one leap, you collide into him. Hard.

Your momentum is enough, and you both fall in a mess of limbs. You scramble, finding the edge of the plate in his shoulder, but before you can wedge the chip in it, his human hand reaches up and smashes hard against your jaw. You cry out, the sharp sting blooming, the taste of blood already in your mouth. But your hands are still moving, and before you know it, the chip hits hard against his bicep, immediately lighting up a pale yellow, the tiny spikes on its edges sinking into the metal.

Seungcheol shouts and roughly pushes you off. You fall limply on your side, trying to see through how dizzy you are. Everything hurts, your face is on fire, but your eyes are focused on the pale yellow streaks spreading over Seungcheol’s arm, glowing between the plates making up his leg, part of his face. His arm and leg jerk hard, seemingly out of his control. He shouts again, trying to stand up, but it looks like his limbs aren’t cooperating with him anymore.

The human part is still his though.

You force yourself, despite the excruciating pain and the blood now sliding down your throat, and you rush into the living room. Under your couch, you’ve stored what you need. Electromagnetic cuffs, both for his wrists and ankles, shiny grey steel with a light that blinks on when you press the buttons on them. You can hear Seungcheol stumble onto his feet in the kitchen, and you’re already rushing back before he can stand properly. The cuffs hum, slam hard around his human wrist and the light on them turns red. The arm goes limp on his side immediately. He can’t react, not with his only remaining limb, and you are able to secure the other cuff around his ankle as well.

With that, your husband crumples to your kitchen floor.

He’s motionless from the neck down, but he strains hard. You can see the muscles in his neck bulge. He is flushed with the exertion of it, grunting and snarling. His glare is venomous as you back into the kitchen island, trying not to choke on the blood dripping down your throat as you breathe hard.

You drape yourself over the sink, trying not to throw up, spitting blood into it so you can breathe. Behind you, Seungcheol is still groaning and straining, to no avail. You stay leaning over until the wave of nausea passes, and the bleeding slows. Finally, you grab a bunch of paper towels, wiping your mouth and chin. The metallic taste still lingers.

Your hands leave some streaks of blood on your phone as you dial Wonwoo’s number. He picks up on the first ring, and when he speaks, you realise he was anticipating your call.

“The chip just connected to my server! I’m working on decrypting and isolating him from Yoon Tech’s servers right now.”

“How long is it going to take?” You ask, not recognising your own, broken voice. Your jaw is sore. You’re in so much pain.

“I don’t know yet….” Wonwoo’s voice is more subdued. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”

You shake your head before you realise he can’t see you.

“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.” Big underreport. “What do I do while you work on this?”

Wonwoo doesn’t immediately answer, but you can hear shuffling in the background.

“What I’m doing only changes the physical.” His voice sounds apologetic. “The mental barrier, his lack of memory, I can’t fix that.”

You know what he is implying. You turn your head to look at Seungcheol, still on your kitchen floor, heaving but no longer futilely straining.

“Thanks, Wonwoo. I can handle that part.”

The truth is, you don’t know if you can. You don’t know what was done to him. You don’t even know if your husband still exists somewhere inside him, or if he was wiped out completely. Are you even cut out for this? With your modest business degree and a company that is successful only because of Seungcheol’s genius, where do you stand in this situation?

As you walk back into the kitchen, watching the man writhing on the floor does nothing to soothe your confidence. Suddenly, all your clarity is gone.

You don’t know what to do.

……………………………..

Seungcheol was a very clingy man.

You always liked that about him. To you, he was like an overgrown bear, curling around you tightly while you chopped vegetables until you complained that you still needed your mobility in order to cook dinner.

“You’re too heavy, Cheolie!” You would whine, but his grip on you would only tighten, pressing your back harder into his front.

“Five more minutes.” He would mumble into your hair. You would laugh incredulously.

You’re reminded of that moment as you drag this immobilised, half human, half robot man into your living room, using every bit of your strength to plop him onto the armchair next to the couch. You’re heaving, your head pounding so severely that it makes you dizzy. There’s no fight in him anymore, and he stares blankly at you as you cough a little, still feeling drops of blood hit your palm as you do so. You huff and go to the bathroom to clean up, rummaging in your medicine cabinet for anything that could ease your pain. You leave him on the chair, knowing he’s incapable of escaping anyway.

Fifteen minutes later, you’re sitting on the couch with a cup of tea, your legs curled under you, a blanket draped over your lap. You stare with bleary vision at the dark, steaming liquid. Seungcheol stares at the ceiling, head thrown back. Neither of you says a word.

“Do you speak?” You muse out loud, not looking at him. “I haven’t heard you talk yet, so it makes me wonder.”

No reply.

“Jasmine tea was your favorite, you know?” You mumble on, not even fully aware of what you are saying. “You were always a coffee person, but when you had tea with me sometimes, it would be jasmine. It’s the only one you could stomach, actually.”

A mirthless laugh leaves you. He still stares at the ceiling. You watch him, the stiff cut of his jaw, the streaks of yellow glowing under the plates of his bionic attachments. There is a distinct, soft hum coming from them, but both of you elect to ignore it.

“Seungcheol.” You whisper. He doesn’t react beyond a small flick of his eyelid.

You’re so tired. You can feel it tug on your limbs, like invisible weights making it difficult to even move. With every ounce of strength in you, you stand up, walking to the closet in your hallway. You return with a pale blue blanket, the one Seungcheol got for himself years ago and never let go, claiming it was a comfort for him. Now, his eye trains on you as you shake it out and drape it over his torso and legs. You don’t look at him, just loosely tucking him in before walking back to the couch, pulling your own blanket around yourself and sinking into the uncomfortable cushion.

You don’t notice his eye on you. You don’t notice anything else as you welcome the pitch black of dreamless sleep. You send out a little prayer that by morning, somehow all of this will be over and you will wake up in bed, wrapped up in your husband’s warm arms.

You’re wrong, sadly. There is nothing but cold.

He’s exactly where you left him before drifting off. He stares into the distance, looking disconnected until you shift and his eye catches the movement. You wince at the crick in your neck, somehow even more tired than you were before sleeping. You sigh and rub your eyes.

“Did you sleep?” You ask.

No response.

You leave him on the couch, opting to putter to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea. You eye the cabinet against the far wall, staring at the bottles inside and the amber liquid that gleams in them. A glance at the clock tells you it’s barely noon.

Fuck this.

Seungcheol doesn’t react in any way when you walk into the living room with a bottle of whiskey and a glass that’s too big for a drink like that. He just watches you from the corner of his eye as you sit back on the couch and pour yourself a concerning amount, wincing when your throat protests against the first sip.

“You would not approve of this at all.” You chuckle humorlessly. “You’d be appalled, I think. Drinking this early? Whiskey of all things? That was never my drink. I didn’t have the tolerance for it. You’re the whiskey guy.”

He doesn’t interrupt. You take another sip and stare at the glass. Already, on an empty stomach, you can feel your senses dimming.

“Sometimes I think,” you whisper, “you would really hate the person I’ve become.”

His head lolls in your direction, the only part of his body he can control. His eye meets yours and you feel your heart squeeze.

“I don’t know you.”

His voice is hoarse, a little crack in it from disuse. But it’s his voice, the voice you’ve yearned to hear for so long. You remember laying in your bed at night, wishing you could hear him whisper one last time, maybe even just the sound of your name from his lips, just once more, to hold you over. Your breath hitches, and you can feel your vision blur under newly formed tears.

“I’m your wife.”

“You’re my target.”

You stand abruptly, walking closer to where he sits, or rather, lays sprawled out under the blanket you draped over him. You tug it aside, eye the yellow lines of light that pass over his bionic limbs. You reach down to run a finger over the chip you attached to his bicep.

“If I pull this off you right now,” you stare directly into his eye. “Would you kill me?”

A small silence. Then he nods.

You let out a shaky breath, standing back up. The air is tense, and by now, you’re sick of it. You need to get away from him for a bit, no matter how badly that very thought pains you. Whiskey ignored on the coffee table, you walk to the door to tug your shoes on. You eye the back of his blond head with your hand on the doorknob, feeling a certain sense of defeat.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” You mumble, but he hears you. “You’re the one who created that chip.”

The door closes softly behind you.

……………………………………

There is a mess in his head. A tangled web of wires. He doesn’t know how to begin unraveling it. He can’t even find a single free end to tug on.

In the quiet of the room he is sitting in, he can hear warped voices from inside his own thoughts. He can’t make out any words, only tones, soft and loud both, some conversational, some that sound like laughter. He knows the voice, can recognise it. It’s the woman whose armchair he is sitting on.

Something presses on his temple, like a weighted force, insistent, as if urging him to listen more closely. But he can’t, because it makes pain bloom between his eyebrows, pain so severe it makes his eye water.

Every now and then, he feels intense heat, a kind that’s less uncomfortable and more painful. As suddenly as it comes, it goes away, and the blanket draped over him does nothing but elevate the sensation of it. He sits in the quiet, with the floating voices, the laughter, the weight on his head, the pain between his eyebrows, and the bursts of painful heat that bloom on his skin.

His ears perk when he hears the front door clink open after what seems like hours. He can’t turn himself around to look, so he just listens to the stumbling and mumbled cursing, shuffling and then a soft thud of cloth hitting the ground. Bare footsteps, a quiet sound, and then the woman from before enters his line of sight.

You’re clearly inebriated. He has stalked enough victims before ending their lives to know what alcohol intoxication looks like. He eyes you carefully as you putter around the living room, not doing anything in particular. Then, you look straight at him.

“I don’t know what to do.” You finally speak, and the words are less slurred than he expected them to be. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

He doesn’t reply. You move closer to him, and his face, the only thing he can move, tenses when you pull the blanket back and sink onto the chair by his side. He can feel the press of you against his skin, even if he can’t move. Your shoulder fits under his arm, you head on his collarbone. You drape the blanket over your joined bodies.

“Let’s just pretend everything is okay.” You whisper, your voice cracking slightly. Your arm drapes over his torso. “Just for right now. Just one night.”

He stares at the wall, his side warming quickly under the added weight. It’s different from the heat he felt before, stinging and sudden, disconcerting. It’s different from anything he has felt in a long time. No one touches him. No one has been near him for years, except the people he has taken the lives of, or the scientists that fitted his limbs. This heat right now, it is dull but constant, like how the sun feels on your skin. He hears laughter again, but this time it’s clearer, and it sounds familiar, like something he has heard before. In another life.

He stares at the far wall as your breathing evens out. Your weight doesn’t feel very uncomfortable anymore as time passes. The clock ticks softly, and the rise and fall of your chest is rhythmic. He can feel your heartbeat against his ribcage. There is a whisper in his head. A name. His own. In a voice that is quickly becoming familiar.

He’s tired, but he doesn’t sleep. He can’t remember the last time he slept.

…………………………..

Going into work becomes out of the question immediately, since you can’t leave a brainwashed assassin on your couch unattended for a whole day. Joshua pays you a visit with some stuff that needs taking a look, but otherwise, you sit on the couch, your laptop in front of you, and get through meetings and daily logistics that way. As you work, you think out loud, talking to Seungcheol about random tasks that come up, some hiccup at work you’re fretting over, and how your head of accounting keeps pissing you off. It’s mundane stuff, but it is exactly the things that you used to talk about on the daily. You loved debriefing with your husband, especially because he worked in the same place as you, so he knew all these people just as well, and knew what you were talking about.

Now, he doesn’t respond much. But you’re okay with that. You’re just glad he is here, and not dead like you had assumed for the last five years.

After your moment of inebriated weakness, spending the night curled up in his warmth, you suddenly feel some semblance of hope again. You had heard his heart beat, had felt the twitch and shift of his skin under your touch. He is still your Seungcheol, even if half of him is cold and unfamiliar, you are certain that he is somewhere in there, deep inside. And you’re convinced that if he didn’t remember at all, he wouldn’t have let you sleep on him the way that he did.

(Granted, he had no choice since he was paralysed. But you choose to ignore that reality.)

Joshua has been very wary of this quiet, motionless version of Seungcheol. He steers clear when he visits, not engaging in any way and just choosing to finish up on work with you and leaving. One night, you ask him to stay for dinner, and for the first time, he hesitates. You see his eyes flick to where Seungcheol is sitting, and you sigh in irritation.

“He’s not a piece of furniture, Josh.” You mutter. “He’s still my husband.”

“Is he?” He counters, dryly. “Because it’s been weeks and there’s been nothing. I assumed if he was really in there, we would’ve seen something by-”

“He’s there.” You hiss, cutting him off. Joshua blinks at your harsh tone. “I’ve been here with him every second of every day. I see it in his eyes. He isn’t gone yet-”

The crack in your voice cuts you off. You take a deep breath, blinking vigorously to keep your tears at bay. Joshua has fallen silent, eyeing you with a forlorn expression. After a few seconds, when he realises you won’t continue, he simply nods.

That night, after Joshua has gone, you still have his uncertainty on your mind. You eye the back of Seungcheol’s head, and remember the last few weeks. A seed has been planted in your head, plaguing your brain with doubt and pain. And once again, you feel that bone deep exhaustion that comes and goes frequently these days.

You make up your mind quickly, and your body follows in resignation.

Slowly, you walk back to the living room where Seungcheol sits. You walk closer to him, reaching for his flesh arm, the thick, metal cuff on his wrist. It sizzles a bit, recognises your thumbprint, and clicks, loosening. You don’t look at Seungcheol, despite the fact that he is eyeing you in surprise. You simply kneel down to quickly do the same to the cuff around his ankle before standing up again.

He moves with a little hesitation, stretching his leg and flexing his arm, his fingers. The limbs are stiff, and you’re sure weeks of no activity have left them sore. His bionic arm, and his pants clad leg, both still glow with pale, yellow light, the symbol of your and Wonwoo’s control of them. You reach forward, and yank the chip on his arm hard, disconnecting it. The yellow vanishes, leaving only gleaming, silver metal.

The chip is warm inside your palm. You step back, blinking away tears of what feels like a chapter closing.

“You can leave if you want.” You mumble. “Or kill me, since that’s your mission.”

Slowly, Seungcheol stands. His metal attachments click and whir, buzzing with life again as he twists and moves them, feeling them out. You take a deep breath and realise you can’t stand to look at him anymore. So you head to the kitchen.

You shuffle around mindlessly, just waiting to hear the front door open and close, or maybe you wait for searing pain from wherever he chooses to attack you. You can’t predict what he will do anymore. There was once a time you knew him so well, you could even count his breaths in your head, could mimic the rise and fall of his chest under your palm. Now, you feel like you are lost at sea and he’s nowhere to be found.

There’s shuffling behind you, but you don’t turn around.

“I don’t know you.” He says, and the words hurt just as much as they did when he first spoke them weeks ago. You grit your teeth hard.

“But,” he continues. Hesitates, “I did know you. In another time.”

You feel yourself stiffen, turning just enough to look at him. He fills the doorway, but his figure is hunched, uncertain. You wonder if he is just as tired as you. If he can feel it tug on his limbs like you do, like it’s anchoring him to the floor. How has he felt, watching you for weeks and weeks, nowhere to go but to sit and listen to any word that falls out of your mouth?

“I want to know.” He continues. “I want to remember.”

You stare at him for a long time before you finally move to where he stands. He doesn’t step back, doesn’t react at all, even when you stop just inches from his face. His human eye, brown like the earth, flicks with something you can’t place, and the metal that covers the other half, plain grey, cold and distant. Just where the metal meets his face, the skin is raw and red. Up close, you can see how angry it looks, and you wonder how careless the person was who put him together.

Your heart aches.

“Okay.” You say simply. No promises, no guarantees. Only a commitment, and a hope to see it succeed.

…………………………

It’s a little strange to settle into a routine with this new version of Seungcheol.

For one, he doesn’t do most things humans would. He eats very little, maybe one meal a day, and sleeps even less. He spends a lot of time to himself, mostly silent rumination, something that wasn’t part of his personality at all before. He’s always been loud and jovial, so this change takes some adjusting. You suspect there is a lot about him, maybe all of it, that isn’t the same anymore. The thought hurts you, so you try not to dwell.

You open your spare bedroom for him, since lounging in your living room day and night can’t really be comfortable. You still have his old clothes, whatever you managed to salvage after the explosion in your shared home. He is deeply intrigued by them, and asks, in a low voice, what other belongings of his you held on to.

The answer is: everything.

You make a trip to the storage unit you bought before you moved to your new, drab apartment. You lug back boxes of Seungcheol’s incomplete inventions, designs he was working on at the time, little contraptions that were half functioning, his diaries, his notes. You even bring back his absurdly large collection of watches, every brand and every new, cool tech that existed in the market.

“They were your one vice.” You smile at the memory as he opens the gigantic box. “You actually designed a few yourself too. This one-”

You point to a shiny, square shaped one in the corner. Seungcheol eyes it closely.

“This one was connected to me. You installed something in it that links to the one I wear, and it clicks at the same rhythm as my heartbeat. So it’s not really for telling time.” You shrug.

“I made this?” He asks, lifting the watch from its snug case. It’s not functional anymore, probably out of battery after so many years. It’s strange, because it has no hands and no numbers. There is an engraving of your initials just under the glass, over a black background.

You nod. “You said it made you feel like I was by your side all the time.”

Your voice is low. It almost cracks. He doesn’t say anything more.

You stick to working from home for a prolonged amount of time now, which isn’t difficult, since you’re mostly confined to your office when you go into work anyway. A week or so after Seungcheol asked you if he could stay, you’re due for a site visit. And you offer for him to come with you.

He hesitates.

“No one is going to recognise you.” You reassure him. “For one, it’s an all new staff. And for another, you’re blond now. And short haired.”

He subconsciously runs a hand over his head, his lips pulling together in what can only be a ghost of one of his infamous pouts.

“It doesn’t look bad.” He mumbles.

“I never said it does.” You reply, holding back a smile as you put a plate of eggs and toast in front of him. You tilt your head as you appraise his hair. He’s trying to flatten it down on his head.

“No, don’t do that.” You swat away his hand, running your fingers through the short but soft locks and lifting them up a bit. You mess around with it, distressing it a bit more. You know he’s watching you. It makes your cheeks heat a bit. You try to ignore the feeling.

“There.” You withdraw your hands. “It looks so nice now.”

When your eyes meet his, you realise his ears are tinged pink, and so is the back of his neck. You try to ignore the racing of your heart.

Wonwoo meets you on site, and he’s a little taken aback by Seungcheol being there. His face is covered with a mask, but the metal eye gives it away. After some stumbling, Wonwoo elects to ignore Seungcheol’s presence in favor of just getting work done, and you become immersed in it as well.

“This is where the problem is.” Wonwoo points, handing you the tablet. “There is definitely something wrong, but I can’t tell if it’s because I messed up the configuration or not. I’ve been trying a few different options but they all haven’t worked so far.”

Just over your shoulder, you feel Seungcheol lean in to look at the screen in your hand. You try not to think about him being so close.

“Maybe request a consultation.” You respond. “There is a reason we have engineers on call-”

“The configuration isn’t the problem.” A voice speaks from behind you. “Your base algorithm is wrong.”

You blink and turn your head, eyeing Seungcheol’s human eye, which is right beside you. Wonwoo frowns and steps closer, looking down at the tablet.

“How so?”

You tune it out, only registering his voice and not his words, watching as he points and explains where to make the change. You’re reminded of a time where Seungcheol would do this every day, and you would step back to let him do his thing. You can feel him now, right at your shoulder, his warmth so close you can almost perceive it. As you eye the side of his face, you fight the urge to kiss him. Or hug him. Anything. Your fingers twitch with it. Your heart yearns for it.

It’s over too quickly. And then he steps back.

Wonwoo is already taking the tablet from you, making adjustments as he thanks Seungcheol. You send him a little smile as he walks away, turning to look at the man on your side.

“That was very nice of you.” You say. He just nods a little sheepishly.

“It was an obvious solution.”

You shake your head, patting his arm as you move to walk past him. The metal is rigid and unforgiving under your fingers.

“Don’t be so modest. You were born for this.”

Seungcheol seems to be in a particularly good mood after that.

……………………….

Things get smoother as time goes by.

Something about going into work with you that one time clicks with Seungcheol. With all the material from your storage room, he starts tinkering with his old things again. There’s so many notes and designs, complete and incomplete blueprints keeping him occupied. He does it mostly in the living room, which you don’t mind. You’re glad he isn’t confined to his room. You like seeing him putter around the house or sit crosslegged on the floor, his metal arm whirring and clicking with every turn and movement. Sometimes, he sits out on the balcony when the weather is nice, and you join him with some tea or coffee. You don’t understand most of what he does, you never have, but you listen to him anyway. You bask in the way it lightens his voice, injects life into it. Sometimes, when he has come up with a new idea, he almost sounds exactly like he did before.

Your hope is increasing, tightening around your chest in a way that warms you up but traps you as well. Fear lingers, that this will all go away, that you’re balancing on a poorly strung tightrope and soon enough, you will fall.

And then that moment comes, the inevitable snap.

It’s a bright day, and you’re out for some groceries because you didn’t anticipate living with another person again, and your pantry is getting dangerously empty. You’re actually considering fresh produce instead of all the prepackaged crap you’ve been eating for so long. Seungcheol barely eats one meal a day, so it seems unfair if that one meal comes out of a box.

You’re considering which veggies to buy, lightly squeezing a tomato in your hand, when you feel something at your shoulder. It almost makes you jump, because it feels ominous, and your intuition is correct when you turn your head and come face to face with Yoon Jeonghan.

He’s in a black trenchcoat that nearly swallows his frame, a black cap on his head with dark strands poking out from under it. He looks particularly unassuming, just a casual shopper alongside you. His eyes are not on you, his lips pursed in what looks like consideration as he picks up another tomato, turns it around in his hand.

“This one is firmer.” He finally says, and his voice sounds jovial, casual, like it always does. “It will rot slower. You should get this.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” You grit out, your voice low to make sure no one hears you. One look around the aisle tells you that it’s empty. It’s just him and you. Your nerves are on high alert.

Jeonghan tuts, finally looking at you from the corner of his eye. “Is that any way to talk to a peer? You’ve become so rude, Y/N.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Sarcasm drips from your voice. “I didn’t realise I still had to extend common courtesy to you after you’ve tried to kill me. Twice.”

Jeonghan winces, then chuckles. “Yeah, that was my bad.”

You blink, waiting for him to continue. He doesn’t. He drops the tomato in his hand, picking up and inspecting another.

“That’s it?” You scoff. “‘My bad’? You try to get me killed by turning my husband into a half human killing machine and your response is ‘my bad’?”

“Well, you got him back, no?” He responds. “I would say that’s a huge improvement on whatever sad, bachelorette life you’ve been living all this time.”

You scoff, incredulous. “You’re so…. you’re-”

No words come. You just shake your head. Jeonghan looks at you again, this time, a sly smile crosses his face.

“How about a truce? I don’t try to kill you again, and I don’t demand my asset back from you. Consider it an apology for the attempts on your life.”

You glare at him, feeling anger bubble in you again. “Asset?”

He blinks, like he’s surprised. “Well, yes. Do you know how much Yoon Tech invested in developing him? It wasn’t easy. But it’s fine. I’ve made a lot of progress on bionic weaponry since then. So you can keep him.”

Your rage is boiling over at the way he is speaking of Seungcheol, but you know there’s a reason Jeonghan decided to ‘run into’ you at a public place. You can’t react the way you want to, which is the intense need to strangle him where he stands.

You know there’s nothing you can do about anything Jeonghan has attempted. His company is a mammoth, that and his military contract make him basically untouchable. The only proof you have of his doing is Seungcheol’s own person, and you don’t want to drag him into the legal mess that would ensue. Here Jeonghan stands, offering you a truce because he thinks he has won already, which is new bionic weapons branch going over so well and elevating him to a status no one else would dare to achieve. To him, you are not a threat anymore, and so he is discarding you just like he does with everyone else.

Considering all your options, you think being discarded by him might be the best case scenario here.

“Fine.” You finally relent, watching him smile and step back, almost in finality.

“Great. See you around, Y/N. You should attend next year’s New York expo. I’ve got great things lined up, you know? Maybe it will inspire something in you too.”

He winks and walks a few steps backward, that characteristic smirk on his face still, before turning around and sauntering away, the basket in his head still empty. You watch his back as he leaves, feeling some sense of resolution, no matter how bittersweet it may be.

People like Jeonghan never get justice, because they are too valuable to lose. He has made himself indispensable, which means he will continue to achieve new heights despite whatever operations he conducts in the dark. That’s the reality you live in.

The only saving grace here is that it’s not Seungcheol who will have to do his dirty work going forward.

………………………………….

You’re not really here, Seungcheol can tell.

There’s a distant look in your eyes, like you’re lost deep in thought, as you stir the pot sizzling on the stove. You’ve been like this since you got back with groceries, not greeting him with that usual sweet tone you always use. It’s a little detached, even though he can see that you're clearly attempting to appear normal. He offers to help make dinner, and you take him up on it, so he is quick to begin chopping vegetables as you prepare the rice. You work quietly, which is unlike you. Usually, you don’t stop talking, something he’s grown quite fond of.

The truth is, Seungcheol remembers you, in bits and pieces.

Voices and pictures pass through his brain, like flash cards being held up in front of him. There’s no rhyme and reason to them, no chronological order, like a CD stopping and starting at random intervals. You’re there in so many of them, right by his side, watching him, talking to him, touching him in places he wouldn’t dare let anyone touch. His fingers twitch when he feels it, like a ghost caressing his skin. Sometimes, he thinks he can feel you in his bones, coursing through his veins, and he wonders if he is connected to you in some way.

It scares him.

There’s nothing tangible there, no memory he can reach for and grab. As soon as he tries, it scatters like whisps. He knows he has lived a life, but he has no idea how that life went beyond rusty recollections that come and go. It sets him on edge, and so he never brings them up. He can’t, not when he knows for certain that you will cling onto them with unyielding hope. And he can’t have that burden on him when he already feels like he’s a shell of what he once was.

The only thing solid is you. But today, you’re far away as well.

“Something is bothering you.” He finally says when you’re eating at the kitchen island an hour later. There are dirty pots and pans in the sink. You will clean up after dinner. Right now, you move your food around absentmindedly, and Seungcheol doesn’t like this distance.

You blink and look at him, giving him a small smile that barely reaches your eyes. “Sorry, I’m just thinking about some stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

But he worries. He always worries, because you are all he has. So he pushes.

“Maybe I can help.”

You look a little surprised, and very touched, so your smile this time is more genuine.

“Thank you, Seungcheol, but really, I’m fine. The situation has resolved itself, I’m just going over it. There’s nothing to do.”

Seungcheol hesitates, but his intuition urges him to speak. “Is it Yoon Jeonghan?”

Your shocked expression tells him that he hit the nail on the head.

“How did you know?”

Seungcheol shrugs. He didn’t know, not for certain, but he had a feeling that Jeonghan wouldn’t just give up without one final attack, be it physical or psychological. It appears it was the latter.

“I’ve spent a long time with him.” He replies, pointedly ignoring your stare. “He’s- there’s a lot to him. Most of it isn’t good. I assumed he wouldn’t just leave this alone.”

Your chest rises and falls with a deep breath. “That’s just it, actually. He kind of has.”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows furrow. He listens intently as you finally open up, telling him about the encounter you had with the man at the grocery store. He lets the story linger for a bit after you’re done, absorbing the words.

“So, that’s it.” He finally says, but there’s uncertainty in his voice. He knows you hear it too. You sigh.

“I think, in his head, he’s still won because you’re not who you once were.” You add, turning back to your plate to push your food around. You don’t meet his eye. “He doesn’t think you’re a threat to him anymore because you have no memory. So by extension, I’m not a threat anymore either. I’m sure that to him, you’re-”

You pause, avoiding his stare. “You’re more like something he’s dumped on me. Because you’re not who you once were.”

You immediately look up as you say it, your eyes harder now, more resolute. “Which is not true. You’re still Seungcheol, even if you don’t remember. And I’m so happy you’re here with me, because I thought I would never see you again. Even with half of you still gone, you’re worth ten of him.”

Seungcheol’s heart squeezes, a feeling that is foreign to him, as he takes in the heated determination in your eyes. He realises that his fear, the sense of self he lacks, is not something that is well founded. You wouldn’t care that he remembers just snippets. You’re willing to accept him even as an empty husk.

He makes up his mind.

“You used to pour water into your half full shampoo bottle.” His throat tightens as he speaks. You blink, taken aback. “When we were in college. Because you had to make it last until your next paycheque.”

“And you liked those animal print socks. The pink panther ones. They were so warm. I was pretty annoyed that they wouldn’t fit me. So you got me black panther ones my size so we could match. I loved those so much. Every winter, I had to be careful how often I wore them because I didn’t want them to fray.”

You’re watching him speak, a thin layer of tears is shining in your eyes, and Seungcheol tries to soldier on.

“You got a bird clock for our first apartment that chirped every hour. God, I hated that thing. But you loved it so I never said anything.”

“I knew.” You speak, finally, your voice higher and breaking at the end. “You always got the most annoyed look on your face when it chirped. I thought it was funny to see how long you could take it.”

You let out a wet laugh. Seungcheol gives you a bitter smile.

“It’s only bits and pieces.” He explains, trying not to let guilt overwhelm him. “I don’t remember a lot. It’s just the little things that come to me.”

“It’s enough.” Tears make tracks down your cheeks. You reach forward, and Seungcheol feels the warmth of your hand as it curls around his human one. The contact makes something sizzle. It’s familiar. He remembers this clear as crystal. “It’s more than enough.”

He doesn’t let go. You don’t pull away.

………………………….

Things feel different. They are different now. The hope that felt like a noose around your neck, ready to tighten and kill you, is a much warmer feeling, blooming in your chest and transforming into a joy you haven’t felt in a really long time. You think Seungcheol has noticed. He notices more than you were previously giving him credit for. And it looks like he welcomes the change too.

Despite not eating much, Seungcheol busies himself with making you breakfast every morning. You tell him he doesn’t have to, but he shoots it down.

“I’m not sleeping anyway.” He retorts. “Besides, I used to do this before, didn’t I?”

You nod, smiling as you watch him scramble eggs in a pan. It was always this way back then. He would take care of breakfast, you would have lunch at the office, and then you would do dinner and he would clean up after. The domesticity of it, the harmony, is returning. Sometimes, when you’re getting ready to go into work in the morning and you can hear him hum in the kitchen, it’s almost like nothing has changed. Then, you take in the massive metal arm under his sleeveless tank top, and you’re reminded of what he has been through, and what you two have lost.

Sometimes late at night, you wonder what he would feel like. You wonder if he would let you touch him.

It’s hard being so close to Seungcheol but not being able to physically be too near him. Casual intimacy was always a part of your relationship, and you aren’t used to a version of Seungcheol you have to hold back from. When he often picks up on your moods, like being tired after work or being frustrated when something isn’t going right, you wonder if he can pick up on this, the intense yearning need you have to just feel his cheek on the crown of your head, or his hand curling over your hip like it used to all the time. Or his lips, always so soft and inviting, pressing delicately to yours.

You wonder if he knows. You wonder if he remembers, because he seems to remember so much these days.

A few days later, you ask Seungcheol if he feels at all ready to come back to work. The suggestion catches him off guard.

“Are you sure?”

You nod, shovelling large helpings of chicken into your mouth. You’re usually ravenously hungry by dinner time, and Seungcheol is always amused by it.

“Everything you’re doing at home, working on projects, improving on previous work, you used to do the same things at work. Project Development is all you, and after you helped Wonwoo work out that little algorithm problem, he’s been wanting to work with you more.”

You give him a smile, and it’s more teasing this time. “I don’t know if you remember this, but you were kind of a legend in tech circles before.”

Seungcheol huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “I don’t remember, but that thought makes me feel a little nauseous.”

You laugh, nudging his shin under the table. Seungcheol has always been shy about attention, but you know he secretly loves being recognised. He’s ambitious, even though he worries often, and acknowledgement from peers and juniors always affirms to him that he’s on the right path.

The next day, he’s getting ready to go into work as well.

He’s nervous, more so about his appearance than anything else. Bionic prostheses aren’t exactly common yet, even if they are getting more talked about recently. You know he’s conscious about the stares he will get, you can see the troubled expression on his face from a mile away.

“We don’t have to tell them you’re my husband. We can tell them you’re an employee.” You offer on the drive there. “From overseas. We’ll make up a story or something.”

His lip quirks up in a half smile.

“You think that's why I'm nervous?” He asks. You shrug.

“That’s the one thing I was never worried about.” He supplies.

Your heart flutters. You try to calm it down. It doesn’t mean anything, you try to tell yourself. But every word from him, every action, weighs so heavy with you. It always has. He’s the most important person in your life.

Seungcheol is relieved when the first person he sees at work is Wonwoo, the one face that is familiar to him. You know he is nervous, but he doesn’t show it a lot. That’s always been him, confident in stature, sure in his stance. All his little worries and doubts would only be reserved for you, and some part of you is elated that you still hold that position.

Unfortunately, you have to leave him for the day when Joshua finally catches up to you with the daily agenda. You’re swept up in work, but he’s always on the back of your mind. You’re just considering making a trip down to PD when a knock sounds on your door. A head of spiky blond hair pops in, and Seungcheol looks a little sheepish as he speaks.

“Lunch?”

For a second, you can’t breathe, swept up in memory after memory of him doing this exact thing since the day you started your company, when it was nothing but two rooms and a dinky office space. It’s so mundane, almost a negligible occurrence, but it was always the highlight of your work day. For five years, you would eat cold lunch at your desk on Joshua’s insistence, or you wouldn’t eat at all, because you no longer had someone to share that precious hour with. But he’s here now, part of his face reconstructed, but he’s here, and it feels like every second of your grief is washed away with one little word he says.

“Hey.” His soft voice breaks you from your thoughts. You blink, realising that your face feels wet. He has stepped inside the room, his face more cautious now.

“Sorry.” He sounds somber. “Did I do something wrong?”

You immediately shake your head, wiping your face hastily. “Not at all.”

Your voice wobbles. You elect to ignore it, standing up and quickly straightening yourself before walking to him. “Come on, let’s go eat.”

Seungcheol’s hand on your arm stops you from walking past him. He holds it softly, pulling you back so you can face him. You’re embarrassed at losing your composure like this. You don’t want to freak him out, or make him worry. You realise that in your happiness of having him back, you haven’t processed at all how overwhelming it is to have the love of your life come back from the dead, half of what he used to be.

It seems that he understands that as well.

Slowly, at an almost glacial pace, Seungcheol’s hand loosens its grip, but it doesn’t move away. Instead, he wraps it around you. His other arm follows, and while the juxtaposition of his arms is noticeable, one warm and forgiving, the other cold and stiff, you barely register it, because you can feel his heartbeat against where your ear presses to his chest. You feel yourself giving into his embrace. You’re starved for anything that is Seungcheol, you’ve been without him for too long. Your face crumples, and the tears come again.

You don’t stop them this time.

………………………………..

“It doesn’t look right.”

“It looks exactly like it should.”

“No, it doesn’t. Look again, I think you went wrong somewhere-”

“If you’re not going to be supportive, get the hell out. I don’t need this energy.”

“I’m just saying, if you had just gone to the store-”

“And I told you, she likes it better this way.”

“Right. And we’re supposed to trust your half-fried brain.”

“Man, fuck you.”

You try to tamp down the laugh bubbling in your throat, but it’s hard to do that when the bickering coming from your kitchen is so amusing. You resolutely keep your eyes on your laptop screen, because you promised not to intervene. But Seungcheol and Joshua keep getting louder the longer they work on baking this cake, and by the sound of it, Joshua is not impressed.

“You’re seriously going to serve this turd-pile to your wife? On her birthday?”

“It’s a turd-pile made with love.”

You know why Joshua keeps nagging Seungcheol. This is an age-old tradition. Seungcheol is not much of a baker, but you’re decent at it. You make all his birthday cakes because you know what flavors and icings he likes. And because you love doing it. Seungcheol always wants to return the favor, no matter how bad he is at it, and it always ends with a spectacularly dense or horrendous looking cake. The difference this time is Joshua dropping in to wish you a happy birthday and give you your present. Unfortunately, that was the exact moment Seungcheol started icing the cake, hence the racket in your kitchen.

But you don’t mind. In fact, you love it. You love that he keeps trying, every single year, and that he blocks off so many hours just to do it. When he had suggested it this time, you were taken aback. While you and Seungcheol had made steady progress in your relationship so far, you didn’t anticipate that he would remember this little tradition of yours. He holds your hand sometimes, he hugs you when he can. You both talk and talk, about previous memories, and about making new ones. You tell him often that you missed him badly, that you love him so much, and that you’re okay with him not saying it back, but you need to tell him because you always felt like you should have said it more before he was gone. Seungcheol is soft with you, careful, letting you explore your emotions as you let him explore his. Now that he’s with you again, you often feel like you have all the time in the world to just be in his presence.

Is it enough for you? Not by a long shot. Do you want to kiss him senseless? Every second of every day. But you will get there eventually. You have faith.

Joshua stays for the cake reveal, and when you gush over it, he merely lets out a pained sigh. You know it’s all an act. He is unbelievably happy for you, but you like it when he teases Seungcheol, baits him enough to irritate, even anger him. He excuses himself pretty quickly afterward, even when you offer for him to stay and have a slice.

“No offense, but I would rather chop off two limbs and let myself get brainwashed than taste whatever this is.”

“That was really offensive, actually.” Seungcheol replies dryly. You laugh, dipping your finger in the frosting to taste it. Coffee. Your favorite.

The cake is dense, almost inedible, but you love it regardless. You eat two whole slices, even though Seungcheol himself can stomach only one. He gives you a pained look.

“Well, you’re always going on about how you love the things about me that are the same as before. Are you glad I’m still a shit baker?”

You giggle and stand up, carrying your dirty plate to the sink. Then you walk over to him and give him a hug, wrapping your arms around his torso. He immediately returns it, and you can physically feel yourself relax.

“I love it even more.” You reply. You can feel his chest shake with a tiny laugh, and you feel his lips on the crown of your head.

“Happy birthday, baby.” He whispers. Your breath hitches at the petname, your old favorite, and you look up at him, your chin on his chest. He’s watching you, eye like a warm pool, soft and inviting. His human hand reaches up, caressing your cheek. You wish, for a split second, that he would just lean down and…..

He does.

When his lips meet yours, they’re hesitant. It’s barely there, like a ghost of a sensation, but you melt into it, pushing up on your toes a little so you can feel him more as you kiss him back. He melts into it, sighing into your mouth, his grip around your waist tightening when he registers your enthusiasm. The metal of his left arm feels solid, and it almost leaves you immobile, but you love it, because it presses every line of your body to every plane of his. Your hands find his neck, his jaw, slipping back to run over the tiny strands over the back of his head. It makes him shiver. You feel it. Your lower stomach stirs.

The kiss gets firmer, hotter. Seungcheol tilts his head, slots his lips deeper into yours. You feel his tongue against the cushion of your bottom lip, and your mouth opens almost out of instinct. You let out your first moan when his tongue slides hot and wet against yours.

“We should-” His voice cracks. Your head spins. “We should slow down.”

He kisses you again, fiercely. Your thighs are already crushing together for relief.

“Yeah.” You agree, pulling him down more by the shoulders, wanting him to curl and wrap around you. He complies immediately, hands sliding lower until he’s tugging on the backs of your thighs and lifting you up onto the kitchen island. You’re level with his face now, not willing to stop kissing him, not willing to take even a breath that doesn’t come straight from his mouth. You tug hard on the hair at the top of his head, the ones long enough to grip. He groans, and the sound makes your hips jerk hard into his.

“Fuck, don’t do that.” He rasps.

You do it again, grinding slower this time, your legs around his waist keeping him in place. He hisses. You can feel the bulge in his jeans, and you clench around nothing, registering how hard he already is. You need him so badly that it makes you dizzy. If he stops now, you think you might cry.

“Cheol-” You gasp, your hands digging into his shirt and tugging hard. You need it off, you need to feel all of him, properly, and it feels like he’s on the same page, because he’s reaching back, pulling the shirt off his shoulders until it’s gone. His hands are quick, sliding under your blouse until it’s bunching up, making you raise your arms. He pulls it off.

Finally, you see him.

Seungcheol was always well built. Broad in all the right places, thick neck, wide shoulders, the large expanse of his chest, his abs. Now, he’s even more cut, and you wonder if it has to do with the life he was living for the last five years. Your eye catches his bionic arm, right at the junction where it meets his skin. Your hands, idly running over his bare skin, follow your gaze, stop just where the skin looks more pink.

“Does it hurt?” You ask, voice low. Seungcheol shakes his head, watching you intently.

“It used to, when it was new. But it’s more numb now than anything.” He mutters. He flexes the arm, the plates click and whir, a low, metallic sound that echoes in the silence of the kitchen. You let your thumb run over the skin, right at the edge. Seungcheol doesn’t react as he watches your fingers except with a tiny laugh.

“I guess if they were more careful, it might have looked a little better.” He mumbles, eyes still on your movements. His own run absentmindedly over your bare waist. You shrug.

“I don’t know, it’s pretty hot.”

He looks up at you, his single eyebrow shooting up in surprise. He barks out a laugh, shaking his head.

“Freak.”

You hum and tighten your legs around his waist again, pulling him closer. “You used to love it.”

Something in his eye gleams, a mischievous little twinkle. The white, flat circle on the other side seems to turn and shift, almost like it’s gleaming too. You wonder what he sees through it. His lip ticks up in a tiny smirk. “Oh, I know.”

He leans down, running his lips over the side of your neck. His hands are more purposeful now, sliding up to fiddle with the buckle of your bra. He unhooks it smoothly, letting his touch float up your arms so he can pull the straps down. You sigh when his tongue runs over your skin, nipping just under your ear, the spot that has always made you shiver.

“I remember a lot of things.” He rasps. “More and more as the days go by. And I like to go over them sometimes, when I lay in bed at night, or when you walk around in just that large shirt of mine you wear when you sleep. You think I don’t know what you’re doing, baby? Goading me, baiting me, testing me.”

“I’m- I’m not-” But your brain is melting at the moment his teeth dig a little harder into your skin. He’s going to leave a mark, not that you give a fuck, and all it’s doing is making you even more lightheaded.

He hums. You know he doesn’t believe you. His hands are already circling around, kneading softly on your breasts, making you sigh. He thumbs over your nipples, nipping at your neck a little harder when they peak under his touch. His touch sends shivers down your spine, one hand soft and warm, the other hard and cold. You’re not used to the contrast, but it feels wonderful. You wonder how it will feel in all the other places you want him to touch, and your impatience grows.

“Cheol, take me inside.” You whimper, clenching around nothing again and feeling your desperation grow. He doesn’t respond verbally, but his hands find your hips, gripping tightly to lift you up. You wrap yourself around him, using that moment to tongue at his neck as he walks you both down the hall to your bedroom. He has been inside only a handful of times, since he still sleeps on his own, but you know that’s about to change today. You’re never letting him leave again.

He doesn’t separate from you for even a second, laying you down on the mattress and joining you on it at the same moment, his lips meeting yours in a kiss that is even more heated, but not any less exploratory. His weight on you feels familiar, glorious, and you bask in the feeling of being pressed down. His tongue runs over any crevice of your mouth it can reach, saliva mixing with his in a way that makes you shiver all over. When you run your hands over his back and feel the familiar muscle shift and tense under your touch, you remember how much you missed this, and it makes your breath hitch.

You want him completely naked against you, and the need feels as urgent as air entering your lungs.

Your shirt and bra are already gone, but his clothes and the rest of yours now quickly follow. He kisses any part of you he can in between every article that gets tugged off by you or by him. Your right calf presses against the cold metal of his leg, and it shocks you back into reality a little bit. You’re aware that while you’ve done this countless times with him, it’s different now. You slow down the kisses, nibbling more indulgently at the plush on his bottom lip.

“Are you okay with this?” You whisper. “I know this is a lot-”

“I was going to ask you that.” He chuckles into your mouth. His eye flutters open, and it has softened, shining with reverence. Your lips twitch up into a smile.

“I’ve wanted this for so long.” You reach up, running a gentle hand through his hair. His metal ear feels rigid and cool. “I’ve missed you more than I can say. I didn’t-”

Your voice catches. Seungcheol waits with all the patience in the world.

“I didn’t think I could ever have this again.”

His forehead rests gently against yours, and your eyes flutter when you feel your breaths mix where your lips touch.

“I know I’m not all the way there.” He whispers. “I know there’s so much missing. And some days, it’s so difficult to reconcile the older version of me with this new reality. But I’m getting better every day. And I…. I miss you too. I miss what we had and who I used to be.”

Your eyes cloud. Seungcheol carefully thumbs under them, not letting the tears spill. When he kisses you again, it feels far more meaningful, like parts of you and him are coming to an understanding together. It’s easy to build up the heat again, and there’s an underlying layer of need in it now that has you writhing and moaning under him in no time.

“Easy, princess.” He hums, carefully running his hands up your thighs before fitting his hips between them. “I’ve got you.”

Princess. You whine. That’s an old favorite bedroom nickname of his. Seungcheol loved to spoil you. He’s a giver at heart, so the name is apt, and one he used to shower you with frequently. He grinds on your core, and you can feel the slide of his hard shaft through your wet folds. It makes you gasp, the slow drag making you feel each and every ridge of him. Your opening clenches hard, you arch into him, and your nails dig into the skin of his back.

“Don’t-” Your chest rattles with your inhale. “Don’t tease me. Please, I’ve waited so long, Cheolie. Don’t make me wait even more-”

When his head catches against your opening on the next grind, you moan low, eyelids fluttering. His nose brushes yours, you know he’s watching, and you bask in the feeling of his gaze on you. He pushes a little more, breaching you, and takes his glorious time sliding in at a snail’s pace. Your walls struggle with his girth, not used to being penetrated, left empty for too long, but you think at this point, Seungcheol is embedded in your DNA. Your body knows him, recognises him, like it’s an old, dormant instinct. You open up for him like he’s meant for you, and when he groans in shaky approval, you know he feels it too.

“Made for me, aren’t you?” He whispers into your mouth, taking advantage of your moaning to lick over your lips, nipping and sucking at them. “Taking me like you’re meant for me. Haven’t fucked you in years, but your little pussy still knows me, right?”

God, he needs to stop talking like that. So vulgar, coming from his mouth, but so sexy that it makes you dizzy. The ceiling is spinning, half from the feel of him, and half from the words he is whispering right past your lips. He bottoms out finally, and stills, throbbing and twitching inside you. You can feel it, it tugs on your walls, sending little sparks shooting through your core.

“Love how tight you are, baby.” He continues, pulling away from you to sit back a bit. You almost whine in protest, but then his thumb finds your clit and rubs tight little circles over it. You sigh, toes curling. “But I need you to loosen up a little bit, okay? Need to fuck you properly and I can’t do that when you’re gripping me like this.”

It’s a combination of his words and the waves of pleasure traveling up from your clit, but he finally feels enough give to rock back and forth, his back undulating with every stroke. He starts off slow, both of you just enjoying the delicious drag of him in and out. Every movement makes him brush up teasingly against your sweet spot, makes stars burst in your vision. You feel like you’re already on the brink, and he has barely started.

“Fuck.” He chokes, and you can see his throat bob as he swallows. A thin layer of sweat coats his porcelain skin, making the light of your bedside lamp shift over him. His hair, not almost fully brown with just the tips of the blond remaining, is matted on his forehead. His eye is closed, eyelid fluttering, mouth slightly parted as his breath rattles in and out. He grunts quietly every few strokes, his abs clenching, his neck and chest flushed a pretty pink.

You could come just looking at him like this.

He picks up the pace finally, and you gasp at the change, arching into him a little. He’s watching you now, but you’re too busy registering how good he feels, the perfect, tight drag of him, now more forceful, hitting every spot that sends pleasurable shocks up your spine. The bed groans, his thrusts get harder. On either side of your head, his fingers fist the bedsheet. Beneath the moans and sighs, you can hear the very low but distinct whir of metal emanating from his moving limbs.

Your brain stutters, and your hands move before you can think about it too much. They find his metal wrist, circling around it slowly and lifting it to place it right at the base of your throat. Seungcheol’s eye widens.

“You’re sure?” He asks. You nod.

“Please.”

Your skin is so heated that the cool contrast of his hand feels relieving and glorious. Something in his wrist clicks, and then his hold on your throat tightens just a bit. Your eyes flutter, mouth dropping open. You whine.

Seungcheol groans and his thrusts get harder, hips now slamming into yours over and over, the tip just gently kissing the cervix in the way that lights your lower stomach on fire. His grip is unrelenting, just tight enough to make you a little light headed and every movement feel even more intense than it usually does. You can’t speak, can’t warn him as your orgasm comes barrelling into you at full speed. You can only clench hard and cry out as it washes over you. Seungcheol doesn’t slow, but watches you with something akin to awe and unbridled lust in his eyes. His hand loosens only as you come down, letting you take in a long gulp of air.

“That was so sexy, baby, fuck.” He sounds as wrecked as you feel. He’s grinding into your pussy, pushed all the way in to the base, letting you feel every inch of him. “Can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner. Could’ve had you under me every night looking like that.”

You find the sides of his neck, tugging him down to kiss him fiercely. “Get your fill now, Cheolie. Make up for lost time.”

Your words spur him on. He pulls out abruptly, but he doesn’t let you miss him for too long, tugging your leg to maneuver you so you’re on your stomach, arms folded under your head, and his body draped over your back, warming your sweat-cooling skin. His knees frame your thighs. He nudges your legs apart just enough to slide inside, and the shift in angle has your jaw going slack. You feel his grip on your hips, one soft, one hard, holding you in place as he immediately sets a brutal pace. You don’t mind, you’ve always loved it when Seungcheol uses all that impressive muscle he has built to manhandle and use you like this. It’s unbelievably hot to you. This position feels even more intense, leaves you even more boneless, and your previous high has left you so sensitive that this one builds up in no time.

His thrusts are getting sloppy, less precise and more like he just wants to plop you into the mattress. His moans are more uninhibited now, his grip tighter to the point you know he will leave bruises that you will wear proudly. His breath hits the back of your neck. He reaches down, biting into your shoulder at the exact moment he groans loud and empties himself in you. The warmth of him, the grind of his head into your walls, is what sends you over the edge for a second time. Both your bodies writhe on the mattress, him pressing you into it until you feel like you are melting into him. He curses low in your ear as his body relaxes, and the sound makes you shiver.

You lay like that for what feels like an eternity, letting the rise and fall of his chest guide your own breathing. When he finally moves, detaching himself, you grumble in protest.

“I was warm.” You complain. You can hear him laugh a little.

“I’ll warm you up again, baby, don’t worry. Come on.”

Your interest is piqued, and you turn your head to the side to peer at him. His whole face seems to have smoothed, soft and glowing in a way you haven’t seen him in a while. It makes a smile tug on your lips, and you turn over slowly to face him. He doesn’t waste any time in lifting you up, another sensation that will take some getting used to. His human arm is warm on your back, but his metal one digs just under your knees. You don’t mind, not at all, it’s part of him, something he got involuntarily but made his own. He has used it to inflict pain in the past, but from now on, he will do nothing but good with it.

You watch him with heavy eyes as he places you on the bathroom vanity and gets to running a warm bath. You admire his back, soft and pale, smattered with little freckles, and slightly pink at the edges where skin meets metal. The plates dig into the skin, and you know he said it doesn’t feel like anything now, but you wonder if it hurts even just a little.

The slightest hint of his pain, even a negligible smidge of it, is unacceptable to you. You make a mental note to ask Wonwoo if he can look into bionic prostheses. Not weapons, like Jeonghan has developed. You have no interest in that. He can have his military contracts and his glory. There’s nothing in it for you.

Everything you want is in this tiny bathroom, dipping his metal fingers into the water to check the temperature, only to realise he can’t feel with that limb. You collapse into giggles and he smiles sheepishly, ears turning red, using his other hand as a toothy grin takes over his face.

🐚 feedback is always appreciated!

[hpcrs]

consolation prize

[zhouzouzhouzou]

horrible weekend

[sailorsoons]

Sacred (w.jh)

PAIRING: Guard!Junhui x Oracle!Reader SUMMARY: Your entire life has been plagued by visions and by an emperor who wields you like a weapon. When you've finally had enough, you ask the single man sworn to protect you for help you're not sure he's willing to give. WC: 10,640 AU: Fantasy GENRE: Forbidden romance, mild angst, smut RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. WARNINGS: Reader suffers from the after effects of visions which make her sick, vomit, faint, etc. She also sees visions of war, death, destruction and some mild description of gore, depictions of anxiety and fear, the emperor is obviously evil and cruel, perception of unrequited love, some mild angst and pining, the emperor does hit reader a single time, depictions of blood (her nose bleeds a lot), some kind of stupid world building re: gender roles and prophecy being tied to virginity that I do NOT endorse aka I don't believe power is tied to purity it's just for the plot ok, unprotected sex, oral (f. receiving) reader is a virgin so brief moment where that shit hurts, some mild praise and v v v barely there dirty talk, vaginal finger, multiple orgasms, ummm I think that's it this is very loving and tame. A/N: This is for my milestone requests that I posted and then immediately went on hiatus because that's the way tumblr works! This is for @haologram who requested number 8 with Junhui :) ALSO please don't get used to the 10k word counts for these this was kind of unusual and I felt inspired and shout out to the movie The Scorpion King for the idea AN 2: This is not beta read so I’m sorry - there will definitely be mistakes! I did proof read/spelling and grammar check but I often miss a lot! Also I was too lazy to make a banner lmfao

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FIRST COMES THE SILENCE. It's your only warning as the world peels away from you, the murmur of the court fading to the background until even the sound of voices are lost to the stillness. The warmth leeches from you next, a cold tingle blooming through you like spreading frost in winter, your arms getting heavy. You sit abruptly as the world shifts and the throne room fades to something else, something wet and freezing cold.

Rain.

Rain is falling in relentless sheets that are so cold it hurts, even through the vision. In front of you is a battledfield churned to a sea of black mud, cut up by boots and the hooves of war horses and the deep wheels of the machines of war. Broken wagons lie half-stuck in the mud, their splintered wheels jutting up from the chaos, some still spinning. Banners in colors lost to the black mud with symbols you can't make out in the rain hang in sodden ribbons, snapped from their poles.

The smell chokes you. Wet earth. Wood smoke. Blood. So much blood that it fills your mouth, warm and metallic. You cough, falling forward into the vision so that your knees hit the mud with a wet squelch. Your hand catches on metal and when you look down, the broken body of a soldier is beneath you. His throat is a scarlet gash, opened up from a sword, his eyes vacant and staring at the rainy sky.

You recoil, snatching your hand away as you fall backward into the rain, ass sinking into the mud. Somewhere to your left, a horse screams, high and shrill until the sound is abruptly cut off. A man a few yards away crawls through the mud with a single arm, the other several yards behind him where the fingers are still curled around the hilt of a broken sword. He drags himself toward you as though he's asking for help, and you scream and look away.

The world tilts and your vision changes abruptly, each image overlapping the other in flashes of light and sound. Thousands of bodies. A river choked with them. A bridge with the banners of the northern king. The emperor - your emperor- on his war chariot, the wheels turning as he crosses the bridge.

Suddenly, the vision releases you. You crash forward, wood striking your knees hard enough that you cry out as your hands shoot out. Your palms skid across the ground, stinging as skin tears open. Bile burns at the back of your throat and you taste the blood before you realize you've bitten your tongue again, the iron taste in your mouth real. You feel the wet warmth of blood as it trickles from your nose, splattering too brightly against the dark wood beneath you.

The wooden floor is cold beneath you as your vision swims and the throne room reassembles itself. You look up to see the wooden pillars that vanish into a vaulted ceiling with incense burning in their holders. Torches and braziers fill the room with heat, the orange flames licking along the twisted metal and casting long shadows across the waiting courtiers. Everything feels too bright and too sharp and you wince, the headache behind your eyes hammering you as soon as the vision fades in full.

Someone kneels beside you and you know without looking that it's Junhui, the smell of vetiver and cedar comforting with the taste of blood and salt in your mouth. His hands find you first, fingers calloused from sword work as they wrap around your hands, steadying you. The touch grounds you and pulls you back from the battlefield that's turned to the headache stabbing in your skull.

When you don't pull away from him, Junhui slides one arm behind your shoulders and the other beneath your knees, hauling you up and into his arms as though you weigh nothing at all. He's careful when he sets you on your feet, hands braced on your biceps as you sway a little. You're vaguely aware of how close he is, lashes fluttering as you look up at him.

"You okay?" He asks, voice soft.

Before you can answer, the emperor demands, "What did you see?"

You don't look at him. Looking at him only makes things worse. Instead, you stare in the distance as you taste the copper dripping from your nose.

"The north," you murmur. Each word costs you, your head throbbing, vision blurry as the headache grows. "The northern kingdom."

Beside you, Junhui presses his hand to the small of your back. It's barely there, but it's something, your heart fluttering as his thumb moves in small circles, grounding. You don't know if anyone else notices, but you notice, and that's all that matters.

"You'll invade at the height of the rainy season," you continue as your ears begin to ring. "When the rivers are high and the roads turn to mud from the rains. You'll win."

The throne room erupts into applause and cheers as the courtiers shout in triumph. Soldiers pound their fists against their armor, and the emperor rises in your peripheral vision, spreading his arms as he laughs, the sound booming across the room. The firelight from the braziers seems to brighten with their glee, the shadows dancing across the pillars as smoke drifts in the rafters from the incense.

You want to vomit as the nausea rises sharply and suddenly. You press a hand to your mouth and Junhui notices immediately - of course he does. He always notices. His hand slides around your waist and pulls you toward him, steadying you as he angles you so that his body shields you from the worst of the light and sound.

"Your Imperial Majesty," Junhui says, bowing deeply. The emperor turns to stare at him, cheeks ruddy and red from the heat of the hall and the glee. "If I may, the Sacred needs to rest. The vision has taken much from her. Might I escort her to her chambers?"

Sacred. You hate the title. Hate that it chains you to the emperor you've just predicted another victory for, so long as he attacks at the precise time that you've instructed. You've been his sword and shield since you were a little girl gifted to him and his growing empire, helping him knock his opponents off the board one by one.

You hate him. You hate him more than you hate yourself for being useful to him, but you have no other options. He hates you too, you think. Beyond being a cruel man, he's as shrewd as they come. You don't think any of your glares go unnoticed, and though you think he'd love to revel in your misery, he's careful with you, too afraid to break you and lose access to the future you promise.

He waves a hand dismissively, turning back to the crowd. "Yes, yes, take her. We have plans to make. The rainy season is coming soon and we have to make preparations immediately."

Junhui doesn't hesitate, his hand urging you toward the great doors at the far end of the throne room. You lean into him more than you mean to, your legs unsteady beneath you as the smell of the hinoki incense cling to your robes.

Behind you, the celebration continues, growing louder as the emperor orders courtesans and entertainment. You're grateful when the doors close behind you with a heavy thud to muffle the noise, leaving only the muffled quiet and the cool winds of winter rustling the trees in the imperial courtyard.

Junhui's thumb traces small circles against your side, another one of those small gestures that's just for you. They are few and far between, so you hoard them like a gluttonous child hiding mooncakes in their pockets, determined to keep them for your darkest days. You know it means nothing - not the way you want it to. He's kind to you because it's his duty and because someone must be. Because perhaps he pities the broken oracle who bleeds for an emperor who doesn't deserve victory.

Still, you let yourself cling to these moments anyway, your small fantasies of romance and being stolen away keeping you from going mad.

The cold air hits your face, sharp and biting. It does nothing for the pounding in your skull and if anything, the headache splits deeper, a white-hot spike driving through bone with each step you take. Your stomach lurches as bile floods the back of your throat, bitter and burning. The courtyard tilts, the bare branches of the plum trees blurring into dark streaks against winter grey as you start to tip over.

Junhui catches you before you lose your footing in full, arms sliding beneath your knees and around your back to haul you up and against his chest. You want to protest as he cradles you against him, but another wave of nausea hits you and all you can do is press your face against the cool leather of his armor and hope you don't retch all over him and embarrass yourself forever.

"I've got you," he murmurs, voice low and right against your ear. "Just hold on."

He moves quickly through the courtyard. You're aware of his footsteps and the rustle of fabric, the soft sound of his breathing. The world narrows and becomes only the warmth of his body and the steady beating of his heart against your cheek.

Your chambers are in the eastern wing, far enough from the celebration that it fades to nothing as he walks. He shoulders open the red lacquer door to your room and carries you inside to the smell of sandalwood and jasmine.

The chambers provided to you are modest, silk screens painted with cranes and willows, a low platform bed draped in pale green silk and piled high with soft blankets and pillows. The latticed window let the winter sun filter, the delicate shadows dappled across the polished wooden floor. It's the only space in the palace that is entirely yours, and you crave it, spending most of the days in the dark as the pain in your head recedes.

Junhui lowers you onto your bed like your spun of glass before he arranges the cushions behind your back, propping you up so you're half-reclined. His hands linger at your shoulders for half a second before pulling away, and you miss his warmth immediately.

"Wait here," he instructs.

"As if I could do anything else."

He huffs, amused as he crosses to the small table near the window. He opens a porcelain pitcher and pours it into a wooden basin. You let your eyes close, the sound of his hands in the water the only sound. He crosses back toward you and when you open your eyes, he's kneeling at your bedside and reaching out with a cool, damp cloth to press against your head.

You can't stop the small sound that escapes you. The relief is immediate. It isn't enough, of course, but it's something and something is better than nothing.

When he puts it down, he gestures to your robe. "Your outer robe is making you overheart. Maybe I?"

You nod, too exhausted to care about prosperity or about rules. Junhui has seen you more vulnerable than anyone else has the right to, and you know it means nothing untoward as his fingers work on the clasps and ties with practiced efficiency, never lingering where he shouldn't.

He eases the heavy brocade from your shoulders, leaving the lighter inner layers. You can breathe again, feeling the winter air that slips through the cracks kiss your overheated skin. You sigh in relief, leaning back onto the pillows as he folds the robe and sets it aside before turning his attention back to you.

Taking the cloth up again, he leans forward and wipes at the dried blood under your nose and on your chin, his touch so gentle it makes your heart squeeze, the feeling inside of you that you refuse to name cracking open a little more. When he's satisfied, he leans back on his heels, watching you.

"You don't have to do this," you mutter, head falling back on the pillows as you stare up at the ceiling. Your head still hurts, thoughts swimming. "The emperor didn't assign you to nursemaid duty."

"My duty is to you," he says sharply. "Not to the emperor or court or anything else. It's to keep you safe and keep you well. That's all that matters to me. This counts."

You love that he says it. You hate that he says it. His words are both burden and balm, and he has no idea how much you want to believe them, how much you want to let yourself imagine that this devotion means what your foolish heart wishes it could mean. That you wish that when he touches you with tenderness, it's because he wants to and not because he must.

But you know better - you always have. The ancient scrolls about oracles - the Sacreds - have always been clean that oracles should remain untouched and unspoiled, pure in body and spirit. The moment an oracle is touched and spoiled by the intimacy only known between lovers or concubines, they become nothing more than ordinary women.

The emperor has no use for ordinary women. The moment you are anything less than the Sacred, he'll toss you out or worse - keep you as something to spoil and besot and remind you how far you've fallen from graze.

You accept Junhui's care because you're selfish enough to want it, even though it means nothing. You let him adjust the blanket around you and smooth the hair back from your damp forehead, and you let yourself pretend for a moment that this is a moment born of love rather than duty, and that you can have this. That you can have him.

"Thank you," you whisper, though you know he doesn't realize what for.

Your eyes close against the sting of the day, your headache taking over. His hand finds yourself beneath the blanket and his fingers thread through yours gently as he squeezes.

"Rest," he says softly. "I'll be here."

You nod and feel the weight of exhaustion pull you under, dreaming that his sweeping thumb across the back of your hand is because he loves you, and not because it's his duty.

-

Voices wake you. Junhui's voice is raised above them all, cutting through an argument like a blade. You open your eyes, the dark outside your window telling you that the sun has not yet risen. You sit up slowly and the room spins, the dull ache behind your eye and neck telling you that you're not yet free of your earlier vision's repercussions.

"She needs rest," Junhui snarls. "The visions are demanding and he has asked for them more and more. You will not-"

"The emperor has summoned her," someone else answers. "We have our orders."

"And I have mine. Yours can wait until morning."

"It is morning."

"It's barely beyond midnight!"

Your body still feels hollowed out, mouth dry and skin sweaty. You think you've only been asleep for a few hours, but you push yourself up onto your elbow, pausing as the room sways. When it stops, you get up and head to the door, opening it so that a sliver of the torchlight from the hallway falls across your room.

Junhui turns to you at once, his face twisted in anger. He blocks your doorway, his body a wall between you and the three imperial guards standing in the corridor beyond. Their armor gleams in the firelight, lacquered black and red, the emperor's colors. They don't care that you can barely walk or that your hands are shaking. They only care about their orders.

"You should be resting," Junhui growls. "I will handle-"

"It doesn't matter." You meet his eyes and see frustration burning there, a helplessness that you feel too. "If the emperor summons me, I go."

"You can barely stand."

"I must manage."

"You shouldn't have to."

"Can you help me dress properly?" You whisper the question for only him to hear, the other guards lingering.

For a moment, Junhui's eyes flash, something unreadable crossing his face so quickly it's there before you can understand. He nods tightly once and pushes inside, not letting the guards catch a glimpse of you before he shoulders the door shut.

Darkness swallows the room. You stand on unsteady feet as Junhui rummages around for a match before lighting a candle with a single strike. The orange glow makes him look haunting, sharp features sharper, eyes so dark they reflect the light of the candle back while he moves around the room.

He moves efficiently, retrieving a new robe from your wardrobe. It's deep blue silk embroidered with silver cranes, one of your favorites. He crosses the room toward you and you lift your arms a little as he settles it over your shoulders, helping you pull your arms through before he's tying off laces.

When he's finished, he grabs a single comb, gathering your hair low at your neck to twist it up and give you some breathing room. Cool air brushes against the back of your neck and you're grateful.

"There," he mutters, standing in front of you.

"I'm ready."

It's a lie. You feel like you're made of paper, like someone could blow you away or cut right through you. But you remain standing anyway, and Junhui sighs, hand sliding to the small of your back as he guides you in the candlelight toward the door and into the hallway.

Neither of the guards acknowledge you. They simply begin walking, expecting you to follow. You do, and Junhui stays close, his hand never leaving your back, his grip firm enough that you can lean into him whenever the room tilts and becomes unsteady again.

The walk to the throne room feels endless. Each step sends an unsteady feeling up through your legs, and though the sharp pain of earlier is gone from your skull, the dull ache that remains isn't much better.

Your stomach churns with anxiety as you walk through winding halls. You know that the emperor has summoned you for another vision. He's done it over and over more recently, each promised victory and small win making him hungry for more, making him addicted to the future, to moves and countermoves.

Winter air bites at you as you cross the courtyard. Junhui pulls you closer and you smell him, vetiver and cedar. His body blocks most of the cold, and you lean into him, seeking heat. He lets you as the guards lead you to the throne room doors, the massive panels of dark wood bound with iron looming ahead.

The guards push the doors open and the familiar scent of hinoki incense washes over you, mixing with the acrid smoke of the burning braziers in the hall. At the end of the hall, the emperor sits on his throne, leaning forward in his seat, fingers drumming against the carved armrest.

There is no court this time - just a small handful of advisors and generals standing in clusters along the pillars, which means this isn't spectacle. It's business. Nervousness settles sourly in your stomach as you approach, footsteps echoing on the polished wood floor. Junhui's hand stays at your back until you reach the proper distance where he steps aside - but not far. Never far, even in the presence of the emperor.

You lower yourself into a bow and your knees nearly give out. Junhui is there in an instant, his hands firmly on your waist to keep you from falling forward onto your face as the room spins. You grimace through it, hands clutching your sleeves as you take a few deep breaths to regain composure.

"Your Imperial Majesty," you manage. "I'm here."

"Finally. I've been waiting."

You straighten slowly with Junhui's help and meet the emperor's eyes. They're dark and calculating, fixed on where Junhui's hands remain for a moment before he steps a respectful distance away once more. A needle of fear stabs at the back of your neck, sharp and cool.

"I want to know about the Free Isles," the emperor says. "Can we take them immediately after the northern kingdom, when they think they're safe? With the resources from the north, they should be no match for me."

Your heart sinks. The Free Isles are a chain of islands far to the northeast, fiercely independent and protected by treacherous waters and storms that only northern ships are made to cut through. The emperor has wanted them for years, but has never had the ships to take them. Of course he wishes to take them as soon as he has ships, the greed and desire to plant his flag on free shores insatiable.

You lick your lips. "I may not be able to see right now, Your Imperial Majesty. Using the gift this close together-"

"I don't care about your discomfort." He waves a hand dismissively. "I care about the future of my empire. Now look. Tell me what you see."

Behind you, Junhui tenses. You stare at the emperor and see no room for argument, no mercy. You knew he was not a merciful man the way he conquered lands, but you hadn't expected him to risk damaging you like this.

Nodding, you close your eyes, taking a deep breath to calm yourself. You hate reaching for visions - oftentimes they come at random, seizing you when you're in a crowded room or alone in the bathing room. Sometimes they take you faster than you can summon them. But reaching for them feels like reaching into a wound every time, painful and sharp.

Pain explodes behind your eyes, white-hot and blinding as you dip into the well of your power. You feel your nose start to bleed again from the force, hot copper flooding your mouth. Your own heartbeat hammers too fast, too loud, thundering in your ears like the emperor's war drums.

The vision comes to you like a knife to the gut, stabbing and painful. You're on the deck of a ship - no. You are the ship, the wood of your body groaning, the spray from the sea cold and sharp. The sky above is storm-black, choked with clouds so dark they're almost green. Lightning splits the sky and for one blinding moment, you see dozens of ships bearing the emperor's colors, their red and black sails straining against wind that screams and tears at the sea.

In front of you, a wave rises ahead. It's impossibly tall, a mountain of water that climbs climbs climbs toward the sky until it comes crashing down. The world becomes water - cold, crushing. You can't breathe and salt water floods your mouth and nose, choking you. Your lungs scream and wood splinters, the sound like bones breaking. Men scream, but the sound is lost in the roar of the ocean.

When you surface, you're you again, not the ship. Another ship lets out a resonant crack as the mast falls, crashing through the deck. Some soldiers jump, some cling to the side. The sea takes them as the ship goes down, the water pulling them into the belly of its black depths. You feel terror like never before, but the storm doesn't stop.

Another wave. Then another. Ships splinter. Bodies vanish underneath the waves. So many bodies. The ocean swallows them whole, greedy and hungry, taking and taking and taking.

Through the ocean spray and chaos, you see land. The Free Isles rise from the sea like teeth, their rocky shores and cliff spread open like a mouth laughing to the sky. Warriors dot the cliffs, lit up only by the flash of lightning as they watch the storm do the work for them.

A wave crashes over you and drags you down to the bottom of the sea. In the flashes of light that shine through the murky ocean, you see pieces of ship floating, red and black banners sinking toward the depths of the sea, bodies thrashing as the undertow pulls them down down down.

The vision releases you and you're drowning in air instead of water, gasping, choking on nothing. Your knees buckle and you catch yourself on the floor, palms slapping against the polished wood as blood gushes from your knows. Junhui's hands are already on you, trying to stop you from collapsing into the red pooling on the floor beneath you. Voices swirl around you, but you can't make out anything they're saying, the roar of the sea - or your blood rushing in your ears - drowning out everything else.

Slowly, words come back to you. Your head lolls to the side as you look up at the emperor, his face furious and impatient as he slams his closed fist against the arm of his throne. "Well? What did you see?"

"Failure," you choke out, coughing on imaginary mouthfuls of water. "The Free Isles cannot be taken. The storms will do the work for them and the islands will not fall."

"Look again, then!" He booms. "Find a solution!"

"I cannot-"

You don't know when the emperor stood up, but he's in front of you suddenly, his hand moving faster than you can track. The blow catches you across the face, snapping your head to the side. Pain explodes along your cheekbone, bright and sharp and the throne room spins.

Junhui moves. One moment he's behind you, the next he's between you and the emperor, his body a wall of rage. His hand goes to his sword, fingers wrapping around the hilt to slide the blade free just enough that the ring of metal cuts through the room.

Every guard in the room tenses. Hands fly to weapons. You hear the whisper of steel, the creak of leather armor as soldiers shift their weight, ready to strike. The advisors along the pillars press themselves back against the wood, their faces pale that Junhui would dare to draw steel in front of the emperor.

The emperor goes very still. His eyes narrow, and for a moment you see something flicker there - surprise, maybe - before his face twists with rage at the affront. You look at Junhui, and though you can't see his face, his rigid shoulders say it all.

"You dare," the emperor hisses. "You dare to draw steel in my presence? You dare threaten your emperor?"

"My mandate is to protect her." Junhui doesn't move. Doesn't flinch. His shoulders are squared, his stance wide and grounded. "From any threat. Even you, Your Imperial Majesty."

The advisors go rigid. You can feel their shock radiating outward, a physical thing. This is treason. Open defiance. The kind of thing that ends with heads on spikes outside the palace gates. Your heart hammers against your ribs. The room swims, gaze blurry from the emperor's blow and the vision's aftermath and the realization that Junhui is signing his own death warrant for you.

You try to reach a hand up to tug on his sleeve but you can't move - you can barely think. You're broken on your knees, the taste of iron and salt in your mouth, looking up at Junhui as he remains in front of you.

"You forget yourself," the emperor snarls. "You forget who holds your life in his hands, who holds her life in his hands."

Junhui's grip tightens on his sword. "I forgot nothing, Your Imperial Majesty. I took an oath in front of you and this court to protect her from all, including the throne. This is my duty."

"Your duty is obedience. Your duty is to serve me. Everything in this palace - every guard, every servant, every Sacred - exists to serve me."

"I cannot break the oath I gave you, Your Imperial Majesty."

The emperor's face goes dark as silence permeates the room. Red creeps up into his neck and cheeks, his breathing labored as he works himself up, his rage choking the air in the throne room. Junhui stands in front of you anyway, his eyes forward, exterior calm.

You try to stand. Your legs don't cooperate, blood dripping from your nose and mouth, spattering beneath you. Your whole body trembles and you want to tell Junhui to stop, to save himself, but your voice doesn't work.

All you can do is watch. Watch him risk everything. Watch him stand between you and the most powerful man in the empire. Watch him choose you over his own life. Something cracks open in your chest. Something that feels like hope and terror and longing all tangled together. Something you can't afford to feel.

For a long moment, no one moves or breathes. The guards wait for the order to strike while the advisors stay out of the way, trying to become invisible in the pools of shadows between the pillars.

Finally, the emperor laughs. The sound is harsh and startling against the silence, echoing off the walls.

"Get out," his voice is ragged. "Both of you. Get out of my sight before I have you both executed."

Junhui doesn't wait for him to change his mind. He turns, hauling you to your feet with careful hands, and guides you toward the doors. Your legs barely work and your face throbs where the emperor struck you. You ignore the pain, instead focusing on the way Junhui's arm is around your waist, holding you up as you somehow make it across the throne room.

Outside, the world is bitter cold. The courtyard tilts on its axis, and you feel Junhui's arm tighten around your waist as he pulls you closer to him.

"Stay with me," he murmurs, breath hot against your ear.

"He'll kill you," you try to say. But your voice won't work. The words come out broken. Slurred. "Junhui, he'll-"

"Shh." His grip tightens. "Don't talk. Just breathe."

But breathing hurts. Everything hurts. The edges of your vision go dark and fuzzy, like looking through a tunnel. You can hear voices, but they sound distorted and echoing, like you're underwater again, drowning in that vision of ships and storms and mean screaming as the ocean devours them whole.

Your legs give out completely. You feel Junhui catch you. Feel his hands on your face.

Then nothing. Just silence.

-

The first thing you become aware of is warmth. It isn't the oppressive heat of the throne room, but it's the soft warmth of your room, the smell of sandalwood and jasmine comforting. The light comes second, soft and flickering, the orange glow soft behind your closed eyelids.

When your eyes flutter open, you see candles. Dozens of them burning in their holders, casting dancing shadows against the silk screens that divide your chambers. You're still in your bed, though the heavy outer layer of your robes are gone. Someone has covered you with a thick quilt embroidered with dragons - your favorite.

You try to sit up and immediately regret it. Pain lances through your skull - not the white-hot agony of a vision, but a deep, bone-weary ache that makes your stomach turn. You let out a small sound, barely more than a breath, and freeze when you realize Junhui is watching you from the side of your bed.

He's removed his armor, dressed only in the red and black robes of a palace guard. It catches you off guard - you've never seen him without his armor before. It makes him look unguarded, his dark hair disheveled and falling across his forehead slightly. His elbows rest on his knees, his head forward as his dark gaze pins you to the mattress.

"You're awake."

"I think so." Your voice comes out broken and harsh. "I hope so."

Junhui moves immediately. He reaches for a cup on the low table beside your bed and slides one hand behind your head carefully as he helps you lean forward to drink. The water is cool with a hint of medicinal herbs and you gulp, coughing a little.

"Careful," he murmurs. "Small sips, no gulping."

It soothes your throat and you manage three sips before pulling back, letting Junhui set the cup aside as he carefully sits back down beside you, pulling his chair closer.

"How long was I out?" You ask, sinking back down.

"Six hours. Maybe seven. I lost track."

Seven hours. You've been unconscious for seven hours. The weight of that settles over you like a stone. Seven hours of Junhui sitting here, watching over you, waiting for you to wake. Seven hours of not knowing if you would.

"The physician came," Junhui continues. "He said you need rest. That you can't keep doing this."

You close your eyes. The exhaustion is bone-deep. Soul-deep. It lives inside of you, in all of the spaces between your ribs and in the hollows of your chest, pumping through your blood, threaded with everything breath. You're tired of this, tired of being the Sacred, tired of having headaches, tired of being split open and rendered useless by visions you've never asked for, tired of serving a man you despise and resisting the man you want.

"I hate this," you whisper, the words slipping out before you can stop them. "I hate this. I hate the visions. I hate being this, I hate-"

Your voice cracks down the middle like ice over a frozen lake, everything you've kept inside of you welling to the surface, rushing forward in an onslaught you cannot stop. You feel the tears spilling over as your hands fists the quilt and you cry.

"I wish I didn't have them. I wish I didn't live like this," you choke out. "I've lived like this since I was a little girl, unable to live how I want, to do what I want. It isn't fair Jun. It isn't fair! I want to be nothing, I want to be no one!"

Junhui says nothing at first. You can't look at him - can't bear to see what's written on his face. Pity, probably. You hate that the most, that he probably pities you, that he's nice and sweet and kind because no one else is.

He startles you when he moves. You look up to see him move from sitting on the chair to the bed, his weight on the mattress making you dip toward him as his hand slips beneath the quilt to find yours, his fingers lacing with yours. The touch is unexpected and gentle, palm warm against yours. Solid. Real. Calloused but comforting.

Junhui is looking at you. Not at the wall, not at his hands, not at some distant point beyond your shoulder like all the other courtiers when you're collapsing or bleeding or writhing in pain. He's looking at you, his dark eyes are steady on your face, and there's something in them that makes your heart hammer, something that looks almost like pain.

"If I could take them from you," he says quietly, "I would. In a heartbeat I would take them away."

You stare at him - really look at him for the first time since you woke to see exhaustion etched into every line of his face, dark circles beneath his eyes. You examine each part of him - the slight slump to his shoulders that he never allows when he's on duty. The way his hair falls across his forehead, disheveled and uncombed. He looks like he hasn't slept. Like he's been sitting here beside your bed for hours, watching over you, waiting for you to wake.

The worry hasn't left his gaze. You can see it there, sharp and clear in the way his eyes move over your face, cataloging every bruise, every sign of pain. The way his jaw tightens when his gaze lands on the mark the emperor left on your cheek.

There's something else there too, something you've seen before but didn't know how to name, something you never let yourself hope for, but only dreamed about. Something in the way he holds your hand - not like a guard on duty, but like you mean something to him beyond being his charge.

Your heart pounds. This is dangerous. Forbidden. But you're so tired of being careful. So tired of denying yourself the one thing you want. So tired of pretending that his kindness is just duty, that his gentleness means nothing, that you don't feel the way you do.

"There is a way," you hear yourself say.

Junhui's brow furrows. His thumb stops its gentle movement across your knuckles. "What?"

Your mouth goes dry. This is it. The precipice. You could pull back now. Laugh it off. Pretend you meant something else. Say you were talking about running away, or finding some mythical cure, or anything other than what you're actually suggesting, but you're so tired of pretending.

"The visions," you say slowly. Each word feels like pulling teeth. Like dragging something heavy and sharp up from the depths of your chest. "They're tied to - um - purity."

Heat floods your cheeks. You can feel it spreading down your neck, across your chest. Can feel the way your skin burns with shame and something else. Something that might be hope or fear or both tangled together until you can't tell them apart.

You can't look at him anymore. Can't bear to see his reaction. So you stare at the quilt instead, studying the neat stitching and the way the gold thread weaves through the red fabric. At the way the dragons dance.

The silence stretches. You count your own heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. By the sixth, you want the ocean from your vision to swallow you whole so you can escape this embarrassment, realizing that you've misstepped

"They would go away?" His voice is hoarse. Halting. "The visions?

"Yes."

Another silence. This one longer. Heavier. You can feel it pressing down on you like a physical weight. Can feel the way the air in the room has changed, like all the air has been sucked out and replaced with pure pressure. When you risk a glance up at him, he's not looking at you. His gaze is fixed on the blanket, jaw tight and lips pressed together in a thin line. You can see the way his chest rises and falls with each careful breath, can see the tension in his shoulders.

"Are you asking me to take them from you?"

The question lands in silence between you. You say nothing, and when Junhui looks up at you, his gaze is more intense than you remember it, his eyes dark and pupils blown. You swallow thickly, and when he squeezes your hand to push for an answer, you can't speak. You give a tiny, imperceptible nod, nearly shaking as you admit to the unspoken question.

For a moment, nothing happens. Junhui just sits there, his hand in yours, his breathing careful and controlled. You can feel the tension radiating off him in waves. Can see the way his jaw works, like he's trying to force out words that won't come. Can see the conflict written across every line of his face.

Then he pulls his hand away.

Devastation crashes through you, the loss of his touch immediately. He stands and turns away from you, shoulders rigid as he takes two steps toward the door before stopping, his back to you, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

"No."

The word comes out hard. Final like a door slamming shut, like the last nail in a coffin.The rejection lands harder than the emperor's slap, and you feel the shame hit you like a physical thing because why would he? Of course he doesn't want you like that, of course he wouldn't abandon his duty. And you are his duty, his burden, a Sacred he's wrong to protect and nothing more.

The shame is crushing. Suffocating. Heat floods your face, your throat, your chest. You can feel it burning through you like fever, like fire, like the aftermath of a vision but worse. So much worse because this pain is your own fault- your own stupid, foolish, desperate mistake.

You want to disappear. To sink into the bed and never emerge. To pull the quilt over your head and suffocate yourself with it. To take back the last five minutes and pretend this conversation never happened. To go back to before, when you could at least pretend that his kindness meant something. That you meant something to him beyond duty.

"I'm sorry," you say quickly. "I shouldn't have, I didn't mean-

"It would be an abuse of my power." Junhui still doesn't turn around. His voice is carefully controlled, but you can hear something underneath it. Something that sounds almost like anguish, maybe. "I'm your guard. You're vulnerable and desperate and I will not take advantage of that."

The words should make you feel better, should reassure you that he's honorable, that he's thinking of your wellbeing, that he's protecting you even from yourself. But all you feel is shame - the kind that is all-consuming and that makes you want to crawl out of your own skin. The kind that makes you want to claw at your face until the heat and the humiliation and the desperate, aching want are all gone.

"No, sorry," you rasp. "It's an abuse of my power. I'm the one asking. I'm the one - I'm sorry, Jun. That was awful of me."

Your voice breaks on the words. Cracks down the middle like everything else inside you.

"I'm so sorry. Forget I said anything. Please."

The embarrassment is crushing. Suffocating. You've never felt so small. So foolish. So utterly, completely exposed. You want to disappear and to take back everything you just said and pretend this conversation never happened.

Silence stretches so long that you can hear your own ragged breathing and can feel the tears leaking between your fingers as you press your hands to your face, trying to hide the same and agony there.

Footsteps draw your attention, but you don't lower your hands. You can't even look at him, can't bear to see the pity or disgust on his face. But then his hands are on your wrists, pulling gently.

"Look at me," he murmurs.

You shake your head. Keep your eyes squeezed shut. The tears are flowing freely now, hot tracks down your cheeks, and you've never felt more humiliated in your entire life.

"Please," Junhui whispers. "Look at me."

Something in his voice makes you obey. You open your eyes and find him kneeling beside your bed. His face is level with yours, close enough that you can see the gold flecks in his dark eyes. Close enough that you can see the way his own hands are trembling slightly where they hold your wrists.

"Do you have feelings for me?" The question comes out low and soft, his dark eyes searching yours with an urgency that makes your heart skip. "Please be honest."

Your heart hammers against your ribs. This is it. The moment where you could lie. Could protect yourself. Could pretend that this was only ever about the visions, about freedom, about anything other than what it really is.

"Of course I do," you whisper, heart hammering. "You're the only one who sees me as a person. Who treats me like I'm not a tool. I know I'm just your assignment and that you don't care for me that way, but you always-"

Junhui's mouth crashes against yours and the world stops. One hand cups the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair while the other frames your jaw gently, careful not to touch the bruise where the emperor struck you.

You gasp against his lips and he takes advantage, deepening the kiss, tasting you like he's been starving for it. Like he's been holding himself back for so long and finally, finally, he can let go.

You've never been kissed before, never been touched like this. It turns you to molten, your hands finding his shoulders to brush up toward his neck, your fingers threading though his hair as you kiss him back with everything you have. He tastes like tea and something spicey, something that makes heat pool low in your belly and makes you want more.

When he finally pulls back, you're both breathing hard. His forehead rests against yours, his eyes closed, his breath coming in ragged gasps that match your own.

"I've wanted to do that," he murmurs against your lips. "For so long."

He doesn't pull away. He stays close enough that you can feel the warmth of his breath on your face, can count each individual eyelash, can see the way his pupils have blown wide with want. His hand is still cradling the back of your head, fingers tangled in your hair. The other still frames your jaw with that same careful tenderness, his thumb resting just below the bruise the emperor left.

Your heart is racing. Thundering so hard you're certain he can feel it. Your whole body is trembling, and you can still feel the ghost of his mouth on yours, the pressure and heat of it.

"Then why did you pull away before?" You pant. "Why did you say no?"

"Because I was afraid." He says it so quietly you almost don't hear him. His thumb moves against your jaw, soft and soothing. "I was afraid that if I touched you - that if I gave into the want - that I wouldn't be able to stop and that I would ruin you. That I'd take something from you that you couldn't get back, that I would spoil you and it would be the worst abuse of power I could imagine."

"You wouldn't-"

"I'm a man who wants something he shouldn't have." His eyes burn. "A man who is supposed to protect you, not have you. I could stand feeling for you and resisting - but if you felt the same…"

"I do."

His eyes close briefly, like hearing you say it causes him pain or relief. You cannot tell which. When they open again, there's something raw in them. Something desperate and hopeful and terrified all at once.

And then he kisses you again, softer and slower this time, like he's trying to memorize the taste of you. This kiss is different from the first. Less desperate. More deliberate. He takes his time, exploring your mouth with a patience that makes your whole body flush with heat. His hand slides from your hair down to the nape of your neck, his fingers tracing patterns on your skin that make you shiver.

When he finally pulls back, you're both breathing hard again. But this time, there's no fear in his eyes. No hesitation. Just want, pure and undisguised for once. His thumb traces your lower lip, and the way he's looking at your mouth is like it wants to kiss you again and again and again.

"If we do this," he says quietly, "there's no going back. You'll lose the visions. The emperor will have no use for you, and you'll be-"

"Free," you cut him off. "I will be free."

You catch the hand that's been tracing your lip and press it against your cheek, turning your face into his palm. His skin is warm against yours, rough with calluses. It's real and solid and everything you've ever wanted - everything you've ever dreamed about.

"I want to be free," you say again. "But I also want you. I've dreamed about it for so long - thought it could only ever be a dream. Nothing more."

Something shifts in his expression. His pupils dilate further until there's barely any brown left behind the want, behind the desire. He looks at you now like you're something to devour, not protect, like you're the only thing in the world that matters. A shiver that has nothing to do with the cold runs down your spine as his hand moves from your cheek to your throat, not squeezing but resting there, feeling the way your pulse thunders under his thumb.

"Are you sure?" His voice is rough and strained. "There's no undoing this. You need to be certain."

"I've never been more certain. Please."

Junhui nods, leaning forward to capture your mouth in a soft, sweet kiss. "Okay," he murmurs against your lips. "Okay."

He stands slowly, and for a moment you think he's leaving and that he's changed his mind. But then he shrugs out of his outer robe, letting it pool on the floor. His hands go to the ties of his inner robe, and you watch, entirely transfixed as he undresses. His body is all lean muscle and old scars, beautiful in the candlelight. Beautiful in a way that makes your mouth go dry and your heart race even faster.

Then he's on the bed with you, carefully moving the quilt aside, his hands finding the ties of your robes. He pauses and looks up at you, his eyes serious. "Tell me if you want me to stop. At any point. Promise me."

"I promise."

He nods and undresses you slowly, peeling back layers of silk with careful attention, his fingers brushing your skin gently. When you're finally bare before him, you expect to feel exposed and vulnerable, but he looks at you like you're something otherworldly, like he cannot imagine what he's seeing.

"You're beautiful," he murmurs. His hand traces the curve of your waist, your hip. "So beautiful."

Junhui leans down and kisses you again, slower and deeper this time, his mouth moving against yours with deliberate intent, his tongue tracing the seam of your lips until you open for him. The taste of him floods your senses as he cups the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair, angling your face so he can kiss you deeper.

A soft moan escapes you and he swallows it, his other hand sliding down your side to trace the curve of your waist and your hip, dropping to your thigh. Each touch leaves fire in its wake. Your skin feels too tight, too hot, like you might combust from the inside out.

When he finally breaks the kiss, you're both breathing hard. His pupils are blown wide, his lips swollen and wet. He looks at you like he wants to devour you and it lights you up inside. You push closer to him, hands shaking as your fingers trace his forearms, feeling the veins and muscles beneath his warm skin.

"I want to taste every inch of you," he murmurs against your lips. His voice is rough. Raw. "I want to learn what makes you gasp. What makes you beg. Can I do that?"

You can barely form words. Can only nod, your heart thundering so hard you're certain he can hear it.

"Use your words," he says softly. His thumb traces your lower lip. "I need to hear you say it."

"Yes." Your voice comes out breathless. Desperate. "Yes, please."

The smile that curves his lips is devastating. "Good."

Then his mouth is on your throat, hot and wet and perfect. He kisses the hollow beneath your jaw, the sensitive spot behind your ear that makes you shiver. His teeth graze your earlobe and you gasp, your hands flying up to grip his shoulders. The muscles there are hard beneath your palms, flexing as he moves.

He works his way down, kissing and licking, occasionally biting just hard enough to make you gasp. When he reaches your collarbone, he pauses, his tongue tracing the delicate bone before his teeth close over it gently. The sensation shoots straight between your thighs, and you feel yourself getting wetter.

"Jun-"

"Shh." His breath is hot against your skin. "Let me take care of you."

His mouth moves lower to the swell of your breast, and he kisses the soft skin there, his hand coming up to cup you, his thumb brushing over your nipple. His touch is feather-light but it makes you arch into him, a whine escaping your mouth as you beg for more.

He gives it to you, his mouth closing over a nipple as he sucks gently. You arch into him, the sensation overwhelming as his tongue circles the sensitive peak, flicking over it before his teeth graze it gently. You almost come apart right there, melting.

"That feels- oh Gods-"

"Tell me." His voice is muffled against your breast. "Tell me how it feels."

You can barely think. Can barely form coherent thoughts. "So good. Please don't stop."

He doesn't. He lavishes attention to your chest - sucking, licking, biting - until you're trembling beneath him. You're so wet now you can feel it, the slickness between your thighs and the ache there driving you mad. As if reading your mind, his hand slides down your stomach, fingers tracing patterns on your skin. When he reaches where your thighs are shut tight, he pauses.

"Open for me," he murmurs against your breast.

You do. Spreading your legs, letting him see how wet you are, how much you want him.

"Gods," he growls. "Look at you."

His fingers brush through your folds, his touch light and barely there, but enough to make you gasp. He brings them to his mouth, maintaining eye contact as he licks them clean and the sight is so hypnotic that you find yourself staring, face flushing with heat as he grins.

"Taste like the Heavens," he murmurs. "Need more."

Before you can process what he means, he's moving down your body, kissing his way down your stomach, your hip bones, the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. When his mouth presses to your core, you nearly scream, his tongue licking through you slowly, parting your wet folds. The pleasure is unlike anything you've ever felt, sharp and overwhelming, and your hands fly into his hair, gripping the dark strands, unsure if you're pulling him closer or away.

"Oh," you gasp. "I can't-"

"Yes, you can." His breath is hot against you. "Just feel it."

His tongue circles your clit gently and your hips twitch to meet his mouth, thighs shaking as your eyes squeeze shut. It feels maddeningly good, and when his tongue starts flicking over your clit directly, you feel the way your breath catches, the way you twitch under him. He holds your hips down to keep you skill, humming lightly as he devours.

And Junhui devours, alternating between broad strokes of his tongue and focused attention on that sensitive spot. Sometimes he sucks on it gently, and the sensation makes you cry out. Sometimes he flicks it rapidly with the tip of his tongue, building the pleasure higher and higher until you think you might die from it. And just when you think you can't take anymore, he slides a finger into your heat and you feel yourself clench hard.

"So tight," he groans. "So perfect. You're going to feel so good around my cock."

The crude words make you clench around his finger. Make more wetness flood between your thighs. He notices, and you can feel him smile against you.

"You like that?" His voice is teasing. Knowing. "You like when I talk dirty to you?"

"Yes." The admission comes out breathy. "Yes, please."

"Please what?" He adds a second finger, stretching you, and the burn is delicious. "Tell me what you want. I'll give you everything."

His fingers curl inside you, finding a spot that makes you see stars. He works you patiently, fingers stroking inside of you, pressing against that spot over and over and over while he sucks gently on your clit, driving you higher and higher.

You're trembling. Shaking. Your hands are fisted in his hair, your hips moving against his mouth despite his attempts to hold you still. The pleasure is so intense it's almost frightening. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down into the abyss.

The tension that's been building inside you finally snaps and you fall over the edge, your orgasm crashing over you. Your body convulses, clenching around his fingers, and you cry out his name as pleasure floods through you. It's overwhelming. All-consuming. Wave after wave of sensation that makes your vision go white, makes your whole body shake with the force of it.

Junhui works you through it, his fingers still moving inside you, his mouth still on you, drawing out every last tremor of pleasure until you're boneless and gasping beneath him.

When you finally come back to yourself, he's kissing his way back up your body. His lips are wet with you, and when he kisses you, you can taste yourself on his tongue. It should be embarrassing - should be shameful - but you don't care, licking into his mouth hungrily, pulling him as close as you can.

Junhui's hand slides between your thighs again, and despite the orgasm you just had, your body responds. Arching into his touch. Seeking more. He positions himself between your thighs, the hard length of him pressing against your entrance, and even through the haze of pleasure, you feel a flutter of nervousness. He's big. Bigger than his fingers. And you're not sure-

"Look at me." You do. His eyes are dark and intense, but soft and entirely focused on you. "We'll go slow. If it's too much, if you need me to stop, you tell me, understand?"

You nod. "Yes. I understand."

"Good." He kisses you again, soft and reassuring. "I've got you."

Then he's pushing in slowly - so slowly - the stretch is immediate and intense. More than his fingers, more than you expected and you gasp, hands flying to his shoulders, fingers sliding against his sweaty skin as your nails dig in.

He stops immediately. "Breathe. Just breathe."

You do. Deep breaths that help your body relax, help you adjust to the intrusion. After a moment, the burn eases slightly, and you nod. He pushes in another inch. Then another. The stretch intensifies, bordering on painful, and you whimper.

"I know." His forehead rests against yours. His whole body is trembling with the effort of holding still, of going slow. "I know it hurts. But you're doing so well. Taking me so perfectly."

The praise helps. Makes you want to be good for him, makes you want to take all of him. You breathe through the burn, through the stretch, and slowly your body adjusts. He steals another kiss from you as he sinks to the hilt, distracting you with his tongue and the way he groans into your mouth.

When he breaks the kiss, he's pressed as deep as he can go, the feeling so full and so good you can barely breathe. Junhui is just as affected, panting and shivering as he drops his head to gaze where you're joined, letting out a curse.

"You feel so good," he pants. "Like you were made for me."

You clench around him experimentally, and he groans, his hips jerking involuntarily. It feels good to squeeze down, a sensation you'd never imagined, and you do it again, a small little sound leaving your lips as he groans again.

"Don't," he rasps. "Don't do that or I won't last."

"I want you to feel good too," you whisper. Your hands slide down his back, feeling the hard muscles there, the way they flex and shift as he holds himself still. "I want to make you feel the way you made me feel."

"You do." He kisses you, tongues tangling briefly before he breaks the kiss to press his lips against your jawline. "You have no idea what you do to me. How long I've wanted this. Wanted you."

"Then have me."

Junhui lets out a desperate sound but nods, his hips starting to move slowly. It makes you gasp, the friction intense and the drag of his cock inside you so good. The pain has faded completely now, replaced by pleasure that builds faster than you can keep up with.

You wrap your legs around his waist, taking him deeper, and he groans into your shoulder. The angle changes and suddenly he's hitting something inside you, that same spot that makes the world spin and the pleasure spark right behind your eyelids.

"There," you gasp. "Right there, please."

"I know." His voice is rough. Strained. "I can feel you clenching around me. So tight. So perfect."

He picks up the pace, still careful but full of urgency now, thrusting deeper until you can feel yourself climbing toward another peak. His hand slides between your bodies and finds your clit again, circling it in time with his thrusts. The dual sensation is overwhelming, both too much and not enough and too everything.

The pleasure crests until it breaks and your second orgasm hits you harder than the first, your body clenching and spasming as you cry out his name. It's more intense than before, more overwhelming, like every nerve ending in your body is firing at once.

Seeing you lose it is all it takes for him. He buries himself deep as he can do and you feel the pulse of him inside of you as he comes, his entire body going rigid, every muscle locked tight as he whimpers a broken sound in the shape of your name.

He collapses on top of you, his weight pressing you into the mattress, and for a long moment neither of you moves. You just hold each other, breathing hard, hearts pounding in sync. You can feel him still pulsing inside you, can feel the warmth of his release, and the realization that it's real and not a fantasy anymore makes your eyes sting with unshed tears.

Carefully, he pulls out. You both wince at the sensation but he's gentle, rolling to the side and pulling you against his chest, his arms wrapping around you tightly. You can feel his heart racing, and his lips press against your brow, soft and sweet while his fingers trace patterns on your spine.

"I'm taking you away from here," Junhui says eventually.

You lift your head to look at him. "What?"

"Tonight, if possible. Tomorrow at the latest. Somewhere the emperor can't reach you. Somewhere you can be free."

"Junhui, you can't - your position-"

"I don't care." He cups your face in both hands. "You are sacred to me. Not because of your visions or your gift. Because of who you are. And I'm not willing to share you anymore. Not with the emperor. Not with the court. Not with anyone."

Your breath catches. "You'd give up everything? For me?"

"I already have." He kisses you softly. "The moment I stepped between you and the emperor, I chose you. There's no going back from that. So we go forward. Together."

"Where will we go?"

"East to the river provinces. I have family there who owe me favors. They'll hide us until we can figure out something more permanent." His thumb brushes your cheekbone. "You'll have a life beyond the throne room. Beyond the visions. I promise you that."

Tears spill over. For the first time in your life, you feel safe - not because of prophecy or position, but because someone has chosen you for you. Because Junhui has chosen you over everything else.

"You wanted to be no one," Junhui whispers. "You can be no one to everything else. But to me, you are everything. You are not the Sacred - you're just sacred to me."

You nod, throat tight. "I would like that."

You fall asleep in his arms, and for once, there are no visions waiting in the darkness. No prophecies. No futures written in blood and fire. Just nothing, exactly like you asked for.

[seungkw1]

a mutual affair — lsm

PAIRING: lee seokmin x f!reader GENRE: smut [18+ MDNI] WC: 5,906 WARNINGS: reader and seokmin both run (faceless) porn accounts on twitter, sexting, dirty talk, masturbation, SIZE KINK!, mutual masturbation, oral, nose meal!! (it's dk so duh), multiple orgasms, protected sex, but also unprotected sex, missionary, cowgirl, creampie, cumplay/cum eating, praise kink A/N: requested by world's #1 cuties g @miniseokminnies for my Cosmos event! i went a lil crazy w this one hope u don't mind!!! ty @haologram for beta-ing <3

SYNOPSIS: As an anonymous porn account on Twitter, you're often engaging flirtaciously with other accounts — it's good for business, after all — but you never let yourself catch real feelings. Until now, when you've started sexting with the owner of your personal favorite account, an extremely hot (and hung) guy who goes by Nico. You know Nico is local, and you're really into each other, so you're genuinely considering doing your first collab with him. But then you have a realization: you're pretty fucking sure you know him in real life already.

ding

You pick up your phone, seeing a DM notification from Twitter. As you open the app you smile — it's exactly who you hoped would be messaging you.

@/xcalibur_: wowwww you look amazing in the new vid 😍

It's Nico — one of your mutuals. Due to the nature of the content you put out, and the fact that you choose to remain anonymous online — posting everything under a pseudonym, Berrie — you are constantly having to balance casually flirting with other adult content creators to build your network while also not getting too close to anybody. It's good business, and also for your own safety. But you and Nico have followed each other for a few months now, and he seems like a genuinely sweet guy. It also doesn't help that he is outrageously hot, and has the prettiest cock you've ever seen. You should probably be ashamed by how many times you've cum to his videos, but shame surrounding sex is something you left behind a long time ago.

@/strawberriebaby: thanks love😘 your new pics are sooo hot btw @/xcalibur_: thank you gorgeous ;) i didn't think the bulge pics would be so popular tbh but people seem to love it @/strawberriebaby: it's the gray sweatpants babe, that'll drive any girl crazy in a heartbeat @/xcalibur_: that's good to know, i'll keep that in mind 😏 hey btw, if you ever want any free personalized content from me lmk. i've cum to your videos so many times, so i definitely owe you haha

That last sentence makes your stomach do an excited flip. Sure, you post porn on Twitter. Of course other people are going to be jerking it to your videos. But something about hearing it from him specifically is really fucking hot.

@/strawberriebaby: that's crazy bc i cum to YOUR videos all the time too 🥰 @/xcalibur_: wow, what an honor to hear that from my favorite account holy shit 😍 @/strawberriebaby: lol i'll bet you say that to everyone @/xcalibur_: nope, not at all. just you baby ❤️ @/strawberriebaby: alright then, prove it. send me a video of you jerking off right now 😊 @/xcalibur_: say less 🫡

A proud grin creeps across your face. Your thighs instinctively squeeze together, excitement flooding your senses at the prospect of receiving a personal video from Nico. Figuring you'd give him a few minutes, you decide to get up and start some laundry in the meantime. By the time you've sorted your clothes and started the first load in the washer, you already have a new DM in your notifications.

Excitedly you make your way to your bedroom, figuring you might as well enjoy yourself as you watch. Plopping onto your bed, you open Twitter and click on your chat with Nico. Sure enough, you are greeted with a seven minute-long video attachment, with a blurry image of what appears to be his bulge in the thumbnail, and an accompanying message that simply says for my favorite girl❤️.

You click play, immediately being greeted with soft moans from behind the camera as you watch him stroke himself through his sweatpants, the thick bulge heavy beneath his grasp. He's already growing hard, the soft fabric doing little to hide the shape of his cock as he touches himself, the delicate sighs escaping his lips sounding whiny already. You feel a rush of heat in your core as you watch him; he may be fully clothed still, but that doesn't stop your mouth from watering at the salacious sight.

Before long he has a full-blown erection; reaching into his pants, he takes his length in his hand, letting out a hiss at the sensation. Slipping the waistband of his sweats down he frees it from the confines of his underwear, revealing the thick, veiny shaft you've committed to memory at this point. He begins to jerk himself off, slow, measured strokes as he grips his cock tightly in his fist.

"F-fuck," you hear him groan from behind the camera. "I'm so fucking horny right now."

Grinning, you slip out of your pants with one hand, the other holding your phone as your eyes remain fixed on the pretty cock on its screen. You recline into your pillows, lightly dragging your fingertips over your pussy, discovering yourself to be much wetter than you expected. You collect your pooled arousal and spread it over your clit, sighing softly as your fingers graze the sensitive bud.

"Feels so good," he whines. "Wish it was your mouth, baby. Fuck…"

He begins to stroke himself faster now, his hand pumping up and down his length with urgent need. You slip your fingers into your pussy, fucking yourself as you watch; you start slow, but the pitiful sounds coming out of him soon have your hand flying as fast as his is. You feel like you could cum already, but you want to wait until he does. Your stomach tightens as you picture the savory sight of that in your head; checking the timestamp on the video, you're about halfway through. Just a few more minutes to go. The time seems to pass at a painfully slow pace, forcing you to pause more than once, taking the time to catch your breath as you watch Nico getting himself off with uninhibited pleasure. Your clit throbs, aching for the release of your orgasm. Finally, his whimpers begin to turn utterly pathetic — sharp cries and loud moans escaping him — and you can tell he's about to cum. Thank god, you think to yourself. You don't know how much longer you can wait.

You watch the shiny dribble of precum drip down the head of his cock, which is turning an angry shade of red as his climax begins to overtake him.

"Fuck, I'm gonna cum," he cries. He vigorously pumps his length, cock throbbing in his grasp, until finally — he releases. With a vulgar groan white ropes of cum spurt from his tip, shooting into the air before falling onto his hand and stomach. The sight is enough to send you over the edge — your palm presses into your clit as your fingers fuck into your cunt, and you cum too. Your head falls back, eyes tearing up at the bursts of pleasure rolling through your body, but you don't take them off the screen for a second. You ride out your high, chest heaving with deep breaths as you stare at the delicious mess of cum all over Nico.

As you drift back down to earth, you watch as he lets go of his spent cock; it twitches against his stomach as he shows off his cum-coated hand, the sticky white substance dripping all over his fingers and the silver ring on his pinky. You've seen his hands plenty of times by now, and you've always thought they were exceptionally pretty. However, for some reason in this moment they seem… familiar. His long thick fingers, his pretty nails, and also the ring, too. You swear you've seen it somewhere before. You figure it's just from watching so many of his videos, but something in the back of your mind is telling you otherwise. But your mind is spinning, and it's hard to think straight right now anyway, so you push that thought aside.

You take a picture of your soaked cunt and DM it back to him.

@/strawberriebaby: that was so fucking hot, thank youuu 😘

Your phone dings as he replies immediately.

@/xcalibur_: fuck, need that pussy so bad

Maybe it's just the high from your orgasm, but his message practically has you swooning. The typing bubble pops up again right away. You watch him type for a minute, then stop. It pops up again a few moments later. You wait patiently to see what he has to say, and finally you receive another message.

@/xcalibur_: i'm not sure if you're open to collabs, so no pressure at all, but if you're ever interested lmk ;) more than willing to travel for u lol

Your heart nearly skips a beat. You've had other creators ask to collab before, but you've politely turned them all down. It's something you've definitely considered, but you don't want to do it with just anybody. It would have to be with the right person — and honestly, Nico would be perfect for the job.

@/strawberriebaby: i've never done one before, but i've been considering it tbh👀 i'm kinda nervous about it though @/xcalibur_: that's totally fair, it's a big ask! i've also never done one, mostly for privacy reasons. might end my career if anybody finds out i do this lol @/strawberriebaby: i'm a freelance artist, so that matters less for me haha. i'm just mostly nervous because i've never done a face reveal before @/xcalibur_: you wouldn't have to do one if you don't want! @/strawberriebaby: oh yeah, i mean more like… what if i met somebody irl and they weren't into me :/ @/xcalibur_: i can guarantee that won't happen if we meet, i promise :) @/strawberriebaby: i'm just kind of an awkward person 😭 @/xcalibur_: that doesn't matter to me. you're hot and i'm very into you 🙂‍↕️ @/strawberriebaby: you haven't even seen my face though!! @/xcalibur_: but i know you're fucking beautiful. and i'm not just saying that!

This conversation is a lot flirtier than you usually have with people on Twitter, even your mutuals that you know fairly well. Normally if a man was talking to you like this, you would just assume it's business as usual, just another stranger on the internet trying to get into your pants. But Nico is… different. Maybe you're delusional — maybe he talks like this to everyone he wants to fuck and you're not special. But your instinct tells you he's being genuine.

@/strawberriebaby: you're crazy, but fortunately i'm into that lol @/xcalibur_: that's great news for me😌 but fr, if you're ever in the bay area hit me up. i'll clear my fucking schedule @/strawberriebaby: wait, you're in the bay area?? @/xcalibur_: born and raised! @/strawberriebaby: no fucking way. i'm also in the bay area! @/xcalibur_: omg @/xcalibur_: not to jump the gun but this might be destiny idk @/strawberriebaby: well, one way to find out @/xcalibur_: does this mean you want to collab :) @/strawberriebaby: let me sleep on it, but good chance the answer might be yes @/xcalibur_: YAYYYYY @/xcalibur_: i mean uh, yeah that's cool. totally a good business decision. @/strawberriebaby: oh, totally, for sure. well i have to go now, i'm meeting a friend for dinner. pleasure doing business with you ;) @/xcalibur_: you too babe 😘 enjoy your dinner!

Between your orgasm and your conversation with Nico, you're feeling very hot and bothered — so you decide to take a quick shower. You feel much better afterward; you get ready and head out to meet your friend, and you end up having a really nice night. But you'd be lying if you said you didn't spend the whole rest of the evening with thoughts of your potential collab lingering in the back of your mind.

On Saturday, you have a gig as a wedding photographer — one of the many hats you wear. The wedding isn't until the afternoon, but you're supposed to be there by 11am to get set up and run through the schedule with the wedding planner. You're running slightly behind, but you're still on time — as long as you leave by 10:30, you'll be fine.

At 10:25am you are on your way out of your apartment. As you lock the door behind you, you spot a figure out of the corner of your eye approaching from down the hallway. Turning your head, you see that it's your neighbor, Seokmin.

"Hey y/n!" he tells you cheerfully. "Haven't seen you in a minute!"

Seokmin lives down the hall from you, so you run into him fairly frequently in passing. You usually don't go out of your way to talk to other people in your building outside of polite small talk, and you don't know Seokmin all that well truthfully. You pretty much only know that he's a lawyer, and apparently a pretty good one at that — but with his gregarious nature and bright smile, he's easily one of the nicest people you've ever met.

"Hey Seokmin," you smile back, giving him a small wave. "Yeah, I've been working odd jobs lately, so my schedule is kind of all over the place."

Seokmin reaches his front door. Still facing you, he rummages around in his bag, presumably for his keys.

"Nice, where are you off to today?"

"Photography gig," you answer. "I'm working a wedding."

"Oh, fun!" he beams at you, his arm still digging around the bottom of his bag. Finally, his hand closes around the small cluster of metal; he pulls the keys out, turning to the door to raising his hand to the lock. As he does so, you notice a silver ring around his pinky, and suddenly you realize where you've seen this exact same hand before.

Your eyes widen, staring at Seokmin's hand, looking for anything to tell you you're wrong, that can't be the same hand… You blink, hoping you're just imagining things — but deep down you know your eyes do not deceive you.

Seokmin peers back at you, about to say something else, but you look like you've seen a ghost.

"Are you okay?" he asks, slightly concerned.

"I just— I forgot something," you say in a panic, plastering a faux smile on your face. You spin on your heel and rush back into your apartment before he can ask any more questions. "Catch you later!"

"Bye!" Seokmin shouts after you. He turns and enters his apartment, not thinking anything of it.

You, however, are now spiraling. You pace around your apartment as you take your phone out and open Twitter, scrolling to your DMs with Nico and playing back the video he sent you the other night. You fast forward to the end, stopping when you see his cum-coated hand in frame. Without a doubt, it looks just like Seokmin's. You might've been able to convince yourself that they just look similar, that there's no chance in hell they belong to the same person — but the presence of the identical ring makes it undeniable.

"What the fuck," you mutter under your breath, trying to process this information. Sure, Seokmin is objectively an attractive man — but you've never thought of him like that before. But the more you think about it, the way Nico talks and his amicable, sweet nature match Seokmin's demeanor perfectly. And he does have the exact same build you've seen fully nude from the shoulders down dozens of times on your phone screen.

But you don't have time to stand here and freak out about this right now. You have to get to work. You peek out your peephole, just to make sure he's not still out there for any reason, but the hallway is vacant. You lock the door behind you and make your exit as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, the wedding setup and the ceremony itself keep you busy enough to keep your mind off the fact that Nico is your literal neighbor. After the reception ends, you head home, but decide to stop at the CVS on your way back. You grab the couple items you need from your list and head to check out, but on your way to the register you pass the condom section. You stop for a second; you do have a box at home already, but Nico/Seokmin's video drifts to the front of your mind, reminding you just how fucking huge his cock is.

Stop it, you think to yourself. You didn't even say you'd collab with him yet. Do you even want to do that now that you know he's been living across the hall from you this whole time?? But you know in your heart that the answer is a resounding yes.

With a sigh, you grab a box of XL condoms off the shelf and toss it in your basket.

You spend the whole evening trying not to think about Seokmin, to no avail. You even put on Howl's Moving Castle, hoping that your favorite movie will be a good distraction, but even that isn't enough to get your mind of that fucking video he sent you. You can't even blame him, because you're the one who asked him to send it in the first place.

Idiot, you chastise yourself. He did say he was also in the Bay Area, but so are seven million other people; never in your wildest dreams would you have expected him to live in your exact building — because what are the fucking odds of that? But regardless, it's true, and now you have to figure out what the hell you are going to do about it. You pretty much have two options: tell him you know, or pretend like you don't. Neither one is very good — the latter would probably be the smarter option, but it doesn't change the fact that you still want to hit like so bad.

Your phone buzzes. Looking down, you see a DM from Nico pop up in your notifications.

"Speak of the devil…" you mumble to yourself. You pick up the phone and open it to his message.

@/xcalibur_: heyyyy cutie ❤️ how was your day?

You stare at the screen for a minute, deliberating, but eventually you decide to respond.

@/strawberriebaby: honestly i had such a weird fucking day 😭 @/xcalibur_: oh no! what happened? (if you don't mind me asking) @/strawberriebaby: nothing bad, just… weird. can i ask you something? @/xcalibur_: of course baby @/strawberriebaby: what would you do if i said i think we might know each other irl?

Your heart races as you hit send. You have no idea how he's going to respond, but you decide fuck it. Worst case scenario it'll make things so awkward you will have to move, but that's a problem for later. You watch the typing bubble anxiously as you await his reply.

@/xcalibur_: wait, seriously? how so? @/strawberriebaby: i recognized your ring in the video. @/xcalibur_: i'm sure a lot of guys have a ring like mine tho, maybe it just looks similar to someone you know? @/strawberriebaby: that's what i was thinking. but then i saw you in the hallway this morning when i was on my way to work

The typing bubble does not pop up again. A few minutes pass, and you start to wonder if you've royally fucked up — but then you hear a knock at your front door.

You get up and walk over to the peephole, peering out to see none other than Seokmin standing there, wearing grey sweatpants and a tight black t-shirt that puts his thick biceps on full display. You open the door, coming face to face with him; you stare at each other for a moment, neither of you knowing what to say.

"You…" he finally starts, but you just grab him by the wrist and pull him inside. Door shutting behind him, you are now alone together, standing far to close to one another in the entryway of your home.

"It is you," he says in a hushed tone, staring at you with sparkling brown eyes. "You're Berrie." You nod, locking eyes with him, making your stomach do a nervous flip.

"And you're Nico," you reply softly. He nods back, a bewildered look coloring his face.

"This is crazy," he laughs incredulously. "I've always thought you were so pretty, but I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable or anything."

"Well, turns out we've already seen each other naked," you point out. He lets out a laugh.

"Yeah, I suppose so…"

You stare at each other for a moment, the tension in the room turning palpable.

"Well, my offer still stands, you know," he says, suddenly turning a bit flushed. "About the collab. If you want."

"Do you mean… right now?" you ask, taking a step forward.

"Yeah," he whispers, also stepping forward to bridge the gap between the two of you. "I do." Slowly he raises his right hand, cradling your cheek in his palm as he holds your face, the metal of his ring cool against your cheek. You let out a soft gasp; your hands drift to his torso, pressing them against his muscular abs, sliding them up across his chest before you take his shirt in your fists, yanking him toward you closer still.

"Kiss me," you tell him, and without a moment of hesitation his lips are crashing into yours.

His hand drifts from your cheek to the back of your neck, pulling your face into his so he can kiss you with unrestrained vigor. His other hand drifts to your waist, rubbing your hip slowly as he tastes you, his lips tugging on yours in sheer desperation. You kiss him back, grabbing him by his sides as you press your body into him.

"Fuck," he grumbles, barely taking his lips off you as he grabs your ass, squeezing and kneading the soft flesh."You're so perfect."

The stiffening in his pants is undeniable, pressing against your stomach as he holds you close. You want nothing more than to rip your clothes off and throw yourself at him, but you know that teasing him for a bit first would be enticing for the both of you — and you want to savor this.

You break the kiss, staring up at him sweetly, before you take his hand in yours and start pulling him toward your bedroom.

"C'mon," you say, looking back at him as you tug him along. He grins, gazing at you excitedly at he eagerly follows. Entering your room, he lets out a chuckle.

"Wow, so this is where the magic happens, huh?" he asks, gesturing at your ring light and tripod set up at the foot of your bed.

"Sure is," you smile. "I was planning on filming tonight, let me move this real quick—"

"Wait," Seokmin says, grabbing hold of your wrist. You turn to face him again, his soft brown eyes staring at you lustfully. "You should go ahead and film."

"It's okay, I can do it tomorrow—" you start, but he grabs you by the chin, tilting your face up to his so he can kiss you again.

"I want to watch," he mutters into your lips. A smile spreads across your face.

"Okay," you beam at him.

Grabbing your phone, you set it up on the tripod, the video camera open and ready. You strip your clothes off as you make your way over to your bed, plopping into the center and making yourself comfortable. You spread your legs, revealing your bare pussy, already glimmering with arousal in the dim lighting.

"Ready?" Seokmin asks, his finger hovering above the record button.

"More than," you grin.

He taps the button, and the video begins.

Slowly you slide your hand down your body, dipping your fingers into your cunt, pulling them out again to show off the stick mess of juices dripping out of you. Seokmin licks his lips, palming himself through his sweatpants as he quickly starts to grow hard. You touch yourself lazily, staring up at him as you start to get yourself off; you were planning on taking your sweet time, but having him watch you like this is making you unbearably horny. Soft moans escape your lips as you begin to play with your clit, causing him to grip his bulge in his fist tightly as he takes a deep breath. Your other hand grasps at your breast, squeezing it as your fingers start to move faster. The sight is too much for Seokmin. Mouth watering, he pulls his pants down and frees his cock, stroking it slowly in his large hand. You've seen it dozens of times, so you knew exactly what to expect — and yet seeing the sheer size of his cock with your own two eyes has you clenching around nothing. You swear you've never craved anything more in your life.

Your fingers begin to work faster, flicking back and forth over your clit, hips rocking slowly as a burning heat begins to fill your gut. Watching Seokmin masturbate as he watches you masturbate has to be the hottest thing you've ever experienced. His eyes don't leave you for a second, his gaze flickering from your pussy to your breasts to your pretty face, savoring the sight of every inch of you. Soon, he's stroking himself with a sense of urgency, his hand working his cock faster and faster, egged on by your incessant whimpering as you approach your high. Your body writhes against the mattress as an explosive orgasm suddenly overtakes you — your legs tremble, your head falls back into the pillows as you release, crying out with pleasure as the shockwaves of your climax pulse through you.

Your mind spins as you come down, your chest rising and falling with deep breaths as you try to recover. Your eyes flutter open again, seeing Seokmin still standing there, staring at you like he wants to devour you. His hand has stilled, gripping his thick hard cock tightly, his tip glistening with his leaking juices.

"Turn that off and come fuck me already," you tell him, grinning eagerly. He stops the video and walks over to your bed, climbing over you and pressing a long kiss against your lips. You reach for his cock, but he's already scooting back down, positioning himself between your legs.

"I will," he replies, suddenly grabbing you by the thighs and folding you in half, making you gasp. "But first…"

You cry out as he drags his tongue over your cunt, groaning as he laps up the pool of juices.

"Fuck, even better than I imagined."

He slips his tongue into your hole, fucking it in and out as his nose bumps against your swollen clit, sending a jolt of electricity up your spine.

"Oh my god—" you moan, brushing your fingers through his dark hair and grasping onto it. You hold his head in place, but he had no plans of pulling away anyway. He eats you out slowly, savoring every drop of you, his tongue running through your folds and over your clit until you feel the pressure of a second orgasm building inside you. Your hips begin to rock against his face, rubbing your clit over his nose, until you are cumming again. His hands grip your thighs as he doesn't stop, licking your pussy as you ride out your high.

"Fuck," you gasp for air as you pry his head off of you. He grins at you sheepishly, his entire chin dripping.

"Sorry, got a bit carried away," he admits.

"No, don't apologize," you smile at him. "That was fucking amazing."

He dives in one more time to press a soft kiss into your spent clit. Crawling back up to you, you pull him in for a kiss, slipping your tongue into his mouth to taste yourself on him.

"Now will you fuck me?" you tease as your lips part.

"Of course, baby," he says with one more kiss. "I didn't bring any protection though, I kinda ran out the door without thinking…"

"It's okay, I have some," you tell him. Reaching into your drawer you pull out the unopened box of XL condoms you're grateful you bought on a whim. As you open the package, he gives you a quizzical look.

"Do you always keep these on hand?" he asks teasingly.

"Nope," you reply. "Bought them today."

"Oh," he says softly, a satisfied smirk spreading across his face. "So you bought these specifically for me, then."

"Yes," you answer matter-of-factly, making his cheeks turn flushed.

"I guess we're kinda obsessed with each other then, huh?" he asks, grinning widely.

"Seems that way," you beam back at him.

You pull one of the small packets out, tossing the box aside and ripping it open. You pull the condom out and reach for Seokmin's cock. You give it a few pumps, making him groan.

"God, it's so fucking hot to have you actually touching me."

"Good," you grin. You take the condom and stretch it over his tip, rolling it down his length. You grab his cock and guide it to your entrance, rubbing his head over your folds. He moves his hips, pressing it in gently, but you're so soaked that it slips in with ease. You gasp, staring at his cock as it disappears into your cunt, filling you up like never before.

"Oh my god you're huge," you say mouth ajar. You gaze back up, meeting his eyes as he stares at you hungrily. Slowly he begins to fuck you, pulling his cock out and pushing it all the way back in.

"You feel incredible," he mutters as he leans his head in, kissing the side of your neck delicately. You let out a soft, involuntary whine, making Seokmin's head spin more than it already is.

"Fuck, you're so hot," he groans. "Keep making those noises baby, I like it."

"Feels so good," you whimper as he fucks into you harder.

"You're taking me so well," he coos, his hand drifting to your nipple and tugging on it lightly. "Such a good girl."

"Harder," you plead. He smirks, then starts fucking you faster, giving you exactly what you asked for.

"Oh my god, I wanna cum," he moans, leaning in to kiss you, tugging on your bottom lip. He slows to a stop, breathing heavily above you. "Will you please ride me?" he asks, staring deep into your eyes. You nod eagerly, making him grin excitedly. He gently pulls out of you, rolling onto his back and bringing you with him. You straddle him, rubbing your cunt over his cock. You pause for a second, giving him a curious look.

"What is it, love?" he asks softly.

"Let me take it off," you say, dragging your fingertip over his wrapped length. "I want you to cum in me."

His eyes widen. "You're gonna be the death of me," he says with a laugh.

"Is that a yes?" you ask, tugging lightly at the tip of the condom.

"Yeah," he nods. "Absolutely."

You giggle excitedly as you remove the barrier, discarding it and quickly positioning yourself over his cock. It slides in with ease as you sit on it, making you groan as you take his full length inside you.

"Holy fucking shit your pussy feels so good," he moans, his jaw dropping. "Oh my god…"

You begin to ride him, slowly gliding yourself up and down his length, but before long you're fully bouncing up and down on him, crying out from pleasure as his cock reaches deep inside you.

"F-fuck," you whine, pressing your hands against his chest to support yourself as you ride his perfect cock.

"Don't stop," he begs. "I'm so close."

Obediently you keep up your pace, tears welling in your eyes as you stare down at Seokmin. His head drops against the pillow, his eyes rolling back as you feel his cock start to pulse inside you.

"I'm cumming, baby," he groans. He cries out as he releases, and you feel his hot ropes of cum shooting against your walls as a string of delectable moans drifts from his lips. He grabs your hips, squeezing them tight in his grasp as he holds you in place, fucking his cock up into you with careless abandon. His cock twitches as he gives you all of his cum; eventually his hips begin to slow, coming to a stop, his hands still holding a strong grip on your sides.

"Wow," he sighs as he comes back to earth. He smiles, letting out a giggle as he opens his eyes to look at you again. "You're fucking perfect. Let me see," he says, gesturing to your filled pussy. You lift yourself off his length, letting the cum drip out of you, coating his cock and stomach with the sticky mess. Collecting the remainder of his cum from your cunt on your fingers, you lift your hand to your mouth, licking them clean.

"Goddamn," he mumbles as he watches you. You unstraddle him and lean over, licking up the cum from his abdomen as well. He watches you through heavy eyelids, petting your hair as you clean him up.

"C'mere," he says when you finish, pulling you up into his embrace. You snuggle in next to him as he wraps his broad arms around you, holding you tight as he kisses your forehead. You rest there for a few silent moments, breathing together as he gently rubs your back.

"I suppose we could've filmed that," you say after a few minutes, lifting your head out of the crook of his neck to look at him. "But I didn't even think of that. I was too distracted by your huge fucking cock."

Seokmin laughs. "That's okay," he replies sweetly. "Besides, I wanted you all to myself. But we can do this again, if you want."

"Absolutely," you nod.

"Good," he says as he smiles brightly. He pulls you into a tight hug, kissing you again, kissing you over and over for as long as you'll let him — which is very long time, but neither of you mind it one bit.

[TWO WEEKS LATER]

You wake up to thousands of notifications, all from Twitter.

You think you're seeing things at first, but as you scroll you confirm that, indeed, you have more notifications right now than you've ever seen in your life. Smiling, you go to your text messages and open your chat with Seokmin, who has already texted you this morning.

Seokmin: wow, i guess people liked the video :)

You open Twitter and go to your profile, looking at the video you have pinned. The caption reads: We finally collabed @/xcalibur_ 💕 Full video on OF. The clip is a preview of the nearly 30-minute-long sex tape you uploaded to your OnlyFans account — your first official collab with Nico.

Since the first time you fucked, it actually took the both of you about six more times before one of you remembered to turn a camera on. You've been too busy being utterly and completely obsessed with each other, fucking on seemingly every possible surface in both of your apartments. But finally, you decided to film it for real, and it appears Twitter is having a fucking field day with it. Overnight alone, the tweet gained over 5,000 retweets and 12,000 likes. You decide to scroll through the replies to see what people are saying.

holy shit this was so hottttt The collab of a LIFETIME!!! omg my two favorites in one video?? i'm in heaven 😍 bro i just nutted in 1 minute wtf pls make more videos together 🙏 y'alls chemistry is FIRE

Smiling, you return to your texts and reply to Seokmin.

You: i guess so ;) i can't believe we went viral lol Seokmin: i can. that video was so hot ☺️ You: you're so right Seokmin: what are you doing tonight? You: you, hopefully Seokmin: oh for sure!! but, i was actually hoping to take you out to dinner. it's about time i took you on a proper date You: wait, are you're saying you want to date me? 🥺 Seokmin: absolutely i do. if you want, of course You: i'd love nothing more ❤️ Seokmin: YAY :)))

taglist: @kyeomiis @hannieween @smiileflower @hanniebub

@luvseungcheol @escoupsue @shininghoshstar @coupsv 

@coupsarchive @seonyiyeon

[sailorsoons]

Teeth (k.sy)

PAIRING: F.Reader x ot13 PACK MEMBER FOCUS: Soonyoung PACK MEETING: Soonyoung is an irritable mess and no one can figure it out until he wanders in your room in the middle of the night. REQUESTED BY: ANON REQUEST: soonyoung got his rut earlier than expected and everyone has been wondering why hes so snappy these days, and it was answered when soonyoung goes to the omega’s room and yeah u know it lol GENRE: Fluff, smut, mild angst AU: Omegaverse WC: 9,867 RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It may contain explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. PACK WARNINGS: Some mild angst and fighting among members, Soonyoung is picking fights with everyone that are petty and stupid, lots of frustration, a single moment between Soonyoung and Mingyu where Soonyoung almost turns things physical but reader diffuses, some awkwardness because reader is still relatively new to the pack, lots of hormones and body chemistry, Soonyoung having some anxiety about spending a rut with reader, explicit language, explicit sexual content including unprotected sex, mild biting, some scenting, teasing, vaginal fingering, multiple orgasms, very very light dirty talk, Soonyoung being possessive, and a moment of Soonyoung being territorial to another member at the end briefly. SMUT NOTICE: This chapter is centered around smut and shout be skipped if you don't like reading smut - it makes little sense to read without. A/N: This does not lean into rut dynamics a ton nor does it lean toooo heavily into omegaverse smut dynamics because I wanted to lean into the idea that this is the first time since reader has joined the pack that she's helping with someone's rut and thus the dynamic is entirely different and slower/more personal than it typically would be among seasoned rut partners. A/N 2: As usual this is not beta read this because I'm impatient and just wanna post these as I finish writing them. Also Hali stick to under 5k challenge failed again.

HOUSE RULES M. LIST | MAIN M. LIST | ASK

SOONYOUNG IS AN EASY ALPHA TO READ. As someone who wears his heart on his sleeve and his emotions on his face, you rarely have a problem reading him now that you know him well enough. Plus, whatever isn't on his face or in his tone is usually coming directly from the source himself, never the one to shy away from communicating exactly what he thinks of something.

So it's unusual when you realize on a Friday afternoon that something is wrong with Soonyoung but you don't quite know what that something is.

The sun is slanting through the western windows of the house, turning the floors honey-warm and catching the dust motes floating lazily through the air. You're curled into the corner of the sectional - a spot that has become yours over the last few weeks - with a book in your lap. It's some novel that Wonwoo recommended and that you're half paying attention to because Mingyu keeps singing off-key in the kitchen where he's baking and because there's base thrumming from Jihoon's studio basement, vibrating up through the couch into your spine.

It's the kind of afternoon that's calm but doesn't exactly leave space for reading, especially when Chan flops down on the couch next to you, immediately pushing into your side to nuzzle close and lay his head in your lap.

"Hi," he sighs dreamily, tilting his head back to look up at you. "This okay?"

You grin, running your fingers through his hair. "Of course it is."

He nearly purrs under your touch, melting into your lap as he settles, his dark hair soft against your fingers as he gets comfortable with one arm draped over his stomach and the other hanging off the edge of the couch. He smells like the laundry detergent the pack uses, warm and clean and the distinct lavender and sea salt smell that is so him.

Putting the book down, you continue to stroke his hair, feeling him relax into your lap, heavy and solid. You smile. You like this - you're glad that you finally have figured this out, the intimacy that's both physical and mental, both casual and sexual. Now that you've finally settled and figured them out, this kind of contact is easy. Welcome. Craved.

The afternoon light catches the side of Chan's face and you notice the faint freckles across his nose, the way his face is soft, eyes closed and content as he drifts. It's moments like this that make you understand why the pack works and why fourteen people in one house don't feel chaotic and feel like this instead.

Soonyoung's voice is what cuts through the silence, reminding you that the pack has its bad days too. You turn to look over the back of the couch the way his voice is coming, cutting through the ambient noise like a knife. Chan shifts too, the beta making an unhappy noise as he cracks an eye open.

"I said I would handle it, Seokmin," Soonyoung snaps somewhere. You straighten, the alpha's voice rigid and more severe than you're used to hearing. "So stop."

"I'm just trying to help." Seokmin's calmer voice barely reaches you, careful and placating. You can hear his confusion even without seeing his face. "If you'd just listen-"

"I don't need to listen."

Footsteps keep your attention pinned to the entryway from the hall. Soonyoung rounds the corner into the living room and the sight of him makes something in your chest clench. His jaw is tight, muscle twitching beneath the skin, and his shoulders are drawn up and rigid. There's something wild in his eyes that make your instincts prickle, a warning bell going off in the back of your head that's telling you there's an alpha in distress.

Seokmin trails behind him with his hands raised in a gesture of peace, his expression caught somewhere between apologetic and frustrated. He's still in his work clothes, dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and tie loosened around his neck, but the tension in his neck has nothing to do with Soonyoung.

Your book is long forgotten. Chan's head is turned in your lap, watching as Soonyoung storms into the room, Seokmin behind him. Seokmin looks at you before his eyes dart meaningfully between you and Chan, a silent request. You understand immediately and pat Chan gently. The beta stirs immediately, unfolding from your lap with a quick kiss to your forehead before he heads toward Seokmin.

"Help me with something in the kitchen?" Chan asks Seokmin, reaching for him.

"Sure," Seokmin sighs, moving toward the hallway. He shoots you one last look, mouthing thank you as he follows Chan out of the room, leaving you alone on the couch.

The moment they're gone, Soonyoung is moving toward you, his agitation evaporating. He falls onto the couch, settling against you instantly, head finding the curve where your shoulder meets your neck, his arms wrapping around you as he breathes you in.

"Hi," he says quietly, voice muffled as he presses in closer. "You smell good."

His scent washes over you as he burrows closer, deep teakwood with an undercurrent of warmth that you've come to associate with him, though there's something slightly off about it now. Something sharp and acidic underneath. It makes your nose wrinkle slightly even as your omega instincts purr at his proximity.

"Hi," you murmur, tugging him further into you.

"What are you reading?"

"Something Wonwoo recommended."

He hums, a low sound in the back of his throat, and leans even closer to peer at the cover. You can feel the heat of him along your side, can see the way his hair falls into his eyes as he tilts his head. "Is it good?"

"It's okay. It's a little slow."

"Do you want company? I can sit with you."

There's something almost desperate in the offer, something that makes your chest tight. You study his face, trying to understand what just happened, trying to reconcile the alpha who just snapped at Seokmin with the one who's looking at you now like he might die if you say no. You'd never say no, though, so you smile and nod.

"Always," you say softly, and watch the way relief floods his expression like sunrise breaking over water. “Just keep the teeth away, yeah?”

He nods and shifts, adjusting his position so he's lying more fully against you, his head pillowed on your thigh where Chan had been moments before. The weight of him is different, heavier and more solid, radiating a heat that seems to seep through the fabric of your leggings and into your skin. One of his arms wraps around your leg, holding on like you might disappear if he doesn't anchor himself to you.

Without thinking, you card your fingers through his hair, and the effect is immediate. He melts. There's no other word for it as the tension that had been coiled through his shoulders and jaw just dissolves under your touch, his whole body going soft and pliant against you. A sound escapes him, something between a sigh and a groan, and he presses his face harder against your thigh.

"That feels nice," he mumbles. "Don't stop doing that."

You smile, continuing the gentle motion, your fingers sliding through the dark strands. His hair is softer than you expected, still slightly mussed from where he'd been running his hands through it earlier, and you work through the tangles with careful attention. Each pass of your fingers seems to pull more tension from him, until he's practically boneless against you, his breathing evening out into something slow and deep.

The afternoon light has shifted, no longer streaming directly through the windows but casting everything in a softer, golden glow. That's when you notice it again. That off note in his scent. It's subtle, easy to miss if you weren't paying attention, but it's there, sharp and acidic beneath the familiar teakwood warmth, like something fermented or turned. It makes your nose wrinkle slightly, your omega instincts prickling with a vague sense of concern. You've never smelled him like this before. Usually his scent is all warmth and depth, grounding and steady, but this is different.

You frown slightly, your fingers pausing in his hair as you try to place what it reminds you of. Your first thought is rut, that sharp, aggressive edge that alphas get when their biology starts to take over, but you dismiss it almost immediately. You've been with the pack long enough now to know everyone's schedules, the careful tracking system they use to make sure no one's caught off guard. Soonyoung isn't due for a rut for at least another three weeks. You'd know. Seungcheol keeps a calendar, and you've seen it enough times to have most of the dates memorized.

So it's not that. Maybe he's just stressed? The thought settles uneasily in your chest. He has been more on edge lately, more irritable with the others, though you'd chalked it up to work or pack dynamics or any of the hundred other things that can make an alpha tense. Maybe it's manifesting in his scent, some kind of stress response you're not familiar with yet.

You let it go, resuming the gentle motion of your fingers through his hair. Whatever it is, he clearly needs this and you're not about to pull away because of some vague concern you can't even properly articulate. If it's serious, someone else will notice. Seungcheol will notice.

Soonyoung makes another one of those soft sounds and you feel your heart do something complicated in your chest. You smile, thinking about how much you like him. The realization isn't new - you like all of them. But it hits you fresh at this moment, with him soft and sleepy against you.

"You're really good at that," he murmurs, his voice drowsy and content. His eyes are closed, his face relaxed. "Like, unfairly good."

"Just scratching your head," you say, but you're smiling, your fingers finding that spot behind his ear that makes him practically purr.

"Mm, no. It's more than that." He shifts slightly, tilting his head to look up at you, and the expression on his face makes your breath catch. There's something raw in his eyes, something open and honest that he usually keeps hidden behind jokes and easy grins. "You make everything feel easier."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He reaches up, his hand finding yours where it's resting against his temple, and he threads your fingers together. His palm is warm, slightly rough, and the gesture feels impossibly intimate. "I really like being close to you. Is that okay? To say that?"

"Of course it is. I like being close to you too."

His smile is small but genuine, crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Good. Because I don't think I could stop even if you told me to."

You laugh quietly, resuming the gentle motion through his hair with your free hand while he keeps the other one captive, his thumb tracing absent patterns against your knuckles. His touch is comforting and you can feel the way his body has gone completely relaxed against you as the house settles around you, the sound of pack life continuing in other rooms.

You don't know how long you stay like that. Long enough for the light to shift again, the golden glow deepening toward amber. Long enough for your legs to start going numb under his weight, though you don't mention it. Long enough for you to memorize the exact shade of his hair in this light, the pattern of freckles across his nose, the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks when he closes his eyes.

"Thank you," he says eventually, so quiet you almost miss it.

"For what?"

"For not asking questions. For just letting me be here."

You want to tell him he never has to thank you for that, but the words feel too big, too revealing, so instead you just squeeze his hand and keep running your fingers through his hair, and hope he understands anyway.

He seems to. His eyes drift closed again, his breathing evening out. And despite that lingering concern about his scent, despite the confusion about what happened with Seokmin, despite everything, you let yourself have this, relaxing against the couch as Soonyoung dozes in your lap.

-

The second time you notice something off with Soonyoung is worse.

It's Saturday morning and the kitchen is alive with the weekend chaos you've come to expect now that you eat breakfast at more reasonable hours. Mingyu is at the stove making what smells like pancakes while Vernon sits at the island with his laptop and a cup of coffee that you think has gone cold. Joshua hums as he sets the table in the dining room while morning light streams through the windows, coffee and the scent of bodies filling the room.

You're standing at the counter making tea, watching the kettle when you hear the commotion start somewhere just outside the kitchen.

"I'm just saying," Junhui says, his voice measured and calm in a way that suggests he is trying very hard to be patient. "If you'd communicated better, it would-"

"I don't need you to tell me how to communicate, Jun." Soonyoung's voice cuts through the morning peace like a knife, sharp enough that you see Mingyu's shoulders tense at the stove, see Vernon's fingers still on his keyboard.

Your hands tighten on the edge of the counter, your whole body going alert. Not again. Please not again. You glance at Mingyu who winces and shrugs his shoulders before turning back to stare intensely at his pancakes, preferring to let the alphas argue it out.

"I'm not telling you how to do anything." Junhui's voice is still calm but you can hear the edge creeping in, can hear the alpha authority starting to bleed through. "I'm just saying that if you'd communicated better, we wouldn't have had the conflict with-"

"Right, so it's my fault."

"That isn't what I said-"

"It's what you meant!"

You turn your attention back to the kettle, listening with half an ear as the argument continues. It's not the first time you've heard pack members disagree, and it probably won't be the last. The whistle is building now, getting louder, and you're reaching for your mug when you hear a crash loud enough that you jerk your hand.

The kettle wobbles but you catch it, steadying it with both hands as you let out a breath. Your heart kicks up for a moment before settling back down. Just an argument. Just pack dynamics working themselves out.

Mingyu has turned from the stove, spatula still in hand, his expression somewhere between concerned and resigned. Vernon has closed his laptop, watching the doorway.

"Soonyoung." Junhui's voice is harder now, carrying that alpha command that says stand down. "You need to calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down."

There's a beat of tense silence, and then footsteps, quick and purposeful before Soonyoung appears in the kitchen doorway. He looks wound tight, his chest heavy slightly, his eyes bright and a flush high on his cheeks that tells you he's stressed. His hair is a mess like he's been running his hands through it, and his t-shirt is rumpled, twisted slightly to one side. For a second he just stands there, breathing hard, his gaze sweeping the kitchen like he's looking for something.

Then his eyes land on you, and everything changes.

The tension bleeds out of his shoulders and his expression softens immediately, the wild edge in his eyes gentling into something warm. He crosses the kitchen in a few long strides, and before you can say anything, he’s pressing into your side like he needs the physical contact to breathe.

"Hi," he says quietly, his voice rough but softer than it was seconds ago. One of his arms wraps around your waist, and he leans into you, his forehead coming to rest against your temple. "You making tea?"

"Yeah." You can feel the heat of him along your entire side, can smell that sharp acidic edge underneath his usual teakwood warmth. It's more pronounced than it was yesterday. "Want some?"

"No. Just want to be here."

"Alright."

You reach up to run your fingers through his hair, scraping the blunt edge of your nails against his scalp. He hums, chest vibrating against you as his eyes flutter, scent blooming warm and rich, the acidic note vanishing. The kettle is whistling properly now, so you pour the water one-handed, Soonyoung still plastered to your side like he has no intention of moving. He doesn't say anything, just stands there with his arm around you, his breathing evening out as you finish making your tea.

Behind you, you can hear Mingyu returning to the pancakes, the quiet sizzle of batter hitting the pan. Vernon has reopened his laptop but you can feel his attention still on the two of you. Joshua appears in the doorway, takes one look at Soonyoung wrapped around you, and just nods to himself before heading back to finish setting the table.

"Breakfast is almost ready," Mingyu says after a moment, his voice carefully neutral. "If you guys want to sit down."

Soonyoung makes a noncommittal sound against your hair but doesn't move. You smile, wrapping both hands around your mug now that it's ready, and lean back into him slightly.

"Come on," you murmur. "Let's go sit."

He follows you without question, his hand sliding from your waist to tangle with your free hand, keeping you connected as you move into the dining room. The table is set thanks to Joshua, who looks between you and Soonyoung before winking.

You choose a seat near the middle of the table and Soonyoung immediately claims the chair right next to you, close enough that his thigh presses against yours when he sits. His hand finds your knee under the table, his thumb rubbing small circles against the fabric of your leggings, and you can feel the way he's still wound tight despite the softness in his expression.

Junhui appears in the doorway a moment later, and you watch as his eyes land on Soonyoung pressed up against your side. Something complicated crosses his face - frustration, maybe, but also understanding, and what looks like relief. He lets out a long breath, his shoulders dropping slightly, and when he meets your eyes there's gratitude there.

Thanks, he mouths silently and you nod.

He takes a seat across the table, his posture still tense but no longer aggressive. The argument isn't resolved, the set of his jaw and the tension in his hands making that much obvious, but it's set aside for now for when Soonyoung isn't whatever this is right now.

Soon, the table fills out with the rest of the pack and loud conversation backtracked by the sound of silverware on plates. Soonyoung serves you first, putting pancakes on your plate before his own, his hand never leaving your knee. He eats one-handed, the other staying firmly on you like he needs the anchor despite Seungkwan poking fun at him.

Soonyoung gradually relaxes against your side. His scent is still off, but his breathing has evened out, and the tension in his shoulders has eased. He's not talking much, just listening to the conversation around him, but every so often he glances at you like he's checking that you're still there.

Across the table, Junhui catches your eye again and gives you a small nod. The message is clear: Whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

So you do. You finish your tea and eat your pancakes and let Soonyoung stay pressed against your side for as long as he needs, and you try not to think too hard about what it is that's bothering him, ready to wait him out and let him come to you.

-

By Sunday, Soonyoung's tension has been noticed by everyone.

It's the kind of afternoon where the house has that lazy, syrupy feeling of the weekend as people scatter across the estate with their routines. You can hear Seungkwan's laugh coming through an open window, backtracked by someone playing music.

Sun bakes down on the top of your head as you stretch, sweaty skin sticky against the cloth of the cabana seating. Mingyu is tucked next to you, the smell of his clean, floral musk and sunscreen soothing.

The afternoon sun turns the pool surface into liquid gold, the light dancing and refracting in patterns that shift with every ripple. The air smells like chlorine and sunscreen and the jasmine that grows wild along the fence line, music playing from the speaker next to Mingyu softly while the two of you lounge

He's stretched out next to you in swim shorts that are slung low on his hips, his long legs crossed at the ankle, a book open in his lap that he's been so called reading for the past twenty minutes despite the fact he hasn't turned a page in at least ten. His chest is bare, shoulders already warming to a golden tan, and there's a faint sheen of sunscreen on his skin that catches the light.

You are definitely not reading your book. Instead, you're acutely aware of the way Mingyu's chest rises and falls with each one of his breaths, every defined line of his abs, and the way his muscles in his shoulders flex when he shifts his position. Your eyes drift from his collarbones to his sternum to the dip of his waist where his swim shorts sit low on his hips, and you have to physically force your gaze back to your book.

When you glance sideways, you catch the faintest smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. He knows. Of course he knows. Mingyu always knows when you're looking.

Footsteps draw your attention on the pool deck. Soonyoung is approaching, jaw tight and shoulders tense. You frown and his scent hits you a moment later as the wind shifts, sharp and acrid. You shift and Mingyu notices, glancing at you from behind his sunglasses before he realizes Soonyoung is there.

"Mingyu," Soonyoung says, voice clipped. He stops at the edge of the cabana, his eyes locked on Mingyu with something that makes the beta tense. "You left the fridge door open this morning. Again."

Mingyu blinks. "What?"

"Yeah."

"Soonyoung, I made breakfast at seven. It's been hours." Mingyu shields his eyes, looking up at Soonyoung, his tone more bewildered than defensive. "What even is-"

"And yesterday," Soonyoung continues, "You left stuff all over the kitchen counter. It's rude and messy."

You watch as Mingyu's expression shifts from confusion to something closer to exasperation. "I cleaned that up. Wonwoo saw me clean it up."

"Not very well, apparently." Soonyoung's voice is sharp. "And you were making noise in the kitchen at like six in the morning. Some of us were trying to sleep."

"You were literally in the gym at six." Mingyu closes his book deliberately and sets it on the small table next to the cabana. When he looks up at Soonyoung, his expression is guarded, not angry. "What's your actual problem Soonyoung? Spit it out."

"I don't have a problem. I just think it would be nice if people actually thought about the shared spaces instead of just doing whatever they want."

"Nobody's doing whatever they want."

Mingyu stands now so he's facing Soonyoung directly. He's a beta, but he's not small. He towers over Soonyoung, imposing in a way that makes your instincts flare, feeling the shift of tension between the two.

"You're picking a fight," Mingyu says, softer than before.

"I'm not picking a fight."

"Soonyoung, you're-" Mingyu cuts himself off and sighs. You can see him trying to control his temper, trying to figure out what Soonyoung is actually mad about. "You know what, whatever. You're right."

He turns to leave, his movements sharp and frustrated, stepping away from the cabana toward the pool deck. The afternoon sun hits him full-force, turning his skin golden, and for a moment you think maybe that's it. But then Soonyoung's hand darts out, wrapping around Mingyu's arm just above the elbow, fingers digging in hard enough to dimple Mingyu's skin.

"Don't walk away from me," Soonyoung growls, teeth flashing.

"Okay, enough."

Your voice cuts through the tension, sharp and commanding in a way that surprises even you. You're on your feet before you've consciously decided to move, a frustrated growling rippling through you at their bickering and Soonyoung's obvious struggle with something.

The effect is immediate and absolute. Soonyoung's hand drops from Mingyu's arm like he's been burned, his eyes going wide as they snap to you. Mingyu takes a step back, his posture immediately shifting from defensive to something closer to chastened. They're both staring at you now, and you can see the moment they register your expression.

"I don't know what's going on with you," you say, your gaze locked on Soonyoung, "but I am tired of watching you pick fights with everyone in this house. And Mingyu, you know it sets him off when you walk away like that."

"I wasn't-" Mingyu starts, but you hold up a hand and he stops immediately, his mouth closing.

"I don't want to hear it. Not from either of you. Soonyoung, put the teeth away."

The afternoon sun is hot on your shoulders, the chlorine smell sharp in your nose as a beat of silence passes. Soonyoung looks like he's been slapped, his expression crumbling from aggressive to something that looks almost like shame. His shoulders drop, his hands unclenching, and you can see the way his whole body seems to deflate.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice smaller than you've ever heard it.

"I know, Soonyoung." Your voice softens a fraction. "But you need to figure out what's going on with you, because this isn't okay. Mingyu didn't deserve that."

Soonyoung glances at Mingyu. "I'm sorry."

Mingyu is rubbing his arm where Soonyoung grabbed him, and you can see the red marks already forming, can see the shape of fingers pressed into his skin. His expression is a mix of anger and hurt, and you can tell he's struggling to not let his temper flare again. He takes a deep breath and nods, the frustration melting out of him in the way that betas are always good at.

"You need to talk to Seungcheol," Mingyu says, his voice much calmer now. "Today."

"I know."

Mingyu doesn't seem convinced. "I'm serious."

"I know. I'm going to."

For a second, Mingyu hesitates. Then he nods and glances at you, tilting his head toward Soonyoung subtly. You nod and Mingyu backs up a few paces, keeping his eyes on you until he's sure that you'll be fine with Soonyoung before he turns, sulky and irritated but knowing that Soonyoung needs space and recently, you're the only one who can reason with him.

Soonyoung looks wrecked, his expression apologetic. He's trembling a little, hands flexing at his sides like he wants to reach for you but can't or won't, his scent a mess. His pupils are blown wide, somewhere between fighting whatever instinct is making him so cagey and panic that he's upset you - he hates upsetting anyone, but most of all he hates when you're mad.

"Can I…?" He drifts off and gestures vaguely in your direction.

He's asking permission, deferring to you completely, and you can see in his eyes that he'll accept whatever answer you give. That he knows he just got put in his place and he's not going to push.

You let out a breath, some of the tension leaving your shoulders. "Yeah. Come here.

He crosses the distance between you in two quick strides, but when he reaches you, he's careful, his arms coming around you slowly enough to give you time to pull away. You don't and instead let him pull you close so he can bury his face in your neck, breathing you in and scenting you enough to make you both dizzy and clinging to one another. Your lashes flutter, a rush going through you as he brushes his nose against the softness of your neck, blood turning molten.

"I'm sorry," he whispers against your skin, and his voice is broken. "I'm sorry. You're right. I'm sorry."

Your hands come up automatically, one sliding into his hair, the other pressing flat against his back. You can feel the knobs of his spine through his shirt, can feel the way his muscles are locked tight with tension.

"I know you are," you murmur. "But you need to figure out what's wrong. This isn't like you."

You can feel the way he's trying to calm himself down, trying to match his breathing to yours, trying to use your presence to anchor himself. You feel a pang in your chest, hugging him a little tighter. Soonyoung is always hard on himself - harder than he needs to be - and he hates fighting with anyone, especially Mingyu. Especially in front of you.

You guide him back to the loungers, settling onto one and pulling him down beside you. He goes willingly, curling into your side like he's trying to make himself smaller, his head resting on your shoulder. The afternoon sun has shifted, the shade of the cabana stretching longer across the pool deck, and the water has gone still and mirror-smooth in the absence of any breeze.

"You should talk to Cheol," you murmur.

Soonyoung nods against you. "Okay."

You run your fingers through his hair, feeling the way he relaxes incrementally with each pass, the tension in his shoulders easing degree by degree. The strands are soft, slightly damp from the heat and humidity, and you work your fingers through them slowly, deliberately, the way you know he likes. His scent is still sharp underneath, still carrying that acidic edge that speaks to whatever is happening inside his body, but it levels out now, teakwood baked under sun.

"Better?" you ask softly.

He makes a small sound of agreement, his arm tightening around your waist. "Yeah."

-

Someone knocking on your door pulls you from sleep. You squint at the clock on the nightstand, the blurry numbers telling you it's well past three am. Your bed is warm, blankets tangled around you and the faint smell of Jeonghan lingering from the hoodie of his you have shoved under your pillow. You sit up, rubbing your eyes as you get your bearings.

"Come in," you croak.

Before the door even opens, you know who it is. You can smell Soonyoung before the door fully opens, but when it does, it hits you like a physical force. It's his normal warm, woody smell but there's something new now, something hot and thick and almost overwhelming. It makes your mouth water, omega instincts kicking in, warmth pooling low in your belly.

Soonyoung steps into your room and closes the door behind him with a soft click, and in the dim light filtering through your curtains from the streetlamp outside, you can see that something is very, very wrong. Or right, by the smell of him.

He's shirtless, wearing only a pair of loose sleep pants that hang low on his hips, skin gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat despite how cold the house is at night. You can see the way his chest rises and falls too fast, too shallow. His hair is a mess like he's been pulling at it again, and when he looks at you, his eyes are dark and dilated, pupils blown so wide there's barely any iris left.

"I'm sorry," he says, and his voice is rough, wrecked. "I know it's late."

You push the blankets aside and shift to the edge of your bed, feet finding the cool hardwood floor to stand. "What's wrong?"

His entire body reacts to the sound of your voice. He sways slightly toward you, nostril flaring as he scents you, a shiver rippling through him. You take a step toward him and he makes a pitiful sound, looking entirely at war with himself.

"I feel like I'm burning up," he mumbles. "Feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin if I don't see you."

"Come here."

It's a command - softly given, but a command none the less. He listens like it's instinctual, crossing the room to you in three strides. You feel the heat radiating off of him when he stops in front of you and you reach up without thinking, pressing your palm to his chest. He's fever-hot under your touch, his heart hammering in his chest.

"You're burning up," you say softly, frowning.

"I know." His hand comes up to cover yours, pressing your palm harder against his chest like he needs the contact, needs the pressure. His eyes close and he takes a shuddering breath. "You smell so good. You always smell good but right now it's maddening."

Something clicks into place in your mind. The aggression. The clinginess. The way his scent has been getting sharper and hotter for days. The fever. The way he's looking at you right now like you're the only thing in the world that matters.

"Soonyoung," you say slowly, carefully. "Are you in rut?"

His eyes snap open, meeting yours, and for a long moment he just stares at you. You can see him processing the question, see the moment the realization hits him. His expression shifts from confusion to understanding to something that looks almost like relief.

"Oh. Um. It does feel like that."

"But it's early, isn't it?" You keep your hand on his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heartbeat under your palm. "You're not supposed to go into a rut for another few weeks."

"Right." He seems to think about something and he makes a small sound, leaning into your touch. "I've never had an omega in the house though."

"Oh."

"I think having you here made my body kind of freak out and decide it was time even if it wasn't."

You can feel your own body responding to his proximity, to the thick, heady scent of him in rut. Your omega instincts are screaming at you to help, to soothe, to give him what he needs. But more than that, you want to. You want to pull him into your bed, want to feel his fever-hot skin against yours, want to take care of him the way every cell in your body is telling you to.

"Let me help you," you say, and your voice comes out softer than you intended, almost pleading.

His eyes go wide. "What?"

"Let me help you through it." You slide your hand up from his chest to cup his jaw, feeling the way he leans into your touch like he can't help himself. "You don't have to do this alone. You don't have to suffer through it."

"I can't ask you to do that. You haven't been here that long and haven't been through one…"

"It's pretty instinctual. I'll be okay."

He's trembling now, and you can't tell if it's from the fever or from nerves or from the effort of holding himself back. "What if I hurt you? What if I can't control myself?"

"Soonyoung, you won't hurt me."

"You don't know that." But even as he says it, he's leaning closer, his forehead dropping to rest against yours. His breath is hot against your lips, coming in short, uneven pants. "You don't know what it's like. What I'm feeling right now."

"Then take it," you whisper. "Take what you need."

He makes a sound low in his throat, something between a whimper and a growl, and his hands come up to grip your waist. His fingers dig in, not quite hard enough to hurt but firm enough that you can feel the desperation in his touch.

"But what if-"

You cut him off by kissing him.

It's soft at first, just a gentle press of your lips against his to turn off his spinning thoughts, but the moment you make contact, something in him breaks. He makes a desperate sound against your mouth and kisses you back like he's drowning and you're air. His lips are fever-hot and slightly chapped, and he tastes like mint toothpaste and something underneath that's purely him, purely alpha, purely Soonyoung.

His hands tighten on your waist and he pulls you closer, eliminating the last few inches of space between you. Your chest presses against his and you can feel the heat of him even through your thin sleep shirt, can feel the way his heart is racing, can feel the slight tremor in his muscles as he holds himself back from taking more than you're offering.

But you want him to take more. You want him to let go.

You part your lips and he groans, his tongue sliding against yours in a way that makes heat pool low in your belly. The kiss deepens, turns hungry, and you can feel the moment his control starts to slip. His hands slide from your waist to your hips to grip your ass, pulling you flush against him. You can feel him harden against your stomach, the way he's already straining against the low slung sweat pants.

Knowing he wants you this much makes your head spin. You omega preens and you shiver, sucking his tongue into your mouth greedily, driven by a more powerful want than you have ever felt in your life. He responds in kind, walking you backward toward the bed, feet tangling until you're falling backward and he's caging you in.

For a moment, he just hovers over you, his arms bracketing your head, his chest heaving as he stares down at you with those dark, dilated eyes. You reach up and trace his jawline and he leans into the touch, eyes fluttering. You've always thought he had the prettiest eyes, dark and hungry and so full of life. Right now they're burning with something hotter than you've ever seen and it makes you sing.

"You're so beautiful," he says, and his voice is wrecked. "I've wanted this for so long. Wanted you for so long."

"Then have me," you whisper. "Take me."

"Okay," he whispers. "Okay."

He kisses you again, slower this time, his lips moving against you with gentle purpose like he's memorizing the shape of your mouth. His hands start to wander, sliding up your sides, pushing your sleep shirt up inch by inch until his palms are pressed against your bare skin.

The contact makes you both gasp. His hands are so hot they're almost burning, and everywhere he touches feels like it's on fire. He explores slowly, his fingers tracing the curve of your waist, the dip of your ribs, the soft swell of your breasts.

"Can I?" He asks, twisting a fistfull of your shirt in his hand. You nod and he grins.

He sits back on his heels and helps you pull the shirt over your head, and the moment it's gone, his eyes go even darker. He stares at you like he's never seen anything more beautiful, his gaze tracking over every inch of exposed skin.

"Fuck," he breathes. "You're perfect. You're so fucking perfect."

He leans down and presses a kiss to your collarbone, then another to the swell of your breast, then another to your stomach. His lips are hot and soft, and every place he kisses feels like it's been branded. He works his way down slowly, kissing and licking and occasionally scraping his teeth gently against your skin in a way that makes you arch up into him, his name broken and shaky on your lips.

Soonyoung's sounds are equally as needy, groaning low in his throat in a way that makes your thighs close around his waist, the ache between your legs growing despite the way his hips pin yours to the bed. Friction. You need friction but any thoughts of asking for it vanish from your head when he leans down and takes a nipple into his mouth, the heat and wet slide of his tongue making you cry out.

Your hands fly to his hair, threading through the messy strands, holding him against you as he sucks and licks and occasionally scrapes his teeth gently across the sensitive bud. The sensation is overwhelming, almost too much, and you can feel yourself getting wetter with every pass of his tongue.

"So responsive," he murmurs, almost to himself. "So perfect for me."

He gives the same attention to your other breast, his hand coming up to play with the one his mouth just left, and the dual sensation makes your head spin. You're panting now, your hips shifting restlessly against the mattress, seeking friction that you need so badly.

"Soonyoung," you gasp. "Please."

"Please what?" He lifts his head to look at you, and his lips are wet and swollen, his eyes dark with hunger. "Tell me what you need."

"Touch me. Please touch me."

His hand slides down your stomach, his fingers light and maddening. When he reaches the waistband of your shorts, he pauses again, waiting for permission. You lift your hips in answer, and he hooks his fingers into both your shorts and underwear, pulling them down your legs in one smooth motion.

Cool air hits your overheated pussy and you whine. Soonyoung growls in response, looking down where your thighs threaten to shut. He keeps you pressed open, his hands firm on your thighs as he makes an appreciative sound low in his chest, almost a purr.

"You're so wet," he says, his voice rough. "Is this all for me?"

"Yes," you breathe. "All for you."

He stays kneeled there on the bed, his hand tracing down your thigh until he’s sliding his fingers through your sticky, heated folds. He explores slowly, the drag of his fingers making you tremble, thighs twitching until he presses gently against your clit and you let out a high-pitched sound, the contact sending a bloom of warmth spreading through you.

"There?" He asks and you can hear the smile in his voice, smug.

"Yes. Please."

Soonyoung obeys, circling your clit slowly, increasing the pressure as you buck under him. You feel yourself dripping, a wet mess as he plays with you, making little appreciative sounds as his slick fingers work you higher until you're tangling your hands in the bed and writhing under him.

When he slides one finger inside you, you cry out, your hands fisting in the blankets beneath you. It feels good but you want more, immediately asking him for more, mumbling and messy and lightheaded and overwhelmed with the thick scent of him and the heat of his finger pressing against your front wall.

"Yeah?" He asks. "You can take another?"

"Yes. Please. More."

He adds a second finger and the stretch is delicious, perfect. He curls them inside you, searching, and when he finds that spot that makes you see stars, you nearly sob with relief.

"There," you gasp. "Right there. Oh god, Soonyoung, right there."

He works you with single-minded focus, his fingers curling and stroking while his thumb circles your clit, and you can feel yourself getting close, the pleasure building higher and higher until you're teetering right on the edge.

"That's it," he encourages, his voice low and rough. "Come for me. Let me see you come."

You turn your head to the side, pressing it into the mattress as your hips roll toward his hand, letting him fuck his fingers into you until you're coming around them, clamping down hard on his fingers. He moans with you, pumping his fingers through it as you squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, the pleasure so hot you stop breathing for a second.

"Too much," you gasp, and he immediately gentles, his fingers slipping out of you carefully.

He brings his hand to his mouth and sucks his fingers clean, his eyes closing as he hums in delight. You stare at him, panting and sweaty, sheets sticky against your skin as he opens his eyes, the moon reflecting off them.

"Taste so fucking good," he growls. "Bet you taste better from the source, but if I don't fuck you right now I might lose my mind."

"Please," you beg. "Want it so bad."

He makes a desperate sound and reaches for his sleep pants, shoving them down his hips. His cock springs free, hard and flushed and leaking, and the sight of it makes your mouth water. He's thick and throbbing, and you watch like you're hypnotized as he grips himself, stroking slowly a few times as he settles on the bed between your legs.

Soonyoung leans forward, one hand braced beside your head, the other guiding himself to your wet cunt where he pauses, swiping the head of his cock through your slick folds. You whine and he grins, clearly loving the effect he has on you.

"You sure?" He asks after a minute, the head of his cock notching on your entrance but not pushing in. "We can stop."

"I want you," you assure him, wrapping your legs around his waist, pulling him closer. "Please, alpha."

Your words have an immediate effect. He shivers, a ripple going through him as he growls low in his throat and presses in. You're wet enough that he slides in smoothly, but you can still feel every inch of him, can feel the way your body has to adjust to accommodate his girth. The drag of him against your walls enough to make you gasp.

"Fuck," he breaths, pressing in until he bottoms out. "You feel incredible. So tight. So perfect." He rolls his hips experimentally, grinding deep, and the pressure against that spot inside you makes you cry out. "Yeah, there it is. I can feel you clenching around me already."

You can feel the fever-heat of his skin, the way his muscles are taut with restraint. His scent wraps around you, that deep teakwood gone sharp and heady with rut, overwhelming your senses until all you can smell is him. It makes your head spin, makes you want to pull him closer, to drown in it.

"Soonyoung," you gasp, your nails digging into his shoulders. "Move. Please move."

"Impatient," he says with a grin, but there's heat in his eyes.

He pulls out so slowly that you can feel every ridge and vein of his cock, all the way until just the head of him is inside of you before he snaps his hips forward, driving deep in one smooth thrust, and the sudden fullness makes you cry out. He doesn't give you time to adjust before he's pulling out and driving in again, setting a rhythm that's deep and steady and absolutely devastating. Each thrust hits that perfect spot inside you, sending sparks of pleasure racing up your spine.

"Oh fuck," you groan, going tight around him. "Fuck fuck fuck."

The sounds of the wet slide of him fucking into you fills the room backtracked by his breathing, ragged and uneven as he groans everytime you clench around him. You dig your nails in, scraping down his back to his waist where you urge him faster, your fingers sliding against his sweaty skin.

"That's fucking it," he pants. "Taking my cock so well, huh? Were you made to take it?"

You nod, his words making heat flood through you, making you clench around him involuntarily. He feels it and grins, that cocky, confident smile that makes your heart race.

"You like that?" he asks, his pace never faltering. "Like hearing how perfect you are? How good you feel wrapped around me?"

"Yes," you gasp as he thrusts hard, jostling you up the bed. "Fuck. Yes, Soonyoung."

He shifts the angle slightly, pressing deeper, and suddenly every thrust is dragging against your g-spot with devastating precision. The pleasure builds rapidly, a tight coil of heat low in your belly that winds tighter with each movement. He reaches between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit and circling it with just the right speed.

"I can feel you getting close," he says, and there's satisfaction in his voice. "Can feel the way this perfect pussy is clenching. You gonna come for me?"

"Yes!"

You can feel yourself climbing higher, the pleasure building to an almost unbearable peak, your cunt clenching hard, breath hitching as you start to shake. He drives in harder, finger speeding up until you're standing on the edge of your orgasm, breath held, waiting to dive over.

"Come on," he murmurs, leaning down to nip your heard. "Come for me, baby."

You do, the orgasm hitting you hard. It steals your breath and your entire body locks up as you cry out his name, your pussy clamping down on him. His rhythm stutters immediately as he groans, but he doesn't stop, working you through it until you're shaking and feeling like you're going to come apart again, unsure if your orgasm has stopped or if it's another one starting.

"I can't-"

"You can," he urges, breath hot against your ear. "You're going to give me another one, baby."

He pulls out suddenly, and the loss makes you whimper. But before you can protest, he's flipping you over onto your stomach, his hands gripping your hips and pulling them up.

"On your knees," he commands, and the authority in his voice makes you obey without thinking.

When he slides in from behind, the new angle makes him feel deeper. You can feel him everywhere, the stretch, the fullness, the way he's pressed against every single spot inside of you. His hands grip your hips hard enough to dimple the skin, holding you exactly where he wants you as he fucks you in earnest, hips snapping and bed hitting the wall.

"Fuck, look at you," he groans. "Taking me so deep. You're perfect. So fucking perfect."

One of his hands slides up your spine, pressing between your shoulder blades, and you let yourself collapse forward onto your forearms. The change in angle makes him hit even deeper, makes you cry out with the intensity of it.

"Too much?" he asks, but there's a teasing edge to his voice. He knows it's not too much. He knows you can take it.

"No," you gasp. "More. Please, more."

"Greedy," he says with a laugh, but he gives you what you want.

His pace increases, his thrusts getting harder, faster, and you can feel another orgasm building already. It's different this time, deeper and more intense, starting low in your stomach and spreading outward like fire.

His hand slides around to find your clit again, and the added stimulation makes you sob with pleasure. You're so sensitive, so overwhelmed, but you don't want him to stop. You never want him to stop.

"Come on," he urges, his voice strained now. "Give me another one. Want to feel you come apart on my cock again."

The orgasm builds and builds, the pressure almost unbearable, and when it finally breaks you scream into the pillow. Your whole body shakes with it, your inner walls clenching around him so hard you can feel him groan, can feel the way his rhythm falters.

"Fuck," he gasps. "Fuck, you feel so good."

His hips stutter, his grip on your hips tightening almost painfully, and then he's coming with a groan that sounds like it's torn from his chest. You can feel the heat of him spilling inside you, can feel the pulse of his cock, and the sensation triggers another small aftershock that makes you whimper.

He collapses over you, his chest pressed against your back, his weight pressing you into the mattress. You can feel his heart racing against your spine, can feel the way he's trembling slightly, can feel his breath hot and uneven against your shoulder.

For a second, the two of you lay there like that, hearts pounding in sync, the messy slide of your bodies warm and comforting, his scent blooming around you as the mess between your thighs runs down your legs and onto the mattress. You don't care, going near catatonic as Soonyoung presses closer to your scent gland, his tongue darting out to taste you. It makes you moan and push back into him, wanting more and he laughs.

He shifts slightly, starting to pull out, but you make a sound of protest. "Not yet. Stay."

"I'm crushing you," he points out, but he doesn't move.

"Don't care," you say. "Want to feel you."

He makes a soft sound and settles more comfortably against you, his arms wrapping around your waist. He's still inside you, softening but not pulling out, and there's something intimate about it that makes your chest feel tight.

You lie there in the darkness, your bodies cooling, your breathing gradually evening out. You can feel the way his scent is already starting to shift, still hot and thick with rut, but not quite as sharp, not quite as overwhelming.

"How long do ruts usually last?" you ask quietly.

"Three days, usually. Sometimes four." He presses a kiss to your shoulder. "But I don't know if this one will be normal. Everything about it has been weird so far."

"We'll figure it out," you tell him.

He's quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is soft, vulnerable. "Thank you. For this. For helping me. For not being scared of me."

"I would never be afraid of you."

"Even after the past few days?"

"Especially after the past few days." You turn your head to look at him over your shoulder, and even in the dim light, you can see the uncertainty in his eyes. "You were in pre-rut and you were still gentle with me. You were still asking permission. You were still you. That tells me everything I need to know."

He closes his eyes and takes a shuddering breath, and when he opens them again, they're suspiciously bright. "I don't deserve you."

"Shut up," you say, but there's no heat in it. "You deserve everything good. And I'm going to make sure you get it."

He kisses your shoulder, soft and sweet and perfect. When he pulls back, you can hear the smile in his voice.

"Round two?" he asks, and you can already feel him starting to harden again inside you.

You laugh, the sound surprised and delighted. "Already?"

"Rut," he says, rolling his hips experimentally and making you gasp. "Told you it was going to be intense. Think you can keep up?"

"Is that a challenge?"

"Maybe. Think you can handle it?"

"I can handle anything you give me," you tell him, and you mean it.

"Good," he says, his voice dropping to that low, commanding tone that makes heat pool in your belly. "Because I'm not done with you yet. Not even close."

"Prove it."

"Oh, I will," he promises. "We've got all night. And all day tomorrow. And the day after that."

"Good," you tell him, rolling your hips and feeling the way he's already fully hard again inside you. "Because I'm not letting you go."

- The knock comes around late morning, soft but insistent.

You're half-awake when you hear it, drifting in that comfortable space between sleep and consciousness where everything feels warm and syrupy. Soonyoung is sprawled across your chest, his head tucked under your chin, one arm thrown over your waist. His breathing is deep and even, his body finally relaxed after taking you four more times throughout the night on and off. There's an ache between your legs but it feels good, feels right. Like you're right where you should be, pressed against a member of your pack, scents twisted together.

The knock comes again, a little louder this time.

"Come in," you call quietly, not wanting to startle Soonyoung awake too abruptly.

The door opens and Jeonghan steps inside, cradling bottles of water and bowls of rice and chicken. You realize it's what you both need to sustain yourself through Soonyoung's rut and you're immediately grateful, shooting Jeonghan a tired smile. He smirks in response, trailing toward where you and Soonyoung are tangled on the bed.

Soonyoung senses Jeonghan's presence, eyes snapping open. He's up on his elbows in an instant, his body going rigid, and a low growl rumbles from deep in his chest. His lips pull back from his teeth in a snarl that's pure territorial aggression, his pupils dilating as he positions himself between you and Jeonghan like a shield.

Jeonghan doesn't even flinch. Instead, he sets the food and water down on the dresser and turns to Soonyoung, face calm and placid before his face shifts, lips pulling back to bare his teeth at Soonyoung in kind. There's no anger in it, but rather a reminder to Soonyoung that Jeonghan is number two in this pack and Soonyoung's senior and he is not intimidated.

Soonyoung's growl falters. You can feel the moment he recognizes the dynamic, the moment his rut-addled brain processes the hierarchy and accepts it. His teeth retract, his lips closing over them, and he settles back down slightly, though his arm never leaves your waist.

"Keep the teeth away," Jeonghan snorts, walking toward the door. "Congrats on finally figuring it out. You cannot imagine the relief I felt seeing you crawl up here last night."

He turns and exits the room without another word, closing the door quietly behind him.

For a moment, there's silence. You can feel Soonyoung's heart still racing, but his anger is immediately replaced with a sheepish laugh and him awkwardly scratching the back of his head, looking at you.

"Sorry," he laughs. "I've never done that before."

"It's okay," you tell him, reaching back to run your fingers through his hair. "It was cute."

"Cute?" He scoffs. "I'm not cute. I'm tough. I have teeth."

"Uh huh." You lay back on the bed, looking up at him, grinning. "Use those big teeth on me then."

"Yeah?" he asks, his voice dropping to something low and hungry. "You want me to?"

"Yes."

That's all the invitation he needs. He moves fast, rolling you onto your back and pinning you to the mattress in one fluid motion. His hands find your wrists, pressing them gently but firmly into the pillows on either side of your head. His body settles over yours, his weight pressing you down into the bed, and you can feel him already hardening against your thigh.

His teeth find the sensitive skin of your neck, just below your ear, and he bites down gently, not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough that you feel it, hard enough that it sends a spike of heat straight through you. He works his way down your neck, marking you with his teeth, and every bite is followed by a soothing lick of his tongue.

"I'll show you teeth," he mutters, scraping them over the curve of your breast.

You grin, arching into him, finally feeling settled and feeling home.

[goldenhourology]

LIKE THE MOVIES.

🎥 banner in collab w @cherrytigercreations / buy prints here

pairing: jeon wonwoo x f!reader

genre: smut, fluff, lots of angst, friends to lovers

summary: after one impulsive hookup in college, you and your best friend, wonwoo, decide to stay just that — friends. years later, you’re both still pretending that’s enough. and because neither of you is brave enough to risk ruining what you have, you choose the most logical solution possible: you start setting him up on dates with other women.

warnings: major slowburn / smut at the end, oral (f!recieving), fingering, unprotected sex, praise, wonwoo service top 4ever<3, miscommunication, fixer!reader, reader and wonwoo are major idiots in love, mutual pining (over almost a decade). nsfw (minors / ageless blogs dni).

word count: 33.2k

note: first thing I wanna state — I’m so incredibly sorry for how long this took! if you saw some of my posts over the last few months, you know how I just kept getting sick and that really deterred writing this, BUT I FINISHED IT 🙌 second thing — I need you guys to prepare in advance to either get incredibly annoyed by the reader or relate to her a little more than you’d like to admit LOL it might hurt but I promise the payoff is worth it !! at the end of the day, I really like writing real stories that could happen to anyone. no matter what age you are, there might be a moment where you’re a little messy or you avoid your feelings for your best friend for years! lol I hope this makes you feel things and maybe even cry a lil. I won’t tell 😇 enjoy friends! (taglist posted at the bottom.)

also a huge thank you to @cherrytigercreations for collabing with me on the banner! we have been friends for so long and I’m so excited we finally found an opportunity to create something. please check out her shop here! 💓

in rotation: blame me, monsta x / move me, charli xcx / another life, sza / our day will come, amy winehouse / daylight, taylor swift / it's always you, chet baker / soft, lany / like the movies, laufey

I.

I looked at him, and I thought, “If I was very brave or very honest, I would tell him.” I would say it, so he would know it and I would know it, and I could never take it back. But I wasn’t that brave or honest, so all I did was look at him. And I think he knew anyway. –JENNY HAN

April 22, 2017

You always woke up before your alarm, but something was different this time. Your eyes fluttered open, focusing on the pile of clothes strewn underneath the bed. The dorm walls were bare and that ugly yellow color, instead of being covered in your favorite movie posters. A fan was whirring in the corner of the room. The TV was still on, projecting the title screen of the game you and Wonwoo had been playing last night.

That was when you realized this wasn’t your room. This was Wonwoo’s.

And all your clothes weren’t on.

Creeping your hand up from the sheets, you turned the alarm off on your defective Android that your dad bought you for the cheapest price possible. Sometimes the alarm didn’t work, but you didn’t want to chance it this morning. You carefully moved off the mattress, almost falling when you noticed that this twin sized bed was higher up than the one in your dorm, and began to put on your discarded clothes.

The frame creaked.

Your body froze, unsure what to do, before you continued to step into your leggings and turned around. 

Wonwoo was sitting up, the bedsheets falling carelessly down and exposing his bare torso. His was skinnier than you assumed. The oversized shirts he wore concealed his lanky form, but it was intentional. His hair was sticking up in every other direction as he put on his glasses, his eyes adjusting to the bright sunlight. His frames were broken on one side, the arm being held together with shitty tape.

When he finally noticed you standing and putting your legs into the tight spandex of your leggings, he remembered everything that happened the night before. You asking to come over past visiting hours. The video game. The kiss. Needing relaxation before a grueling set of final exams next week. “Maybe we should try,” you had said. “Just once,” he had agreed. And now, there was a used condom in his trash can and he was trying not to gawk at it.

You were both just sophomores in college, but you felt the weight of the world on your shoulders. Especially when it meant crossing the lines of friendship.

Tugging on your shoes, you said, “Maybe I should –”

“Coffee?” He suggested, voice rough from sleep. It affected you, somewhat, and you realized how much you liked him like this: unpolished and disheveled. “Avalon dining hall has free coffee and pastries on Saturday mornings.”

You nodded, all awkward. “Sure.”

Following slightly behind him, you walked to the dining hall, trying not to make eye contact with any classmate that passed by. You wondered if they could see it written all over your face: not exactly shame, but something deeper. Maybe self-consciousness, like you’d been caught in the act. Wonwoo was wearing the same t-shirt from the day you met in class – the one with a small hole on the sleeve, a faded graphic of Godzilla on the front – as the morning sun beat down on you two, promising a hot summer ahead.

You picked out a table in the dining hall as Wonwoo went up to get your coffees. He put them in paper cups rather than mugs. Avalon food was good, but the dishware tended to be sticky, even when they cleaned it. He found you at the small table in the corner, somehow holding two coffees while balancing a plastic plate of chocolate croissants on top of one. You accepted your coffee with a tense smile, immediately taking a sip and forgetting how hot it would be. Wincing, you pulled apart one of the croissants, hand pulling back quickly when your fingers almost touched his.

You two had been friends since freshman year, and you had never shied away from him like this. But after last night … it was like his fingertip had the ability to electrocute.

Silence echoed. The dining hall was only partially filled – it was the weekend, after all – and you had said hi to your friend, Seungkwan, when he passed. Neither of you were looking at each other, eyes focused on something else. For Wonwoo, it was the bee buzzing just outside the window next to your table.

You cleared your throat as you traced the rim of your coffee cup. “Well, I guess this awkwardness proves that we’d be terrible at casual.”

Finally, he relented. Your playful comment making a snort escape from his lips. You couldn’t help but smile, still staring at your cup. “Yeah. Imagine what it would be like if we actually tried,” he quipped.

Your eyes lifted to his, stunned for a moment. Just a moment. Because you couldn’t dwell on what “actually tried” meant. Dating? Wanting? Choosing each other on purpose? You were both just shy of 21. You couldn’t possibly know what you wanted.

But then the night was coming back in flashes. You remembered the way he kissed you slow at first, before deepening it and how you couldn’t hold back the moan when his tongue explored your mouth. He had taken his glasses off, making sure to cautiously place them on his bedside table, or else they would break again, and he was so … handsome. Well, of course, Wonwoo was handsome. You weren’t blind. But it was different up close, without his glasses.  When he was staring at you not just like a friend, but as something more. Like you were everything he had ever dreamed of. It was just you and him breathing heavily against each other’s mouths while taking in your appearances, and then going in for the kiss again. Last night had been his first time going down on a girl, but it had been the best experience of your life. Granted, you only had one person go down on you before him. His talent was truly unmatched though. And the way it felt when he finally pushed into you –

Only a second passed. It had felt like hours.

You laughed too fast, shaking your head. “We’d have ruined everything.”

Wonwoo paused, a mere breath. “Or –”

You watched him. Even your finger on the rim of your cup hesitated, as if your entire world depended on the next words that came out of his mouth.

He closed his mouth, smiling, and then shrugged. “Yeah,” he agreed, “ruined everything.”

In freshman year psychology, your professor had briefly touched on origin wounds – deep, emotional scars that shape core beliefs about self-worth, safety, and especially, trust, making you repeat patterns in adulthood. You didn’t realize it at the time, and Wonwoo surely didn’t mean for it, but this was one of your origin wounds: the point where everything went wrong by dishonesty, by being too reasonable.

Maybe it was an origin wound for both of you.

Your expression was perfectly schooled, lips curving up as you reached across the table with your hand. “Just friends?”

He hesitated, biting his lip for the longest minute of your life. Until eventually … his large palm closed over yours.

“Just friends,” he promised. “Hopefully, for many years to come.”

February 12, 2026

Dusting snow flurries off his black beanie, Wonwoo was grateful that you gave the second key to your building to him rather than someone else. Not that you wanted anyone besides him in your personal space, anyway. You weren’t answering your phone when he arrived, so he let himself in, setting his wet hat and gloves on the antique space heater you still kept in your kitchen. It was so old; you were pretty sure it came from your grandmother that died before you were born. But it worked like a champ, and he was able to shed off his coat just before the pizza box almost fell from his hands.

Ever since you both moved to the city 3 years ago, you established a ritual for him to come over to your apartment on Thursday nights and watch a movie you both never saw before while dining on some of the worst reviewed takeout spots. You both begged to differ. Thursday movie night just made sense, seeing as the two of you bonded in a college course on the history of cinema. 

He turned his head to catch the apologetic smile you were throwing his way. That’s why you hadn’t answered his text. Despite the late hour, despite the fact that you left the office three hours ago … you were on the phone with your boss about a change in his flight. You weren’t his assistant; you were actually far above that in the company. But you always agreed to help. If you didn’t answer his call, no one would.

Plopping down on the couch beside you, Wonwoo scrolled through his phone and listened as you talked your anxiety-ridden boss down from the ledge. It reminded him of last week when he came over and you quickly told him to set down the pizza in the kitchen while you sat on your bathroom floor and smoothed over a conflict your work friend, Jennifer, had texted you about. Something about a boyfriend. You didn’t sweat it, never missing a moment to give practical advice. 

He had been watching you fix everyone else’s problems your entire friendship – half amused, half exhausted by how you never did the same for yourself. It’s always been something you never had a problem doing, but he saw how much it weighed on you. You never complained though. He wondered sometimes if it was tearing you up inside to complain. Just once. 

When you finally got off the phone, you let out the heaviest sigh and fell back, resting your head on his thigh. Physical contact like this had never meant much to the both of you, but still, his finger did stop scrolling. His breathing paused, too focused on himself to notice that maybe yours had faltered too.

“Sorry about that,” you muttered. “Sal put extra cheese on the pizza, right?”

Wonwoo clicked off his phone and let it collapse on the couch cushion. Instead of answering your question, he said, “You’re always doing that – fixing people. I’m sure your boss could’ve figured that out on his own.” He looked down, meeting your eyes as they tilted up to his. “I know you’ve insisted it’s not a big deal, but –”

“Trust me, he wouldn’t have been able to figure that out. He’s never struggled with anything in his life.” You played with your fingers on your lap. “Besides, being praised at work after I help someone feels better than anything, even an orgasm.”

Your latter comment made him bite the inside of his cheek, just for a second, and he ignored it before adding, “It’s not just at work. It happens all the time. You know I’m right.”

You exhaled even louder, more dramatic, and sat up. Your hair was slightly messed up in the back, but you felt his eyes on you. Felt them burning into your cheek as if he had powers. Wonwoo always looked at you that way: like he cared a little too much, kind of like the way he stared at you when you were young and stupid in that godforsaken dorm room. You couldn’t deny that you were guilty of doing the same sometimes, whether it be in a dark movie theater where he was far too focused on the screen, or when he took the liberty ordering for you at a bar because he knew the bartender liked him. And maybe you did care a little too much, but that didn’t matter. Because it couldn’t matter.

Wonwoo would always just be … Wonwoo.

Shifting your gaze to his, you sent him a small smile and asked, “So which movie did you pick out for us tonight?”

After scrolling through multiple streaming apps, Wonwoo finally found the one hosting this horror movie that was recommended to him – Swiped. It was a modern day nightmare about a woman using an app to get back into dating and accidentally wound up on a date with a serial killer. Definitely an indie film, so they didn’t hold back on the gory scenes, which you watched with your hands over your eyes, peaking out slightly between your fingers. Wonwoo, on the other hand, didn’t shy away, but still watched the bloody scene of the killer’s past with his top lip curled in disgust. He set down the pizza slice in his hand onto a paper plate and leaned back into the couch.

“This is the exact reason why dating apps don’t work. You don’t know if you could end up with a serial killer,” he commented, crossing his arms over his chest.

You turned your head, desperate not to look at the TV. “Have you ever actually been on a date from an app? I can’t remember the last time you even told me you went on a date.”

He sent you a glare. “You’re one to talk. The last time you dated was that older guy who you stopping talking to after he wanted to be exclusive.”

“Sean was asking too much of me. He wanted to see me every weekend and I love my friends too much.” You glanced at the scene to see the killer’s particularly creepy face and cringed, looking back to your friend. “Now, answer the question.”

He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I … okay, never. What’s your point?”

Good question. Your nose wrinkled as you thought about the last time Wonwoo dated. It had to be years ago, even longer than you. Just after college and you were both already hyper fixating on a quarter-life crisis. It was before you both moved, and you remembered him casually dating this girl. What was her name? Sally? Seoyun? Selena? Too different, but you thought he introduced you to her once. He broke it off before it got too serious, when you both got opportunities of a lifetime to work in the heart of the city.

He wasn’t dating. Hadn’t been for years. Not seriously. Not casually. He was always “busy,” always “just fine.”

You noticed. Of course, you did.

“Soooo …” You murmured, dragging out the word as you slowly met his eyes. Your tone was smooth, almost blasé. “Are you ever going to date again?”

Wonwoo arched an eyebrow. “You’re full of questions tonight. Why do you care?”

Your gaze narrowed. “Oh, I don’t know, Wonwoo. Maybe it’s because you’re my best friend.” You tossed a throw pillow at him and it hit him right in the face. He had never been good with dexterity, even though he was great at video games.

His glasses were knocked onto the floor and he laughed, picking them up before settling against the cushions once more. He fixed them back onto his face, but the frames – no matter how new – were still crooked on him. 

When his laughter died down, he shrugged, lacing his fingers together on his chest as he watched the movie. “Haven’t met anyone worth the effort.”

There was nothing dramatic about his tone. He wasn’t bitter. He said it like a fact.

The words stuck, lodging themselves somewhere deep. Not in your head, not in your chest. Even deeper. In your ribs, nestled in a cage of your own making. 

Because his answer wasn’t “anyone interesting” or “anyone I like.” He mentioned effort, no matter how indifferent he sounded. You had known Wonwoo for almost a decade. You knew what he was like when something was worth the effort.

So you laughed it off – albeit awkwardly – because you couldn’t stand the silence. “Well, that’s fixable.”

“Here you go again.” But then he finally glanced at you, curiosity peaked. “Is … is it?”

You nodded, body completely facing him now, as you rested your elbow on the back of the couch. Grinning at him, you replied, “Mmhmm. You’re just not meeting the right people. I know, like …” You lifted a few fingers. “… Five women off the top of my head for you.”

A corner of his mouth tugged up. “One of those isn’t your cousin that tried kissing me at your graduation party, right?”

“Don’t make me throw another pillow at you.” You playfully hit his arm. “I’m being serious. I think it all comes down to that.” 

He turned back to the screen, just when the main character gasped at the killer’s monologue. Wonwoo was usually quiet, but this silence was different. He wasn’t arguing at your response, but he clearly wasn’t excited either. It was as if he was resigning himself to whatever fate you bestowed upon him.

And then he gently mumbled, “If you think so.”

Haven’t met anyone worth the effort.

You thought about his answer longer than you should. What was meant to be an uninterested string of words to shrug you off struck you somewhere that you hadn’t felt before. They were heavy; you could practically feel them rolling around in your brain like marbles. You pondered them, even at the office, when you should be focusing on work. Even at night, when sleep just wouldn’t come to you. As you took the train to work, when all you could hear was the singing of some elderly man at the back of the car. 

Despite the way you laughed off awkward situations, you always listened to Wonwoo, always took in every word he said. One time, after drinking a single margarita because he was a lightweight when it came to tequila, he drunkenly told you that no one had ever listened to him like you did. But last night’s conversation hit … different, in a way that had you picking at your cuticles again. Maybe you cared too much. But was it really that bad to care too much for someone that had become your rock? 

You couldn’t harp on it, too afraid of the real answer.

You had just gotten home, still wearing the cardigan you wore to the office even after changing into a pair of worn out pajama bottoms. The kind that you probably got as a teenager, but the fabric had stretched out so much that they still fit. You were chopping up some veggies for whatever haphazard rice bowl you were throwing together for dinner. Sometimes you would eat a pepper slice, other times you’d throw it in the pan. Your mind wandered though: on emails, reminding yourself that you needed to text back your dad, and – oh, the thing that Wonwoo said last week that simply wouldn’t leave your brain.

He deserves someone great, you thought to yourself. Clearly, you weren’t an option, not that you were expecting to be. If he fell for someone else, maybe you’d finally stop looking at him like –

You let the thought die before it could finish.

On lonely nights, when it was only you and your vibrator, some audio porn blasting through your AirPods, you wondered if you both had tried after that hookup before finals … what would’ve happened? Would you still be as close as you are now? Would you still be this much of a fixer and would he still be too “busy” to date anyone else? 

Even worse: would you have been worth the effort?

You set down the knife on the cutting board, closing your eyes as you gripped the counter. Your head shook, as if pushing the question out before it could take root. But that’s when the feelings you pushed down for so long bubbled up all over again. Calling it a “crush” felt trivial, like you were two kids at recess. It was more like … a feeling that lingered. A curse. A spirit that haunted you.

Because, at your heart of hearts, you knew it shouldn’t ever happened. You and Wonwoo had the chance years ago, but it wasn’t in the cards. You were meant to be friends and that was fine. (Truly, it was.) Your curse would go away soon enough, even if it took another 8 years of friendship.

Rewinding back to your conversation last week absolutely wasn’t helping. You turned, pressing your back against the kitchen counter as the peppers started to sizzle in the hot pan. Taking your phone out of your pocket, you began scrolling through the contacts in your phone. It was in this moment that you reverted back to your old ways, doing what you always did when you were the least bit hurt: you were going to fix.

II.

I think I’ve loved you since I met you. I just mistook it for curiosity. –ALICE OSEMAN

September 16, 2015

Maybe Wonwoo had been right; maybe this was a problem for you. But no case ever started as “I’m going to fix this person.”

The first inkling happened after you read Jane Austen’s Emma in senior year of high school. You weren’t a matchmaker by any means, and you certainly weren’t wealthy, nor all that clever, but you related to Emma Woodhouse in ways that were beyond you. And once you got to college, where you could start off with a clean state and become your own person, you found your purpose beginning to sprout. 

There was a girl in your ENG 101 class named Kat – loner type, the kind to always sit in the back and mind her own business. You observed her from your spot in the corner, watched the way she stayed silent and twirled the same piece of dark hair around her finger. She didn’t talk in class. Didn’t talk to anyone, really. Freshman year of college was hard enough as it was, but it was even worse when you were extremely introverted. Not that you had made many friends yet; you just knew how to make conversation. Always had. If you needed a friend and so did Kat, what harm would it be to help each other?

You approached her once class ended, hugging your notebook to you chest as you flashed the most endearing, pearly-white smile at her. You told her your name as she cautiously stood from her seat, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. “Do you want to grab lunch with me?” You asked brightly. “I think we also have the same first year seminar next. Maybe we could walk together to it after lunch!”

Surprisingly, Kat accepted your offer. Maybe she felt like she couldn’t exactly say no, but that wasn’t for you to assume. You showed her your current favorite dining area – Lincoln Hall – where they made the best burritos on campus. “They can sometimes make your stomach turn if you haven’t had any breakfast,” you explained, “but they’re worth it. Don’t let the chef intimidate you. Just ignore him.”

You quickly realized just how shy Kat was. She had a habit of keeping to herself and only spoke when spoken to. It took almost the whole lunch to get something out of her, as if she was trying to make it impossible to peel back her layers. But when she finally broke a moment of silence with, “These burritos are that good,” you knew that you were getting somewhere.

“Aren’t they? I love that they actually use fresh veggies,” you replied, wiping sauce from your top lip.

“They remind me of these ones I used to get back home.” She shrugged, pensive. “I miss it sometimes.”

Your interest peaked. “Home? Where are you from?”

She was a couple states south of here, while you were more north. Two opposite ends that somehow met on the same campus. Once she crumped up the empty wrapper, she mused, “You must’ve had a lot of friends back home.”

Your brow knitted together. “Not exactly. Just a small group that I had known since middle school, but I’ve always just been social. When I enrolled here, I really wanted to find new people. My parents always said that the people you meet in college are with you for life.” You traced the edge of the table. “Have … you met anyone else on campus?”

She looked a little caught off guard for a minute, and then shrunk into her jacket. “Besides you? Well … no.”

You tilted your head to the side. Kat stuffed her hands into her pockets and let the silence envelope her until it became too awkward. You realized that in order to get her to open up, you needed to beat her at her own game. It was a lot more difficult than you thought.

“I know it’s only the third week of classes, but I’m just …” She sighed, getting to her feet and grabbing her backpack. “… Nervous about making friends. And getting close to other people. I’ve always been kind of an introvert, but now …”

You followed her move, walking with her outside the dining hall and heading to the  Roosevelt building across campus, where your seminar was. “Is there a reason for that?” You asked, and then bumped her elbow with yours, a smile on your lips. “You can tell me. I think we’re friends now.”

Kat chewed on her bottom lip, debating her answer, until eventually, she cracked. “My friends from high school were … not very nice. My mom used to think they were toxic. Whatever you want to call them, they didn’t make me feel good.” She only looked at her feet as you walked together. “High school was hard and I was so scared about being without friends. But they always made me feel like I was a bother. Sometimes they wouldn’t even invite me over. I just let it happen though because I was afraid of being alone. I told myself that college would different.”

“Kat,” you murmured, grabbing her arm so her eyes met yours. You both stopped midstep in the center of the campus courtyard, blooming with life. “I don’t get the vibe that you could ever be a bother. College is the time to make friends, not shy away from them.”

You made due on your words, always making time to have lunch with her after ENG 101, but also introducing her to a few of your classmates from your History of Cinema course. Kasey and Jun were also on the quieter side, but they had way more in common with Kat than you did. Bringing them all together meant you saw Kat less, but she still made the effort to speak to you in class. 

By the time fall semester ended, you and Kat were merely acquaintances, but you didn’t really mind all that much. You had become close with your classmate, Wonwoo, also from History of Cinema, as well as a few other girls that lived in the same building as you. Wonwoo was shy like Kat, but he knew when to exactly open himself up, and he always did around you. Sometimes you wondered if you were merely attracted to introverted people, but you didn’t want to be friends with Wonwoo to help him. There was a warmth to his friendship that you hadn’t experienced before, something that you told that he would be in your life for a long time. 

When you and Wonwoo were in line for dinner, you noticed Kat leaving the dining hall with not just Kat and Jun, but a few others as well. She had clearly blossomed over the last couple of months, and you felt a sense of accomplishment that tingled throughout your body, from your head to your toes. This was the type of feeling you wanted all the time: purpose, connection, serotonin. 

You looked on her fondly, knowing that you helped give her a little push, and your self-esteem seemed to skyrocket. Kat glanced over her shoulder, meeting your eyes then, and waved. Matching her wave with a smile, you then felt Wonwoo’s breath at your ear as he asked, “Who’s that?”

You shrugged. “An old friend.”

February 18, 2026

The coffee at the office was tasting particularly burnt this morning. To be fair, you saw the technician that fixed the machine every couple of months stride through the double doors just after you sat down with your cup. A couple of your coworkers were already fawning over him from the doorway of the kitchenette. You watched them, just over the edge of your cubicle, with a raised brow. The local technician, Seokmin, was definitely handsome and had the kind of biceps you only saw on a bodice ripper romance book, but you had too many emails to waste time on watching him repair the coffee machine.

No matter how much you wanted to.

You took another sip from your cup and winced. Still burnt.

Resting your chin on your fist, you scrolled through the piles of emails that you were copied on but didn’t actually involve your position. You played music softly from the speakers of your monitor, not exactly caring who heard. This was what would happen until you were rewarded with your own office space. Despite your Marketing Director role, the building in general was “far too small” to grant you an office, so you’d make your coworkers’ life a living hell in your cubicle until your boss grew tired of it. He would eventually. Men, especially in positions of power, always caved.

As your fingers began dancing across the keyboard, you heard the doors swing open and the loud scuffle of your coworker, Jennifer’s, ballet flats. You looked up, noting the red in her eyes, the way her cheeks flushed and her mouth was in a flat line. She smoothed back the curls in her perfectly styled pixie cut, huffed, and then dropped her lunch bag onto her desk all the way at the end of the row from yours. 

Now that was perplexing. Jennifer was always in a good mood.

Your fingers paused on the keys, and just when you were about to get up and talk with her, she stormed in the direction of the bathroom. You heard her start to sniffle, but the sound was eventually muffled by the door to the women’s bathroom closing behind her. When one of your desk mates sent you a look, you took that as a sign to go check on her.

Getting to your feet, you smoothed down the wrinkles in your blouse and quickly made your way to the bathroom, sneaking a glance at Seokmin working his magic on the coffee machine in the process. (He really was handsome. Maybe you could help fix him up with someone here if he was single.) You pushed on the door and immediately found Jennifer at the sinks, sniffling as she wiped her eyes. She met your gaze in the mirror and already began stuttering, “Oh, I – I’m – let me j-just –”

You saddled up next to her and put a hand on her arm. “Don’t be silly, Jen,” you whispered, grabbing more paper towels from behind you and handing it to her. “Here, take these. What’s going on?”

Jennifer blew her nose into the paper towels, and the sound was so loud that it startled you. You blinked rapidly and she grumbled, “Sorry,” but it was muffled by the makeshift tissue.

“It’s okay,” you replied, trying to hide your chuckle. But soon enough, you were both sharing a laugh, giggling over the absolute absurdity of it all at 9 AM. You squeezed her arm as she blew her nose again.

“I hoped no one would see me like this, but …” She exhaled hard, tossing her snotty paper towel in the trash before checking her appearance in the mirror. Grimacing, she fixed the strands that had fallen out of her gelled hairstyle. 

Your grip slipped away as you arched a brow. “Do you … want to talk about it?”

She straightened her back, smoothing out the wrinkle in her shirt, before asking, “Do you remember the guy I had texted you about week ago? We hadn’t been dating long, but I asked for your advice –”

“Matty?”

Jennifer rolled her eyes instantly, the name striking a sense of irritation in her that even she was unable to hide. “Yes,” she admitted, and then rubbed at her nose. “The day after I texted you for advice … we actually broke up, but I was too embarrassed to tell you or make you think your advice didn’t work.”

Your brow relaxed. “Jen, it doesn’t offend me that my advice didn’t work. I just care that you’re okay.” And it was the truth, but you couldn’t help but be a little miffed that she didn’t follow your guidance after you made time out of your movie night with Wonwoo to prioritize her problem. That was neither here nor there. Jennifer was your friend after all.

“I just …” She wrung out her hands in front of her, looking down at the dent in her favorite flats. “I saw him at a coffee shop today and it brought back a lot of emotions that I thought were starting to go away. We had only been together for, like, five months, but it still feels so … icky to think that it could’ve worked out and it didn’t.”

“Icky?” You repeated, and then let the word turn over in your brain. “That does feel quite icky, doesn’t it?”

“Very!” She huffed, her palms slapping against her sides. “Because here I am crying over a guy that clearly doesn’t like me anymore, and I can’t stop wondering if I’ll ever be good enough. Like … what is it about me that made our relationship not work?”

Sensing that this was going to be a longer conversation, you leaned against the faucet and leveled a look at her. “Jen, you can’t think like that. You’ll just make yourself go crazy, and I can guarantee that it wasn’t you in the first place.”

She sent you a soft smile. With the amount of times she came to you for advice, it almost felt weird to continuously thank you. “You know, when you turn – let’s say … 20 – you think that you have it all figured out by now. I thought this stuff would get easier, but I can’t help but feel like I’m in college all over again.”

A tingle ran through you, the kind that started at your hairline and trickled all the way down to your legs. Her words hit you in a way you didn’t expect, because you – the person who always had her life together, who pretended like she had it all figured out – constantly felt that way. Sometimes you wondered if you were that transparent, if everyone could tell that you liked fixing so you wouldn’t have to mend any of the problems in your own life. You weren’t just a body anymore. You were merely a piece of cling wrap, translucent and waiting to mold yourself to the next thing that needed you. 

But maybe that was just you being too in your head, because no matter what, everyone came to you. And you’d drop everything. It was easier than having to face the fact that you still felt so small, so 20-something, insecure and overworked in a body that was pushing 30. 

“No matter what age you are, you’re never gonna have your life completely together,” you mused, a small passing comment that you were hoping would end the conversation before it got too deep. Jennifer reached over you and grabbed another paper towel to wipe her nose. You took the opportunity to ask, “Are you … open to dating again? Seeing someone else can be the perfect way to get over Matty.”

Jennifer shrugged. “If the man is nice enough, sure.”

Wonwoo’s smile appeared in your head then, all the kind things he did for you over the years flashing through like a movie montage. You remembered the time he spent a whole week studying with you just so you would pass your Physics exam. The time he brought you a new pair of slacks when you split coffee all over yourself before a job interview. The time he picked you up from a Renaissance faire when it got flooded out. Or all the times he was there for you when he didn’t have to be.

He was nice enough. More than that. And yet, he hadn’t met anyone worth the effort.

You pushed off the edge of the sink. “You know, my friend, Wonwoo, wants to try dating again –”

Her eyes immediately flickered to yours. “The Wonwoo? As in your friend? I didn’t think he was single.”

“Why?” You cocked your head.

“Well, it’s just … the way you talk about him …” She was avoiding eye contact now. “And the way he was hanging off you when you brought him to last year’s company holiday party …”

You rolled your eyes. “To be fair, he got way more intoxicated than intended. Anyway, he’s very single, and actually … you two might get along.”

“How so?”

You opened your mouth to say something, but nothing came to mind. In that moment, you couldn’t think of one thing – not even a lie – to convince Jennifer to go out with your best friend. They didn’t have anything in common, but that wasn’t typically a requirement for Wonwoo. He liked different.

“Well, I … haven’t exactly thought that far yet,” you admitted, sending her an awkward smile. “But he’s nice. Extremely nice. And you’re good with conversation. He can be difficult to come out of his shell, but I think you could do it.”

She sighed, turning to look at her reflection in the mirror. The redness in her eyes had faded, and she admired the natural flush of her cheeks as she fidgeted with her hair again. Eventually, she looked at you again with a shy smile, and then whispered, “I did think he was pretty cute at the holiday party.”

The game development company Wonwoo worked for was nowhere close to your job, but when you asked him to go to lunch, he always came. He would say that it wasn’t a big deal, but the few times you went to go see him during lunch, it took you two trains to get to him, leaving you with only 20 mins to sit with him before you had to leave. It was a big deal, and yet, he didn’t complain.

He moved around one of his meetings just to come see you, texting you that the deadline for the prototype of their next game was due soon, so finding free time nowadays was scarce. But he still did it. For you. Because he knew you would do the same. He hopped on the two trains to get to you, walking the short block to the cafe you found that was close to the station. Opening the door for the elderly women leaving, Wonwoo squeezed in past them and found you sitting at a small table in the corner. He watched you for a moment, noticing the way your fingers tapped across your phone screen, most likely writing an urgent email to someone on your team. Even with your brow scrunched together like this, you were calm. The idea of being burdened with work settling you better than the green tea on the table. 

Wonwoo pushed past the line forming at the register, and your eyes immediately lifted, like you could sense his presence somehow. Your lips curled and you waved him over. His own smile was quick, afraid of looking too eager, although any time he got to see you made him excited. Slipping his backpack off his shoulders, he sat down in the seat opposite of you and saw the hot mug of black coffee already waiting for him.

“I just got you the dark roast because I know you’ve always liked it,” you said, turning your phone facedown. Wonwoo wrapped his hands around the mug as he tried warding off the winter chill outside. “Were the trains bad?”

“Not really, but they’ll probably get worse later when I’m on my way home.” He took a sip of the rich, warm beverage. “I don’t have long though. What was so urgent?”

You laced your hands on the table, and you had this look in your eye that always scared him. The kind that excited you, but whatever you had planned would be hell for everyone else. Judging by the way your gaze was focused on only him, he had a feeling that he alone was going to become your next project.

“What if I told you that I gave your number to Jennifer at work?” You grinned big.

The mug was at his mouth when he paused. He considered pinching himself to make sure that this was real. “Jennifer?” He asked, arching a brow. “The one that brought homemade jello shots to your holiday party last year?”

“Well,” you scoffed and laid out your hand, “they were good, weren’t they?”

He finally took a sip. “I guess so. Actually … I don’t know if I’ve ever understood the appeal of jello shots. Too messy.”

“You’re no fun, and off topic.” You let your finger trace the rim of your cup, filled halfway with lukewarm green tea. “I gave Jennifer your number because she’s interested in going on a date with you. Exciting, right?”

He blinked in your direction. Jennifer sounded familiar; when was the last time he heard about her? Maybe it was … “Wasn’t Jennifer the coworker you were helping a few weeks ago on movie night? You went into the bathroom to give her advice because her boyfriend was being weird.”

“The weird boyfriend is out of the picture now. Has been for weeks,” you shrugged. “And she admitted that she thought you were cute at the holiday party.”

His nose wrinkled a little. “You sure she isn’t just remembering me through the haze of the jello shots?”

Your eyes narrowed into a glare.

He flashed a smile. “Kidding.”

“Listen,” you said, clearing your throat. He raised his fingers – just slightly – but you were already tucking that stray hair behind your ear. “She’ll probably text you tonight to set up a date. Don’t give me that look, Wonwoo. No pressure. It’s just dinner.”

Wonwoo hesitated, leaning back in his chair. This didn’t surprise you; he was always hesitant. He made sure to think through all his choices, not impulsively like you preferred. That was why you two worked so well –

You shut down the thought before it could go further. You shouldn’t be reminiscing on your compatibility with your best friend. This was about you helping him.

He tilted his head slightly, playing with the hairs at the back of his neck, like he did when he was anxious. His eyes crinkled. “Mingyu said once that you micromanage me sometimes.”

Your expression twisted at the mention of his roommate. “Says the president of micromanaging. He needs to mind his own business – literally. That’s what his restaurant is for.”

Wonwoo was silent again, taking small sips from the mug that was almost empty. Tapping his phone, he checked the time. He had maybe 10 minutes before he had to run back to the train station. Was he going to keep you on the edge of your seat this whole time? This was so dumb.

And you told him once over a bottle of soju that you hated edging anyway.

“You can say no,” you eventually muttered, leaning more into the table. “I just thought … maybe she could be worth the effort.”

His gaze met yours again, quick and intense. He opened his mouth once like he was about to refuse, and then closed it. One late night at your apartment, he told you that saying no to you felt like refusing care, which is why you wanted to remind him that he could. But at the end of the day … this was you. Out of everyone, you knew that flicker of change in his eyes, relenting.

For a moment, you wondered if he was going to ask something curious: 

“Does she actually like me?”

“Is she really open to a date?”

“Do you think I’ll like her?”

But he didn’t. Wonwoo rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, “Alright.”

A single word. Loaded. Like a bullet.

You blinked once, then twice, surprised. You expected a joke or his typical resistance. This … this couldn’t be his real answer.

Or maybe you were just overthinking things again.

“Okay, great. I think you’ll like her.” Your smile was quick, and then you were turning over your phone again. To text Jennifer, he assumed. The cafe was loud, but all he could hear in that moment was the sound of keyboard clicks. A message being sent. “She’ll probably choose a casual place. She always does when her and I go out. You don’t have to dress up. She’s funny and super easy to talk to.”

And then, you looked up, afraid you were coming off as inconsiderate. That wasn’t what you wanted in the slightest. You cared about him, maybe even a little more than you should.

You reached out, fingers finding his wrist. “And, hey, listen – no expectations.”

He glanced down, watching your thumb glide over his pulse point. You tried to ignore the quickening of it, but it was unavoidable. Horrifically loud and matching your own. And you were now wondering why you told him there were no expectations in the first place. It was ironic, wasn’t it? The whole date was an expectation.

This was a game of charades, and neither of you were going to win.

He nodded, and you retracted your hand onto your lap once again. “Got it,” Wonwoo agreed, committing to his role. He finished the last of his coffee and stood to his full height, making you tilt your chin up to meet his eyes. “I gotta go. I’ll watch out for an unknown number. Text me when you get home after work.”

You bobbed your head, staring at his back as he exited the cafe. When it was just you then, sitting on the booth side of your small table, your cup of green tea cold and abandoned in your hands, it was easy to let the mask slip. Confusion ebbed into your subconscious. Because you thought this was supposed to make you feel good – it always did. But you were suddenly filled with a bottomless pit of regret.

That night, with your sheets tucked up to your chin and your restless brain keeping you up, you thought, If he dates someone else, I’ll get over this. Whatever this is that I’ve been feeling forever.

Wonwoo – poor, sleepless Wonwoo, who was too tired of this act already but the thought of denying you felt like a wound – in his apartment across the city, pondered to himself, If I date someone else, maybe I’ll stop wanting her. She can still be in my life and I won’t lie awake wondering what it would be like if she was here with me.

As you both turned over to a cold pillow, you liked to believe it was all figured out. Inside, though, the two of you knew that life would never be that easy. 

Endless emails, unread texts, boring meetings made the week fly by, and soon enough, it was next Friday. The night of Wonwoo’s date with Jennifer. You saw her at the office earlier and she seemed … in good spirits, at the very least. “He really hadn’t texted me this week,” she complained to you at lunch. “But maybe he’s just one of those guys that doesn’t like to text before a first date.”

You smiled nervously. “He’s just … shy.” Your fingers tapped against her arm. “But hey! What are you planning on wearing tonight?”

Deflection had always been one of your super powers.

You had done your best this week to help him. Told him to text her to get to know her better. Got on FaceTime with him as he picked out the best “casual” outfit, whatever that meant. He was tired already, exhausted by the idea of something you didn’t want to pinpoint. So you tried getting him excited: you hyped up Jennifer as much as you possibly could. Tried to find similarities between them. They had the same taste in books – which was an absolute fighting start – and also … well, that might be it. But this was about chemistry, two people getting to know each other and feeling a pull so deep it rivaled magnets.

You had felt it once. Maybe twice, but you couldn’t identify exactly who was the second. You knew that you felt it with Sean; that’s why he wanted to see you so often back then, when things had gotten too much. They were good at first though, when you met him at a wine bar after you’d been stood up from a blind date. As soon as he looked at you from his bar stool, you felt the pull immediately. And his smile … he looked at you like you were something special, not like a sad excuse for a date. You chocked it up to him being older and more experienced, but someone else had looked at you like that. (Someone you just didn’t want to focus on.) 

Sean had gotten too exclusive too fast. It had been a lot for you to handle, but at his age, he knew what he wanted. “I want someone like you,” he had explained once. “Driven. Independent. But also soft, even when she doesn’t want to show it. If that’s asking for too much, I don’t know what to tell you.” 

His words were cutting, but you guessed you couldn’t blame him. What else was there to say when you told him the relationship was becoming a lot for you? He was a decade older than you. His time was running out while yours was just starting. Your chemistry was off the charts, but something wasn’t aligning. You just weren’t sure what yet.

This was the exact opposite outcome that you wanted for Wonwoo.

You had to become a coach, similar to the one you had for basketball in high school. Over FaceTime was the best chance to catch him, allowing you to teach him about body language and the best questions to ask. You taught him how to make the questions deeper but not too invasive, especially when one glass of wine turned into two. He took in all your information, nodding, but not saying anything. He knew not to question you. Although you hadn’t dated in a while, you knew exactly how women wanted to be talked to – something he typically had trouble with.

Wonwoo wasn’t good with talking to just about everybody. Besides you. Never with you.

You were pacing in your tiny living room as an episode of some reality show played quietly. You supposed that you should go take a shower, do your skincare, and put on your pajamas before settling in on the couch with your takeout. The perfect Friday night. But you were anxiously waiting on Jennifer’s text that she was arriving to the bar that her and Wonwoo agreed to meet at. It was kind of a dive, but the food was incredible, specializing in multiple macaroni and cheese dishes.

There was no way that this wouldn’t work. Jennifer had such a huge personality, one that invited you in and made you feel warm. You were sure that she would charm him.

Your phone dinged.

Jennifer: Just got here! He met me outside, even though it was snowing. Points!!!

You jumped on the balls of your feet, excitement flowing through you. Forcing yourself to finally hop in the shower, you couldn’t help but wonder why you had so much regret about this in the first place. You were grinning; this was good. Maybe the satisfaction of setting up this date wouldn’t be instant, but it was still there.

This was for Wonwoo, after all.

You were buzzing, waiting patiently for his text that he was on his way over. He promised you he’d stop by after the date and rehash all the details. This felt like college again. Your roommate for the first two years, Liz, had been far more popular with boys than you, and although you two weren’t the closest, you longed for the days when you stayed up past midnight, waiting for her to come back to your dorm and share all the juicy moments.

Wonwoo wasn’t similar to the average female freshman, but you knew you could pry some things out of him. At the end of the day, all you wanted was for him to be happy.

That’s what you told yourself.

When your phone finally went off, you were sitting on your couch in pajamas and your wet hair wrapped in a towel. You changed channels from before, but the reality show stayed the same. Texting him back, you scooped one last lo mein noodle in your mouth before getting up to brush back your wet strands. The door lock clicked open once you were back on the couch, the takeout carton lukewarm and abandoned on your coffee table, next to the vanilla cashmere candle you almost always had lit. 

Wonwoo shook the chill out of his body as soon as he stepped through the door, and you sat up, an immediate smile appearing on your face. It was amazing how just the arrival of someone could make you happy, but that had always been Wonwoo for you. He was dusting the snowflakes off his jacket as your feet – clad in your favorite fuzzy socks – padded over to him. “That didn’t take you long,” you chuckled, taking his winter gloves and placing them on the old space heater to get warm.

He hung up his coat on the door hang. “Well, I was halfway here when I realized I hadn’t texted earlier,” he explained, instantly gunning for the couch and plopping down in his usual spot. Plucking the carton from the coffee table, he leaned all the way back into the couch cushions and slurped a cold noodle into his mouth. He was silent, watching whatever fight was ensuing on the TV.

You head tilted, perplexed. Maybe it was strange for you to assume, but you thought he would be more … open about details. I mean, you did set him up in the first place. You hummed under your breath, grabbing the leftover chicken fingers and scallion pancakes on the kitchen counter before setting them on the coffee table.

“Soooooooooo …” You dragged the word as you fell into the cushion opposite of him, tucking one leg underneath you. His eyes slid to yours, unenthusiastic. You scoffed and hit his arm. “Why are you being so coy?”

He snorted. “I’m always coy. That’s part of my charm.”

“Just tell me how the date was.”

He shrugged, gaze back on the screen as he set down the takeout container. “It was fine,” he said politely before reaching for the remote. “Can we watch a movie instead?”

You intentionally moved the remote away from him and his eyes narrowed. “You have no right to glare at me when you’re being so secretive. It was just ‘fine?’”

“I guess … I –” His head fell back against the cushions, and then he glanced at you again. “Just fine. The food at the restaurant was good. We had a good time.”

You sat there, observing him, almost dumbfounded. Somehow, he was being even more vague than usual. Distracted. Usually, you could read him like a book, but there was something about his tone that you couldn’t detect.

So you tested his limits, got up in his space, despite the fact that your heart felt like it was going to fall out of your chest the closer you got. Lacing your hands on top of his right shoulder, you rested your chin on top of them and blinked up at him innocently. He slowly turned to face you, and you both tried to ignore how close your faces truly were, warm breath mingling with the other. His fingers twitched on his thigh, and you wondered if he could feel your heart thudding against his bicep.

“Can I help you?” He raised a brow.

“Tell me specifics,” you said, voice as sweet as honey. 

Wonwoo looked back in front of him – anything but your eyes – rubbing two fingers over his left temple. “Why do you want to know so bad?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Sue me for wanting to know how the date I set my best friend on went,” you quipped, not moving one inch from your position. Your eyes narrowed. “Are you gatekeeping some kind of pertinent information? Or – oh, my God. Did you guys kiss?”

“No,” he answered immediately, meeting your eyes. His tone made your back straighten instantly, and he tried to recover by clearing his throat. “I mean – well … no. We didn’t kiss. She’s very pretty and has a great personality, but I don’t think her and I are … compatible.”

You nodded slowly. “What made you realize that?”

He sighed heavily, letting his hand fall back on his thigh. You noticed that his hands were still red from the cold, even though he had his best gloves on. So you grabbed your heating pad from the other side of the couch before he began to speak, plugging it in behind him and wrapping it around his hands, before plopping back down beside him.

Wonwoo was silent as he looked down, the feeling gradually returning back to his hands. He was used to you doing this sometimes: taking care of him, micromanaging him, like he had been your project since college. He couldn’t deny that he liked it, but there was some moments that still left him stunned. It was as if taking care of him came as second nature to you.

When were you going to let him reciprocate?

You poked his arm, interrupting the thought before it could take root. “What were you gonna say?”

He exhaled again and got comfortable in the old cushions. “We talked about our interests – and it didn’t bother me that we didn’t have a lot in common. It was just … I don’t think I’m what she’s looking for. Or what she needs. And then, we started talking about work and that really cemented it for me. We actually talked more about you than anything –”

He stopped himself, eyes flickering to you before he realized you were blowing out the flame on the dying candle. Collecting himself, he added, “I just don’t think we’re going to work. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t a great person. She was really nice.” He shrugged and finally met your eyes again. His smile was bored, almost cat-like. “Done with your investigation?”

“I guess so,” you relented, turning back to face the TV beside him. Your hips were brushed against each other, pinkies so close to intertwining, but neither of you moved. “Unless you want me to ask more?”

He cut you a look. “Absolutely not.” Reaching out, his fingers plucked a scallion pancake from the container on the coffee table, and his smile got even bigger in your direction. “Want to finally watch In the Mood for Love? C’mon, you know you want to.”

III.

Locked down my by side even when I’m borderline, I don’t even know why I push you away. –CHARLI XCX

Bringing yourself to work on Monday was more of a chore than usual. You hadn’t been sleeping right. Your back hurt. And you just ran out of your favorite shampoo. Cementing yourself into adulthood was harder than you imagined in your early twenties. Now you actually had to care about making time before work to stop off at the store to grab essentials. 

But maybe today would be good. The crew repainting the office garage smiled at you. The barista at the small coffee shop in the lobby told you that your latte was on the house. You were wearing a new pair of kitten heels and dare I say, you at least looked good. The boatneck sweater your mom gifted you two Christmases ago magically fit and paired well with the jeans you were sporting. It almost made you forget how badly your spine ached. Almost.

After getting a significant amount of emails answered that morning, you headed to the kitchen where your hummus snack that you bought earlier was stored. You noticed Jennifer leaving through the other door just as you were entering, making you pause to wave. “Oh, hey, J–”

Jennifer scrambled away before you could even finish your greeting. Quickly grabbing your snack, you followed her out the same door and attempted to catch up to her. “Hey!” You exclaimed, placing a light hand on her shoulder. “Jen, what are you –”

She turned, attempting to act casual, but you knew Jennifer was incapable of pretending. “Oh, h–hi. Sorry, must’ve not seen you back there.”

You let your hand fall as your brow knitted together. “Must have,” you replied suspiciously. “I meant to text you all weekend, but time got away from me. Did you have fun on the date? Wonwoo hardly shared any details.”

Her lips sealed for a moment, until she eventually muttered, “Oh.”

Tilting your head, you remarked, “Oh?”

“That came out wrong.” She held a hand up, collecting herself. A couple of your coworkers squeezed past and you both waved. Lowering her voice slightly, she continued, “He was nice. Dry sense of humor, but still funny. Gentleman enough to walk me back to my car. But …”

You blinked, hanging off the edge of your invisible seat. You felt like a cat right now and she was dangling a treat right in front of you, teasing you with more to come.

Jennifer scoffed and finally gave in. “But I thought you said he had a personality. At least, that’s how you always made him seem.”

Her answer made your head jerk back in surprise. “Wait –”

“I was basically carrying the whole conversation,” she added. “It really didn’t seem like he wanted to be there. When you brought him to that holiday party, he was pretty engaged in conversation, but when it’s just him … I don’t know.”

You thought back to your conversation with Wonwoo after the date. It was fine, he had said in that bored fucking tone of his. Of course, he was bored. Because he had been the boring one in the first place. Now you were pissed – and confused at the same time. You wasted all that time setting up this date, and yet …

A sigh escaped you. He probably let his nerves get the best of him. Your mother used to say that you shouldn’t cry over spilt milk – or in this case – a bad date. There was no need to get worked up over it, but you just wished he had been honest in the first place. 

Maybe you could start with being honest about how you f–

You stopped that thought right in its tracks.

“Truthfully,” Jennifer said, bringing your eyes back to hers, “the most he talked during the date was … well –” She scratched her temple. “– Was about you.” 

Your body went rigid, back straightening as if it hadn’t been tense since you woke up. Fingers lacing together in front of you, your lips pursed, trying to think of a suitable response, but … nothing was coming to you. Not one word.

Jennifer tested the waters and prodded further. Leaning into your space, she asked, “Are you sure there’s nothing going on between you two –”

“Absolutely not,” you cut in immediately, the words tumbling out before you could stop them. “We’re just friends. Have been for years. We just … have a lot of history that he likes to talk about.”

She stared at you, not fully convinced.

You grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Listen,” you huffed, “I’m sorry the date didn’t go well. I know I set you up on it, so I don’t want you to think I had … I don’t know. Ill intent, or something. I really did think you two would get along and he’d come out of his shell.”

A slow smile appeared on her lips. “It’s not your fault. Compatibility is a fickle thing. It only happens, like, maybe twice in everyone’s life.” She shrugged. “Shit happens, and hey, I got a free dinner. Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

You laughed, felt her squeeze back on your hand, before you walked back together to your respective desks. Slamming down into your creaky seat, you lifted your head over your cubicle wall and sent another smile, before bending back in your chair and sighing. Your eyes scanned your desk, lingering on the Polaroid of you and Wonwoo from a few years ago, crookedly taped to your monitor. You narrowed your eyes at his face, as if you could burn him.

Whipping your phone out, you opened up your text thread with your best friend.

You: I thought you said the date was fine

Wonwoo: ? Hello to you too

You: just answer the question

Wonwoo: Where is the question exactly?

You: did the date with Jennifer not go okay??

Wonwoo: It was fine. I told you that

You: I just talked to Jennifer at the office and she told me you barely talked. I understand that maybe I got your compatibility wrong, but I think you neglected to tell me some things

Wonwoo: I’m sorry. In my defense, I’ve never been much of a talker. She was doing just fine

You: omfg You: you’re literally impossible. I’m just trying to help you

You watched the text bubble appear and disappear for a straight minute. Originally, you saw no problem with the text you sent, but then you started overthinking. Was what you said too harsh? Maybe you should’ve added a playful emoji at the end. He had been typing and retyping for two minutes now, causing you to start biting at the skin around your nails. He could’ve simply been caught up with something at work and not able to multitask. It wasn’t that deep – at least, that’s what you told yourself.

Wonwoo: I’m not trying to be impossible. [UNSENT] Wonwoo: I didn’t meant to be dishonest. [UNSENT] Wonwoo: I didn’t ask for your help. [UNSENT]

Finally, the text bubble stopped. Your phone pinged with a new message. You quickly glanced at the text thread to see one single line from your best friend.

Wonwoo: I’ll try harder next time.

Another coincidental situation. Another setup emerged. As your old friend, Holly, lamented to you about missing her ex-boyfriend from two years ago over the phone, you wondered if maybe – just maybe – she would do well on a date with Wonwoo. You supposed that listening better while she complained about Derek was probably a better idea, but your mind still wandered.

You were laying on your bed after a shower, legs bent up on the headboard while your head was near the end of the mattress, wet hair wrapped in a towel. Your phone rested beside your right ear and you were picking at the hangnail that just wouldn’t come off your thumb. Mind elsewhere, you thought about what a date with Holly and Wonwoo would look like. Maybe a diner. Maybe a pub with live music. She loved a “Dad rock” cover band every now and then. 

It might’ve been more wise to deliberate on what your best friend’s last text meant rather than picture what his next date would look like. But this was easier. More simpler than revisiting the implications of seeing Wonwoo on dates with beautiful and uncomplicated women you set him up with. Women that he might be uninterested in, and for what reason? Could it explain why he looked at you like that sometimes, like he was taking you apart piece by piece before putting you back together again?

You rubbed at your eyes. Yeah, definitely not thinking about that again.

“I shouldn’t even be talking about Derek right now,” Holly huffed through the speaker. “We broke up because he was an ass sometimes, but when he wasn’t … these are the times I miss him.”

You let your hands fall onto your stomach. You both tried to call and catch up every other month, so how did almost all of them loop around to Derek? He was still on her mind, even two years after the breakup. “You deserve a better love, Holl,” you muttered, rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

All her dates over the past couple of years were duds. She only went on them every so often, but you wondered if the problem was that she was going out with people she met at clubs. Holly was so cool – not many people could juggle the corporate world while going to see their favorite DJs at clubs and make it to a community theater audition the next morning. But not many men understood her, liked her quirks, or they were just meatheads she met at clubs and eventually revealed that they had no personality. 

She was a catch. Always had been, since the day you met her in the women’s restroom at a concert. The best kind of friendships always formed when you were drunk in the bathroom. Holly didn’t live near you, but you both tried to catch up when you could. Her life fascinated you to no end, and she had to be one of the most charismatic people you ever met, constantly endearing people in every room she entered.

You had no doubt that she’d charm Wonwoo. Of course, you assumed the same about Jennifer, but Holly was … different. You couldn’t quite pinpoint it. If anyone could get him to talk, she could.

“I’ve been buggin’ because I want to go out to this place that he introduced me to. A Mexican restaurant in the city. The most bomb guacamole you’ll ever have, and made fresh in front of you,” she continued.

Your brow furrowed. “So why don’t you go?”

“I run the risk of Derek being there. He did show it to me. I just don’t want an awkward conversation.”

It was like a light bulb appeared above your head. “What if you went there with a date? Derek probably wouldn’t come up to you if he saw you with another guy. And if he is there, would it be so bad to piss off your ex the slightest bit?”

“Well, duh,” she snickered. “But where is this date you speak of? All my current flings have ghosted. I’m a free woman.”

You rolled over onto your stomach, smirking down at your phone screen, even though she couldn’t see you. “I’ve been trying to get my friend, Wonwoo, out on some dates. Have I introduced you guys before?”

“Hmm … Wonwoo …” She paused. “That’s your friend with the big glasses, right? The one in most of your Instagram pics? Truthfully, I …” A soft laugh escaped. “I thought you guys were together.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Well –”

“It doesn’t matter.” You huffed, looking through your contacts to share his number with her. “I can set it up, if you want. And send you his number, vice versa. He’s shy, but he’s talkative around the right people. The date could be fun for both of you.”

She took a moment to mull it over, and then said, “Okay. Yeah. I’m down.”

You grinned, already texting his contact info to her. “Excellent.”

“So you’re doing the set up thing again?”

Your tongue clicked, and you paused, debating her question. “Just for Wonwoo. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just …” That laugh again, trying to simmer the sudden tension fizzling down the line.   “You told me once that you like doing stuff like this to distract yourself from whatever you’re currently feeling. Or if something tough is going on. You just … like to make someone else’s life better so you can forget what’s going on in yours. Is everything okay?”

“Okay, I told you that over one too many glasses of wine at an Olive Garden,” you replied instantly. “And I’m fine. Promise. I gotta go.”

You ended the call after you both said your goodbyes, and then laced your fingers together before resting your chin on top of them. Did you really tell her that once? How messy. It wasn’t exactly … untrue, but you’d never admit that. Everyone needed a good distraction sometimes, and if this was yours, then so be it. You liked seeing others happy. It was the kind of serotonin that money couldn’t buy.

If Wonwoo really didn’t want this … he would’ve told you.

At least, that’s what you hoped.

Speak of the devil, you should probably tell him that you gave a random woman his number. Again. You sat up in bed, took your wet hair out of the towel, and wrung it out while opening up your texts with your free hand. Your slipper-clad feet hung off the edge, teeth sinking into your bottom lip as your fingers began to swipe across the keyboard.

You: hi You: I got you another date You: so if you get a random message, it’s my friend, holly. she’s really nice and funny

You locked your phone. It dinged instantly. 

Wonwoo: Oh? Wonwoo: Her text came just as I was about to log off of League. Thought it was spam lol

You bit down on one of your fingernails, right knee curling towards your chest. His playful tone always made you feel warm like this, and you were suddenly questioning how normal that should be.

You: not spam lol You: just text her and feel it out, but I think she’d 100% be down for a date. she wants someone to take her out to this mexican restaurant 

Wonwoo: Alright. Sounds good to me.

His mood switch made your brow furrow. Each word sounded like a pause, like he was struggling to type two measly sentences. You should leave it there, not let it get too far, but then you were typing –

You: I won’t coach you again before this date lol. I think it made you a wee bit nervous on the last one

Wonwoo: Maybe a little

A minute passed. You assumed the conversation was over for now. Standing from your bed, you padded over to your bathroom and threw your damp towel in the laundry basket. Your phone sat on your bed as you brushed through your wet hair, completely unaware that the screen had lit up again with another text.

 Wonwoo: I’ll be better this time.

IV.

In the dream I don’t tell anyone, you put your head in my lap. –RICHARD SIKEN

Friday rolled around faster than you thought. Holly had been texting you all day about her excitement for this date, but truthfully, you weren’t sure if she was more excited to meet Wonwoo or go back to his restaurant without worrying about Derek. Wasn’t any of your business. 

At some point, you had to slide your phone into your pocket to get off at a different stop on the subway. Trudging through the rain, you managed to snag some of the greasiest Japanese takeout imaginable: vegetable tempura, karaage (your favorite), kushikatsu, and of course, some yakisoba. This was another one of your favorite spots that was poorly reviewed. Even the owner apologized for the mess as he handed the bag over to you, but you already couldn’t wait to dig in. You practically sprinted the couple of blocks back to your apartment, narrowly missing every puddle that came into your path, before you were hurdling through the door.

You went through your routine, regimented as always. After washing your face and putting on your comfiest pajamas, you sat on the floor and pulled out some sweet potato tempura. You practically had a feast laid out on your coffee table, paired with paper plates that were soaked through with oil and your favorite pair of chopsticks from the cabinet. You only wished, selfishly, that your takeout buddy was here to share it with you. And he would be. Later on. Once the food turned cold.

Scrolling through your phone, you found it strange that Holly didn’t keep up with you when she was on her way to the date. You guess that – again – wasn’t your business, but you were curious. You did set them up though. Wasn’t it normal to be this curious? Or maybe you were simply –

You paused, sticking your chopsticks in the yakisoba carton before your thoughts got too serious. You were an over thinker, could debate on topics for hours that truly did not matter, constantly wishing that you weren’t stuck in the deep chasm that was your own head. Sometimes it seemed that the only person who could pull you out was … Wonwoo.

Wonwoo.

His name echoed before you could stop it. Like you always do. And the grieving reality settled in from the mess of your own making. A pang of regret. This wasn’t the usual dopamine you got from fixing, and maybe that was because nothing needed to be fixed in the first place –

Your phone pinged. And there it was – that pause. When the thoughts got too loud and you finally focused on your best friend’s name lighting up your phone screen. 

Wonwoo: On my way to your place. Might be a bit. The bus is taking its time

You were grounded again, worries vanishing like a speck of dust in the wind. Instead of taking a day like with Jennifer, you were going to be proactive this time. After answering Wonwoo, you scrolled down to your texts with Holly and quickly tapped your fingers across the screen.

You: how was the date ?!

You started crunching on multiple pieces of karaage when her reply came through.

Holly: man, the food is just as great as I remembered. we didn’t even see Derek, so I guess I didn’t have much to worry about lmao. but I’m glad we went and I think he also enjoyed it! he said something about showing you the restaurant sometime too!

Your brow raised. She was dodging the real question.

You: that sounds great! I was more so asking what you thought of wonwoo lol, but I’m glad it went well <3!!!

Holly: he’s great. a total gentleman. I just don’t think we have much in common Holly: he picked out the most delicious spicy margaritas for us though

You: really??? I set you guys up because I thought you two had more in common

That was somewhat a lie and you knew it. They played a couple of the same video games, when Holly had time to turn on her Playstation, and you thought Wonwoo enjoyed theater. Somewhat. At least, he pretended to really well that one time you got free tickets to Les Misérables and brought him. 

Holly: yeah, we do somewhat. we read the same books and a few video games. I just don’t think he was into it. or maybe he just wasn’t into me idk

You: I’m sorry it didn’t work out. thank you for being honest and letting me know!

Holly: of course! he’s not a bad guy at all, but we just aren’t compatible. our worlds don’t align just yet, which is okay <3 he was also shy like you said and did talk a lot more as the date went on. he talks about you in a way I’ve never seen before. I can tell he cares a lot about you

You: I care a lot about him too [UNSENT]

Your head whipped to the left when you heard Wonwoo turning your spare key in the lock. Finishing off the piece of karaage in your mouth, you fired back one last reply.

You: he always keeps me on my toes. talk to you soon!

His ears were pink from the last of the winter cold. It was the middle of March and spring would soon be upon them. Stepping into your apartment, he released a gruff sigh and let the warmth of the place seep through him. He was staring at you before you even looked up to meet his eyes. Your outfit spoke to how comfortable you were around him: the oldest pair of plaid pajama pants, your fluffy robe with a coffee stain on the front that just never came out, and a large t-shirt. Thin. White. Robe untied and allowing him to see everything. He swallowed and placed his gloves on the space heater like usual, then hung up his jacket. You were carrying multiple takeout cartons to the kitchen island as he stood in the front doorway, not bothering to greet as he helped you place them on the surface before they all fell out of your arms. 

He didn’t need to always say, “Hello.” This apartment was just as much his home as it was yours.

Kicking his shoes off near the door, you watched him peel open the flimsy lid of one carton. “Thank God. I was having a craving,” he said, plucking a piece of carrot tempura and taking a large bite.

You retied your robe carelessly and crossed your arms over your chest. “So …” You fought the urge to flick his arm as he grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the cabinet. “How was it?”

“Good,” he answered quickly, as if the word was already on the tip of his tongue. Gathering a pile of yakisoba in his chopsticks, he slurped it all before adding, “She’s really nice.”

Silence. The kind that made you feel prickly, anxious from head to toe. You arched a brow. “Was it, though?”

Wonwoo crunched on another tempura piece and sent you a wary look. He always knew when you were trying to get something out of him, but you had never been the one to be coy. “I said that, didn’t I?”

“Were you into her?” You inquired further, eyes narrowed. You couldn’t blame him for his attitude, especially when your questions were a bit aggressive, but after texting with Holly, you just wanted to see if he’d have the same reaction as her.

“Yeah,” he shrugged, walking over to the sink to wash the grease off his hands. “I guess.”

Rounding the kitchen island, you let your hip press into the counter as you studied him: the way he wasn’t looking at you, the nervous tick of washing around the ring on his pinky. He was running his hands under the warm water now, longer than he had to be. “You don’t sound like you’re into her though,” you said over the loud faucet.

He turned it off with the squeaky lever and wrung his hands over the side. His frustration that he kept inside so diligently was tipping over the surface, like boiling water. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he finally replied, a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “You’re interrogating me. Why?”

Your mouth fell open slightly. “I … I’m not interrogating.” You tried to prove your point, how casual you were being about this, by reaching over to grab a skewer of pork kushikatsu. Biting into it, you shrugged. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong.”

His hand was still damp and he pressed it to his forehead, feeling the warm droplets trickle down his temple, grounding him. “Maybe I’m just … this is a lot harder than it looks. I’m not used to talking to so many new people.” When he opened his eyes, they were practically pleading. For what, you didn’t know. Yet. 

You licked at the corners of your lips, relenting, your shoulders ablaze from the burden of  carrying all the tension since sophomore year on your back. The tension you were desperately trying to smoke out. You relaxed and carefully curled your hands around his wrists. His body was frozen as you positioned him in front of you. Wonwoo realized what you were doing, providing a visual like you were both sitting across from each other on a date, but with you leaning against the stained counter like this, robe undone again, his mind wandered to a place he shouldn’t. Back in his dorm room. Your legs around his head. Your fingers tugging at his hair as he buried his face further between your thighs.

And while you couldn’t get what he was thinking, you could see in his eyes that it was something too dangerous to describe.

You cleared your throat, watching him blink. “Maybe … it would help for you to go into these dates as if they were a job interview,” you explained, your tone sounding suspiciously recognizable. Work-like. Professional who sits in a cubicle.

His eyes narrowed.

“Don’t give me that look. What I mean is … not stiff. Not nervous. Just … open body language. That’s what people are attracted to.” You took a moment, originally trying to put as much distance between the two of you as possible, but for the purpose of your point … you placed your foot in front of you. Just one step. But it still made both your pulses jump. “And it’ll make them move closer to you.”

He physically felt his pupils dilate as he looked down at you. Wringing his hands again, he shook your grip off his wrists, noticing how fast his heart was beating. “You sound ridiculous,” he deflected. “You’re talking like how you do on the phone with your boss. This isn’t a performance review.”

Your face fell, brows pulling together. “This isn’t ridiculous, Wonwoo. You know that. I’m just trying to help.”

Something flickered in his expression then. Your words triggered his foot: one step closer, and then another. The gap between you so small that you felt the heat of his body. The small of your back was biting into the edge of the counter, head tilting up to meet his dark eyes behind his glasses. His gaze traveled, lingering on your pursed lips, moving down to where he could practically see the thump of your heart. The fabric of your white t-shirt, hiding your skin from his, and how he longed to push it up to see all of you. You hadn’t even let him see your chest when you hooked up all those years ago: too shy, too afraid of vulnerability to take off even your shirt. But now you both were nearing 30 and the only thing separating you two was this thin t-shirt that was becoming his biggest fucking enemy. 

His stare flickered up before it could go too long, but he saw it. The way your nipples pebbled beneath the shirt. The tension between you two seeping from your shoulders to his like a tug of war.

“I think …” Wonwoo’s voice was low, intimate, like two fingers between your thighs. Simmering through the most private parts of you that so little people had seen.

The heel of his palms pressed into the lip of the counter, caging you. Your eyes closed, almost in surrender, easing under the warmth of his hot breath fanning your face. “I think what would help me is if –”

He immediately stopped. Your eyes opened and met his. There was something so familiar about his expression. He looked … you couldn’t put your finger on it. But your mind was flashing back to a memory: his dark eyes burning into yours, glasses slightly askew, a halo headband that was cutting into the sides of your ears, the damp autumn leaves at your feet and the buzz of tequila in your system. A memorable Halloween night from a few years back. All of that reflecting in the face of the man in front of you. Your best friend. Who was now looking at you like he was hearing something from the past in his head.

Your brow raised. He took a step back.

“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. 

Just three words, shutting down an entire conversation before it could even start.

You shook your head, brows drawing together and voice suddenly desperate. “It does matter. You can tell me. You’re … you’re my best friend.”

He winced. Just for a second, but you saw it. 

“No, it’s … it’s fine. Seriously,” he added, even as the tips of his fingers were lightly grazing your knuckles, making every hair on your body stand up. Your toes curled inside your socks. “We – I can try again. I promise, I’ll have more open body language.”

His smile was so sweet, agreeing to your every whim because he knew that was the best way to get you off of something. But not tonight, because you both knew why he was doing this. It was that push and pull again – when feelings began to rise over that structured wall you both built brick by back, one of you had to push it down. 

And the realization of that – of what almost could have been – was making you panic and want him closer all at the same time.

Wonwoo rounded the island and grabbed the carton of yakisoba before crossing the short distance to the couch. He kicked back, digging into the greasy noodles that would surely do a number on his stomach later. Without looking back at you, he asked, “Wanna rewatch Clueless again?”

You stood in the kitchen and gripped the edge of the counter, attempting to calm your racing heart. Like clockwork, his voice from the living room centered you, reminded you that everything was going to be okay. Things were still good. It was just you and Wonwoo. Friends.

Mustering the best smile you could offer, you grabbed the lukewarm karaage and quipped, “As long as you promise not to insult my girl, Cher, ever again.”

Wonwoo left your apartment a little over halfway into the movie, falling asleep with stray yakisoba noodles on the collar of his sweater. You couldn’t blame him: it was midnight and his body naturally got tired at 11, no matter how much sleep he got. He made sure to help you clean up all the takeout, even in his tired state, and slipped a twenty underneath the candle on your coffee table for always feeding him, knowing you wouldn’t except it unless forced. You walked him to the door, and he lingered – just for a moment – his sleepy gaze on yours while his fingers jerked slightly on the doorframe. Something between you two ached, but not enough to grasp.

So he left with a faint, “Goodnight,” and headed down the stairs for the subway.

The door shut softly, leaving you alone again in your apartment, and the silence was … overwhelming. The kind where you could actually hear a pin drop. Not even your upstairs neighbors were fighting. It was just you, and your own thoughts, as you stood in your kitchen, replaying the conversation that happened earlier.

I think what would help me is if –

An unsettling shiver rolled through you. Back pressed against the door, you sank down until your ass hit the floor and your knees were drawn to your chest. You buried your face in the collar of your coffee-stained robe. I can try again, he had said. I promise. You rubbed at your eyes, wishing the words would leave your head. But they were on loop like a merry-go-round.

You pressed your chin into your palm. Sighing, you realized that you should’ve taken a shower earlier. Your hair was so dirty and you didn’t want to go to bed smelling like takeout. But you suddenly couldn’t move, too consumed by his responses – or lack thereof. 

Your brain was like a remote. You hit pause, then rewind, over and over again until all you could see was Wonwoo in your head. You replayed his hesitation, the way his mouth shut immediately. When his upper lip twitched. His jaw tightening with restraint. And his eyes – the way they softened before he let himself get too close. It was the kind of affection you didn’t show to just a friend, but for someone more. 

Maybe he was just frustrated, you told yourself. Because what other explanation could there be?

You were too complicated for him. Not worth the effort. And the fear of ruining your friendship was too risky to bear.

But then your skin prickled and you realized … this bothered you. Not in the funny way. This bothered you because you hated that you didn’t know what he wanted to say. You hated the not knowing, the waiting on the edge of your seat. The suspicion. Because he shouldn’t have looked at you like … like that. Better yet: you shouldn’t want him to look at you like that. 

You thought, just for a mere second, What if he – 

And stopped yourself. 

This wasn’t about you. It couldn’t. Wonwoo was discouraged and tired after the bad dates. Anyone would be. That was the reason for his hesitation, the jaw setting, his fingers grazing your knuckles as if he was begging to hold your hand.

Placing your palm against your forehead now, you closed your eyes and mulled over every scenario. Swiping through solutions in your head like a Powerpoint presentation: simple, sensical, because this would always be easier than being truthful with yourself. You were strong; you could always carry more weight added to your burden.  

“I can fix this,” you muttered to yourself, and instantly got to your feet. You practically ran to where your phone was laying idly on the side of the couch and threw yourself onto the cushions. Opening your Notes app faster than ever before, you began typing up all of Wonwoo’s interests. Completely focused. Before you could let any more thoughts get the better of you.

Perhaps it was time you found someone similar to him.

V.

If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets. –HARUKI MURAKAMI

You wished you could be one of those people who read a book to wind down before bed. Or someone that drank tea and meditated. Someone that experienced true relaxation. But, unfortunately, your brain was always wired, and the only way you found a little sense of peace was from the mere swipe of your thumb on your phone screen.

It wasn’t all play though – scrolling through whatever social media that was your poison for the night allowed you to gather intel for Wonwoo’s next date. Despite him not asking about it. Despite the sting you felt in your chest each time you wrote a name down in your Notes app. You persevered, scrolling until the light made your eyes burn and you knew it was time to finally sleep. In just a few hours, your eyes would be back on a screen again. Your life revolved around light and screens, ignoring the tension that yanked at your heartstrings every day.

Eventually, you felt a shift when your Instagram feed refreshed to show a new post: Harin, one of your old friends from college. The first person to make you pause and sit up in bed, leaning back against the headboard. The fairy lights above your head flickered, needing new batteries, but your attention remained focused on swiping through the set of pictures she posted. 

Harin, you realized, had gotten much more attractive since senior year of undergrad, when you both lived in the same building. She was dying her hair darker, gotten Invisalign to straighten her teeth, even cleared up her acne. It had been years since you last saw her – maybe even since graduation – but Harin had always been … easy going. Helpful. Popular, but also a little nerdy. The kind of girl who didn’t overcomplicate things. Nothing like you.

You picked at the edge of the pimple patch on your chin, because you hadn’t been so lucky with your hormonal acne that came back once in a blue moon. She posted a picture with an abnormally tall glass of beer, then some with people in costume, with the final photo of her in front of brightly-lit booth. She went to some video game convention out of state, the same one Wonwoo had talked to you about for 40 minutes a couple weeks back. Your teeth sank down into your lip, concentrating, as you clicked on her profile and began looking through all her old posts. 

Mutual connections. (You both had several.) Tagged posts. (Did she have any bad angle?) Her story highlight that documented her Letterboxd reviews. (You dreamed of watching this many movies in a year.) There was something here. Maybe there wasn’t chemistry – only time would tell – but there was alignment, something everyone needed in their lives. A sense of symmetry. Two pieces that fit so perfectly that it was shocking they never crossed paths before.

You sat back more, playing with a strand of damp hair while zooming in on a picture of her from a concert she went to a year ago – some niche band you might’ve heard Wonwoo also mention. Her smile was effortless. Her hair was shorter and she had star earrings that dangled from her lobes. And suddenly, a thought hit you, cutting, like a blade: He wouldn’t have to explain himself to her. They would just click.

Biting the end of your fingernail, you processed the future before it even had seeds to take root. A bad habit that you weren’t willing to break now, because this could work. Harin made sense. Wonwoo and Harin made better sense.

No more weird looks. No more charged pauses. The dust would settle between you and the man that had been your best friend for nearly a decade.

You swiped to DM her before you could stop yourself.

You drafted a message. It was long, too personal, so you deleted it.

Redrafted, and still, too much. Frustration poured out of you. Why did every message feel like too much pressure? You needed to keep this simple.

You: hey, harin! you seem like you’re doing really well. weird question – are you single? I think you would really get along with my friend. you both like the same things!

The message was perfect, so why was your thumb hesitating over the send button? There was no reason to hesitate; you never did. You were impulsive, almost to a fault sometimes. You could stop this. Close the app and be honest with yourself for once. Quit pushing your feelings down and drowning yourself with work. You could – 

Sent.

Your lips pursed. You set your phone down and hugged your knees to your chest, the clean sheets pooling over your bare feet. The room was still, colder than before. Maybe even quieter, although you didn’t quite understand how that was possible. You hadn’t breathed properly in more than a minute. Then, somewhere deep, past your ribs where your greatest desires roamed free, a tiny voice escaped to ask, What if he doesn’t want someone else? What if he wants you?

But you didn’t let yourself process the words, because your phone dinged and – shit, Harin had answered you. She was thrilled to hear from you, congratulated you on your accomplishments. Conveniently, she was now living just outside of the same city, but she seemed uncertain. I don’t typically do blind dates, she wrote. So you made it easy for her by sending a picture of Wonwoo – the one you took of him last winter, when he was carrying both large buckets of popcorn before you went to go see an anniversary screening of Twilight – and she immediately agreed to meet him for a date in the city.

You shared his Instagram profile with her, telling her to message him on there. Maybe texting was too much pressure on him. Maybe her taking the initiative and messaging him on a safe place like Instagram would give him less anxiety. That seemed to be the source of his issues. At least, that was what you were telling yourself.

She was so kind, so excited to reach out that she was asking for advice on the perfect message. And you thought, for once, this might be the date that actually worked out, but you’d been let down by Wonwoo time and time again. No one seemed to be worth the effort. But Harin could be.

You didn’t tell Wonwoo that you sent his profile to Harin, but he kind of figured you were behind the sudden DM he got from a woman totally and completely out of his league. You weren’t exactly hiding your involvement; you were simply … letting Harin do the work. And maybe your assumptions had been right after all, because when Wonwoo texted to let you know that he knew you set him up with Harin, he seemed … more inclined to go on the date than usual.

You weren’t sure how it was possible, but you felt both the satisfaction of being right and stab of something sharp in your heart all at once. Neglecting the latter was easier said than done.

He told you their date was on Thursday night, and conveniently, you were stuck at the office for longer than usual, making sure the latest marketing project with in tip-top shape before you submitted it to the VP tomorrow. Even your subordinates stayed well past their time, wanting to make sure you didn’t have to be at the office alone. It was 7 PM when you all finally left, and you sprinted fast enough to make the 7:15 train, which – of course – was packed to the brim. You were squished like sardines next to an old man who smelled of cigarettes, and you found yourself pushing through the crowd as soon as your stop arrived.

It was strange that you hadn’t heard from Wonwoo yet about the date, but you tried not to think about it that much as you got through the doorway of your apartment. Too tired to even call for takeout, you toed off your office heels near the door and settled on a frozen dinner. There weren’t even any leftovers in the fridge. As you placed the hard brick of lasagna in the preheated oven, you phone pinged and you retrieved it faster than you liked to admit, heart hammering in your chest.

Wonwoo: On my way over :)

Your brow arched. Since when the hell did he text smiley faces? You set the phone back down, and irritatingly threw your hair up into the most unkempt ponytail imaginable, loose strands hanging from the backside of your head. Why were you so frustrated? An emoji didn’t mean anything. And there was nothing to be angry about. Your mind was still lingering on work, projecting your exhaustion onto such a non-issue –

The door opened just as you were pulling the now bubbling lasagna from the oven, setting it on the kitchen island before looking up at your best friend. Spring had definitely come, because Wonwoo was wearing a striped button up that was halfway tucked into his jeans and a light jacket. His hair was messy, as if someone had ran their hands through it, and he had a smile on his lips that was … real. Not tired or forced. Genuine.

The room shifted and neither of you had even said anything yet.

“Hi,” you addressed immediately, realizing his gaze had drifted down. Too caught up in your own thoughts, you didn’t even noticed that he had been taking in your disheveled blouse, the pencil skirt that hugged your hips too perfectly, the sheer black tights that made him jealous of any man at work who got to see you in them.

But then his stare was instantly on yours as soon as you spoke. His smile reached his eyes and he replied, “Hey.” It was casual, sure, but there was … energy behind it. The kind of energy you never heard from him before.

You stuck your fork in the lasagna, and before you could even place it in your mouth, he dipped his pinky in the red sauce. Your chin tilted up, watching his expression sour. “It’s tastes …”

You leveled a look at him.

“– Better than anything I could’ve made,” he recovered, and you noticed the pep in his step as he headed for the living room, tossing his jacket on the coat rack.

You paused, eyeing him with suspicion from the kitchen, before looking back down at your sad excuse for a dinner. It was late. You were tired. And instead of eating the greasy goodness of takeout, you were left here with a shitty lasagna and your best friend who looked like he had far too much fun on the date you set him up on.

This wasn’t time for a pity party.

Rounding the corner, you carried your foil tin of lukewarm lasagna to the couch and  sat down beside him. You crossed your legs and anxiously pulled at the hem of your pencil skirt before asking, “Did the date go well?”

His smile got bigger and you had to fight the urge to throw up the huge bite of shitty pasta in your mouth. Usually, his debriefs were short and flat. Lacking any kind of emotion because clearly all he wanted to do was watch a movie with you. But he was speaking a little louder this time, gesturing with his hands as he said, “It was … really good actually.”

He went on to talk about the arcade bar they went to, one she knew about before him. He eagerly told you about how she laughed at all of his jokes, especially the bad ones, and how they were into almost the same things. Video games, music, even the same soju flavor. How the fuck had you set something up so perfect? You had to stuff forkfuls of lasagna in your mouth just to stop your teeth from grinding down.

But … wasn’t this your plan after all?

“She’s also really funny,” Wonwoo continued, breaking you out of your thoughts. He ran a hand down his face, as if remembering something she said. “You were right about the game thing. I don’t know many people that have played Arctic Warfare, and she’s apparently good at it. She told me her rank. Crazy. We kept arguing about this mechanic in the game that always makes my brain go –” He shook his hands in the air, laughing at the memory.

Your tone remained normal, despite the war inside your head. “Yeah? What’d you guys play at the arcade?”

This set him off on another tangent, explaining the hour long foosball game they played that ended in him paying for another round of beers. Harin had felt bad, insisted that she was kidding and let them split it, but he wanted to. And then let her pick out her favorite game at the arcade to play next. (It was pinball. You hated pinball.)

“She went to that convention I told you about recently,” he continued as you set the half-eaten tin on the coffee table, suddenly queasy from eating too fast. “And – oh, wait. She showed me this cosplay she did last year. Check it out.”

Wonwoo pulled out his phone and unlocked it, her Instagram profile already pulled up. He found the picture immediately – like muscle memory – tilting his phone towards you to show you the Animal Crossing cosplay she made. Her smile was so bright, cute, in the photo, pink cheeks and yellow eyeshadow on her eyes.

You cleared your throat. “Oh, that’s –”

“Cool, right?”

“Yeah, cool.”

He grinned big, placing his phone right side up on his thigh. Something he never did while at your apartment.

“She understood every reference I made. You know how sometimes I make those references to Portal and you kinda stare at me like I have three heads?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that –”

“She completely got all of them. It was … seriously funny.” He was laughing again, the kind he only did when he was drunk or when you reminded him of the time in junior year of undergrad when you puked in a punch bowl at a frat party. It was sacred and intimate, and right now, it was because of … Harin.

He met your eyes with a soft, authentic smile. “The date was fun. It was … easy.”

You felt your eye twitch.

Easy.

One word had never caused so much devastation to run through your entire body, the type you couldn’t will away with the armor you built for years. To compare yourself to another woman was cheap and not like you whatsoever. You would never think that way because you would never pit women against each other. It was wrong. Distasteful.

But Harin was easy. And you, certainly, had never been that.

As he continued – and you were keenly aware that this was probably the longest he spoke in all the years you knew him – you thought back to his previous girlfriends. The ones from college, the girl he dated three years ago … All those women he’d been attracted to were nothing like him. Opposites attract, after all. But Harin was the farthest from opposite. Your goal for this date had been symmetry, someone that aligned with Wonwoo, which meant this was a success. She changed something in him. 

You felt the soft drop in your stomach.

Oh, you thought, he might actually fall for her.

That was the reason why you started this whole thing. It shouldn’t be a shock, right?

Right?

“So …” You played with a loose thread on your skirt, asking the question you always did. The one where you got the same answer. “Would you see her again?”

You were used to his hesitation, the way he would ponder exactly how to say, No, in the nicest way possible. But he didn’t do that this time. Wonwoo’s lips tugged up again as he replied, “Yeah. Yes, I think I would.”

There wasn’t much excitement this time, but his tone was unquestionable. Certain.

Good, you told yourself, this is good.

The silence between you two felt heavy. A constant, wavering cloud of gray.

This was what you wanted.

That knife in your heart dug in deeper, twisting, and you felt the invisible gush of feelings pour out of you. So much that you didn’t know how to push them back inside.

Then why does it feel like this?

His phone buzzed, breaking the tension completely. You sat up a little, peering to see who was on his lock screen, but you already knew the answer. Wonwoo smiled shyly and opened up his texts with Harin. Like clockwork, she was asking if he’d like to go on a second date. He was giddy; you could tell because he was making that face that he only made around you. But he didn’t want to show it, because he was getting to his feet and muttering, “Let me answer this and then we can watch a movie.”

You were completely frozen, hands laced on your lap as you grappled with reality. Every other date didn’t sting like this, because he didn’t like them. Not like this. Those bad dates kept him as yours, but this one might not. And – god, it was wrong of you to ever think he could stay yours because he was his own person and your best friend, but this hurt and your brain felt like it was imploding.

“Hey.”

You turned, seeing Wonwoo lingering by the doorway of the living room. He was grinning from ear to ear.

“Thanks for setting this up,” he said. “I mean it this time.”

You forced a smile. “Of course. I’d do anything for you.”

As he disappeared into the bathroom, you licked your lips and told yourself that everything was going to plan, that was a good thing. You repeated it like a mantra, hoping it would stick. And you believed it … for about ten minutes.

Wonwoo, rather unconsciously, tortured you with information on every date he had with Harin. If he couldn’t come over to talk, he simply texted you. And you feigned interest because – maybe, just maybe – you were terrified that he was going to forget about you. He was just so excited about her, and you could tell. This was your doing and all you’ve ever wanted was for him to be happy. But now he was happy and it wasn’t just with you anymore. What if, sooner or later, it wasn’t with you at all?

You had bitten your nails down to nubs because of it.

He had gone on more dates with Harin, almost every week for the entire month of April. Spring was quite literally in full bloom. He had even taken her to see the cherry blossoms – something you both typically did together. (But it was fine. It had to be.) He wasn’t coming over as often anymore and the takeout you got on Thursdays and Fridays started to taste a lot worse when you were alone. You thought you had gotten used to being alone all these years, but not like this. Not when the thoughts got too loud and you missed him so much that you debated on downloading a dating app. But then you thought back to that horror movie and decided you didn’t want to go on a date with a possible serial killer.

The bed you had made for yourself was cold and not in the good way. The kind that reminded you how lonely the armor around your heart had become. How yearning felt worse when your best friend wasn’t by your side.

You tried to busy yourself with work like always, but not even the late night phone calls from your worried boss were a good enough distraction. (Although, they did keep you up on the customer service hotline with whatever billboard company he decided not to do business with anymore.) For a second, you considered calling up your ex – the older one, Sean – even just for a one night stand. But Sean had never been one for casual. And you couldn’t remember the last time you were intimate with someone.

The fear struck you like lightning. You stirred in bed, flipping onto your back to stare at the ceiling. After attempting to go to sleep early, it was clear that your racing thoughts were going to keep you up, making dread pulse in your chest.

What if no one ever wanted you again? Not even just intimately, but physically. Your presence.

Worse – what if Wonwoo didn’t want you anymore?

The sound of the oscillating fan at your bedside drowned out, leaving you with the echo of the words that just came into your subconscious. Somehow, the world got so quiet, and you were clutching at the stretched out collar of your pajama shirt, breathing suddenly becoming difficult. What the fuck – this couldn’t be anxiety, could it? No way, you hadn’t felt that in year. You were being dramatic, ridiculous, and –

Your phone vibrated and you had never swung so fast to grab it.

Wonwoo: Sorry for the late text but I miss you Wonwoo: It’s starting to get warm at night and my fan here sucks compared to yours Wonwoo: Do you have plans Saturday night? Maybe we could get some drinks at the dive we like

And suddenly, breathing didn’t feel so hard to do. You accepted, of course, because the opportunity to see him after so long was more important than anything else in the world right now. He had never been one to initiate plans, so the fact that he was – let alone, asking to meet you at a bar – was progress. He missed you. Of course, he did. You were best friends, but it was clear that the distance truly made the heart grow fonder. 

You prepared what you were going to say, how casual your tone was going to be, and the exact beer you planned to order – Stella Artois, of course – but your entire plan seemed to be interrupted when you turned your head to the side that Saturday night. The bar was getting more full, and you could see from the space you cleared out for him at the bar top that Wonwoo wasn’t alone. His hand was on a woman’s back as he ushered her forward and – oh my god, he brought Harin.

Your body froze mid sip as the cold bottle of Stella was at your lips. Wonwoo pushed his wonky glasses up on his nose and waved to you, helping Harin get through the growing crowd, and it took everything in you to force that smile. Once they were in front of you, your eyes raked down and took in the pretty sundress she was wearing: purple flowers scattered in a pattern over white polyester. She looked beautiful and still so casual with her hair undone like this. Your hand smoothed over the off-shoulder top you picked up on the Express clearance rack and your jeans that were a trusted pair since college, suddenly self conscious. You couldn’t remember the last time you felt this way, but then you noticed how she was the perfect height next to him and now you were picturing yourself as a fucking Amazon woman next to her and –

You needed to stop this, but you were already upset, eyes getting the tiniest bit pink as you went in to hug Harin. She slipped past you after to order her drink of choice – a rum and Coke – at the bar, and that was when you felt Wonwoo pull you into his broad chest, and you realized just how well you fit here, his nose pressed against your hairline. Your fingers notched into the short sleeve t-shirt he was wearing, and then he muttered, “Missed you,” making you tug on that cotton a little more than a friend should.

“You too,” you replied, voice muffled by his shirt. “You’ve been busy though.”

He laughed under his breath before whispering in your ear. “She wanted to come see you after all these years. This okay?”

“Of course,” you replied, but there was no vigor behind it.

He hummed as you leaned back from him, and he absentmindedly lifted your hand to notice how badly you’d bitten down your nails. His brow furrowed, but you pulled away before he could comment. 

Taking out his wallet, he handed Harin his credit card so she could get them both drinks. “You should’ve waited for me,” he said, nodding towards the Stella in your hands. “I wanted to buy your first drink.”

“I’m very capable of paying for my own beer, Wonwoo,” you remarked, and then realized how bitter you sounded, how the frustration that you pummeled down for weeks came up to the surface so easily. Your expression softened as you added, “You can pay for my second.”

He smiled, all goofy and kind. “Sounds good.” Noticing the strand of hair that had fallen in front of your eyes, he reached up to push it behind your ear at the same time Harin was turning around with the drinks. Wonwoo’s hand instantly retracted, but came back out to take his card that she handed to him.

“Oh,” she beamed while handing Wonwoo his Stella, “you guys like the same beer.”

Wonwoo rubbed the back of his neck and gestured to you with his chin. “She turned me on to it. I was into Guinness for a bit.”

Harin stuck out her tongue in disgust and you suggested to move over to a high top table, desperate to let this conversation die before it could even begin. You didn’t want Harin thinking that you were one of those weird girl best friends, that you and Wonwoo had secretly hooked up on the side – even though that … definitely did happen in college. Nevertheless, you didn’t want her to have any assumptions of you. This night had already gone off the rails and you were desperate to get it back on track.

So you asked how they were doing, which was another mistake on your part because then Harin glanced at him and he was doing that goofy smile all over again. But not at you. Especially  not now. She sipped at her drink through a tiny straw, nudged him with her elbow, before mumbling, “C’mon, you tell her. Don’t be so nervous, Nunu.” 

Nunu? 

You blinked.

When the hell did he start liking that nickname?

Without meeting your eyes, his hand found Harin’s wrist on the tabletop as he muttered, “I asked her to be my girlfriend last week.”

“Oh,” you blurted, and his gaze instantly lifted to yours. Your lips sealed for a moment, and then you added, “I meant … oh! That’s great news. I just never …” You should stop yourself, because Wonwoo’s eyes looked like he was pleading with you to be silent and Harin was staring at you like you were the most interesting thing in this sea of drunk people. “You’ve always taken so long to be exclusive. I never expected it. But I … I’m happy for you two.”

Harin’s face shifted into a huge grin, her eyes closing and her laughter hard to control. Wonwoo let out a sigh of relief that he thought no one noticed, but you did. You took a long swig of your beer as Harin looked to Wonwoo to exclaim, “And you were nervous to tell her! I told you that it wasn’t a big deal.”

That made you both pause. Your eyes flickered to his, the beer bottle frozen to his lips, and you set your own down on the table. Your hands were sweating as much as the cold glass. “You were nervous to tell me?”

He took a sip and shrugged. “Well, I –”

“I think he just …” Harin’s voice trailed off as she looked at him, her own hand coming up to lock around his wrist now. “He values your opinion more than anyone else’s. I’ve noticed it when he talks about you. Besides his parents, I took you as one of the most important people in his life.” 

She was speaking in his direction, but once she finished, her head turned to you and she gave you the kind of smile that made you utterly hate yourself. Not out of jealousy, but because she was kind and perfectly perfect for him. Unchallenging and effortless. 

For a moment, you were stunned, not sure what to say. But then you were setting down your beer again and suddenly replying, “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. Be right back.”

You spun on your heel, shoving yourself through the crowd of people that had assimilated around the bar, before finally propelling inside the two-stall bathroom. Walking up to the sink, you clutched the edge and let yourself breathe for a minute, inhaling the heavy scent of Febreze. You debated on splashing your face with cold water before you remembered that you decided to not wear waterproof mascara tonight. 

He values your opinion more than anyone else’s.

Bile started to rise in your throat, making you cough and finally turn on the sink to cup water into your mouth. Your eyes got pink again, but you held back the tears that were damn near burning to be let out. If you cried now, you wouldn’t be able to stop, and you’d be damned if you let yourself cry over this. Over something so … nonsensical. What were you even upset about anyway?

The soft sounds of Maroon 5 only got louder when the door opened and you were greeted with the sight of Harin’s flushed cheeks. She smiled at you and you immediately sucked in whatever boogers were trying to leak out, grabbing a paper towel to dry your hands. “I didn’t get to tell you yet,” she said, walking forward and wrapping an arm around your shoulders, bringing you into her orbit, “but you look even better since college. I’m in love with this top.”

And to think you were second-guessing it an hour ago. 

She leaned back to grin back up at you, and looking at her now … you could see how she was able to charm just about anyone. People said that about you sometimes, but Harin was different. Something about her aura made you instantly want to let your guard down, feel more at ease, realize how silly you’d been feeling about all of this. 

Until you remembered she was now your best friend’s girlfriend and something about that deeply unsettled you.

“Thanks,” you smiled as she detached herself from you. “I really like your dress too.”

“My mom got it for me! Target find, I think.” She shrugged, quickly washing her hands and looking over her shoulder at you. “I stalked you on LinkedIn a little bit. Not sure if you got the notification. You’re a Marketing Director now? That’s so cool!”

“It’s fun sometimes,” you waved off, unsure how to take compliments, even at this age. “You must be doing something cool now.”

She shook her head and dried off her hands. “Nah, I’ve been at the same software developer position for years. But I want to get into game development at some point.”

God, you thought, I really did find him his match.

You nodded, unsure what to say next, but then she was approaching you and reaching out to squeeze one of your hands. She looked up at you like you were important, like you hung the stars one by one. “I just wanted to thank you privately,” she whispered, “for introducing me to Wonwoo. I don’t think I’ve ever caught feelings this fast or got along with anyone so well, and I just … thank you. I haven’t been this happy in a long time.”

Your heart broke, and you needed to mend it in an instant. But this stung more than you could’ve prepared and it wasn’t fair that you were hurt when this was your doing. The bed you made. The music you had to face. Etcetera, etcetera. 

“It was no biggie,” you muttered, wondering how you could make a break for it. Even if that meant going into one of the stalls that had more litter on the floor than a dumpster.

“It is a biggie. It just feels like …” She trailed off, looking off to the side as she mulled over her next words. “You know how I knew it was a big deal when he asked to be exclusive? He wanted to watch a movie – In the Mood for Love – and I learned only later that was one of his favorites. Did you know that?”

Of course, you did. It was only a couple months ago that you two watched it together and he never added anything to his Letterboxd Top 4 so fast. 

But you shook your head, eager to get this over with. Maybe you could pretend to be nauseous and go home early.

“It was during a really pivotal scene that he insisted I pay attention to,” she continued, “but then … I felt his hand in mine. And it was like … the way you can feel someone looking at you. Then, he asked me, and something about it felt so right. The moment, his hand … everything. Which I know sounds super corny, but I just … I know this is good for me and I have you to thank. So again – thank you.”

You took the opportunity to carefully slip your hand out of hers. “You’re … you’re welcome,” you forced the words out. “I’m really glad it’s working out and you’re good for him too. This is … the best news.”

You sent her one last quick smile before your shoulder brushed hers. “If you’ll excuse me. My beer must be getting warm,” you added with a chuckle.

In that moment, as your palm pushed against the door and you felt the humidity of the packed bar all over again, seeing your best friend wave and keep watch over the high top table … you realized that getting over him might not have been what you wanted in the first place.

VI.

I don’t wanna look at anything else now that I saw you. I don’t wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you. I’ve been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night. And now I see daylight. –TAYLOR SWIFT

October 31, 2023

It was a particularly warm Halloween. A slight breeze had settled over the brightly lit city, but humidity lingered from the constant on-and-off rain all day. The weather just made the local dive that much hotter: bodies packed like sardines in a small bar that still smelled like cigarettes with a tinge of men’s deodorant. You and Wonwoo had moved downtown a few months ago and were lucky enough to find this place so close to your building. And the best part was – no cover charge.

Not that they could with how bad it smelled in here, but beggars couldn’t be choosers sometimes.

You were wearing a cheap angel halo from Dollar Tree that was far too tight on your head with a pair of light wash jeans and a top that fell off one shoulder a bit too far, enough to make a few men turn their heads and Wonwoo stand close. He had no costume – of course – but maybe he had the right idea when it felt like this headband was compressing your actual skull. However, when a pirate woman that was far too inebriated from multiple Dirty Shirleys asked what his costume was, he replied, “Game developer,” with a cheeky smile. 

After twenty minutes, you were finally greeted with the sight of your friends from your new job pushing through the crowd to get to your free corner of the bar. You handed Wonwoo your beer without thinking – and he had to make a mental note which one was yours since you drank the same beer – as you tugged Jennifer into a hug. She was flagged by your other coworkers, Felix and Hunter, who he only recognized because he heard those names come from your mouth more often than not these days.

He introduced himself when you brought them over, but still kept to himself, practically sinking into the corner of the dark bar as you rambled on about something ridiculous happening with your new boss, who seemed like an anxiety-ridden mess. But you already knew that. You were distracted, yet you could still feel Wonwoo’s awkward presence near you. He had always been quiet, since the day you sat next to him in that History of Cinema class, but something was different tonight. Although he didn’t say it out loud, you knew he was still thinking about the girl he broke up with so he could move around the same time as you. He always said that she was nothing more than casual and the career opportunity he got here meant so much more, but … his demeanor tonight spoke to more than that.

Sometimes you wondered if Wonwoo just wanted to belong to somebody.

You wanted to tell him that he belonged to you just as much as you belonged to him, but something about that felt too intimate.

Leaving the bar with a fresh buzz, your arm hooked around his and you allowed him to take the lead for once. Wonwoo might’ve been a tiny bit tipsy, but his broad shoulders and height made it easier for him gain the upper hand when your footsteps got a little too fast. You had one too many tequila shots more than him and it was enough to make you feel tingly, to make you a little overconfident when you tried to walk without his help. It almost ended with you face-first on the sidewalk.

Wonwoo grabbed your hand as you tripped over the tip of your shoe, and then simply … never let go. His palm was so warm in yours, albeit a bit sweaty, but you assumed that was from the fluctuating weather. And totally not because of anything else, even as he avoided eye contact.

He kept you close, bringing you into his side when someone else walked past. Your hand was in his sweaty one for a solid three blocks until you reached the door to your building. Feet slowing, his hand slipped out of yours, and it was supposed to look casual but when you turned to him, he was clumsily punching said hand into his jean pocket and trying to hide his pink cheeks.

Your teeth sunk into your bottom lip, feeling the lip gloss you put on earlier crust at the corners of your mouth. It felt like your brain was swimming, drowning in whatever cataclysm of feelings you were trying to flush, but it was impossible. Wonwoo was impossible.

“You can stay over if you need to,” you offered. “I don’t want you walking back to your place all alone.”

Wonwoo shrugged. “It won’t be that bad. I might just have my roommate pick me up. I think Mingyu’s hanging out with someone just a few blocks away.”

He was staring at your hand, and you noticed, enough for the heat of your gaze to make his chin finally lift like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. 

Nodding, you replied, “Thanks for going out with me tonight.”

His smile was effortless, so incredibly easy. “I know you hate spending Halloween alone.”

You chuckled, spinning slightly to hide your grin and purposefully whacking his shoulder with your purse. “It’s too spooky,” you argued, turning back to him and realizing now that his body was suddenly within reach. Your lips pursed and you met his dark eyes, the tequila in your system suddenly making your guard slip, as if it was made by mere paper and not bricks. 

“Sometimes I think you’re the only person who actually knows me.”

His body went still, taking in your response, and then he asked quietly, “Is that … okay with you?”

Words failed you, dying on your tongue like ash, but you still allowed gravity to pull you in his direction. You were closer now – close enough that your chests brushed, feeling his warm breath on your face. It made a cold sweat appear on your hairline that mingled with the vaguely cool air around you, a reminder of the bitter winter ahead. But at that moment, it was just you and him, and the fallen leaves collecting in puddles around you, and the humidity that made your hair frizz a little. The alcohol running through you had your cheeks flushed and when your head tilted down, you realized your pinky was hooking with his. 

You never wanted anything more than this: his warmth, his presence, Wonwoo. The only person that you trusted with your life. Your closest friend. You wanted him everywhere and nowhere. Wanting him was a blessing, but it was also too much, suffocating you from the inside out.

Your gaze lifted to his again, and your lips parted to say something that might ruin everything: “I think … I think I’d be okay with –”

But then, you hiccuped. And again, and again. Enough that you had to hold your breath for a couple seconds to calm down. Your finger was still looped around his and you didn’t look down to make sure it was real, but you felt his thumb running over your knuckles in a way that screamed want. Desire. 

The tingles from alcohol started to fade, remnants of tequila ebbing away, and you reframed instantly. Your pinky carefully slipped out of his and you chuckled, “Obviously. You’re my best friend. I mean – that’s kind of the point, right?”

Wonwoo hesitated, brow quirking up for a less than a second. “That’s … that’s good.” He rubbed the back of his neck and stepped back from you. Your fingers twitched, already missing his warmth.

“I should get going.” He crooked his thumb over his shoulder, feigning a smile. “See you next Thursday for movie night.”

May 7, 2026

He hadn’t been coming to movie nights.

Out of all things, Wonwoo typically didn’t skip a movie night. Not even when he had a date. Hell, he was frequently trying to watch one with you after the dates you put him on. But once turned into twice, and then it was May and the peonies were sprouting in the soil by your apartment and Thursday had become their date nights. 

It’s the best day for both of us, he told you in text once. I don’t usually work past 5 and her meetings end around 4:30. It just worked out that way. Which you couldn’t blame him, because Harin was his girlfriend and making time with her mattered. But there was this thing called a weekend – that they were using for dates too (you’d know; you saw the cute photos Harin posted on her Instagram story) – but of course, Thursdays were date night too. Convenient for them. Lonely for you.

You typically embraced loneliness like an old friend. It was never cold – actually, it was rather comfortable – but you regarded it with indifference. You had been alone for so long that you were used to it. It didn’t matter, as long as you had your friend. But your friend was preoccupied with someone else now – someone you set him up with. And this was supposed to make you feel good, but for the first time, you felt yourself grimacing when the shroud of loneliness appeared at your bedside and you flipped over, curling a blanket around yourself despite the heat. 

So you called him.

You shouldn’t have. You should’ve let the feelings fester and eventually, they would pass. They always did. But it was another Thursday night alone and the mindless arguing from the reality show on your TV was doing little to silence your loud thoughts. Your glass of homemade sweet tea was left abandoned on the coffee table, water dripping down the sides, as warm air filtered from the open window. Summer was near and yet the spot next to you on the couch felt cold as ice, like someone had deserted it for longer than normal.

You flipped your phone over before you could stop yourself, scrolling down to his name. It was late and he was probably just getting into his apartment after seeing Harin, but you didn’t care. You didn’t really care about anything anymore, truthfully. The line only rang for two seconds before you heard a click and he was saying your name. So faint, like a prayer.

For a moment, you were sure you heard Harin’s muffled laughter leave the speaker.

“Are you just never going to come to movie night again?”

Wonwoo paused, and then said, “Hello to you too.”

“It’s late and I have to go to bed soon because I have a 9 AM meeting tomorrow. I don’t exactly have time for ‘hellos.’” It was a lie, and you both knew it. You’d been staying up way longer than you should’ve most nights and going to work exhausted. It could probably be heard in your voice.

He exhaled heavily, and you could almost hear him pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry for skipping. It’s just … you know why. But I feel terrible. You have to know that too. You know I wouldn’t skip plans with you if there wasn’t a legitimate reason.”

You picked at the corner of the pimple patch on your jaw, eyes narrowing. “You’ve been skipping a lot of things recently.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

There was an indistinct woman’s voice on the other end, and then a door closed. He was alone now.

“Wonwoo,” you chastised, “you don’t need me to spell it out for you.”

“Is this still about movie night? I’m not a mind reader.”

You took a moment, swallowing down your pride and sitting up. If you didn’t say it, you feared you never would. The festering wouldn’t cease until you let the word vomit out.

“I feel like you’ve just forgotten me since you started dating,” you said, and then clarified, “since Harin.”

Silence echoed. The minute began to draw out, enough for you to ask, “You there?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “just thinking.”

“About what?”

Wonwoo clicked his tongue then. “I thought this was what you wanted.”

Your head jerked back, the grip on your phone tightening. “It is. I’m happy for you. Don’t I sound happy?”

The sound of his lips opening came muffled through the speaker, but you kept going on.

“I just –” You let your head fall into one hand as you rubbed at your temples. “I’m frustrated. I know people grow apart as they get older, but … I don’t see you anymore and it’s like you don’t give a fuck.”

“Now you’re putting words into my mouth.”

“So? Who cares?”

“Well, it seems like you do.” His words made your heart sink into your stomach, like you’d been caught in the biggest lie of your life. Maybe you had. “Why do you care so much?”

You blinked. “I …” Every nerve in your body died. Even if you wanted to speak, you couldn’t. There was nothing to say anyway. How could you possibly explain the truth when you had buried it in the deepest cavern imaginable for so long? 

Finally, your mouth began moving for you: “I just think you’ve forgotten about your friends.”

Wonwoo sighed, frustration evident in his tone. “Listen,” he started, “You’re my longest friend. I know this is what you like to do. You like to fix people because it feels good –”

“It’s not just that, Wonwoo –”

“– But you don’t get to decide what’s best for me,” he added. “I do.”

Any response you had ready seemed to burn in your throat. It was like he took your whole vocabulary, leaving you mute and helpless as static buzzed from your line to his. Your mouth hung open slightly, and you prayed something would come out, but … nothing. You were nothing in a sea of nothingness and Wonwoo wasn’t yours anymore.

Eventually, you heard him exhale with a tinge of regret. “You there?”

You moved your phone away from your ear, staring down at his contact name. The text began to blur when you felt tears prick at the corners of your eyes. But you couldn’t let yourself; this hurt but you would survive. You always did, and he’d come back to you and you’d accept him with open arms because this was you and Wonwoo after all. Every friendship – or whatever this was now – went through a rough patch.

But instead of replying, you immediately ended the call.

Wonwoo didn’t come back like you thought.

Silence stretched, thinner than a bed sheet. The distance was colder than you imagined, almost arctic, and you felt it settle deep in your bones, but it did nothing to cool you at night when the humid breeze blew through your open window. No communication was harder than it looked, but in your defense, you really hadn’t expected this. And now, you were too embarrassed to even text him, the fear of rejection still clawing at you just like in college. (Let’s be real: it never really went away anyway.)

You had never been broken up with in the twenty-something years you’d been alive. Typically, it was you who broke things off, and sure, you were sad afterwards, although nothing ever lingered because it was you who ended it in the first place. Maybe you were heartless; maybe no relationship really mattered like Wonwoo’s friendship – but no breakup really hurt. This, however, felt worse than you could ever imagine. Your entire world seemed like it was falling apart and you couldn’t even go to him. 

You missed him – more than you ever thought you could, more than that time he went away to Italy during summer break junior year – but you were getting by as much as you could. Jennifer took you out for drinks, and the sugary margaritas made your head swim for a solid night before you were right back to sulking in your chair at work. You got a promotion – one you had been gunning for for a year, one that you deserved. That felt good, and finally, your mood was turning around. Even your parents were going to visit for your birthday in September, something they hadn’t done in a few years. Your mother’s usual saying, “It’s always so busy around your birthday,” graduated to, “I think this year calls for celebration. The last year of  your twenties is a big one.” There was a possibility of them cancelling, but you didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So many things to be excited over, and you were trying to focus on them, especially on those dreaded Thursday nights. Instead of popping a movie on your TV and watching it in silence like a lonely 50s housewife, you were taking matters into your own hands. Matters that involved a leak you tended to ignore every time it came back. You were blasting the loudest heavy metal music possible though your AirPods, the kind of stuff you hadn’t listened to since high school, as you tried fixing your bathroom faucet on your own. The sink was older than the apartment, it seemed, and would leak at the most inopportune times. You had been paying a technician to come fix it almost every year, but after the last time when he stared at your chest a little too long, you decided maybe it was time to get up off your ass and try.

In a loose pair of sweatpants and a tank top that was doing nothing to hide your genetically lopsided boobs, you hunched forward and inspected the pipe below the basin. You watched a tutorial online, then watched it again, and settled that this should be easy enough. Gone were the days of you paying a pervy technician far too much money to stop a leak that kept happening. You were a new woman now: independent, self-sufficient, definitely not lonely.

You followed the instructions to a T, but something was just wrong. Maybe it was the day or some form of karma that just wouldn’t get off your back – you would never know. Using all the strength in your body, you tried turning the shut-off valves clockwise, but it was hardly budging. It was like there was something preventing them from moving and condensation was already creating a puddle on your tiled floor. You even tried turning the water on and all the way off to see if something was just clogged, and yet … nothing. Were you really that weak that you could figure out how to fix a fucking sink?

There had to be a solution you didn’t know about. Connecting the drain to the stopper was a washer where the leak was dripping from. You picked up your wrench, the tip of your tongue meeting the corner of your lips, like you did when you really concentrated. The music blaring in your ears was reaching a peak, the bridge so loud that your could feel your neurons kissing – or whatever it was that neurons did. Maybe if you yank the wrench this way around the washer that would stop the leak –

Water erupted from the pipe, spraying all over your face to the point you felt like you were being fucking waterboarded. You reached out with fumbling, desperate hands, trying to tighten the washer again with your eyes closed, realizing you’d been stupid enough to leave one handle turned. After a couple more seconds of what you could only describe as a horrific form of torture, the washer went taut and the water stopped, albeit still leaking, but at least it wasn’t blasting into your nose. 

You slumped back against the wall, coughing up the water that had entered your nose, before resting your head back against the peeling wallpaper. Your body was soaked, the thin cotton of your tank top completely ruined and your sweatpants looking like you pissed yourself, and – oh, now you were crying.

Tears welled up before you could stop them, rolling down your cheeks and clogging up your throat. The current song in your ears faded, replaced with an equally louder one that you simply had to turn off at this point. You couldn’t prevent the sobs from absolutely wracking through your body, like it was relieving tension from your system. But still, something about it almost felt violent: your face was turning red and you could already feel a headache coming on as tears practically stung at your eyes. You looked at the sink like it killed someone in your family and it was in that moment that everything became clear. Well, somewhat – warm, wet globs were still falling and it almost hurt to breathe.

You couldn’t believe you’d met your match and it was a sink. 

The realization hit you and it felt like you were wearing an invisible dunce cap. You couldn’t fix everything. You could try and do everything in your power, but there was always going to be something that couldn’t be fixed on your own. And it wouldn’t feel good – actually, it made you feel like utter shit – but you had to get over it. You couldn’t do it all and not everything – not even a faucet – could be fixed.

As your eyes followed the water trickling from the pipe, you knew then that you’d been treating Wonwoo like this, like a sink. A project instead of a choice. Perhaps it should’ve been clear when you told him to go into his dates like a job interview, or when he told you that his dates weren’t a performance review. There were a multitude of times when you should’ve realized, but you didn’t,and now you were paying the consequences with this leak in your bathroom and no Wonwoo by your side.

You got to your feet and padded to your room for a fresh set of clothes. It wouldn’t help sitting there and sulking at the stupid leak you couldn’t fix. 

On the rare occasion that your absent-minded mother called you to check in, she’d ask you the same things – “Are you still working at that company? How’s Wonwoo? Did you get a cat yet?” – but one always stuck with you, to the point her voice would echo in your head before you went to sleep. Sometimes she’d prod about why you weren’t dating anyone, why you hadn’t experienced love yet when you were pushing thirty. And it stumped you, because surely, you should’ve experienced love at least once. But you never wanted to think too deeply about it out of fear, and then came up with a quip like, “I’m waiting for a love like I’ve seen in the movies. Find me my own Harry Burns from When Harry Met Sally, then we’ll talk, Ma.”

It was all farce though.

And as you sat down on the edge of your bed, clean clothes abandoned in a neatly folded pile at your hip, you knew the reason why now. You’d always known, deep inside yourself, but you pushed it down for so long that these feelings had no choice but to come up when a leaky faucet made you the most defenseless. Like your armor of sturdy bricks had finally crumbled from a mere gust of wind.

You were in love with Jeon Wonwoo.

Maybe you always had been.

VII.

Orpheus: How will you remember? Eurydice: That I love you? Orpheus: Yes. Eurydice: That’s easy. I can’t help it. –SARAH RUHL

You attempted to text him for an entire week, an abundance of words spilling from your subconscious, the same ones you buried since the day you shook his hand while saying, “Just friends?” That one sentence seemed to haunt you for life, repeating over and over in your head when not even audio porn could dull the ache in your chest. You poured your heart out into your phone all week: ranging from essays you drafted in the Notes app to actually opening up your texts with him and letting the bright light blur into your retinas until sleep finally took over.

Nothing was right though.

Maybe it was all you. The ideal words just weren’t coming and it was all too embarrassing. You weren’t 28 anymore; it felt like you were 11 logging onto AIM with trembling fingers before messaging the boy you liked. The same boy that you shared Social Studies with, that you didn’t give a Valentine’s Day Fun Dip to because you thought that would make him like you – but I digress. You were shriveling into your past shelf and you didn’t know how to make it all stop.

The next blow hit before you were able to expect it.

While you’re on your lunch break eating the saddest salad known to man, you open up Instagram and see a story update from Harin. Instinctively, you know you shouldn’t. It could be nothing and it would still make you upset. The last thing you needed was to drench this limp salad with your tears. Your finger hovered over her icon, and you almost stopped yourself but the temptation was too much.

A video started playing, making your hands fumble as you struggled to turn the audio down and grab your AirPods at the same time. Once they were in, you replayed the first video: she was showing off a new apartment with a big smile. She was so beautiful and graceful as she moved around the new place, presenting the big kitchen and best indoor heating system for the winter. (You wondered how she’d fair with your tiny space heater in the kitchen, and you chuckled to yourself.) She opened the door to the bedroom, rambling on about the size and how it was made for two people.

You held your finger down to pause. Made for two. As in … a couple. Moving in together.

Lifting the pad of your finger, her voice came though your headphones automatically: “This move all came up pretty fast,” she sighed, plopping down on the clean carpet. “But it’s a new opportunity and I’m so excited to start this new journey, as corny as it sounds. I’ve been a little bit of a cornball recently. If you know, you know. Trying to romanticize my life and all that.” She slid down to lay on the carpet then. “Here’s to new beginnings!”

It was wrong to jump to conclusions. You knew that; you preached it. But when your heart was beating a little too fast like this, it was hard to not make your imagination run wild. Because obviously, Wonwoo was moving in with her. After only a few months of dating. You knew it shouldn’t come as much as a shock because she was his girlfriend after all, but also you thought maybe – just maybe – this was something he could’ve told you. Even when you both weren’t speaking.

You stood from your desk, smiling politely to each coworker you passed until you got to the bathroom. It was only when you locked yourself in a stall that you felt the devastation hit you. Like an avalanche. Your palms laid flat on both sides of the stall as you stared at your feet, waiting for something to change. But it was just you: calm on the surface with your feelings eating you up inside, swallowing you whole until you were nothing left.

If you didn’t confess, then you’d become a shell. A walking set of bones and muscles. But what if he completely cut you off? What if he was disgusted, absolutely horrified that someone who was supposed to be his friend had been hiding their feelings for ten years? You couldn’t blame him, but you didn’t want to imagine losing him. Not yet.

Friendship without honesty was still a loss. It was time for both of you to be honest with each other.

After a debilitating train ride, you almost reconsidered your plan. But as you stepped onto the platform for the stop closest to Wonwoo’s apartment, looking around at the crowd of people swarming around you, the only way out was in. You couldn’t postpone this to another day; not when you’d been repeating this cycle since college. So you pushed through – past the tired women in blazers that were looking forward to their Friday night glass of wine, past the men on the phone with their partners and assuring them they’d pick up whatever they wanted for dinner – until you got to the stairs and climbed up. You were out of breath by the time you got to the top, lungs burning, and a drizzle was starting to fall, but you sprinted forward into the crowd. Your dying courage would lead you to where you needed to go.

Once you were standing outside his building – newly refurbished a few years ago with a huge garden planted in the front – you began to dig in your work tote for your keys, which still had his fob attached to it. You didn’t use it very often since he was almost always at your place, but it was instances like this that you were grateful to still have it in your possession. Swiping it at the door, you tugged at the handle and stepped inside, pulling off your wet hood as your shoes squeaked all the way to elevator.

Sometimes you wished you had the strength to just move into a nicer building like Wonwoo’s. It wasn’t like you didn’t have the money, but you had just gotten … accustomed to your old place. The heating system was shit and the lack of proper AC sucked in the summer, however … there were a sense peace there that you never experienced anywhere else. That was where you built a home and memories. With Wonwoo.

As the doors opened and you stepped inside, it started to settle in what you were doing. Your heart rate kicked up like a drum, and your nails were pinching tiny crescents in your palms. This was really happening. Why the fuck were you doing this again? Could you really not get through another few years of pushing down these feelings and postpone this all over again? You wanted to, desperately, and you were half tempted to turn around. But your feet had a mind of their own, walking out of the elevator that stopped on the third floor, halting at his door and rapping your fist against it.

You still had time to back out. He might still be on the way home from work. Maybe it was just Mingyu there right now, and he’d keep your secret if you left. If you spun on your heel and already started for the elevator, he wouldn't be able to see you –

The door opened, and there was Wonwoo, blinking at you in surprise. He was running a hand through his combed wet hair, fresh from a shower, with a black t-shirt that was clinging to his slightly damp body and – oh. No matter how old you got, a pair of grey sweatpants would always get to you, especially on him. 

Meeting his eyes again, you asked, “Are you busy? Can I come in?”

His lips pursed for a moment, and as much as you knew he wanted to be mad at you, his face softened. “Yeah,” he nodded, holding the door more open, “of course.”

You stepped through the threshold, noticing that his living room was as clean as it would get, something he had gotten sick of you chastising him for so you fought to always keep your mouth shut. Bills and junk mail were scattered on the coffee table, but you noticed – right near the TV – a candle was lit, almost burnt to the bottom. It was the candle you gave him for Christmas last year. The one he said reminded him of you.

Placing your work tote near the door, you didn’t bother sitting down, didn’t even take off your rain jacket. It was just you and him, standing in his living room that was lit with just one candle and an artsy lamp that his roommate had bought. You didn’t hear any rustling anywhere else; Mingyu must not be home.

A smart person – someone wanting forgiveness – would say something simple, like hello. But you didn’t, because clearly this was the stupidest decision of your life.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You blurted, making his brow furrow.

“What are you talking about?”

You gawked at him, and then replied, “Don’t play stupid, Wonwoo.”

He was blinking again, confusion wracking his brain. “I wish I was. I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I saw Harin’s Instagram story.” You paused, suddenly so aware about how childish you sounded. Getting upset over something as silly as Instagram. Your mouth went dry, and when you met his eyes again, you realized he was waiting for you to say more. “About the new apartment.”

“Oh,” he nodded, then thought for a moment. “Wait, she got the apartment?”

Your lips opened for a moment, processing his words. Something was off; were you both talking about the same thing right now? Why would he not know if his girlfriend got the apartment, presumably for the both of them?

“Are you intentionally acting dumb?” You asked, a little more irritable than you should be. He tilted his head and your hands balled into fists, standing up straighter. “Because if you keep doing this, I’m going to start crying again and I’m already so high strung and I haven’t slept and I’m confused –”

Wonwoo stepped closer then, his face losing every hint of anger towards you. He wasn’t really angry; he could never be that angry at you. His large hand circled around your arm, and you could feel the caress of his thumb running up and down even though the thin layer of your rain jacket. “Hey, take a breath,” he insisted in a soft voice. “Everything is okay.”

You inhaled sharply, and then let it out. Your gaze was practically glued to his as you felt every wall that was ever created inside you crumble. Originally, you assumed there was just one, tall as the eye could see, made of bricks. But there were actually several walls, and when your eyes connected with his, you could practically feel them collapsing in your stomach, one after the other.

“It’s not though,” you finally said. “And it pisses me off that you’re still so calm about this.”

His hand slowly left your arm. “About what?”

“About you and Harin moving in together!”

Wonwoo went silent, brows drawn together, and then he muttered, “Oh, that’s what this is about?”

“What else would it be about?!”

“Harin and I aren’t moving in together.”

You blanked. “Excuse me.”

“We actually aren’t …” He looked off to the side, rubbing the back of his neck. Your brow shot up to your hairline. “We’re not together anymore.”

“Oh, I …” You shook your head. “I’m sorry. I’ve been in my head for days. I shouldn’t have assumed –”

He mimicked your movements, and now you were both shaking your heads at each other like bobble heads in a toy shop. “No, no, it’s fine. It’s just –” He exhaled heavily, and now it was your turn to grab his arm. You watched his body physically relax under the heat of your palm, his eyes fluttering down to burn into yours. “I broke up with her two weeks ago. She wanted to me to partially move in with her to see if our lives were compatible. We’d only been together a little under two months and I wasn’t ready. Obviously,” he added, gesturing to the state of his shared apartment.

You squeezed his forearm, and maybe you were just imagining it, but you swore you could feel his pulse quicken.

“I don’t think I would ever be ready. Because I’ve never …” He paused, and if he didn’t continue, you were sure that your courage would vanish. “I’ve never gotten over you.”

The hair on the back of your neck stood up. Your voice so small when you replied, “What? Ever since –”

“Sophomore year.” 

Your grip slipped from his arm. “But I thought you … you had never met anyone worth the effort?”

Wonwoo leveled a look at you, like he’d been completely obvious all along. “You have never been just anyone. I thought you knew that.”

You scoffed, acting so nonchalant as if you both weren’t confessing to every feeling you ever had for each other. “Of course, I didn’t know. I’ve been setting you up on dates because I thought if I fixed your love life …” You feigned a laugh as your hand came up to your mouth. “Maybe it wouldn’t blindside me. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much when you really fell in love with someone. And of course, I was very wrong about that one.” Swallowing hard, your fingers were now lacing with his, placing your heart in his careful hands. “You deserve someone great, Wonwoo. Someone who doesn’t push her friend away because she’s in love with him.”

And just like that, they were out of your system. The words flowed off your tongue so easily too, like he was always supposed to know. Like you were meant to tell him all those years ago. 

His voice was so low that it almost sounded like a breath: “You’re in love with me?”

“You’ve never been just anyone either, Wonwoo,” you sighed.

He shook his head. “But I thought … I thought you said … you said we would ruin everything if we tried.”

“I was terrified. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship when it just started, and then years went on and … nothing ever went away. I thought about you all the time.”

Wonwoo took a moment, relishing in the feel of your hand in his, running his thumb over your knuckles. He finally brought your laced fingers up, his nose brushing against your wrist as he breathed in your scent. You smelled like that perfume he loved, and paper, and rainwater – everything he loved about you and more. Because he loved you. Of course, he loved you, and you could see it in his eyes, and now you were wondering how you survived being this blind for so long.

“I thought I lost my chance years ago,” he murmured, his naturally long lashes sweeping against your skin. “I thought you truly wanted me with someone else.”

You realized then that your face had moved closer to his without knowing, wanting to be more in his orbit. You couldn’t remember the last time you both were this close. “I thought I did, but …” Your top teeth sunk into your bottom lip. “I don’t think that’s true anymore. And I’ve been sick to my fucking stomach because all I’ve wanted to do is be honest, but there was never a good moment or the right words.”

His chest was pressing against yours now and your fingers unlaced, only so he could hold your face in his warm palms. He shushed you, already seeing the tears prick at your eyes when you got too worked up, wiping them away with his thumbs. “Come on now. You’ve always known the right words to say,” he smiled, and you felt your mouth wobble at just how good he was. You had been an ass to him, you had hid these feelings for years, and yet … he always let you in. “I’m sorry it took me so long to be honest too. Every time I had a bad date, I thought it was proof that wanting you was useless. So I opened myself up, because I thought Harin might just be it. But she wasn’t you.”

His thumb traced your lip, making you release it from in between your teeth. “No one’s like you.”

You did your best not to cry again. All those years of blocking the tears were catching up to you. “I’m sorry for the way I went about this,” you muttered. “I should’ve been honest. I should’ve told you. But I guess you can still be a coward even at our age.”

“You’re not a coward,” he laughed. His finger swiped down the slope of your nose, as if he was committing every bit to memory. “I’m sorry for what I said on the phone. You were right – I did get caught up in the relationship, but I was trying to so I would forget about my feelings for you. I didn’t mean any of it. I like that you fix people.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. 

“Okay, maybe I don’t,” he confessed, and then his lips pulled into a smug grin, leaning in so close to your face that you could feel his breath on your cheeks. “Sometimes I like when you micromanage me though.”

The shock that this was all happening hit you, practically struck you like lightening. You stuttered out a series of incomprehensible words, until you finally asked, “Really?” All the confidence, bitterness, it seeped out of you when Wonwoo’s lips were this close to yours. “Well, I … maybe I could –”

“Finally let me kiss you?”

“Oh.” The tension in your body faded, and your hands were curling around his neck because this was happening and he was oh, so yours. “I mean … I guess that’s fine.”

He sneered, “Always needing the last word –”

Your mouth crashed onto his and it felt – god, nothing was more right than this. Your first kiss in college had been messy, almost clumsy, two young adults trying to figure out what the other liked, but Wonwoo had been a quick learner. And oh, did he remember. He didn’t forget the way you liked your bottom lip being sucked on, or how your breath hitched when he licked inside your mouth. His hand slipped from your cheeks, down your torso, before resting on your hips and pulling you even closer by your belt loops. Your fingers were tracing his shoulder blades through the fabric of his tee, an area you didn’t realize until now made him kiss you harder.

“Mingyu’s not home,” he breathed against your lips, shucking your rain jacket off your shoulders.

“I don’t care either way,” you quipped, more desperate than you realized, because you had already started shoving him to the right, where his room was located. Your mouths a hairsbreadth  apart, you asked, “Do you still know how to do that thing with your tongue?”

He pulled back with confusion when his spine hit the door of his bedroom, and then realization crossed his features. “Oh, that. I might be out of practice. You were the first person I ever went down on and –”

You raised a brow, causing him to smirk. “It would be an honor,” he replied.

Once his bedroom door closed, the goofiness cleared out of him and his hands were tight, all over you like this was your first time all over again. He had your back pressed against the door, your wrists in his firm grip and pinned over your head. You chased his lips as he went from kissing you soft to hard, making you huff because – Jesus, you really were starved for his attention. Tugging on your bottom lip, he released it and let his mouth trail near your jaw, breathing in that deadly perfume again. The same one that didn’t cease to make him hard.

And you felt it. Right against your leg, heat seeping into your slacks. Was he not wearing any underwear? 

“In case I didn’t say it already,” he muttered, his nose now connecting with yours, one palm sliding down to thumb at your nipple over your blouse. “I’m in love with you too.” His teeth skimmed your jaw again, then your collarbone, sucking hard on a particular spot and you felt like you could maybe cum untouched. This was pathetic, being reduced to nothing at your big age from just a hickey. 

“I’ve been dreaming of the day you’d let me in,” he hummed, squeezing your breast and feeling the weight in his palm, “when you’d let me touch you again.”

Your knee nudged in between your bodies, smoothing over the growing bulge in his sweatpants. “Wonwoo, please,” you whimpered, already feeling the warmth pool in your stomach, panties drenched and desperate for anything.

“Are you gonna let me micromanage you now?”

Your eyes snapped open, lips pursing as you processed his dirty talk. A snort escape you, and he lifted his head to look at you from underneath his messy, wet hair. His cheeks were tinged a pale pink. “Sorry,” you giggled.

“It sounded sexier in my head,” he muttered, releasing your wrists so he could use that hand to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. “You want to … right? I think I have condoms somewhere. If not, I’ll steal one from Mingyu. I’ve seen his dick once. Accidentally. We’re kind of similar –”

You placed a hand over his mouth to get him to quiet. “This is the most you’ve talked about your roommate and I’d rather not think about him before you fuck me.” Letting your hand fall, you played with the hem of his t-shirt, fingers now splaying on his lower abdomen. His skin was hot to the touch, still a little damp from his shower. “Don’t worry about it – I’m still on the pill. Hormonal acne and all that.”

Now your cheeks were pink, embarrassment creeping through your entire body. But Wonwoo was quick, leaning in to nip at your bottom lip again, and you relaxed by pulling him closer with the ties of his sweatpants. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured against your mouth, “always have been.”

Before you could catch your breath, he was picking you up and laying you down on his bed. You landed on top of the remote, making the TV flicker to life, and the soft sounds of When Harry Met Sally filled the room. But Wonwoo was too distracted to notice, one knee between your legs and nudging them apart as his mouth descended upon yours again. He kissed you breathless, like you were the only thing that mattered, like he’d be content if you were the only person he could kiss forever. And when he lifted his head, half-lidded eyes burning into yours – you knew it was true. He didn’t even half to say it.

Sitting up slightly, his deft fingers slowly started unbuttoning the puffy-sleeved blouse you wore to work today. (Which you definitely didn’t expect him to be taking off when you dressed yourself this morning.) When all the buttons were free, he paused, simply admiring the view of your exposed stomach, the curve of your breasts nestled in your bra. You almost wished you wore something cuter, but how the hell were you supposed to know this was going to happen? You grabbed his hand, calling out his name in a voice that he had only heard in his deepest fantasies.

“Sorry, I just …” He finally pushed the fabric to the side, revealing more of you to his hungry gaze. As his hand came around to unhook your bra, he continued, “I’ve wanted to see you like this for so long. It doesn’t seem real.”

You realized then … that night in his dorm – you hadn’t taken your t-shirt off. Anxiety had riddled your head, too scared of him seeing all of you. Although you had let him between your legs, being fully nude was different. That was true vulnerability, and you hadn’t been ready for that.

Until now. You shrugged off the bra, letting it fall onto his floor, and laid back.

He was looking at you like he’d seen God.

So you took his hand in yours and placed it on one of your breasts. “Fucking Christ,” he muttered, leaning down and wrapping his lips around one nipple. Your back arched off the sheets – purple, the same ones you bought him when he moved here – moaning softly while he played with the other nipple in his right hand. The weight of them was out of this world; all his perverted fantasies when he saw you in low-cut tops coming to life in this very moment. Every time he felt guilty for staring at you too long – they didn’t matter anymore. Because you had wanted this just as much as him.

“God,” he huffed, mouth dragging over to the other nipple, laving his tongue over it. “You’re a dream come true.”

Maybe he was just in love but the sounds you made were practically pornographic. Your hips bucked against his knee in between your legs, begging for friction. You could already feel your own arousal through your slacks – a mortifying cleanup you’d fret on tomorrow morning. As much as he wanted to play here forever, he knew how much you wanted his tongue inside you, so he relented. 

His gaze on yours, Wonwoo peppered kisses down your stomach, making sure to nip at that beauty mark near your belly button, before he stood tall again. Pulling his t-shirt over his head, you were reminded just how toned he had gotten since college. You had never like a hulking, strong man, but Wonwoo had definition, hidden muscles in his biceps that had gotten bigger than you thought. He hid all this underneath those oversized tees, the sweaters he wore to work everyday. It was like he crafted in a lab specifically for you, nerdy interests and all.

Setting his glasses on his desk, he finally pulled down on the zipper of your trousers, and you both worked together to shimmy yourself out of them. But you almost wished you didn’t, because underneath those slacks was the evidence of just how much you wanted this, how utterly wet you were for him. 

Wonwoo leaned over you again, so close to your face that you could see the lines underneath his eyes. “You’re completely soaked,” he murmured, snaking a hand between your bodies to graze two fingers down your clothed slit. The material of your panties was practically translucent, and your hips bucked immediately. “Needed me that bad, huh?”

“Don’t act so smug –” You barked, until you felt it: one finger pushing the fabric to the side while the other just barely prodded at your entrance. Breath hitched, you whimpered, “Yes.”

He smirked, going back down and kneeling at the foot of his bed. Pulling your panties off slowly, you expected him to take his time, even though you had both been waiting for this longer than you could remember. A yelp escaped your lips when he hauled you forward, and you felt his hot breath there, making you clench around nothing. One ankle rested on his left shoulder, opening yourself up to him, and you were pushing back hair from his forehead when you realized he was inhaling your scent. Your breathing stuttered, barely able to get out, “I’m sorry, I didn’t shave –”

His face was already buried between your legs, sucking your clit into his mouth like candy. Your head thrashed to the side, fingers digging into his hair and you yanked at him – hard. He groaned into you, teasing your wet hole with the tip of his tongue, devouring you whole. Everything about you was intoxicating: your taste, your sounds, even the way you pulled at his hair. It felt like you were actually trying to rip it out, and truthfully, that was a fate he’d risk if it meant he could stay here forever. Between your thighs, lapping at you until you were overstimulated and begging him to stop. 

Your hips were now bucking against his face, free hand clenched at your side, as you lost yourself in the magic of Wonwoo’s tongue. The memory of how good this was in college diminished to nothing in that moment. He was out of practice and yet, this was the best you had felt in a long time. Wonwoo had this way of sucking on your clit before tongue-fucking you like it was out of style, and then repeating those steps all over again, sometimes using his nose to play with your clit in between. You yanked on his hair again, bringing him that much closer as you moaned, “Wonwoo.”

“Harder.”

“What?” Your head lifted.

His eyes met yours from the end of the bed. Mouth just barely leaving your pussy, he demanded, “Pull my hair harder.”

He didn’t give you a second to respond, already diving back into you. His mouth wrapped around your clit and you yanked on his hair as hard as you could and – the groan he let out reverberated through your entire body, making your nipples hard all over again. You felt that tip of his finger again – no, it was two – sliding into you and nestled in that place only he would remember. Because Wonwoo was attentive. Wonwoo remembered. He knew that the best way to get you there was tugging your clit between his teeth while he crooked those two fingers against a spot that made your thighs shake. 

“Fuck,” he muttered, pumping his fingers into you. “You’re so tight.”

You pulled on his hair, making him press his erection against the bed frame. “It’s been a while.”

He was looking up at you again, noticing the way your jaw clenched, and he clarified, “That doesn’t matter to me, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. A name you never thought you’d hear from his lips. You clenched around his fingers, sucking them more in.

“You close?” He asked, going in to drag his tongue through you. “Want me to edge you?”

You scoffed. “You know I don’t like that.”

He chuckled, slipping his fingers out to lick them clean. “Maybe next time.”

A snarky reply was on the tip of your tongue until his tongue was circling that swollen bundle of nerves. Three fingers were now stuffed inside you, sliding in and out while curling against that – “Yes, right there” – spot. If you felt this full with his fingers … you couldn’t even remember what his cock felt like. Your breathing was already uneven and he was moaning while sucking on your clit and – oh. Your orgasm crested and you were pulling on his hair so much that you were sure there’d be a funny, little bald patch after. His name fell from your lips and he kept licking you through it, grinding his achingly hard cock against the bed. 

Despite his own greed, Wonwoo pulled away when your ankle relaxed on his shoulder once again. You already looked so fucked out on his bed: chest heaving, sweat dotting your hairline. This was something out of a dream, one that he had many times, leaving him waking up hard until he fisted his cock to completion. Your arousal dripped down his chin and he hardly made an effort to clean it up, instead crawling up on the bed and kissing you breathless, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.

Your hands had other plans though. One tugged on the ties at his waistband, while the other slipped under it, finding his erection so easily. No underwear, just like you assumed.He was throbbing, precum staining the thick fabric of his sweatpants, and you trailed a digit along the base. “Since when do you not wear underwear, you pervert?” You laughed against his mouth.

You felt him smile against yours. “In my defense,” he pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “I didn’t exactly expect anyone would be coming over.”

“What about Mingyu?” You squeezed at the middle of his shaft, earning a grunt from him.

“I thought we were done talking about my roommate before I fuck you.”

Your nose wrinkled. “Touché.”

He sat up on his knees between your legs, allowing you to help him pull his cock out. Wait. Was he always this big? That night in college was clearly a blur because this was not what you expected. The trail of dark hair that led to his groin didn’t surprise you – he had always been on the hairier side, too lazy to shave even his fingers – it was the whole package. His cock was long, thicker than you remembered, that dark hair trailing all the way down to the base and scattered around his balls. He had just two veins etched towards a flared pink tip, dripping more precum onto his sweats that were hanging just under his ass. 

You didn’t even bother having him kick them off, wrapping your hand around his shaft again and slowly dragging it up, his whole body tense as he held himself back. He almost fell forward, but then braced one of his long arms by his hip to steady himself. “This is – fuck –” He muttered when you squeezed him at the tip. “This is evil.”

“I’m micromanaging.” You grinned, your finger leisurely tracing the vein on the right side of his shaft, making his knees buckle.

He laughed under his breath. “You have no idea –” His jaw shifted when you started pumping him a little faster. “– How many times I thought about this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he choked out. “Felt so guilty after I jerked off – fuck – but nothing got me hard like the thought of you. And then, there were the dreams –”

Your hand paused at the base. “Wait, you’re being serious?” You asked, and his eyes flashed open, like he’d been caught doing something wrong. Then, you confessed, “I had dreams about you too. Touched myself and imagined it was you. For years.”

“Oh, my god.” His head fell into your shoulder, as if this revelation was physically painful. Or maybe it was because your grip was squeezing him a little too well. “If we don’t finally have sex, I think I might cum.”

You chuckled, louder than you expected, placing your free hand over your mouth. But he removed it as your other palm slipped from his cock, muttering something about how much he loved the way you laughed, but your heart was pounding too much to hear it. Hooking one of your legs around his waist, he gripped his cock and guided it forward, nudging your entrance. His eyes lifted to yours, darker than you’ve ever seen.

“Tell me how much you want it,” he muttered, but his tone suggested that it was more of a demand. “How much you want me inside you.”

Your brow lifted. “Don’t be silly. I thought we were on a time crunch here.”

Now his brows were shooting to his hairline. “So you don’t want it?”

“Wonwoo, stop playing around –”

You hadn’t even realized until you felt it: his hand leaving his cock to rub slow circles on your already sensitive clit. Legs parting even more, you whined and you almost didn’t recognize your own voice. “What was that again?” He smirked, pinching your clit in a way that made your toes curl. 

“Jesus, okay – I want it so bad,” you moaned, eyes closed as you surrendered to his touch. “Wonwoo, please – just … Oh, my god – please, fuck me. I think I might go fucking crazy if you’re not inside me in the next ten seconds –”

He pushed inside, burying himself to the hilt. You almost cried from the stretch. It was more than you expected, but you now realized that maybe you should stop having expectations with Wonwoo. He groaned, still rubbing your clit to get you to loosen up more, while hiking your right leg on his waist higher. Savoring the feeling of finally being inside you again, he peppered kisses on your cheek, humming against your skin, “You feel so good, sweetheart,” and, “my best girl, my sweetest girl.”

“It’s so – too much, Wonwoo,” you mewled, even though you suddenly didn’t want to imagine a second without him stuffed inside you like this. So full, so deep – you wondered if you’d feel him the next day.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” he cooed, tilting his head to graze his lips over yours. “I know you’re tight, but you can take it, right?”

He leaned back slightly to look in your eyes, wiped the tears that threatened to fall, and you nodded.

“Good girl,” he muttered before pulling all the way out. You didn’t even have a moment to catch you breath before he was slamming back in, his jaw unhinging at just how good you felt.

This was different than that time in his dorm. You were both older, not all that wiser, but there was purpose here. He created a rhythm between you two that had you feeling every vein, every fucking ridge, and you were now wondering who taught Wonwoo to fuck like this. Because it surely hadn’t been you. Or maybe this was just a case of his memory again, because it only took him a few deep thrusts to find the perfect angle that brushed your g-spot, causing your legs to jerk upward. He caught your right thigh before it fell, and then bullied his cock back into you as stars flashed in your vision.

Your arms wound around his neck, fingers raking at the nape of his neck, and then pulling, just the way he liked it. “Fuck –” He groaned, his warm breath mingling with yours. “Missed you so much. Missed being inside you. God –”

The discomfort subsided, as if your pussy had molded itself to the shape of his cock, and it was then that you realized that you never wanted to fuck anyone besides Wonwoo for the rest of your life. You had ten years to have your fun, but this – he punctuated your thought with a hard thrust that made your whole body tremble – was it. You didn’t need anyone else, didn’t want anyone else. 

Just Wonwoo. 

You whined out his name, yanking on his hair as he filled you to the brim over and over again. His fingers – those long, fucking fingers – tweaked your nipples just right, and your back arched into him. “Please, don’t stop,” you begged, catching his lip between your teeth for a moment. “Close. So close. Wanna cum with you.”

“I’ll get you there, sweetheart,” he promised, making that warmth in your gut pool even more. If he didn’t get you over that peak soon, you were going to lose it. “Don’t worry. I got you.”

It was almost funny: the lewd sounds of him fucking into you mixing with Billy Crystal reciting the most devastating monologue known to man as When Harry Met Sally continued on his TV. Your focus shifted when his fingers gave one last pinch to your nipple before dragging down, down, down – all the way until his thumb was rubbing circles on your aching bud again. Harder this time. Like the way you pulled his hair. His digits were harsh, eager to feel you tighten around his cock. He wasn’t even fucking into you anymore; he was buried so deep that you felt him everywhere.

But then it happened: your walls clamping around him, your breathing stifled, and he was trying to fight the urge of cumming himself to praise you. “That’s it,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth. You whimpered his name, orgasm crashing over you, and he was still rubbing your clit. “There you go. I got you, sweetheart.”

Your whole body was shaking, and it felt almost religious coming undone for him like this. Like it was written in the stars, or maybe your own obliviousness. It felt like every good memory led to this: the best orgasm of your life with the man you’d been in love with since you were 20.

When he felt your walls start to unclench the slightest bit, that was his cue to move again. He pulled out, and then pushed back in so deep that it felt like you were cumming all over again. Fucking into you like this would become an addiction, he just knew it, because when he finally chased his high and practically cried against your mouth, there was no other feeling like it. The way you held onto him, sucking him back in like a vice, as he fucked his release back into you – maybe you were made for him all this time.

All those years depriving himself of this left him desperate and enamored. He was already going soft but he was still pushing into you, not letting any of his seed escape, and you were clenching yet again, cumming all over his cock like it was the only thing you knew how to do. In all honesty, Wonwoo was tempted to keep going, but when he saw the way your body was damn near shivering in his arms, he decided that it was probably not the smartest to overstimulate you during the first time in so long.

He waited almost a decade for you. He could make up for lost time eventually.

Collapsing on top of you, he kissed you softly, feeling you smile into it. Even though him slipping out of you felt empty after all that, you were almost grateful for the reprieve. His soft cock pressed against your thigh, but he stayed there, on top of you, kissing you like you two were 80 and had been doing this all your lives. You hoped that could be your future after all. Because when he leaned back slightly and your hand came to rest on his jaw, you saw the kind of love you secretly always wanted: the kind that would span years, reincarnated in different people. 

Wonwoo rolled onto his back, pulling the waistband of his sweatpants back up before relaxing against the pillows. You curled into his side and he picked up the forgotten remote, seeing the credits run across the small TV at the foot of his bed. “Shit, we missed all of the movie,” he joked.

You chuckled, arm circling around his middle as he tugged a sheet over you. “We can rewind.”

VIII.

You are where all roads lead back to. Parts of you exist in everything I’ve ever loved. –UNKNOWN

You had never been one for morning sex. Always preferred to wake up without distractions and get to your day as soon as possible. Wonwoo might change that though.

After realizing that it was a Friday night and the both of you had no plans the next day, he obviously had to twist your arm to stay over. You had come to his apartment with no plan, just the tote bag you brought to the office everyday and your rain jacket, so you mildly freaked at the idea of staying over without your favorite toothpaste or facial cleanser, only to find out that Wonwoo kept them stocked just in case. Like he was waiting for the day you slept over again. Except it was different this time, because you were dozing off in his arms as he whispered, “I love you,” and your smitten ass was saying it back.

Waking up to his chest against your back, hard cock pressed into your asscheek, as his hand snaked around to your front to dip his fingers between your legs wasn’t exactly what you imagined, but you liked it. Far more than you ever realized. And you supposed that maybe you secretly wanted this to happen because you did fall asleep in just his t-shirt. (Who’s to say?) It wasn’t long before he was having you cum on his fingers, prying your legs open with his own so he could fuck you on your side like this. Your head had turned to meet his lips from over your shoulder and – oh, absolutely nothing was better than this.

Once you were both spent, he let you fall back asleep – something you never did. You were typically an early riser, never once allowing yourself to sleep in and waste the day. He knew this already, which meant he had to physically tuck you back in under his duvet so you would make yourself comfortable again. “Just relax for once,” he chuckled before pecking your cheek. “Give yourself another hour. I’ll have Mingyu whip us up something.”

“Oh, good,” you replied sleepily, cheek flush with his pillow, “I thought you were going to cook and burn the kitchen down.”

He flicked your nose. “Funny.”

When you rolled out of bed an hour later, you chose to look decent and pulled on a pair of his clean boxers. You looked ridiculous, covered head to toe in Wonwoo, and even though he had let you borrow his clothes before, this felt special. What’s his was also yours now. 

You ran a hand through your tangled mess of hair and tugged it through a scrunchie, padding out into the common area. Mingyu was already gone, probably off to his restaurant, and left Wonwoo some bills to go food shopping later. You crossed the threshold of the kitchen and paused, admiring Wonwoo. He was humming to himself while placing a pod in the Keurig, another steaming mug already waiting for you at his small dining table. You always thought he was handsome, but there was something about his hair sticking up in different directions, the way his sweatpants hung loose on his waist, his glasses sitting crooked on his nose … it did something to you. Nothing was more perfect than Jeon Wonwoo in the morning.

“Is this for me?” You asked, pointing to the mug on the table, and he didn’t even jump at the sound of your voice. As if he expected you there all along.

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m almost done with mine, and Mingyu cooked us up some of those fluffy eggs with veggies. The ones you like.”

Sitting down at the table, you crossed one leg underneath the other and took a hefty sip. It was bitter and dark – just the way you liked it. Wonwoo joined you at the table after pouring a splash of milk in his mug, and you both sat there for a moment, perfectly at peace with the silence. It reminded you of that morning – after the first and only hookup – how your knees just barely brushed and the open windows that smelled of fresh flowers, like spring in bloom. Except this time, the weight of liking him didn’t feel like a curse. There were no final exams to worry about. And Wonwoo was now reaching out his hand: still hesitant, but certain. It was a declaration.

An origin wound now healed. 

You ran your thumb over the back of his hand, a smile tugging at your lips. “We really are terrible at casual,” you mused, “which is why I really want to try this time.”

Wonwoo brought your hand to his mouth and kissed your knuckles. His voice was almost cinematic as he replied, “Me too.”

tag list: @taz-97 @bumbleteas @healingmv @skzbangchanniee @koliki @novawon @cherryhwa-02 @wonuwonder @coupsarchive @dmstoyangyang @jakedustry @sdoulc @hongyinujiang @coupsv @gyusju @ashleytjw @melonacco @aeniecat @faeriful @sooberryworld

[epelletart]

unfortunately, yes! 𑣲 j.wonwoo

SUMMARY: Your nephew won’t stop complaining about his strict superior at work. What you weren’t expecting was that said superior happens to be your hottest hookup, the one you had a one-night stand with. Did you like it? Obviously, yes. But morally? You should’ve buried yourself in dearth at this point.

PAIRING: jeon wonwoo x f!reader

GENRE: drama, comedy, fluff, smut, oneshot

WARNINGS: suggestive content (MDNI), dirty talk, strong language, mildly toxic family (mentioned), one-night stand, attempted quickie, sexual tension, heated kissing, homoerotic cuz i can, dick jokes (im sorry), bantering, arguing (in a fun way), little angst hinted about parents' separation.

WC: 12.5k

ADD TAGS❦︎: cafe owner! reader, pr specialist! wonwoo, kim sunoo as your nephew, wonwoo is a jerk but a hot one, barista! boochan, reader is kind of a fujoshi (this was supposed to be a joke), domestic fluff if you squint, invisible string theory hinted, co-enemies to lovers, they're both idiots, teacher! jeonghan mentioned, i do think i am hilarious, roommate! mingyu, hot n cold dynamic, strangers to lovers, secret relationships, this was probably a bad idea.

a/n: hi. we are sooo back in this diamond crack.

The fact that you’re legally an adult is hysterical. If people asked whether you’re an adult, you’d say “yeah”, but not with confidence or anything.

People always say, “there’s plenty of fish in the sea.” You’ve heard that a ton, but your eyes are fixed on that one specific, emotionally distant salmon commitment issues, mommy issues, and absolutely no idea how to function like a normal human being.

There’s plenty of fish in the sea, but you know what else is there? Trash. There is a lot of trash in the sea. You even switched out your plastic straws for one-hundred per cent plant-based, edible rice straws made from rice, tapioca, and cornstarch. They’re designed to be sustainable, turtle-friendly, and technically safe to eat. It was often described as having a neutral, pasta-like texture. They were a popular eco-friendly alternative to plastic, even though some people complained that they got soggy in drinks.

You like to think that you have saved the turtles. Maybe even the ocean.

Unfortunately, that still doesn’t stop people especially at family gatherings from bringing up marriage every chance they get. You were perfectly fine living like this. You run your own cafe. You’ve got a side hustle as a web novel writer and webcomic creator though of course they don’t know that.

Your single life has been nothing but peaceful. In this century, it’s a choice. But that doesn’t matter when your relatives keep asking when it’ll be your turn, especially at someone else’s wedding. God forbid a woman enjoys her life without a partner.

They love to hint, no—insist that you’ll end up lonely, growing old like some miserable hag.

Puh-lease. You’ll never be intimidated by people with no class. What are they going to do? Gossip about you with their equally insecure, trashy little circle?

You don’t care. You’d rather die than get married. At least you won’t end up as some miserable wife stuck with a douchebag husband and his broken ass.

The only thing that kept you alive and sane was none other than your beloved nephew, your very first one. Oh, the things you would do for him. You still remember the first time you held him, just a newborn, tiny in your arms. That was the moment you became an aunt at the age of seventeen.

Now, he’s all grown up, living like a proper young adult. Still, you can’t help but see him as a kid. Not that you mind, considering you once gaslit eight-year-old Sunoo into believing he was six just so he could get freebies at a diner when you first babysat him.

“You look like you’re about to cry,” you said, wiping a glass as you watched your twenty three-years-old nephew clutch his head, face buried against the counter.

“Give my regards to the devil,” he sighed, rolling his eyes in exhaustion.

“I will.”

Sunoo groaned again, downing another shot of espresso you had made earlier. That was probably his third cup. You gently took it away from him, earning a frown.

“Oh, come on. I didn’t raise you to be a quitter,” you said, sliding a glass of water toward him instead. “I raised a burnt-out perfectionist who occasionally gets bludgeoned into settling for mediocrity.”

Your nephew stared at you incredulously. Sometimes he wondered if he was even related to you. But in the end, he’d take you over his nosy, borderline-stranger aunties who wanted a full autobiography of his achievements. He still didn’t understand why his mom, your sister had trusted you to raise him all these years, well into adulthood.

“Okay, I’ve experienced academic validation, and I’ve experienced academic downfall, and I highly recommend being born into generational wealth—”

“It’s not about that,” he cut you off. “It’s my superior. He’s… I don’t know. Everything about him is just so cranky.”

“What?” You raised an eyebrow, unimpressed as you continued stacking cups. “Is he a bully or something?”

“Not exactly. He’s just… kind of mean. Well—he’s just that good at his job.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“That is the problem,” he confirmed.

He continued, “He’s so good at what he does that it stresses everyone out on the planning team. If something goes wrong, he gets intensely serious about it—like, terrifyingly committed.”

There was a brief silence as you listened to your nephew ramble. This was probably just a moment of weakness. He likely just needed to vent.

“No one likes him,” he scoffed, taking a sip of water. “In fact, I don’t think he likes people at all. He probably hates himself too.”

He sighed again. “I made it through the day without throwing a chair at anyone, but this coffee tastes more bitter than usual.” He clicked his tongue. “Probably because I carried his bitterness all the way here.”

After a moment, you looked up at him. 

“Feeling better now?

“Yeah,” he finally exhaled. 

You’d think his toxic trait was believing another cup of coffee could solve literally anything. Honestly, you couldn’t tell if he was just being dramatic, but considering this was his second week complaining about his “toxic” workdays, you hoped it was only one insufferable person making him miserable, and not HR tearing him apart. Senior colleagues could be worse. You just hoped he wasn’t being bullied.

You, on the other hand, could drink three cups of coffee and go straight to sleep, one of many things fundamentally wrong with you as a person. In your defense, you buried those bad habits back in university. You’re a changed woman now. At your age, you just wish people would stop asking about your likes and dislikes. It gets old—those endless, generic questions on dates. 

You like money and food. You dislike not having money and being hungry.

Please. Don’t add more stress to your life.

Adulting is hard, but it’s okay. At least you don’t need to prove and explain why a triangle is a triangle anymore.

Nobody is busier than someone who isn’t interested in you. And when you say, “I’ll figure it out,” it usually just means you’ll adapt to whatever new level of hell is coming next. You either juggle five tasks at once or stare at a wall, wondering what scene to write for your next update, there is no in-between.

You know you’re hot, but you’re also aware you’re not a full-time hot person. You’re hot when you want to be, depending on the mood. You choose your own hours, make your own schedule. Honestly, it’s freelance hotness.

Just because you live like this doesn’t mean your life is boring. Sure, you’ve had your fair share of hookups—but they’re rare.

Today, however, is different. You went to your usual bar—Velvet Ruby. Mostly because the owner, Jihoon (as you’ve come to learn), is annoyingly attractive. You’re not even utterly shameless at that, the first time you met him (that time you haven’t yet to know he was the owner), throwing flirts here and there, you were tipsy, okay? Still, he finds it amusing despite himself. You usually prefer someone taller than you, but somehow, he still caught your attention.

Tonight, though, you were determined. You wanted a distraction. A release.

The only problem? You’d been sitting there for almost an hour. You were practically waiting for a main character’s entrance, but it seemed the owner had better things to do. Swirling your glass, you watched the wine move lazily inside it, your fingers brushing through your hair as you leaned your cheek against your palm, and then you noticed him.

Sitting right beside you.

You didn’t even try to hide the way your gaze lingered on his side profile. The sharp nose, the way his lips brushed against the rim of his glass as he took a sip of whiskey. His sweater was pushed just enough to reveal his forearms, the fabric stretching slightly. You could tell he was well-built underneath. His veiny hands, steady as he held the glass with ease, a watch sitting perfectly on his wrist.

God.

You really wanted him so bad.

As a matter of fact, you even dressed up for tonight—something chic, something that worked both at your cafe and for this. Chan, one of your employees, kept staring earlier. You didn’t say anything out loud, but you did threaten to cut his pay if he kept slacking off.

You feel sexy today, feel good and confident. There was no way you were wasting this night.

As if sensing your stare, the man suddenly turned toward you. His eyes narrowed slightly, not threatening, just… observant. His gaze lingered, taking you in without shame.

Jackpot.

Honestly, you don’t care. You were convinced you could hold your liquor pretty well, but you only lived once. You didn’t look away. Instead, you offered a soft smile, teasing as you leaned your chin on your palm, crossing your legs.

“Do you know what bees make?” you asked casually.

He raised an eyebrow, clearly making sure you were talking to him. There was a pause before he answered, humoring you.

“Honey?”

You smiled wider. “Yes, dear?”

A soft chuckle left your lips, you were definitely tipsy now. He looked amused, the corner of his mouth lifting as he took another sip, his gaze still on you appreciatively, unhidden.

“Can I buy you a drink?” He asked.

Your lips curved in quiet victory.

Got him.

...

It didn’t take long for the two of you to fall into easy conversation. The small talk here and there, laughter slipping in between. One thing led to another. You have learned that his name is Wonwoo. He mentioned something about work, some company but you barely processed it, too distracted by his deep voice and the way his cologne lingered in the air.

By the time you reached the hotel, neither of you had the patience to pretend otherwise. The door barely closed before he pulled you close again, lips finding yours in a kiss that was far from hesitant. His coat was gone in seconds, yours not long after as you were guided back with your breath catching and thoughts slipping.

His touch was warm, firm, leaving a trail that made it harder to think straight. Your head tilted instinctively, giving him more space, more access, your fingers gripping onto him as the moment blurred into something hazy and overwhelming.

A quiet sound escaped you, your mind already spinning, senses dulled except for him.

You stumbled toward the bed, everything felt so messy and impatient. Both of your clothes were scattered somewhere on the floor. It was clear that you’re both extremely attracted to each other, and you never felt so turned on right now. Maybe it’s been a while since you have felt this good.

Straddling him, you leaned down, kissing him again with intense neediness. Wonwoo grunts into the kiss, chuckling softly against your lips at how impatient you are, clumsily pressing on him. He kisses you back fiercely, his tongue delving into your mouth to stroke along yours, gripping your hips tightly. He grinds up against your core, large hands sliding up your bare back, fingers digging into your soft skin as he pulls you flush against his muscular chest. He didn’t forget to lavish your neck with hot, open-mouthed kisses, teeth grazing your pulse point as he bucks his hips up sharply.

You let out a soft sigh and moan at how intense it feels, catching your breath as your hands come up to grip his soft locks. Your hips instinctively grind on him, rolling your hips down as you feel the thick length of his cock rubbing against your slick folds through the thin fabric of your panties.

A low groan tore from his throat at the feeling, his grip on your hips tightening. He slides his hands down to grip your ass, squeezing the plush globes roughly as he grinds up against you—meeting your slow, sensual movements. “You’re so fucking hot like this, baby.” He murmurs, leaning up to capture your lips in a deep sensual kiss. Drowning in his own needs, he tore your panties away and didn’t hesitate to put the tip of his cock inside your bare cunt.

The sensation itself had left your mouth hanging open, trying to catch yourself at how amazing it feels like. Your grip on him tightened as you slowly sinked yourself down on his dick, mewling at the way he’s stretching you out. “F-fuck—Wonwoo…” you whimper out softly as you started to move your hips.

Wonwoo let out a low guttural moan as your tight walls clenched down around him like vice, gripping his throbbing shaft so deliciously. He literally needed to pause for a moment, savouring the incredible feeling of being fully sheathed inside you before he started to move. “Fuck, baby… so fucking tight.” He murmurs, looking up at you with dark, lust-filled eyes. You start to roll your hips, working yourself on his thick length. “That’s it—just like that… nice and slow.” Hands slide up your sides to cup your breasts, squeezing the soft mounds and kneading the flesh as he watches your face intently. Taking in every little flicker of emotion and pleasure that crosses your features. 

He growls, feeling your pussy clench and squeeze around his pistoning length. God, even his voice is so damn hot, your mind was too drowned by how sexy he was until you felt a sharp slap on your ass, making you squeal. “Ride me harder, baby. Fuck yourself on my cock until you can’t take it anymore.” Wonwoo leans up to bite at your neck, sucking a dark hickey into your skin as he feels your movements turning more desperate and needy.

You started to bounce on his cock with increasing fervour, your ass smacking against his balls with each downward grind. The sound of skin slapping against skin echoes obscenely in the room, spurring him on to fuck into you even harder and deeper.

Your knees tremble on either side of him, digging the sheet for support. Nails digging further into his shoulders to keep yourself upright. You knew he wouldn’t last much longer, not with the way you’re writhing and mewling so sweetly above him. Your cunt milking his cock for all it’s worth.

And it’s so fucking hot.

Wonwoo slams up into you one last time, burying himself to the hilt as his cock pulses and throbs inside your spasming cunt, throwing his head back with a loud groan rumbling from his chest at his release. You moaned out loud too, mouth hanging as you held him tight. The feeling of his release seems to trigger your own, and you feel your body stiffening beneath him as your climax crashes over you.

With one last shuddering breath, he finally pulled back, taking in your blissed-out expression with a satisfied smirk. He peppered soft kisses across your face, his touch unexpectedly tender after everything that had just happened. You could feel your heartbeat racing, matching his.

“More?” you murmured against his lips, a playful smile tugging at yours.

“Thought so.”

Without warning, he flipped you onto your back against the mattress, earning a small yelp from you followed by breathy laughter as he settled himself between your legs. Your little escapade with him continued into the night. After all, the night was still young.

How to say “I hate you" in a nice way? It’s simple. “You are the Monday of my life.” Seungkwan always bristled whenever you said that, usually while you were asking him to clean the grease. It wasn’t even his turn, which would inevitably lead to him bickering with Chan about whose turn it actually was. At this point, you might as well be your own employee at your own cafe.

But hey, you like to think you’re a good boss.

The older you get, the more you understand why roosters just scream to start the day. Back in college, you used to wake up and sit there, contemplating whether to skip class. Maybe cry a little. Your greatest joy was waking up without the crushing sense of responsibility.

Now? You’ve never felt so good. You were actually… happy.

Even your nephew had asked Chan and Seungkwan why you were in such a good mood today. You were practically glowing.

There was no denying it, that one-night stand with that ridiculously attractive man had put you in an excellent mood. It was a shame you didn’t get his contact, though. When you woke up, tangled in the soft comforter, he was already getting ready to leave. He seemed in a rush. You were far too sore and far too comfortable to chase after him. Too much hassle, you thought.

Like some kind of Cinderella, he disappeared just like that. And honestly? You didn’t think you’d ever experience sex the same way again. Not that you were mad or anything. You hate being mad. It takes you almost two and a half years to calm down. 

So for now, it was just you and your coffee beans, trying to figure out whether today was even necessary. According to the weather, though—it was bright and sunny. You greeted your customers with a warm smile (which you rarely did), and for once, everything felt… light.

Sunoo stared at you with concern as he blended the coffee beans beside you. “Did she win the lottery or something?” he whispered, leaning toward Seungkwan.

“I don’t know, kid,” Seungkwan shrugged, not even looking up as he handled the pre-orders. “She’s having one of her episodes. I’m not getting involved.” He paused, then added dryly, “It’s either her inner peace is sponsored by caffeine… or sarcasm.”

Your nephew just shrugged it off, continuing to help with the brewing. “By the way, remember when I told you I’d be having a meeting at your cafe? It’s going to be tomorrow.”

You hummed in response, packing cookies as you glanced up slightly. “Yeah, I remember. The place is spacious enough—you can come by around noon.”

“Great. Then I’ll get going… with my daily intake of coffee, as usual.” He smiled, picking up the book he had tucked under his arm.

You paused briefly. Because that cover looked painfully familiar. That was your work, your webcomic. The one that went viral back when you were in college.

“Where did you get that?” you asked, eyeing the cover before looking up at him, suspicion clear in your expression.

You were pretty sure it was old. There shouldn’t even be active copies of it anymore. You had buried that part of your life a long time ago.

“Oh, this?” he gestured casually. “My team’s working on a big project right now. It’s for a campaign we’re handling.” He took a sip from his drink, completely oblivious to your reaction.

It wasn’t like you were sweating, or panicking. 

Or internally screaming.

It was just your own damn book—the one your nephew had no idea existed. You wrote it back in college. It was stupid, honestly, and you weren’t proud of it. You literally wrote about two dudes who were roommates and… well, got very close.

Unfortunately, it went viral back then. You had no idea how it resurfaced now, and frankly, you wanted nothing to do with it.

Sunoo glanced at his phone as he headed for the door. “I’ve gotta go now. Don’t forget about tomorrow! My team and that mean senior will be there too.”

And just like that, he left. Leaving you standing there, wondering what kind of disaster was about to unfold.

...

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Collaboration Inquiry with Carrot Publication. Hi Belububbles, I hope this message finds you well. On behalf of my team, our company has previously reached out to your agency regarding a potential collaboration. We were advised to contact you directly; however, we have yet to receive a response to our emails or direct messages. As this matter is time-sensitive, I would like to request a face-to-face meeting tomorrow at our office, should you be available. Please let us know your availability by today. If we do not hear back from you we will proceed with further steps to move this discussion forward. Looking forward to hearing from you. Best regards, Going Company PR team + 82 013-xxx-xxx

You bristled the moment you read the email in your inbox. Just when you were having a perfectly good day, which is ruined. That tone alone was enough to irritate you. Sure, you did ignore unknown callers and random emails. Most of them were spam or obvious scams, and you never bothered checking unless they came through your publication agency.

Still… the audacity.

Come to think of it, Sunoo did mention that his team was dealing with a particulary demanding client. Which probably meant his “superior” had grown a second set of horns by now. You could already imagine someone breathing down his neck, especially with how much he’d been fumbling lately. Not that you could blame him, the expectations sounded ridiculous and apparently, his superior had decided to take it on anyway.

Good thing none of that had anything to do with you.

Honestly, you wouldn’t even be surprised if one day Sunoo quit his job and showed up at your cafe asking for a position. You were short-staffed anyway, it might actually work out.

And now here you are. Standing in front of the Going Company. You had replied to their email yesterday, and they wasted no time contacting you again today. Still, you didn’t appreciate the tone—less of a request, more of a thinly veiled demand. 

You rarely made any public appearances for your work. That’s what aliases were for. Working behind the scenes, under your publication agency was exactly how you liked it. You just hoped, really hoped that you wouldn’t run into Sunoo here.

It was a big building after all. Surely, you wouldn’t. Now seated in a waiting room, you crossed your legs

Now seated in a waiting room, you crossed your legs, fingers tapping lightly against your arm. One of the staff had already ushered you in, leaving you alone as you waited for the so-called “representative.” Something about this felt off. And you had a feeling that this meeting was about to get a lot more complicated.

Did you burn your toast today? Nah. That couldn’t be it. But you did burn the cookies. Which meant Seungkwan ended up cleaning the mess after you told him you had an appointment to get to. This is exactly why you have employees. Even if you treat them more like your nieces and nephews despite being around the same age.

The door then opened. Someone had arrived, but of all people you didn’t expect him. You lifted your head lazily, bored and later froze at the sight.

Jeon Wonwoo.

He also stopped mid-step too, one hand still on the chair he was about to pull out, eyes locked on you. Then, slowly he sat down with his hands clasped and composed. Professional. Like nothing had happened. For a second, neither of you moved. 

He was dressed in a black turtleneck, lanyard hanging neatly around his neck and glasses. You almost didn’t recognise him at first. He hadn’t worn them the night you met. The two of you just stared for a moment.

Silence filled the air. Awkward and heavy.

Later, you both looked away at the same time, and he cleared his throat. God, you hoped this was just someone who looked like him.

“Belububbles, right?” he began, voice painfully familiar. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. As you’ve probably realized, I’m the one who emailed you.”

Your brows furrowed. So he was the one behind that email.

“I’m Jeon Wonwoo, part of the PR team. I look forward to working with you. Let’s get started.”

Well. Fuck me.

Just your luck. Your one-night stand, your very recent one-night stand was now sitting across from you, acting like a corporate robot.

You offered him a polite smile. Too polite. It didn’t reach your eyes. “Of course. Now, what is it that you’d like to discuss?”

Wonwoo clasped his hands again, diving straight into the explanation, laying out the project, the campaign, the planning. Every detail, every step. Thirty minutes later, he finally finished. He slid a contract across the table toward you. You raised a brow at that. It was all the NDA, policies and terms whatever it was. You hadn’t even agreed yet and they already prepared all this? 

Persistent. Just like his email. What kind of passive-aggressive person was this?

“I’m not going to agree to this,” you said with a sigh, placing the document back on the table. “I don’t do public appearances. I thought you already knew that. My agency always consults me first.”

“I’m aware,” he replied smoothly. “That’s why we’re only proposing pre-recorded interviews. No face reveal—just voice, with filters if necessary.”

You were listening. It is intriguing but you need a lot more convincing to do.

“We just want you to participate in our campaign event,” he continued, confidence steady. “We’re gathering artists and writers involved in the project. You’d have your own merchandise, a chance to expand your audience—”

“I don’t really care about that,” you cut in lightly. “But I do like money.”

He blinked. Clearly not expecting that.

“…Right.” He adjusted his glasses. “Then would you reconsider? I’ve read your current work—the one you’re still updating. Wouldn’t you want more people to see it?”

You leaned back slightly, thinking. “I’ve considered it. But I don’t want the kind of exposure that comes with it. People dig. I value my privacy. And I have a real-life job too. A big one.”

He exhaled slooowly, clearly trying to stay patient. “What about physical sales?” he pressed. “Printed copies. You mentioned profit—this is an opportunity to maximize that.”

You wave your hand dismissively. “I’ve had enough of that. My agency handles most of it anyway.”

Honestly, you didn’t need them. You had your own ways, holding out your own event, your own marketing. You knew what you were doing.

Wonwoo momentarily paused. Finally, he tried again. “What do you want?”

You met his gaze. He was stubborn as hell. You hadn’t even planned to negotiate. You just came here to make one thing clear. You weren’t interested at all. With a quiet exhale, you stood up. “Mr. Jeon,” you said, already reaching for your bag, “I came all the way here to inform you that I’m not interested. Also, your email? That sounded more like a threat than a request.” You turned toward the door. “Have a great day.”

“I’m trying to be nice here,” his voice cut in, sharper now, “but you’re making my job difficult.” His voice made you pause as he stood up. “You don’t want fame, money—whatever it is. People like you are always so demanding, and yet here you are—”

You turned your back slowly. His gaze locked onto yours. 

“…Though I didn’t expect it to be you,” he added, voice dropping slightly. “Not only are you a brat in bed, but apparently in general too.”

Ah.

There it was.

You smiled sweetly, stepping dangerously closer. “Why?” you tilted your head. “Was audacity on sale this year?” He scoffed quietly at that.

“Listen,” you added, voice light, “acting like a dick doesn’t make yours bigger.” you paused. “…Though, unfortunately, in your case—”

Except that he is.

His eyes narrowed, a low, sardonic chuckle slipping out. “You already know what I’m like,” he said. “Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it.”

You glared at him. He didn’t back down either. The silence stretched, until you broke it with a frustrated groan.

“Yeah. I’m leaving,” you muttered, turning back to the door. Then you stopped mid-step, glancing over your shoulder. “For the record?” you added flatly, “It was good dick.” A beat.  “But it was a one-time thing. I wouldn’t survive with a dickhead personality like yours.”

You pulled the door open. “It was terrible to meet you, by the way.” 

And then you left. Leaving him standing there, rendered speechless, and completely thrown off. You refused to let anyone ruin your day. So, you naturally decided that you did it yourself.

…

Your mood stayed soured the entire day after that meeting with your stupidly, insufferable, annoying, dickhead one-night stand. Chan and Seungkwan exchanged a look the moment you walked in. They were very aware of your mood swing, and very determined not to become your next victims. It was fine, though. They were used to it.

Chan tried first. “You look extra pretty today.”

“I’m not raising your pay. Go to work.” you said flatly, not even looking up as you handled the cashier. 

“Alright,” he nodded, but lingered for a second. “I mean it, though. You’re really pretty today.”

You hummed, then lifted your head slightly. “…You know what? Hell yeah. I am pretty. Being frowny doesn’t make me ugly—it makes me extra hot pretty.”

Seungkwan and Chan exchanged another look again. Seungkwan shook his head and went back to restocking the pastries.

Ah.

Very normal. 

A little while later, Sunoo walked in with his planning team. Just like he mentioned yesterday. You flashed them a bright smile as they approached the counter. 

“These are my colleagues,” Sunoo introduced casually. “And this is my aunt. No weird comments.”

“Hello, it’s lovely to meet you all.” you greeted warmly, slipping into your customer-service persona. “Thank you for taking care of my nephew.”

They greeted you back, placing their orders before heading off to their reserved table. Then, two guys lingered. Both are a couple inches taller than Sunoo, one with a sharp jawline, the other with pale skin and mischievous grin.

The pale one  smiled a little too confidently. “Hi. You’re really beautiful. Are you single?”

You blinked, then let out a soft chuckle. “Oh—I mean… depends on the day, and fortunately today is a yes.”

Sunghoon and Jongseong  snickered, nudging each other, while Sunoo rolled his eyes so hard it was practically audible. He hated when people did this, especially his own friends.

“Yeaahhh, we’re done here,” Sunoo cut in quickly. “Three iced americanos.” He dragged them away before they could say anything else.

You just watched them go, already ringing up the order. Just as you were about to take the next customer, a deep voice spoke.

“I’d like to pay for their order, and one iced cafe latte.” You didn’t even look up at the person.

“Okay, that would be—” as your eyes finally met with the face, and about to take his card. You immediately screamed. Like you had just seen a cockroach. Hands flew to your mouth, eyes wide in pure horror.

The entire cafe went silent. Heads turned at the scene. Seungkwan and Chan snapped their attention toward you. Wonwoo, just stood there—card still in hand, eyes slightly widened in confusion.

Meanwhile, from across the cafe, Jongseong leaned toward Sunoo and whispered. “Man, I knew Mr. Jeon could be intimidating, but I didn’t think he was that scary. Your aunt looks traumatised.”

You still didn’t move. Didn’t even blink or breathe. Seungkwan slowly walked over, glanced between you and Wonwoo. He immediately took over, seeing that you remained unmoved. “Thank you,” he said smoothly, taking the card and finishing the transaction.

Wonwoo didn’t say anything. He just kept staring at you oddly, and suspiciously. He finally turned and walked straight towards Sunoo. Your eyes followed him. And landed right on your nephew’s table. On his team. He was sitting at the centre like he owned the place. 

Oh no.

What the hell.

That was the “mean” superior he’d been talking about?

Sunoo cannot know. He absolutely cannot know about your side hustle. And definitely not about that night. Your nephew had no idea that you and his senior had met not just this morning, but very, very personally before that. He had no idea you and his senior had jumped each other like a trampoline in a hotel room.

You only stood there, frozen. Completely mortified at how insanely small the world was. You could’ve slept with anyone, but certainly not this. Not only did you sleep with him, you also argued with him like cats and dogs this morning.

Great. How amazing.

You wanted nothing more than to dig yourself a grave and lie in it. You could scream or maybe cry a little. You know that feeling when you meet someone and your heart skips a beat? Yeah. That’s arrhythmia. You could literally die from that. From the very first moment you laid your eyes upon him, you knew that you wanted to spend the rest of your life AVOIDING him.

Seungkwan calmly stacked cups while you crouched behind the counter like a fugitive. “You know,” he started casually, “when I used to work at a corporation, I learned a very professional way to say things.” You didn’t even look up. “I’m assuming something bad happened between you and that mean-looking guy over there,” he added, jerking his chin toward Wonwoo’s table.

“I wasn’t.” you sneered.

“It is,” he corrected immediately, like he already knew, and annoyingly, he did. “This was identified early on as a likely outcome.”

“What does that even mean?” Chan popped his head out from the back.

Seungkwan didn’t miss a beat. “It means ‘I told you’ but professionally.”

You abruptly stood up, pretending to busy yourself while sneaking a glance at their table. Wonwoo was speaking behind his laptop, the rest of the team listening intently. Right on fucking cue, his eyes met yours and stayed there. Your gaze hardened,  sending him a very clear message, close to a warning or threat. What the fuck are you doing here? Wonwoo merely tilted his head slightly toward his team and mouthed a simple, “Work.”

Oh, he was hilarious. Strangely calm too. Like he was used to handling crises like this. Before your silent rentless fuck you exchanged could continue, you saw Sunoo heading toward you. Instantly, you plastered on a smile. A little too wide.

Your nephew grabbed your arm. “What was that?” he hissed, glancing between you and his table. “Did you really have to scream in his face? I already feel like my soul leaves my body every time he looks at me—if he asks why my aunt is acting like a lunatic, I’m done for.”

You frowned, whisper-yelling back like you were negotiating something illegal. “That was a reflex. He looked too much like my ex.” You blatantly lied, as if you never do that with your nephew through the years of babysitting him.

Sunoo scoffed, grabbing a couple of water bottles. “Yeah, right. You’ve been saying that since I was six. Please don’t embarrass me. For the love of God.” And just like that, he walked back to his meeting.

You exhaled sharply. So much for easy-peasy lemon squeezy. This was more like stressy, depressy, lemon fucking zesty. Life didn’t hand you lemons. It handed you a caffeine addiction, trust issues and zero patience for dickheads like Wonwoo.

So when you noticed him heading toward the restroom, you followed after him. A moment later, he was at the sink, rinsing his hands. He turned around until he was immediately met with you slamming your hand against the tiled wall beside him. He paused, slightly caught off guard. Despite being taller than you, it seems like your anger towards him was taller.

“Did it hurt,” you said sweetly, a sharp smile on your lips, “when you fell out of someone’s asshole and into toilet water, you piece of shit?”

Wonwoo didn’t even flinch. By now, he seemed immune to it. “Not really,” he replied calmly, crossing his arms, “but I know shit when I see one.”

You groaned under your breath, pacing slightly. God, he was insufferable. “Did it have to be my cafe?” you snapped. “Seeing you this morning was already bad enough, and now you just show up here too?”

“I didn’t choose the location,” he said simply. Then, after a beat, “Though now that I think about it… I didn’t know that ray of sunshine was your nephew.” He let out a dry chuckle, stepping a little closer. “It’s ironic, really.”

You shot him a glare sharp enough to cut glass. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet the devil everyone’s been talking about,” you shot back. “Didn’t realise it was someone that I used to suck his dick—”

You stopped yourself. Barely.

Wonwoo stiffened slightly, adjusting his glasses. Yeah, that landed. You were not sure if he was taken aback by being a worse senior colleague, or that part when you mentioned of sucking his stupid dick.

He clicked his tongue, gaze steady. “Do I look like someone who goes around flaunting his sex life? Exactly. No way in hell.” You didn’t answer. He stepped closer again, voice lowering. “If you agree to the proposal from this morning, I’ll agree to keep things… civil between us.” Then he stepped back, giving you space.

Silence fell. You studied him for a moment. However, he didn’t look like he was hiding anything. Just a straightforward goal. He gives off that impression of a guy that has no time for relationships, probably terrible at it. A stubborn, workaholic guy with a nasty temper. Possibly hates himself a little.

Not that you were one to judge. You weren’t exactly easy either. Honestly, you didn’t care about him but your nephew? That was a different story. If Sunoo found out—if he ever found out there was no doubt he’d snitch to your sister. You’ll be dead for sure. 

You exhaled slowly, reluctantly even. “...Fine,” you muttered.

Life is like a helicopter sometimes. To begin with, you don’t even know how to operate one. One could argue that you're one step closer to death than to having a stable relationship. Some people belong to the streets, but you’d like to think that you belong to the ponds because you’re just a silly goose.

At this point, you don’t think coffee even wakes you up anymore. You just like the idea of having coffee. That is, until someone had abused your apartment doorbell. At this rate, they might as well have broken it and got arrested for it. This place isn’t cheap, you paid a ridiculous amount of money to live here.

Grudgingly, you swing the door open and there he is. Wonwoo, looking completely unimpressed as he casually steps inside like he owns the place. Meanwhile, you’re standing there in your tousled hair and beluga-pattern pajamas.

“I called you multiple times. You didn’t answer,” he said, crossing his arms, eyeing your outfit. “Did you get my text and throw your phone into the Pacific Ocean?”

You let out a scoff, already walking back to your bedroom, which of course he followed. “I was busy. Why are you even here?” you muttered, flopping back onto your bed.

“Busy doing what?” he shot back dryly. “Sleeping at noon?”

“I can be in bed and still be busy,” you mumbled into your blanket. “Busy gathering my strength.”

Wonwoo stared at you incredulously. For a second, it genuinely looked like he was trying not to slam his head into the nearest wall.

“How’s the progress?” he asked instead.

You didn’t answer immediately. Just hummed in against the comforter. 

He rolled his eyes, exhaling sharply then pulled— no, he freaking suddenly yanked the blanket off you. The cold air hit instantly.

“Okay—what is wrong with you, you psycho?” you snapped, sitting up and glaring at him. “First of all, get out of my room. Second, get out of my house.”

Before he could lunge forward at you, ready to claw his paw at you. Your phone buzzed, signing as you answered without even checking the caller ID.

“I’m heading to your place now,” Sunoo’s voice came through. “I don’t feel like eating cafeteria food—”

Your eyes snapped wide open. “Right now?” you blurted, panic immediately setting in. Wonwoo watched you as you scrambled out of bed, suddenly moving like a hurricane.

Oh, hell no.

Sunoo cannot see him here. Not in your apartment, your room. Just anywhere to be honest. You tried to grab clothes, then froze because this jerk was still here. “Shit—okay, you can’t be here,” you grabbed his arm, pulling him toward the door. “My nephew is on his way.”

“What—” Before he could finish, you shoved him out of your room, but the front door unlocked.

Without thinking, you pushed Wonwoo right back into your room and slammed the door shut. Perfect timing. You turned around just as Sunoo walked in and flawlessly smiled.

“Why are you still wearing that at your age?” he said immediately, eyeing your pyjamas.

You ignored that. He walked straight to the kitchen, already opening the fridge, while you trailed behind him. Your eyes dart back toward your bedroom door every two seconds.

“You could’ve asked Seungkwan or Chan to bring you food,” you said, leaning against the counter. “Didn’t your mom give you side dishes?”

“She did,” he replied, rummaging through your fridge. “But my roommate ate everything.”

You scoffed. “Just take what you need and go.”

“Why? Do you have a special somebody over?”

Rolling your eyes, you agreed anyway, “Yes, me. I’m amazing and I enjoy my own company.”

Sunoo stared at you for a second. “...Then explain why there are men’s leather shoes at the entrance.”

You momentarily froze at that. How did you fucking forget about it?

Before he could say anything else, you snatched the container from his hands, shoved food into a bag, and pushed it into his chest.

“Okay—out,” you said, dragging him to the door.

“What about—" The door shut in his face. You exhaled in relief, leaning your forehead against the door and turned to see Wonwoo was already out of your room.

“Is he gone?” he asked, peeking out.

“Yeah. Thank God he didn’t ask more questions,” you muttered, rubbing your face. “How did you even get my address?”

“Your agency.”

You groaned, pacing around again.

“Look, I don’t hate you,” he said after a pause, “I’m just not particularly excited about your existence in my life.”

Turning to shoot another nasty glare, you start. “Put yourself in my shoes, idiot. I wouldn’t care if you got hit with—”

“I wouldn’t wear those shoes if I were you.”

You were utterly speechless at the sheer amount of cockiness this guy had. Whenever he was around, you had the overwhelming urge to claw at him like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on.

“I know, why not ask yourself,” you snapped. “Is my dick big enough to match your attitude?" His brows furrowed at that. “Exactly!” You clapped once.

Aaaand just like that, you were arguing again with him. Neither of you noticed the door opening. Sunoo stepped inside and froze. His gaze moved from you then to Wonwoo. 

Back to you, then to Wonwoo again.

Wonwoo was the first to notice. You followed his gaze and stopped. There was a thick, almost heavy silence that filled the atmosphere.

“…Hate that you had to find out like this,” you said slowly.

Sunoo blinked, stepping back slowly. “…Okay,” he said carefully, already putting his shoes back on. “I didn’t know you two were… dating.”

Dating.

Dating???

He gave a small, polite bow. Probably directed to Wonwoo. “Goodbye, Mr. Jeon. I’ll see you after lunch.”

The door closed later. And you just stood there, still processing everything that happened. Your nephew now thinks you’re dating the biggest man of shit in your life. You might actually need to fake your death this time.

...

“I think I’m forgetting something.”

“Morals, probably?” Wonwoo said without even looking up from his tablet.

“No, it’s something important,” you insisted, about to rise from your seat. “I think I need to go back to the cafe before Chan sets the place on fire.”

Wonwoo’s head snapped up. “Wait—no. Sit down. We just got here… oh my God.” He dragged a hand down his face beneath his glasses. “For the love of God, can you sit still for one moment? It took almost two hours to get you here, and I already helped drop your twins off at school.”

You sat back down reluctantly. “How long is this interview going to take?”

“Depends,” he replied dryly. “If you decide to be difficult, probably more than thirty minutes, and I’ll have to work overtime.”

“I can’t do that,” you shot back. “I have to attend the twin’s family day. Their dad bailed at the last minute.”

He sighed again, looking seconds away from tearing his hair out. Mostly because you had completely missed the sarcasm.

“Nevermind. Let’s just start.”

He set the voice recorder on his phone and straightened in his chair. “First of all, thank you very much for agreeing to work with us. We’re very delighted.”

“Thank you. It’s my pleasure too,” you answered flawlessly.

“How did you decide to create such interesting characters in most of your stories?”

You thought for a moment. “I honestly didn’t think too deeply about it. I started writing back in college. I met a lot of different people, so I borrowed certain traits here and there.”

“What made you shift from writing novels to illustrating them?”

“I had a lot of free time back then, and writing gave me plenty of ideas. I knew readers enjoyed the stories too. I didn’t want to stop writing, so instead I adapted them into manhwa so readers could visualize them.”

Wonwoo typed something down before continuing. “On a different note—do you wish to publish another novel one day?”

You crossed your arms, considering it. “I don’t think so. I already have too much on my plate, and illustrating takes time. Maybe after I finish my current project, I’ll think about writing again.”

“How did you feel when you learned your first work, And They Were Roommates, rose in sales again?”

You stiffened slightly. “Uh… well, I didn’t expect it to go viral again this year. I guess I was delighted? It was unexpected, but I received a lot of positive feedback too.”

Wonwoo nodded and flipped to the next page. “This is a special question from your readers. How did you come up with so many hilarious dialogues? They found the comedy really engaging.”

“Ah.” You visibly relaxed. “At first, I never meant for it to become a comedy. I just like writing characters who are witty, so I guess readers found that funny.”

“I can see that,” he said, then continued. “Another fan question: did you base your character’s personalities on real people?”

You made a face. “Well… they’re not wrong. I’ve met my fair share of terrible people and let too many assholes into my life. Real-life suffering became entertainment.”

His eyes narrowed. “Language.”

“What? I speak nothing but the truth.”

He only shook his head. “We’re getting nowhere if you keep doing this. I’ve done some self-reflection—if you cooperate, this can end faster.”

“Oh, so you did have a talk with your dick last night?”

Wonwoo immediately paused the recording and stared at you with a long, exhausted sigh. “Can we put that aside? And no, I did not talk to my dick.”

You crossed your arms. “Fine. Next question.”

He resumed recording. “Another fan question: how did you come up with such funny dialogue and plots?”

“Actually,” you said, “I’m not that funny. I think I’m just an asshole, and people assume I’m joking. That’s how I ended up making rude characters everyone somehow loves.”

He paused the recording again. “Would it kill you to give me one normal answer?”

“What? That is my honest answer.”

“It’s not appropriate for the media.”

“Then make it appropriate. That’s literally your job.”

Yeah. The two of you were getting absolutely nowhere. 

After the interview, Wonwoo somehow found himself babysitting your niece and nephew, the twins, who were now sprinting around his office. He needed a bucket of caffeine, a fever patch, and divine intervention. Not because of the kids, because you had very clearly dumped them on him like he was a free daycare service. 

“What’chu doin’?” Wonhee asked, propping her chin on his forearm while he typed.

“Work,” he answered flatly.

“Oooo. About what?”

“Work.”

“What kind of work?” Wonjun asked this time.

“Work,” he repeated.

“I want Auntie’s cheesecake after this!” Wonhee cheered, bouncing excitedly before both twins ran circles around his desk.

God, just kill me. He was screaming internally. 

A knock came at the door. It opened to reveal Sunoo, holding finalized planning documents. Wonwoo nearly saw heaven. 

“Sunoo!” the twins yelled in unison, rushing him immediately. 

“Sorry, guys, I’m at work right now, so I can’t play,” he said, patting their head before looking back at his superior. “Yeahhhh… I actually have plans with the team after this,” Sunoo added awkwardly, already stepping backward. 

Even Sunoo knew better than to get involved. He quickly shut the door. Wonwoo turned back to his computer and resumed typing aggressively.

“Uncle Won. Uncle Won. Uncle Won,” Wonjun repeated, tugging at his sleeve.

“What?” he replied flatly, eyes still on the screen.

“I need to go potty.”

Wonwoo finally looked down. 

“Now?” The boy nodded desperately.

“If you don’t take him now, he’ll tinkle in his pants,” Wonhee informed him with complete sincerity.

Wonwoo muttered something under his breath, then immediately scooped the boy up and marched out of the office.

The entire team watched in stunned silence. From across the room, Jongseong leaned toward Sunoo. “I think you’re getting another playmate soon, dude.” 

Sunoo scoffed, scowling as he scrolled through his laptop. “Stop that. It’s not funny. I don’t care. Even if they break up, I still lose.” He pointed dramatically in each direction. “They break up—I still have to see his face at work. They stay together—I still have to see his face at work.” He slumped in defeat, “My life has no winning route.”

...

“Baby.”

Wonwoo looked at you as the twins zoomed around your cafe, clearly bothering your two staff members.

“What?” you shrugged. “You want me to call you fellow associate instead?”

He was one step away from crashing out. First, you made his work life hell. Second, you had dropped the twins off at his office not once, not twice, but three times. Wonwoo was good at his job. Great, even. Then when you walked into his life. The tragedy followed.

“Aunty! Aunty!” Wonhee bounced on her feet, reaching up. You picked her up easily. “Tomorrow I have a soccer match! Teacher Yoon said we can bring our parents!”

“But Papa said he can’t come,” Wonjun huffed, stomping lightly. “Something about work.”

Your heart softened instantly. Your brother was busy running his law firm, and even though he and his ex-wife were divorced, they were still co-parenting well. With their busy lives, complicated timing—that was all.

“Oh, alright then. I’ll go,” you said, giving in easily.

“That’s unfair—I wanna see them play!” Seungkwan popped up from behind the counter.

“Wait—count me in!” Chan added.

You rolled your eyes, setting Wonhee down and placing your hands on your hips.

“No. I need both of you to take care of the café while I’m gone. And Chan, I know you’re just using that as an excuse to slack off.”

Chan dropped the cloth dramatically onto the counter. “Aw, man.”

“Will Uncle Won come too?” Wonjun asked, clinging to Wonwoo’s leg and staring up at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

Wonwoo stiffened, his gaze flicked to you. You smiled in return, a little crooked and suspiciously sweet.

“Umm… he’s kinda busy,” you said, brushing imaginary dust off your shoulder. “He has a big adult job. He might not make it.”

Both twins immediately started whining loudly. For a second, you remembered just how insufferable they could be. The last time you babysat them, they threw a full-blown tantrum over Haribo marshmallow chocolate.

“Okay, stop,” you deadpanned, staring at Wonjun, who had dramatically sprawled onto the floor. “You don’t demand things from someone you barely know. Show some respect to your elders. And get off the floor—it’s dirty.”

“I just mopped that,” Chan added.

You ignored him.

“You and Papa always say the same thing!” Wonjun protested, sitting up. “He says, ‘respect your elders,’ but he never comes to my singing or storytelling!”

…Ouch.

“Yeah!” Wonhee chimed in. “Papa says stuff like that because he’s old and forgetful. Aunty, you’re becoming like Grandpa too.”

“Hey now,” you crossed your arms. “If anything, I’m better.”

Wonwoo nearly rolled his eyes. Wonhee suddenly turned to him, already halfway climbing into his arms. “Uncle Won, please come! I want to show you my super cool kick!”

He froze completely. He looked at her, then at you and then back at her. He said nothing. Mostly because he knew what would happen if he refused. Flashback from his office with all the screaming, he was sure people from the outside could heard that loud and clear.

You caught his eye and subtly shook your head.

Don’t. Encourage. Them.

“Aunty,” Wonjun said suddenly, frowning, “why don’t you want Uncle Won around? It’s like Mama and Papa.”

Your expression faltered. “…Hey. I’m nothing like them,” you said, quieter this time.

That one hit a little too close. You sighed, then reached out and ruffled his hair.

“Fine. We’ll see tomorrow. If we can make it.”

That was enough to make the twins lit up instantly.

From across the cafe, three figures watched the entire scene unfold like a live drama. Seungkwan leaned on the counter. Chan mirrored him. Sunoo stood between them, looking deeply troubled.

“I don’t like where this is going,” Sunoo muttered.

Seungkwan shook his head. “No, no—let them keep going. This is good.”

Sunoo turned to him slowly. “…Good?”

“Would you rather they take their frustration out on us?” Seungkwan pointed out.

Chan nodded immediately. “Fair. Also, there’s a chance our boss might raise our pay if she’s in a good mood.”

He clasped his hands together dramatically. “I will pray for that. I refuse to suffer in a cafe with emotional damage and no bonus.”

Sunoo stared at both of them. “…Yeah. That checks out.”

The exhibition was going well so far. Wonwoo liked to think all his hard work had finally paid off. Unfortunately, he had forgotten one thing.

You.

Your mere presence alone was enough to test the last thread of his patience. He just needed to keep his shit together for one day. Just this once.

“You didn’t wear your glasses today,” you remarked, openly scanning him from head to toe, and annoyingly enough, he looked devastatingly handsome. If only he kept his mouth shut. “You’ve stared enough, perhaps?” 

His head snapped toward you, brows knitting together. “It’s nine in the morning,” he hissed. “Stop fucking testing me.”

“Ah, ah,” you interrupted, waving your VIP lanyard around obnoxiously. “I’m the important guest here.”

“I should’ve thrown fertilizer at you so you could grow the hell up,” he muttered, trying very hard to remain professional.

“Oh yeah?” You scoffed. “Sometimes I wish I were an octopus so I could slap you with all eight tentacles at once.”

He already looked tired. You continued anyway.

“Actually, maybe I’d use them to peg you down so you’d finally learn how to bow your head.”

Wonwoo blinked, once then twice. He genuinely didn’t know how to respond to that. So he just stared at you in silence, expression unreadable, wondering how you always managed to hit new levels of insanity before ten in the morning.

Right on cue, another familiar figure approached.

“Hey, Wonwoo—oh.”

The man halted when his eyes landed on you. “I didn’t know you were here,” he grinned brightly. “It’s been forever.”

It was Mingyu.

You froze.

Oh, for the love of God.

“O-oh… yeah. Haha.” Your laugh sounded faker than the fake Chanel bag you once bought online. “What an… unexpected reunion.”

Mingyu had been your junior back in college. And unfortunately, very unfortunately—your old BL series was heavily inspired by him. Mostly because he never shut up about his roommate constantly invading his personal space. At the time, you were just a broke college student trying to survive. You never expected And They Were Roommates to blow up the way it did. 

People would read shit anything.

Mingyu casually slung an arm around Wonwoo’s shoulder. Wonwoo, meanwhile, looked between the two of you suspiciously. He did not like where this was going.

“I work here,” Mingyu explained cheerfully. “Different department though. Remember that roommate I used to complain about all the time?”

He pointed directly at Wonwoo. “Yeah. It’s this guy.”

Your smile twitched violently.

Oh.

Oh, this was bad.

Out of all people, the world really was disgustingly small.

“Real question is,” Mingyu continued, narrowing his eyes playfully at you, “why are you here?”

You absolutely could not tell him you were the main guest of the entire event. So instead, you smoothly covered your VIP pass with your hand and flashed a dazzling smile.

“Oh, you know…”

Before your brain could stop you, you looped your arm through Wonwoo’s.

“Just supporting my boyfriend at work.”

Mingyu’s smile dropped instantly. Wonwoo stiffened beside you.

“You’re kidding.”

“Unfortunately,” you sighed dramatically, “for someone who treats life like a joke, I’m being serious this time.”

Mingyu looked unconvinced, very unconvinced. He glanced between the two of you like he was trying to solve a math equation with missing numbers. To him, this pairing made absolutely no sense. You, whose personality is like a hurricane, and Wonwoo—who somehow managed to be equally unbearable in a completely different flavor.

Birds of a feather really did flock together.

“…Good for you guys?” Mingyu finally said slowly. “I mean… wow. Match made in heaven.”

The way he said it sounded less like support and more like disbelief.

Before he could ask more questions, you immediately cut in.

“I’d love to continue this questionnaire, Gyu, but Wonwoo and I have somewhere to be.”

You tugged Wonwoo’s arm tighter. “Right, baby?”

“No? What are you—”

“Oh yes, you do, baby,” you cut him off sweetly, already dragging him away. “I know you can’t wait to see the twins.”

With that, you escaped while Mingyu simply stood there, watching the two of you disappear into the crowd. Hands shoved into his pockets, head tilted slightly, he frowned to himself.

How the hell did that happen? Because as far as he knew, both of you were disasters individually.

...

Here you were, sitting beside Wonwoo while watching the twins’ soccer match. Honestly, he didn’t know how he ended up tangled in all of this. Not once or twice, but somehow—every single time he crossed paths with you, his life became increasingly complicated.

At first, he told himself it was only because of the contract, mainly because of work.That staying close to you made things easier professionally. But somewhere along the way, the lines blurred.

Your routines somehow became his problems too, and the worst part? He could’ve said no at any point. So why the hell was he still here?

You nudged his arm excitedly while cheering for the twins. “Take pictures,” you whispered. “They’re gonna ask for them later.”

Wonwoo blinked before adjusting the camera lens in his hands and taking several shots without complaint.

At this point, he was more involved than the twins’ actual parents.

“You could at least smile or look excited,” you sighed, finally turning to face him.

The lively noise of families and cheering echoed around the field.

“You look like a robot. What if the twins notice?”

He lowered the camera slowly and looked at you instead. He stared at you with silence, and blank-faced as always.

You narrowed your eyes. “Do you need smiling lessons?”

You turned toward him properly, using your fingers to demonstrate. “Okay, look. Make your eyes curve like little shrimp—then lift your cheeks up like this—and…”

Grinning brightly, you continued, “S.M.I.L.E.”

For a moment, Wonwoo just stared at you, quietly. The noise around him faded into the background. The wind brushed past gently, making strands of your hair sway under the sunlight in a way that almost looked unreal.

His chest flutters at the sight. It felt oddly similar to the tiny happiness of a stray cat approaching him first, or when his favorite buldak noodles were finally restocked after disappearing for weeks.

It was small and unexpected, but enough to steal his breath away. Wonwoo immediately buried the feeling before it could settle deeper. He cleared his throat, looking away quickly and lifting the camera back toward the field.

You, completely oblivious, muttered under your breath.

“Jerk.”

Then immediately went back to loudly cheering for the twins.

...

By the time all of you arrived back at your place, Wonwoo was carrying your niece while you carried your nephew, both twins completely passed out after dinner with your parents.

At this point, he was involved way too deeply in your family functions.

What made it worse was the fact that your parents didn’t even seem surprised by his presence anymore. It was almost like they had already accepted him and had simply been waiting for the day you finally brought a man home.

Honestly, they probably saw him more often than some actual relatives. He still remembered how your mother kept asking when you were going to get married. And knowing you, of course you only gave half-assed answers.

It reminded him of Mingyu’s grandfather, whose dementia was apparently so bad that he kept asking whether his cousins had jobs.

Ten times.

And ten times, they had to admit they were still unemployed. Honestly, Wonwoo didn’t even think it was dementia anymore. The old man was probably just in disbelief that they were still jobless.

The twins were quickly settled into their room, exhausted after burning through all their energy earlier. You let out a long sigh, stretching your limbs—only to find Wonwoo sprawled across your sofa like a man who had already given up on life.

“Go sleep at your own place, dude.”

“I’m too tired to drive anymore.”

“Not on my sofa.”

His eyes cracked open immediately. 

“Let a man rest, would you?” he groaned dramatically, sinking deeper into the cushions.

“Ooookay,” you dragged out teasingly, already walking toward your room. “I was just wondering if you wanted to join me.”

You paused by the doorway and peeked back at him.

“…In my bed.”

Wonwoo sat up instantly. His interest was fully restored.

“You’re messing with me.”

“Yeah,” you answered easily. “I’m fucking with you.”

You casually started unbuttoning your blouse, shrugging it off your shoulders and letting it fall carelessly onto the floor.

Wonwoo’s gaze lingered on your bare shoulders. The loose strap of your camisole slipping against your skin. The atmosphere shifted almost immediately. You disappeared into your attached bathroom, beginning to remove your makeup.

“Don’t joke around like that,” he muttered from behind you.

Before you could react, his arms wrapped around your waist as he buried his face against your neck, breathing you in.

“I survived your family all day. I deserve proper compensation.”

A soft laugh escaped you as you tossed the makeup wipe into the bin.

“Sleep outside. I’m keeping the bed to myself.”

Wonwoo groaned against your skin, lips brushing along your neck before trailing to your shoulder.

“Seducing me like this isn’t going to work,” you teased, nudging him lightly with your hip while watching him through the mirror.

“Then I’ll make it work,” he murmured.

He nipped lightly at your ear while kicking the bathroom door shut behind him.

You found yourself kissing him again. The kiss was warm and messy, arms slid around his neck, pulling him closer as both of you melted into each other like you had been waiting all day for this exact moment.

The bathroom filled with nothing but mingled breaths and quiet laughter between kisses. His hands slipped beneath the fabric of your skirt, rough palms gliding over your thighs as he pulled you impossibly closer. Like he wanted to press himself into every part of your life. 

Then, a sudden knock came.

“Aunty…”

Both of you froze instantly.

Wonjun’s sleepy voice came muffled through the door.

“I need to potty.”

You blinked, slowly turning toward Wonwoo. He stared back with the exact same exhausted disbelief.

“Just…” you struggled, trying not to laugh as his hands remained stubbornly on your waist. “Just use the guest bathroom, baby.”

“But I don’t know how.”

You nearly rolled your eyes.

Of course this was happening.

“Wonjun,” you sighed, “you’re five. You absolutely know how.”

Then came soft sniffles. Apparently being woken up from sleep was enough to trigger a minor emotional crisis.

You groaned quietly, resting your forehead against Wonwoo’s shoulder.

“Wonwoo,” you hissed under your breath, “remove your dick from the situation for one second.”

He actually laughed at that before finally stepping away.

The moment you opened the bathroom door, a sleepy-looking Wonjun stood there with watery eyes and messy hair.

You sighed immediately. There went the mood.

After helping him and reminding him to wash his hands properly, you finally walked back into your room—only to find Wonwoo was already under the duvet. He was shirtless, with his eyes closed. Looking entirely too comfortable in your bed.

“Aunty,” Wonjun asked innocently, “why was Uncle Won in the bathroom with you?”

You swore you heard Wonwoo choke back a laugh.

Keeping a perfectly straight face, you gently patted Wonjun’s head.

“Uncle Won has potty problems too,” you replied smoothly. “I was helping him. Just like you.”

A muffled snort came from the bed.

“Now go back to sleep,” you added. “Aunty needs beauty sleep before she turns into a beast.”

Wonjun nodded seriously and shuffled away.

The moment the door shut, Wonwoo opened one eye.

“Potty problems?”

“Shut up.”

You changed into your pajama pants before climbing onto the bed.

Wonwoo’s hands immediately found your waist as you settled onto his lap, his thumbs tracing slowly against your sides while he looked at you like he wanted to devour you whole.

He kissed you again, slower this time. Somehow even worse for your sanity. His palms are kneading your ass, almost tender with his touch. You melted into him instantly, fingers tangling into his hair while he pulled you closer—

right before the bedroom door burst open again.

“AUNTY!”

You yelped in shock, shoving Wonwoo away so hard he smacked against the headboard.

Wonhee stood at the door clutching her teddy bear dramatically.

“She won’t stop crying,” Wonjun complained from beside her. “And I can’t sleep.”

You and Wonwoo stared at the twins in complete silence. Then at each other. Just like that, the rest of the night ended with all four of you cramped together in one bed.

...

The next morning came far too quickly. The entire night had left both you and Wonwoo restless and unsatisfied, but at least everyone had slept peacefully. That was until Wonwoo’s snores woke everyone up, and your nephew loudly declared that he sounded like a car engine.

After throwing together something quick for breakfast before dropping the twins off at your brother’s place, you set the plates down on the table while Wonjun sat comfortably on Wonwoo’s lap, inhaling an entire cup of instant ramen. You genuinely wondered if he even chewed those.

“Thank you for the food!” the twins chorused in unison.

Wonhee sat beside Wonwoo, already picking up her food so she could eat in front of the TV in the living room. You shook your head at the sight.

Then your eyes landed on the little boy sitting comfortably on Wonwoo’s lap.

For once, you had never been jealous of children—except maybe that one time you realised you couldn’t order a Happy Meal in your mid-thirties anymore, which you now used as an excuse to buy them for the twins.

“Wonjun, can you go eat somewhere else? There are plenty of seats around here.”

Your nephew looked up curiously, pancake stuffed halfway into his mouth. “Nope.”

Your eyes narrowed. “You’re five. You don’t need to be babied anymore. Yesterday was one thing.”

Wonwoo didn’t seem bothered at all, still securing the boy comfortably in his arms. “Let him be. Why are you so worked up?”

“Of course I’m worked up. That was my spot before they took it over.”

Both Wonwoo and your nephew stared at you. The silence only broke when Wonhee suddenly ran over holding a handmade card.

“Look! Look!” she squealed excitedly. “I made this yesterday at school. Happy Mother’s Day!”

Your heart melted instantly as you accepted the card with a soft smile, patting her head affectionately. “Aw, that’s so sweet of you, darling.”

Wonjun immediately scrambled off Wonwoo’s lap and ran toward their room to grab his own version.

You took the opportunity immediately, settling yourself onto Wonwoo’s lap instead. A small “oof” escaped him at the sudden weight.

“Thank you, sweetheart, but I think you should give this to your mom.”

Wonhee leaned against both you and Wonwoo, shaking her head. “I made two! One for mama and one for you because teacher Yoon said Mother’s Day isn’t strictly for biological mothers. You took care of me when I was little, so you have a motherhood role too. You’re basically my mom!”

Then Wonjun returned, proudly handing over his own handmade card filled with messy scribbles and barely readable words.

The twins kissed both your cheeks before running back to the living room.

“They sure love you a lot for someone like you,” Wonwoo muttered.

“It’s a shame I can’t officially be called a mother.”

His palm slid gently against your lower abdomen as he leaned closer, voice dropping lower.

“I can change that.”

You immediately slapped his hand away. “Wow, look at you. I’m surprised kids are drawn to an asshole like you,” you replied nonchalantly while taking a bite of your pancake.

“The genes never lied then,” he murmured while squeezing your waist. “There’s a reason you ended up with me in the first place.”

You nearly choked at that, refusing to acknowledge how true it sounded.

“Did you know belugas don’t chew their food? Yeah, it reminds me of you inhaling those noodles. Who the hell eats like that?”

Wonwoo shrugged as he continued inhaling the noodles. “It tastes better this way.”

“Only a psychopath would eat like that.”

“Then tell me who the hell gets jealous over a kid sitting on my lap?”

You stared at him, and he stared right back just the same.

“I’m not jealous,” you replied a little too quickly.

“Who said it was you?” A shit-eating grin spread across his face, and you immediately wanted to slap the hell out of him.

“Anyway,” you quickly changed the topic while sipping your tea, “did I know you from somewhere? How did you and Mingyu know each other aside from being roommates?”

He thought for a moment, adjusting himself while you still sat comfortably on his lap. “We went to the same school and university. He doesn’t like sharing spaces with strangers.”

You mused at the information. “You went to the same school as me? Why did I never see you around?”

“I was in the Faculty of Business and Management. Maybe that’s why. Mingyu took architecture before changing to finance and accounting.”

You paused mid-bite and turned toward him. “Oh, I was in the Faculty of Applied Science… something like that. I guess that’s probably why I never saw you.”

“What did you major in?”

“Food science,” you answered simply.

After a brief silence, you spoke again.

“I’m surprised you and Mingyu haven’t kissed each other’s asses yet.”

“I know I’m an asshole, not an assfucker.”

You burst out laughing at that while reaching for his wallet and flipping through his ID picture and cards.

“What do you call a baby whale? A little squirt!”

“You’re not funny,” he deadpanned. “Give me that. Don’t go checking what’s inside.”

Did you listen? Of course not. When have you ever listened to anyone anyway? You barely listened to your parents, so why would you start with him?

“Knock knock,” he suddenly said.

You raised a brow but played along anyway. “Who’s there?”

“Whale,” he answered simply.

“Whale who?”

“Whale…” He paused before immediately snatching the wallet away from your hands. “That’s enough of that.”

You rolled your eyes before shamelessly eating half of the ramen that clearly belonged to him.

“I hope your entire generation experiences bad luck in every possible streak.”

He narrowed his eyes on you. “I’ll just marry you then. We’re going down together whether you like it or not.”

“Give me your card.”

“No. Use your own, you have money.”

“You said you’d marry me. I want to be spoiled,” you whined dramatically while leaning against him like an oversized cat. “I’ve had enough of being the alpha woman all year long.”

“I don’t want you using my money to buy your own diamond ring. I want to buy it for you.”

You turned your head toward him properly this time.

He looked completely serious.

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “I’m not being sarcastic today. Maybe tomorrow, though.”

Before you could even process that, the twins suddenly came running over excitedly. Wonhee repeatedly called your name as if you weren’t literally sitting right there.

“When can I see you become a princess one day?” she asked excitedly, twirling around while showing you a picture of a bride on her tablet.

You hated admitting it, but every year you were reminded that maybe you would never become one—though you were certainly close to becoming a witch.

Still, you smiled softly.

“Oh, maybe soon.”

The little girl gasped excitedly, eyes sparkling. “Does that mean Uncle will be your prince? And I want to stay with you the whole time when you become a princess!”

“I think he’d be more like the villain who stole the princess away rather than Prince Charming.”

“Villains are way cooler,” Wonjun added confidently.

Wonwoo merely rolled his eyes at your comments.

“Besides…” you trailed off, leaning closer until your lips brushed against his. “The evil ones are always hotter…”

You chuckled softly before kissing him, earning a smirk from Wonwoo almost immediately.

The twins loudly made gagging noises before scurrying away to continue playing around the living room. You and Wonwoo watched them go before falling back into your own little world together, spending the rest of the morning tangled up in each other before the weekend truly began.

Unfortunately, your love life never unfolded like those Prince Charming fairytales. Instead, it felt more like a ridiculous romcom sitcom filled with stupidity, arguments, and way too many unfortunate coincidences.

Unfortunately, you never met him sooner back in school. Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t have spent so long giving up on love.

Fortunately, though, you loved the way invisible strings worked.

It was beautiful that way. And fortunately, this piece of shit was yours forever to keep.

FIN.

a/n: omg, i'm finally free!! now i can focus on cheol's fic. it wasn't supposed to be so long, i spent the entire time writing shit in here. i tried eating noodles without chewing btw, almost left me choking to death and never again. it's always the shitty fic that everyone enjoyed, goodday apples! comments, reblogged are appreciated :)

taglist: @coupsarchive @weirdcatlover1 @gyublues @charlieshelves @joongtime @jaja-salute @tstosir @scoupscious @delusionalforjunghoseok  @neotannies @drunk-on-lemonade @chisskaa @flvr4ane @unlikelysublimekryptonite @vwintershire @ashlinxloves @choppedballoondetective @junnhuisworld @mellow-wishes @authorscurse @gyuhao365 @peachywonus @iarayara @scoupcherry94 @enchantingbarbariansublime @wonwoosleftiddie @snowywinterbear @stillthesame-me @mintletters

[sailorsoons]

Rule One (c.sc)

PAIRING: F.Reader x ot13 PACK MEMBER FOCUS: Seungcheol PACK MEETING: You're having a hard time adjusting to your new pack. Good thing your head alpha knows exactly how to help you adapt. REQUESTED BY: @peaspeas REQUEST: Idek if this qualifies because I'm talking like, maybe pré-rules or before they were finalised formally but I want Seungcheol finding reader whenever she's eating and sitting with her and she has no idea why. If he shows up and she's already eating, he's like oh shit, panic to make up a reason that he needs to as well etc. Almost a sort of farcical comedy vibe? Both idiots ofc WC: 5,135 RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It may contain explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. PACK WARNINGS: Very mild angst like wouldn't even call it that, reader has some anxiety adjusting to a new pack, she's a little in her head, Seungcheol is a little shit, some vague references to hormones and adjusting to being near others, reader being lonely and feeling a little on the outside, both of them are kind of stupid lmfaooo but in a good way, some playful arguing at the end. A/N: Moni this is not as cracky as it was supposed to be and didn't really notice to the end I'm saur sorry lmfaoooo. Also this is not beta read we die like men guys.

HOUSE RULES M. LIST | MAIN M. LIST | ASK

THE KITCHEN IS PAINTED IN SHADES OF BLUE AT 5:47 IN THE MORNING. As the only resident of said kitchen this early in the morning the past two weeks, you've learned that the pre-dawn light that spills through the wide windows above the sink turns everything soft and cool in the morning. The white subway tile back splash starts off a muted grey before the sun finally melts away the blue and turns it bright white each morning.

This morning, the honey-colored cabinets look muted, nearly colorless as the sun hides beyond the horizon. You take another bite of cereal, listening to the old house settle around you. The house has taken getting used to - not because it's ancient, but because it's old enough to feel lived in and have its own quirks of floorboards that squeak, doors that click shut because the hinges are a little loose, pipes that groan when one of the thirteen people upstairs showers late at night.

It's a big house. It has to be, to fit the pack of thirteen - fourteen now, including you. Six alphas, seven betas, and you. A single omega, new and a little out of your comfort zone as you try to figure the ins and outs of a pack who have been together so long, they don't even have to think about how to navigate one another. They just do, planets who have been in rotation of one another for so long that it's as easy as breathing.

Where they've had years together, you've only had two weeks. It still feels like you're learning an entire new language - not because any of them are difficult or unkind, but rather because there's a difference between being welcomed into a pack and belonging, and you're somewhere in the strange gap between the two.

Unfortunately, the omega part of your brain doesn't really understand the distinction between the two, even though you do. You get that it'll take time to integrate yourself fully and to fit in as intimately as the others do with one another, but your instincts don't have that nuance. All your omega knows is that you should be surrounded by a pack, that you should be scented and claimed and constantly near people who want you.

Instead, you're sitting by yourself in a kitchen that feels too big and your instincts are ramming against you to go knock on a door and ask for company. You can't, though. Not that they wouldn't let you in - they would. You know they would. But the small fraction of the what if keeps you rooted to your seat. What if they end up not liking you? What if this doesn't work out? What if they decide they don't need an omega after all?

You stare at the cereal in your bowl, now soggy. It's something honey-flavored and generic that you took out of the pack pantry without looking. Mingyu swore you could take anything out of the pantry and fridge - anything in the house. What’s theirs is yours until you start filling the house with your favorite things, but like the anxiety of asking one of them to spend time with you, you can't seem to figure out how to ask for cinnamon sugar cereal or sweet cream coffee creamer.

Another bite confirms your cereal is as soggy as it looks. You ignore it, watching the kitchen in the morning stillness. It still smells like cinnamon and brown sugar from something Mingyu baked yesterday. Dishes pile in the sink and you know Seungcheol is going to have a field day when he sees it, adamant about dishes being done each night.

Under the layers of the smell of the kitchen is them. You're still trying to pick out the strands of scents that belong to each member, but thirteen scents layered over the top of one another is dizzying and hard to get used to, each one blending into something that you recognize as almost pack. Pack but not.

There are a few you can pick out individually, at least. You know Seungcheol's cedar and smoke, the head alpha easier to scent than the others. Jeonghan's citrus and something that you can't put your finger on. Mingyu's clean laundry smell with a hint of something soft and woody. The others remain a bit of a mess, but you're determined to try, hoping that maybe untangling each scent will lead you to untangling them and finding a sense of belonging that you'd hoped to find here and that they said they'd wanted you to find.

You try not to think about what happens if you don't find a place here. Though it's actually entirely normal not to, you don't know if you could survive that kind of embarrassment. You had already been a bit wary of using omega placement services as it was, desperate to find a pack after years of living on your own and unwilling to go back to living with your all-beta family in your tiny town where nothing much ever happened.

Thirteen pack members is a lot after coming from something small, something lonely. You'd been thrilled at the idea, realizing that you'd never be alone again, that you'd always have someone to lean on. Now you're here, in a house full of thirteen people who are supposed to be your pack, and you're still eating breakfast alone. Still sitting on the outside of their easy familiarity. Still trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between being new and being home.

Creaking stairs catch your attention. You perk up, freezing as you listen to the soft steps of someone coming down the stairs and toward the kitchen. You smell the cedar and smoke before you see him, your brain getting a little foggy before Seungcheol ever steps into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

He pulls up short when he sees you. He's surprised, and you realize he hadn't smelled you before he walked in, unused to having an omega or an outsider in his house. He looks devastating this morning in sweatpants slung low on his hips and a t-shirt that's tight enough to show off the width of him and strength in his chest. An alpha not only built strong mentally but physically, someone who feels and looks dependable, someone who looks entirely too soft and swollen and pretty in the dawn light.

He blinks at you. His eyes are dark and a little unfocused, still soft with sleep, but there's something sharp underneath. It makes you sit up straighter, you body thrumming as he flicks on the light. You squint, but when your eyes adjust, he's still looking at you with an expression he doesn't understand.

"Why are you sitting in the dark?" He asks, voice rough with sleep. "Are you alright?"

"What? Oh." You lower your spoon to the bowl, hyperaware of him. "Sorry, I'm an early riser in new places. I can go if you need the kitchen, sorry-"

"No, stay."

It's not a command, but his voice is firm enough that you nod instantly, relaxing a little. He moves further into the room, carrying the heavy presence of a head alpha with him. You can feel it in the way he moves, the way he takes up space and the gravity around him that has nothing to do with physical mass and everything to do with him.

You grip the edge of the counter, trying to stay composed as your omega instincts kick in. The last thing you want is for him to think you're awkward or needy. You don't want him to know how much you're struggling with this transition more than you should be. You're supposed to be settling in and comfortable by now, but you're not.

It scares you.

"Coffee?" he asks, already turning it on.

"No, I'm okay."

He hums, opening the cabinet next to the coffee maker. You watch him scan the mugs until he finds a specific one and selects it. You wonder if they have assigned mugs, if there's a hierarchy in the cabinet beyond your understanding like so many other things here.

Silence hangs between you as he makes his coffee, turning to lean backward against the counter with the mug tucked between his hands. His gaze drifts back to you and he gives you a soft smile that you tentatively return. The attention makes you feel exposed, like he's looking at you and sees right through the core of you despite only having been in the same room for a few minutes.

"Couldn't sleep?" You ask, desperately trying to fill the silence.

"Something like that." He gestures toward you. "What about you? Do you do this a lot? Waking up early and sitting alone in the dark, I mean."

"I guess, yeah. I have a hard time sleeping in new places and I don't like to just lay there."

"Mmm." There's a pause, and you can feel him still watching you. Still assessing. "You eat breakfast alone a lot too?"

You glance down at the bowl. "Sometimes, I guess? I'm usually up before anyone else."

"How long have you been up?"

"Maybe an hour?"

"And you've just been sitting here by yourself."

It's not quite a question, but it feels like one. You glance up at him, trying to figure out where this is going, but his expression is unreadable. His scent shifts and you realize what it is. Protectiveness. He doesn't like that you're sitting here by yourself, and the realization makes something warm unfurl in your chest.

"I don't mind," you murmur, looking down again to hide the sudden flush you feel.

He hums. "I'm hungry." You look up, confused at the statement. He points to your bowl. "What are you having?"

"Cereal. I think it's honey? I didn't want to wake anyone up by cooking."

"Cereal sounds good. Honey is Chan's. Good choice."

He moves with purpose then, crossing to the cabinets to pull down a bowl. Your eyes catch on the line of his shoulders and the way his muscles shift under the cotton tee, the way it rides up just slightly as he reaches for the milk in the fridge, revealing a tiny strip of skin at his lower back that makes your mouth go dry. You look away quickly, back down at your soggy cereal, and try to get your breathing under control.

You watch as he fixes himself a bowl of cereal and strides over to you, dragging a stool up next to you. You blink in surprise. You expected him to sit across from you, but instead he plops down next to you close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off his skin and close enough that the cedar and smoke of him makes your eyes flutter. His knee brushes yours as he adjusts and you have to physically stop yourself from leaning into him, your nervous system lighting up at the proximity.

"So," he says, pulling you from the static of your thoughts. "Tell me about yourself."

You blink at him. "Like what?"

"Anything." He takes another bite of cereal like this is completely normal. Like he wakes up at five in the morning to eat with strangers all the time. "Where are you from again?"

"Small town." You stir your cereal. The milk swirls. "Really small. Everyone-knows-everyone small."

"And you left."

"For college. I came back for a few years after but it didn't feel like I fit in anymore so I moved to the city, got an apartment by myself. Thought I wanted independence and freedom to figure things out on my own terms." You take a bite of cereal just to have something to do with your hands. "Turns out being alone and being independent aren't the same thing. I was just lonely. Really lonely. Didn't even realize how bad it was until I started looking into pack placement programs and well… now I’m here trying it out, I guess."

Seungcheol goes quiet. When you glance over, his expression is soft. "How long were you alone?"

"Three years."

"That's a long time for anyone, not specifically an omega."

"Yeah." You swallow. "I didn't know what I was missing. I'm still trying to figure it out, I think and how I… fit in."

"You're doing fine," he says.

"I eat breakfast alone every morning."

"Not this morning, though."

The words are simple and direct. When you look up at him, he's watching you with something warm in his expression. Something that makes your chest tight.

"No," you say quietly. "Not this morning."

He gives you a small smile that transforms his face. Suddenly, he's not the intimidating pack alpha - he's soft and warm, more like a person than someone you have to impress or earn the trust of. You relax a little, stirring your milk aimlessly.

"What about you?" you ask. "What made you want to lead a pack this big?"

He huffs a quiet laugh. "Honestly? I didn't set out to. It just kind of happened. We all met in college, started spending time together, and it felt right. Natural. Then more people joined and suddenly I was the one everyone looked to when decisions needed to be made. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it right. If I'm taking care of everyone the way I should be."

"I think you're doing a good job," you say. "Everyone seems happy. Settled."

He looks at you and gives you a look, one brow raised. "Everyone except you."

His words make you wince. Not because they're accusatory, but because you didn't think he noticed. You realize it's a bit of an insult for you to have doubted him - Seungcheol's entire role as the head alpha is to understand his pack, to balance the personalities, to lead. That includes you, despite not feeling like it, and you realize that he's taken notice and doesn't intend to let it go.

"We don't eat alone unless we want to in my pack," he says simply.

My pack. The possessiveness in those two words makes something flutter in your chest and you bite the inside of your cheek, trying to stop yourself from grinning, to stop yourself from getting too hopeful.

"I didn't want to be a burden," you admit.

"You're not," he promises. "You're a part of our pack which means you're never a burden. We want you here. We wouldn't have gone through the trouble of the agency and placement if we didn't think there was something missing. You were missing and we're happy to gave you, even if it's a little awkward at first."

You can feel your heart beating too fast, the warmth of him making you dizzy. Seungcheol doesn't lean closer, but you feel him closer, the smell of him overwhelming and comforting. You realize he's doing it on purpose, pheromones comforting you like he should. You glance up and he has a knowing look on his face, a little smug and a little endeared and you find yourself smiling.

"Thank you," you manage. "For noticing."

"Always," he murmurs.

You finish your cereal together as the sky outside continues to lighten. For the first time since you moved into this house, you don't feel quite so alone.

-

It's Tuesday in the middle of the day when Seungcheol interrupts your next meal. You look up as he walks onto the back porch, the apple covered in peanut butter in your hand pausing as he sits down next to you at the table. He's got a full plate with him, rice, chicken and vegetables piled high as he sighs and settles in comfortably.

"Hey," he says casually, cracking open the can of soda he's brought along.

"Hi," you say slowly, eyeing him.

"I am starving. Wanted something sweet."

You look at his plate. Then back at him. Then back at the plate.

"Seungcheol, that is not sweet."

"What?"

"You said you wanted something sweet. That's chicken."

He blinks and looks down like he's just now noticing what's on it. You press your lips together as he scratches the side of his neck, nodding. "Right. I meant I wanted something sweet after this. You like ice cream?"

"I do."

"Great." He leans over, peering at your apple slices as his shoulders brush yours, sending a spark through you. "What are you having?"

"Apple and peanut butter."

"Hmmm. Classic." He starts cutting into his chicken as you watch him, eyes narrowed. "How's your day?"

You're still processing the fact that he claimed to be starving for something sweet while holding a savory meal, but you answer anyway, amused.

"Good. I've been reading."

"Yeah? What are you reading?"

Taking another bite of your apple, you tell him. Seungcheol is an engaged listener, nodding and asking follow up questions as he devours his plate. Somehow, time passes easily. Even after he's cleared his plate, he leans back into his chair, foot up on the seat as he tells you about one of his favorite books growing up, dimples appearing every time he smiles.

You love his dimples, watching them as he ducks his head and laughs, long hair falling in his eyes. You smile too, unable to help it around him. He's infectious like that, easily shifting the mood from something tense to warm or lonely to comfortable, like an alpha should.

Eventually, he sighs heavily, stretching. You try not to notice the way his shirt peels up, revealing the barest hint of soft stomach before he drops his arms back down and grins at you.

"I have to get back to work," he says. "But this was nice. We should do it again."

"That would be nice."

He smiles and gets up, clearing his plate and reaching to grab your empty one without much preamble. You watch him go inside, shaking your head when you realize that he never wanted something sweet in the first place.

-

You've been awake for three hours.

It's not insomnia, exactly. It's more like your brain won't shut off and you keep laying in bed replaying conversations, analyzing the way Seungcheol looked at you on Wednesday, wondering if you're reading too much into the fact that Mingyu sat close enough to scent you yesterday but didn't, if any of this means anything or if you're just desperate enough to convince yourself it does. As usual, your brain is doing laps, restless and unsettled, and the quiet of the house at midnight isn't helping. It's making you hyper-aware of how alone you are in your room, how easy it would be to just stay here without anyone noticing and how good you've gotten at it.

So you give up on sleep. Again.

The kitchen is dark when you pad downstairs in your pajamas, the hum of the refrigerator going as you open it up, squinting against the light. You don't bother to turn the overhead lights on, the moon filtering in through the big windows over the sink enough to get by. You steal the honey cereal - Chan's - again from the pantry, and fix a bowl before sitting at the counter, sighing as you take a bite.

Your phone buzzes on the counter, startling you. You flip it over, squinting in the dark as you frown when you read it.

SEUNGCHEOL [12:15 AM]: What are you doing?

Your stomach does something complicated.

YOU [12:15 AM]: Eating cereal… why?

SEUNGCHEOL [12:16 AM] Be right there

You set your phone down slowly, your heart doing something erratic in your chest. He heard you come downstairs. His room is above the kitchen - you know this now - and realize that he must have heard you snooping around down here like he did that first morning he found you eating in the kitchen at five in the morning.

A minute later, he appears in the kitchen doorway and your brain short circuits a little. He's in soft cotton pajama pants and a t-shirt that's clearly old and pulled tight across his chest. His hair is completely disheveled, sticking up in about fifteen different directions, and he's rumpled and sleepy enough to tell you that he absolutely was asleep until he heard you.

"Hey," he croaks.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't," he lies.

"You didn't have to come down, Seungcheol."

"I did. And you can call me Cheol, you know. Seungcheol makes it sound like I'm in trouble."

He moves to the cabinet, and grabs a bowl, making himself a matching snack before he sits down close enough that his thigh brushes yours. You shiver and if he notices, he has the decency not to point it out.

"Maybe you are in trouble," you mutter, taking a bite.

"Yeah? What for?"

"Being a liar who lies. You heard me and came down."

He grins and takes a bite of cereal. He chews thoughtfully for a few seconds, ignoring your stare. "So what if I did? I wanted to join you, so I did. Anyway, trouble sleeping again?"

"Kind of." You push cereal around your bowl, not quite meeting his eyes. "My brain won't shut off."

"Yeah?" He shifts slightly, and you're hyperaware of every point where his body is close to yours. "What's it doing?"

"Thinking."

"Pack stuff?"

"Maybe." You finally look at him. His eyes are soft in the moonlight. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Are you doing this on purpose?"

He doesn't ask what you mean. Doesn't pretend to be confused. Just smiles into his cereal, and the smile is so knowing that your face goes hot.

"Yep."

"Why?" Your voice is barely a whisper. "Why are you doing this?"

He sets his spoon down. Turns to face you fully, and there's something serious in his expression now, something that makes you sit up and pay attention to him.

"I told you already," he says softly. "We don't eat alone unless we want to. Do you want to?" You hesitate only a moment before shaking your head. "Exaclty. So until you feel confidence to ask someone - you can ask any of us, by the way - I'll make sure you're not eating alone."

It's something so simple and yet it devastates you to hear him say it. It isn't the words themselves exactly, but rather the way he says it, like it's a promise, like he's already decided that this doesn't require permission or gratitude or even for you to ask. It's just a fact that he's going to do this, no negotiation, no need to think about it.

You think about the last three years of your life of eating in your apartment along, of making meals for one, of not having to consider anyone else's schedule or preferences. Three years of being fine with it because fine was easier than admitting you were lonely. And now you have a pack you don't know what to do with, but this alpha - this head of a thirteen-person pack - is keen enough to pick up on what you need and come down to the kitchen at midnight to make sure you have what you need.

It's wonderful and terrifying all at once.

"Okay," you murmur, nodding.

You watch him in the moonlight filtering through the kitchen window. His hair is still a mess and his face is puffy with sleep, but he's soft. Warm. You notice a small scar on his collarbone you've never been close enough to notice before, and wonder where he got it from.

When he finishes his bowl of cereal, he looks at yours, raising his brows. "You finishing that?"

You shake your head and he grins, reaching over and brushing against you deliberately to steal your bowl. The contact is electric as his arm grazes your shoulder, his chest brushing your back for just a second, and your entire nervous system short-circuits. You nearly go catatonic at the contact, omega melting even when he pulls away, leaving you dizzy and touch starved and hungry for something not food. Your skin tingles where he touched you.

Seungcheol notices. This time, you see the way he grins, smug and content at your reaction. It hits you that he planned that, that he wanted you to feel it. The realization makes your chest tight in a way that's half panic, half something else entirely.

You can feel the heat crawling up your neck, your face, and it pisses you off - not at him, but at yourself for being so transparent, so easy to read. You huff and cross your arms over your chest, turning to him, temper flaring a little. You're not mad at all, but your omega instincts bristle in a way that feels playful and fun, something entirely unfamiliar to you. It's like your body knows something your brain hasn't caught up to yet.

"Well that's not fair," you huff. "You can't just do that."

"Do what?"

"Brush up against me and use your… alpha ways."

He laughs, full bellied and loud, echoing off the kitchen walls. "My alpha ways?"

"Yes!"

"That's how it works."

"Well!" You stomp your foot against the footrest on the stool. "I would like to file a complaint. Wait, who do I file a complaint with? You're head alpha."

Even as you say it, you know how ridiculous you sound. You're literally complaining to the person you're complaining about. It's absurd. But there's also a part of you that likes this game, this playful banter.

"You're cute when you panic."

The word lands like a punch. Cute. You're not cute. You're competent and sarcastic and you've survived three years alone in a city that didn't care about you. You're not cute. Except the way he says it makes you feel small in a way that isn't entirely bad. You like it, even.

"I'm not panicking," you say, which is a lie and you both know it.

"Sure."

"And for the record, I'm not cute. I am a very strong, very assertive omega." You stand up, trying to reclaim some dignity, trying to put distance between yourself and the way his presence makes your skin feel too tight. "I've even lived on my own. Very independent."

"Absolutely," he agrees, not sounding convinced at all.

Seungcheol stands with you and puts the bowls in the sink, leaving them unwashed for once. He grins at you and gestures to the door and you listen, because apparently you do that now. Your body just obeys him, no thought required, no decision made. You just move when he moves, follow when he leads. It should feel wrong, but it doesn't. It feels familiar in a way you've been craving and you finally have it.

He follows you up the stairs and you're hyperaware of him behind you, footsteps quiet and measured. . You can feel the warmth of him in the space between your bodies, close enough that you could lean back and touch him. Your omega is purring at his proximity, at the simple fact of him being there, and you hate how easy it's becoming to just accept it. To want it.

The hallway is dark except for the moonlight filtering through the window at the end, letting in enough light for you to walk to your room, third door to the left. When you reach it, you pause, your hand on the doorknob, suddenly unsure of the protocol. Do you just say goodnight? Do you invite him in? The uncertainty makes your stomach knot uncomfortably, panic spiking.

You turn to look at him and he's closer than you expected. Close enough that you have to tilt your head back slightly to meet his eyes. He's still soft from sleep, and he's looking at you like he looks at the other members of his pack, warm and soft and so gentle that it makes your omega nearly scream.

Seungcheol grins and leans down, pressing a kiss briefly to your head, soft and warm and over before you even know it's happening. Your throat tightens immediately, thoughts turning to static as he takes a step back, winking at you.

"Sleep, he murmurs. "Wake me up when you want breakfast. I mean it."

He dismisses himself then and you watch him walk back down the hallway, his silhouette disappearing into the darkness, and you don't move until you hear his door close softly upstairs.

Only then do you slip into your room and lean against the door, your heart still racing, your forehead still burning with the ghost of his kiss. You touch your fingers to the spot where he kissed you, like you can hold onto it somehow.

Crawling into bed, you do exactly what Seungcheol has asked and you sleep.

-

The next morning when you wake up, you don’t have to wake Seungcheol. You hear the noise downstairs, confusion drawing you down the steps and into the kitchen where breakfast is being made in full. You stand in the doorway, confused as you watch Mingyu and Joshua argue at the stove, the sound of eggs sizzling and the smell of bacon wafting toward you.

Seungkwan is at the coffee machine, staring lifelessly into the open air as his coffee brews while Chan stands on his tip toes to reach more coffee mugs out of the cabinet behind him. Seokmin is sitting on the counter swinging his legs, laughing animatedly at whatever Soonyoung and Jihoon are arguing about near the sink while Jeonghan lays across the counter, head in Seokmin’s lap as he dozes. 

Seungcheol walks in behind you, not missing at beat as he steers you by the waist toward the counter. Jeonghan peeks an eye open and grins, lifting himself from Seokmin’s lap to make room for you just as Seungcheol grip you by the waist and halls you up to sit on the counter next to Jeonghan, the citrus and jasmine smell of him placating your immediate irritation at being lifted. 

“Why is everyone in the kitchen?” You demand, turning to Jeonghan because Seungcheol is already leaving you and heading for the fridge. “The sun isn’t even up yet.”

“Rule number one,” Jeonghan yawns, scooting closer so that he’s pressed up against you. You hesitate for only a second before you let yourself relax and tentatively lean toward him. “The omega is never allowed to eat alone unless she asks to.”

Seokmin peers around him. “Do you want to?”

His question hangs in the air among the noise and chaos of the kitchen, scents hitting you from every angle, the sound of Minghao complaining about burnt bacon and Mingyu hollering as oil pops and burns his wrist. 

You grin, ducking your head a little as Seungcheol catches your eyes from across the kitchen and winks. 

“No,” you tell Seokmin. “I like the company.”

[smileysuh]

heavenly demonic

🌙 starring. Jeon Wonwoo x afab!Reader 

🔮 preview. “You don’t have to believe me when I say I want to defile you. I’ll prove it to you soon enough,” Wonwoo’s smirk widens. “You might be an angel, but angels aren’t impervious to sin. After all, demons were angels once, until they stopped lying to themselves and gave in to the carnal pleasures. We’ll get there, don’t worry. I might be a demon, but I can be patient.”

tw/cw. Mentions of porn and bdsm, unprotected sex, multiple sex positions, multiple reader orgasms, oral/pussy eating, praise, slight degradation, manhandling, fingering, overstimulation, foreplay, etc…  I pet names: (hers) angel, baby.

👹 rating.18+ explicit I wc. 7.6k 

🍭 aus. Non idol au, angel & demon au, enemies to lovers, etc…

☀️ mlist + an. So think of it kind of like the Disney movie about emotions, Inside Out, where the demon and angel view Mingyu’s world through a viewing station and speak to him through his subconscious to guide him one way or the other. Also, please note: I’m not religious, so my interpretation of angel!y/n warring with herself over temptation is simply an interpretation and a fanfic. 

Prologue:

You can remember the day you first saw Mingyu as if it were only this morning. He was the sweetest child, visiting church with his family at age four. There was something so adorable about his all-white outfit, the slacks and button-up with a vest. He looked very devoted and very determined as he stood up and sang the church songs with his whole little chest.

That was the day you asked to be his guardian angel, and for a time, nothing had ever been so easy.

Mingyu is pure of heart in a way most humans can never even dream of being. Some kids have a demon on their shoulder from an early age, a pest to be dealt with and chastised by both angel and parent, but not Mingyu. It was just you and him, for many, many years, and you delighted in the fact that you had one of the best boys you’d ever met as your ward. 

Many late-blooming children gain a demon when they enter high school, when they first try marijuana or alcohol against their own better judgment - it’s the work of the demon on their shoulder - but again, not Mingyu.

It wasn’t until your good boy was sixteen that things started to shift. His friends were all having their first sexual encounters, and they began to tease your perfect church baby that he was a virgin. Mingyu tried to pretend their words didn’t hurt, but you knew differently. Although you tried to push him in the direction of spending more time with other church children, Mingyu continued to hang out with these raunchy boys, as they were on his high school basketball team. 

He held off valiantly from the compulsions of the deadly sins, but one cold December night, your perfect golden boy finally snapped and gave in to temptation.

The demon known as Wonwoo appeared the moment Mingyu first typed the words ‘porn hub’ into his cellphone, and in the darkness of Mingyu’s room, you met the man who would be your antihero for as long as Mingyu would continue to live.

And Wonwoo is a demon with a reputation. Whereas you like to cherry-pick your wards as the kindhearted humans who are pure of soul, Wonwoo is known for his ability to sniff out those who are easily tempted by sin. His last human was a sexual fiend, and he got addicted to OnlyFans. he lost his relationship and all of his money due to Wonwoo’s coaxing of the addiction. The man died prematurely while drunk driving, which is something of a success story for the demon who collected his soul in the end. 

So why was this demon in particular here with you and Mingyu?

What had seemed like an easy task had become more difficult than you ever signed up for, and Wonwoo seemed to relish in the knowledge that he was here to contradict your every musing in Mingyu’s ear.

One:

“I hope you have your popcorn ready, angel,” Wonwoo grins, as the two of you hover in your between-worlds guardian posting. It’s kind of like an apartment, with two sides, the good and the evil, with a massive monitor to watch what Mingyu is doing at any given time. There are speakers for you both to try to persuade him into things, and your voices are what Mingyu might classify as opposing sides of his subconscious.

“Frat parties can be positive,” you insist as you settle next to Wonwoo. “Last time, he saved that girl who blacked out.”

“Yeah, the wild goose chase,” Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “He should have been hitting on girls and slamming jello shots, but instead, you convinced him to track down the girl’s dorm room, carry her all the way home, and make sure she was okay when she woke up hours later. He even held her hair back while she puked. Yuck.”

When Wonwoo knows he’s lost to you, he generally fucks off, goes back into his demon side of the apartment, in his demon room,  or leaves altogether to complete other tasks.

Demons don’t need sleep, and technically, angels don’t either, but you’re a self-identifying lazy girl, and you prefer to have rest when Mingyu sleeps, rather than be twenty-four seven working like Wonwoo is. You wonder if his packed schedule is what makes him such a dick, but you also have seen the joy he takes in doing bad deeds, and you can only assume that when he’s not here with you in Mingyu’s head, he’s off pillaging and causing mischief elsewhere.

Wonwoo looks through Mingyu’s eyes, and he leans toward the communicator where he can send his words to your ward. “Get a drink,” Wonwoo insists. “Something fun. Something fruity. Something with way too much alcohol that’s masked with sugar.”

You sigh, also leaning forward. “We should start slow with some water.”

You can sense Mingyu’s inner turmoil as he makes his way to the kitchen, and that’s where he bumps into Hoshi and Seungkwan, both of whom are ruled by their inner demon.

“Hey buddy, want a drink?” Hoshi grins, cheeks pink, eyes clouded with booze.

“Reject him,” you say.

“Accept,” Wonwoo pushes. 

“Sure, why not?” Mingyu grins, taking the cup of purple liquid. He downs it easily, and you sigh. So tonight will be a more indulgent evening, and you hate the way Wonwoo sits back with a smile.

“Score one for me, angel,” Wonwoo muses.

“The night is still young,” you huff.

Wonwoo leans forward again. “You know what goes good with alcohol? Cocaine. Or ecstasy. Something fun. Maybe molly.” 

You’re flabbergasted. “Mingyu has never-”

“Now is the night to start, he’s at a frat party, with friends, and we know Vernon always has a bong on hand. Maybe weed, something chill.”

You hate him, and you spend the next two hours battling Wonwoo for dominance of Mingyu. Wonwoo wins when it comes to alcohol, but your sweet boy isn’t interested in drugs, no matter how much the demon insists it’s the perfect night to dabble.

And that’s when Mingyu first lays eyes on Kimi. 

She’s a year younger than him, someone he’s heard about and seen a few times, but never talked to. She looks gorgeous, in a flowy top and jeans that hug her just right. You can sense Mingyu’s heartbeat quickening, and in his drunkenness, he’s even more susceptible to Wonwoo, who leans forward. “You should fuck her tonight, there’s never a time to be a whore like the present.”

“No sex, you like her!” you argue back. “Talk to her, get her name, look for longevity.”

Wonwoo scoffs. “A one-night stand with a girl like that? Who could think of something better?” 

“Uh, maybe a relationship?” you snap. 

“We don’t know anything about her!” Wonwoo yells. “And we don’t need to know.” 

You lean back from where Mingyu can hear your subconscious pushings, glaring at Wonwoo. “What’s with you and rough, anonymous sex?”

“It’s the best way to have it,” Wonwoo tells you, his grin widening. “I think our Mingyu boy would love to try some of the things he’s seen in the porn I’ve pushed him to watch. You know, bondage, tying a girl up, all the good shit.”

“Consentually, of course.”

“With you here, it would always have to be consensual,” Wonwoo scoffs.

“You’re despicable.”

“I’m a demon.”

“Even demons have their limits.”

Wonwoo shrugs. “Not really.”

“Well, my Mingyu is a good person. He’d never stoop to your level.”

“Well, he watches the porn I want to watch.”

You click your tongue. Wonwoo convincing Mingyu to watch porn is always the worst, and it’s when you leave the viewing station. The demon can be particularly convincing when it comes to observing sex acts on Mingyu’s phone, but you know your good boy would never go further than simply watching. He’s not the type to ever act on some of the more raunchy ideas Wonwoo forces into his head.

No matter how hard Wonwoo pushes, you know your Mingyu.

And you’re thankful that by the end of the night at the frat party, Mingyu agrees with you that he’s now too drunk, and he retires to bed.

The viewing station goes dark as Mingyu drifts to sleep, and you stand up with a sigh, glaring at Wonwoo. 

“You know, one of these days, you’re going to admit that you kind of like the whole bondage sex thing,” Wonwoo sighs.

“What?” you gasp.

“You always leave the room when he and I watch porn.”

“Because I’m a pure being! Because porn and sex go against what I stand for!”

“Porn and lust might be ‘anti-angel’, but sex is natural; it’s God-created. Humans are like any other animal, and they’re meant to have sex, to procreate,” Wonwoo says simply. “I know you’re loose on your whole ‘celibate until marriage’ ideals. When Mingyu lost his virginity, you were happy because it was soft. You might be an angel, but you don’t follow a strict code, no matter how much you try to convince yourself that you follow the bible to the letter. I’m just curious how loose your morals really are. You might think I’m here to test Mingyu, but I’m really here to test you.” 

“And who do you think you are to test me?” you glare.

Wonwoo shrugs. “Just a demon who specializes in lust, a demon who took one look at you on Mingyu’s shoulder and decided, ‘you know what, I’d fuck that angel.’”

“As if that’s a compliment.”

“It is, most angels have sticks up their asses the size of the Empire State Building. And don’t get me wrong, you have a stick up yours too, I’m just curious if you’d want something else up inside of you at the same time.”

“I can’t believe you,” you groan, hating the way your body reacts to his sinister smirk, the slight floodyness of his hair, and the regal way he stares at you.

“You don’t have to believe me when I say I want to defile you. I’ll prove it to you soon enough,” Wonwoo’s smirk widens. “You might be an angel, but angels aren’t impervious to sin. After all, demons were angels once, until they stopped lying to themselves and gave in to the carnal pleasures. We’ll get there, don’t worry. I might be a demon, but I can be patient.” 

Two:

“Hold it, you’re not going anywhere,” Wonwoo grins, grabbing your arm as you’re about to leave the room, when Mingyu pulls up pornhub with Kimi on his mind. 

“I’m not sitting here with you for this; it’s weird,” you insist, pulling yourself away from him, hating the way the cold of his touch lingers on your skin.

“Boys will be boys, let the man find some release,” Wonwoo tells you, his grin widening.

“Boys may be boys, but you were whispering in Mingyu’s ear all day that he should have a jack off session and think about ‘that chick from the frat party.’”

Wonwoo shrugs. “It wasn’t that hard to convince him.”

You let out a deep breath. 

“Watch this,” Wonwoo leans forward so Mingyu can hear him. “Look up ‘rope BDSM.’”

“Oh my gosh!” You cover your eyes with your hands as Mingyu quickly follows through with Wonwoo’s suggestion.

“There’s something so sexy about having complete control of another person,” Wonwoo insists, leaning back and staring at you with dark eyes. “Admit it, you liked controlling Mingyu before I showed up.”

“It’s not remotely the same.”

“It is, sort of.” The demon shrugs. “You like control. I know you do. Because every time you don’t get your way, you have a little fit.”

“I do not!”

“Look at you, angel, you’re practically stomping your cute little foot right now.” Wonwoo lets out a chuckle, and you hate how attractive it is. “If you play your cards right, someday, I might let you have a little control over me.”

“What, like tie you up?” you scoff.

Wonwoo’s grin widens. “Does that excite you?”

“In your dreams,” you snap.

“Angel, we both know I don’t sleep. But I do imagine things, things about you…”

Your breath catches.

“I imagine what you sound like, what you taste like. I imagine the look in your eye when I have you immobilized and at my mercy. I imagine making you crack, making you finally admit that pleasure is exactly what it means in the dictionary; the feelings of delight, something you enjoy with every fiber of your being, something you’d beg for me to give you again and again.” 

Your skin is heating with embarrassment, and it’s crazy to you that Wonwoo can say everything he just said with a completely straight face. He has zero shame in admitting the things he’s just admitted, and yet, you feel like the dirty one. 

“I’m leaving,” you say again, more firmly this time.

“I won’t stop you; you have full control of yourself, and that’s what makes this interesting.” Wonwoo turns his attention back to the screen, where Mingyu is now in the throes of enjoying porn. 

“You’re evil,” you snap.

“I’m a demon, it’s part of the job description,” Wonwoo says absentmindedly.

You fight the urge to stomp your foot, and with one last scoff of displeasure, you go back to your quarters, throwing yourself down onto your bed with a muffled scream. 

Three:

It’s been a month of chaos. Wonwoo has become somehow even more dirty, and every time he whispers some sexual idea in Mingyu’s ear, his eyes are fixed on you. 

You squirm when he mentions bondage, porn, rough sex, and more dirty things that are not for an angel’s ears. 

And to make matters worse, you know that Wonwoo is imagining himself doing all of these dirty things to you. To be the object of sin and desire is new to you, and it brings an uncomfortable feeling to the pit of your stomach.

You grapple with yourself every night, unable to get Wonwoo’s voice out of your head.

The word ‘tantalizing’ has never had much merit for you, but now, you understand. Wonwoo oozes sex and intrigue; he makes your mind go to places it's never before visited; dark, lustful places that make your heart race and your skin tingle. 

The little smirk that quirks onto his lips when he knows he’s irritated you has become burned into your mind's eye, and you can’t escape the shiny points of his canines, or the flash of black that overtakes his irises when he’s being demonic. 

You can feel your resolve to stay true to your morals is slipping, and in its place is a growing need that’s threatening to overtake you, body and soul.

This is the power of a truly strong demon, and it both scares and excites you while you war with yourself. 

Four:

After another long day of Wonwoo being raunchy, Mingyu finally goes to sleep. The viewer goes dark, and you stand up with a sigh. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” you muse, “but I’m thankful you didn’t push for more porn.”

“He’s on a streak, you know,” Wonwoo smirks. “But I figured I could let you off the hook for one night.”

“Let my pure boy off the hook, you mean.”

“No, I meant what I said. You’re the one who has a problem with it, not Mingyu. He’s just a hot-blooded man who’s hardly had any good sex in his life. A bit of porn can’t hurt.”

You roll your eyes. “Scientists who study the interaction between porn and erectile dysfunction would beg to differ.”

“Human scientists.” Wonwoo’s smirk widens. 

“I’m not having an argument with you, I’m off the clock.”

“Off the clock,” the demon repeats with a chuckle. 

“Yes, off the clock, which means I also don’t have to deal with you anymore.”

“You enjoy ‘dealing with me.’” Wonwoo insists.

You scoff loudly. “In what diluted world can you come to that conclusion?”

The demon steps closer to you. “The world where I’m a demon who can read sexual energy, and lately, it’s been wafting off your aura like smoke. And where there’s smoke, well, there’s fire.”

“I think you should get your eyes checked,” you fire at him, your arms crossing over your chest in an effort to keep that ‘sexual energy’ contained. 

“You’re such a virgin that it’s almost laughable,” Wonwoo tells you, his voice lowering. “Most angels don’t have the kind of lustful energy you do, virginity and all, but every being that exists is plagued by at least one of the seven deadly sins, angels included. It seems to me that your carnal desire is sex, which isn’t anything to be ashamed of. I’ve worked with angels who are greedy, angels who have a sense of divine wrath, but pride is the main trait I’ve seen. One could argue that all three of those sins are more disgusting on an angel than that of simply wanting to be touched, to experience one’s form to the fullest.” 

Your mouth feels dry, and you lick your lips, unsure of what to say.

“Don’t worry, angel, I don’t need a response, not really. But… I would never defile an angel without her wanting it, so when I ask you this next question, I’ll need at least an enthusiastic nod if not a verbal ‘yes.’”

“What do you need to ask me?” you whisper.

Wonwoo is close enough to touch you now, and he reaches for your hand, tracing his thumb against your palm. Your mind is telling you to pull away, but you can’t. His touch is cold, but there’s something so nice about it…

“Can I kiss you?” Wonwoo asks, his words hanging in the air like a heavy smog.

You try to swallow the lump in your throat, but it does little to help, and you stare at the beautiful demon. Your body is screaming yes, but your mind is still plagued with trepidation. 

“It’s a sin.”

“A kiss isn’t a sin, and besides, you’re off the clock, remember?” His smirk is just so beautiful, and you have to remind yourself that even though he’s a demon, Wonwoo was crafted by God’s own hands. “I think you can forgive yourself for a small misdemeanor, after all, humans are forgiven for much worse.”

“I…” Your heart is hammering in your rib cage, and never in your long life have you felt a desire like this.

“Or… I could wait,” Wonwoo sighs. “I won’t pressure you. I’m a demon, but I’m not an asshole.”

The idea of waiting even longer makes your skin tingle, and you can feel a frown of dissatisfaction appearing on your face.

“You can kiss me,” you say, and the words feel foreign on your tongue.

“Even though you hate me?” Wonwoo grins, cocking a brow.

“Even though I hate you.”

The demon lets out a laugh, dropping your hand in favour of grabbing your hips. He pulls you toward him, being shockingly gentle for a man who’s so outspoken about his taste for rough sex.

“Nobody has to know about this,” Wonwoo whispers as he leans closer. “Even angels are allowed to have dirty little secrets.”

“Then this will be our little secret,” you breathe, swallowing thickly as your hands instinctively go to his shoulder, tugging the demon even closer.

He meets your gaze as he slowly leans in, giving you all the time in the world to change your mind. But you’re in too deep now, and there’s no going back.

His lips press against yours gently, and your whole body is flooded with what you can only describe as pleasure, like a cool breeze wafting over you on an extremely hot day. You want more, and Wonwoo tugs you closer by your hips, his tongue snaking out to rub your lower lip.

Your mouth opens a little, a whimper escaping you as the kiss deepens. Wonwoo releases a low growl, and butterflies erupt in the pit of your stomach from the sound.

Nothing in the world has ever made you feel this way, as if you’re glowing, and all because a dark being is tantalizing you toward sin.

With a gasp, you pull away, breathing heavily. 

Wonwoo holds you, not pushing for more; he gives you mental space to analyze what’s just happened, while still keeping you physically close, like a protector.

It’s such an odd notion, the idea that a demon could be any sort of protection for an angel like you. 

“I think…” You swallow thickly. “I think I need to have some time alone now.”

“I understand,” Wonwoo nods, his hands slipping away from your hips. “The ball is in your court, angel. Until you decide what you want to do, this is our little secret.”

“Our little secret,” you repeat like a mantra, but the words don’t do anything to help the anxiety building inside of you. It’s as if at any moment you could be struck down for impurity, except, even when you’re alone later, no hand of God comes to smite you.

You think carefully about what Wonwoo’s said, about all living things having their sinful, carnal desires, even angels.

Maybe this is natural, maybe this is okay… maybe. 

Five:

You’ve been yearning for Wonwoo in a way you’ve never yearned for anything since your creation. It’s taking every ounce of your self-restraint to keep your distance from him, and Wonwoo’s not making any of it easy.

Every dirty whisper in Mingyu’s ear, every glance at you while he talks about sex, bondage, and porn… 

It has your heart racing, your skin heating, and your core throbbing in a way that used to be foreign but is now becoming all too familiar. 

“Should I push for more sin tonight?” Wonwoo asks as Mingyu gets ready for bed. “Or have you had enough?”

You groan, knowing that you’re wet from the day you’ve had. “Please.”

“Please, what?” He cocks a brow.

“I’m so tired of all of this.”

“Tired of fighting your own desires, you mean,” Wonwoo corrects, seeing right through you.

You hate that your ‘sexual aura’ is visible to him, hate that no matter how hard you try to fight it, Wonwoo will always know the truth.

And the truth is: you want this demon to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked. You want to get a taste of the sin he has to offer, the sin he claims other angels partake in secretly.

Why are you holding yourself back, holding yourself to a set of standards, if others in your angelic profession don’t?

“What are you thinking about?” Wonwoo asks, watching you carefully.

You release a deep breath. “Everything.”

“Sounds like a lot,” the demon chuckles.

“It is.”

“Too much for a sweet angel like you to carry on her own shoulders.” 

You study his face, wondering if he’s being condescending or not.

“Being a demon is much easier. I don’t have to worry about anything,” Wonwoo continues, leaning back in his seat. “No rules, no standards, no fear. Just existence. Freedom.”

“I’m free,” you insist.

“Are you really?” Wonwoo grins. “Could have fooled me.”

“I am free! I’m an angel! I have the most freedom in the world!”

“Freedom to kiss who you want to kiss? To act on the desires that were literally built into you? Why would God have made you with the sin of lust if he did not intend for you to act on it? To torture you for your entire existence?” Wonwoo shakes his head. 

“He bestowed temptation so his creations could rise above it and devote themselves to Him,” you insist. “It teaches spiritual strength and perseverance.”

“Whatever you say, little Miss Sunday School.”

You let out a deep sigh. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?” Wonwoo grins.

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because it makes me want you even more!” you scream. “For a reason I can not comprehend, I want you. I want you for the teasing, for the chastizing, for this disgusting ego that I would never condone on a human ward. I want it. I want all of you. And it’s killing me!”

Wonwoo stands up abruptly, and you mirror him, heart racing in your chest.

You can’t believe you’ve just admitted all of it, all of the deep dark things you’ve been thinking about for weeks.

“An ego can be sexy,” Wonwoo says finally. “Although I’d classify myself as more of a prideful being than an egotistical one.” 

“Ugh!” You throw your hands up, hating that his smirk is the most handsome thing you’ve ever seen, hating that he’s right. 

“Tell me you want this again,” Wonwoo urges you, stepping closer.

“I want you! You already heard me say it!” Your skin is hot with irritation, both sexual and emotional, and you can hardly think straight.

“No, tell me you want this.” Wonwoo grabs your hand, tugging you to his chest. He looks down at you, his lips almost ghosting over your own.

“I want this,” you whimper, feeling defeated and broken. 

You can no longer hold yourself back, and part of you doesn’t want to.

“I’ll be gentle,” the demon promises, bringing his mouth down to your throat, where he presses soft kisses that take your breath away. 

“I thought you liked it rough,” you say, releasing a chuckle that brings your anxiety down.

“I also like pleasure. I’m prideful, not a narcissist. Tonight, your pleasure will come first.”

Your skin tingles, and you swallow a lump in your throat. You can feel your fear dissipating. Part of you had imagined he’d want to try bondage with you right away, so it’s a relief that he’s going to meet you at your level, which is… well, nonexistent.

You are a free being. And tonight, you will lose your heavenly virginity of your own volition.

Wonwoo begins to suck on a spot just below your ear, and it makes you moan. You throw your arms around the demon, tugging him closer.

One of Wonwoo’s hands slips down to your bum, squeezing you through your white pants. 

God, he feels so good, and you focus on the feeling, pushing aside your racing thoughts.

You draw his lips to yours, and Wonwoo groans with pleasure, tugging you so you’re flush to his body. 

Kissing him is like magic, and you get lost in it easily. Your core is wet, and you can feel your panties getting sticky, which is a tantalizing thought.

“Bedroom,” Wonwoo says, breaking the kiss. 

Without missing a beat, the demon reaches down and lifts you bridal style. You gasp, clutching onto his shoulders and blinking up at him. 

“Don’t look so surprised,” Wonwoo laughs. “As if I was about to take your virginity in a living room.” 

He heads toward your side of the apartment, and he pushes the door of your bedroom open.

Your room is all creams and minimalism, a true safe space, and he pauses to look at it for a moment. He’s never been in your room, nor you in his.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

“Nothing, it’s just… very different from my side of the space.” 

“No whips and chains hanging on the walls?” you tease.

“How about no black onyx floors or dark colours.”

“Well, I am an angel,” you point out as he gently sets you on the bed. 

“Yes, baby, the best angel I’ve ever met.”

“Really?” 

“Without a doubt. The most angelic.” Wonwoo climbs on top of you, and your legs spread instinctively as the demon looks down at you. “I’ve never met an angel who has never sinned. It’s endearing.”

“Will you still find me endearing after tonight?” you ask.

“I’ll find you endearing forever,” Wonwoo promises.

“Who knew such sweet words could come from a demon.”

Wonwoo laughs. “If anyone deserves sweet words from me, it’s you.”

“You’re just saying that to get me in bed.”

“We’re already in bed.”

“Good point.” You grab the nape of his neck, tugging his lips down to yours.

This verbal foreplay has become trite, and you’re ready for more, ready for all Wonwoo is about to give you.

For the first time, you taste desperation on his lips, and it excites you. He grinds gently down against you, and it’s the first time there’s been pressure on your core. Tingles of pleasure run through you as you tighten your legs around his hips, willing him to push harder.

Wonwoo groans, following through with your silent plea. He ruts hard as you kiss each other, stimulating your clit through your clothing.

One of his hands reaches up and grabs your breast through your white sweater, massaging you and making you gasp.

“Such pretty sounds,” Wonwoo whispers, biting your earlobe gently. “Can’t wait to hear you screaming my name.”

“Wonwoo,” you whimper, wiggling beneath him, eager for more.

He sits up, and with one tug, Wonwoo removes your sweater, leaving you in a cream bra. 

“All white everything, huh?” he laughs.

“I’m an angel.”

“So you keep reminding me. You always wear such loose, modest clothing, but I imagined you’d be gorgeous under all these layers.” He licks his lips, his thumb teasing the lace of your bra. “Should I go slow?” 

“Go medium,” you tell him.

Wonwoo lets out another chuckle. “That wasn’t one of the options.”

“Make it one of the options.”

He shakes his head at you, leaning down to press his lips to yours.

You thread your fingers through his raven black hair, mewling as he massages you through your bra. Your nipples are aching already, and there’s a sense of great relief when he finally takes your bra off. 

“So pretty,” Wonwoo muses, kissing down from your throat to your breasts, where he captures one of your nipples in his mouth.

You whimper desperately, your entire body on fire with the pleasure.

“And so sensitive too,” the demon groans, gently dragging his teeth over your sensitive bud.

“Please,” you gasp.

“Please, what?” he looks up at you.

You let out a shuddery breath. “More.”

 “Your wish is my command, angel,” Wonwoo teases, his hand gliding down your body. Deft fingers slip under the waistband of your pants, but he stays over your panties as he makes contact with your clit.

You writhe against the bedding, eyes clenched shut as foreign ecstasy washes over you.

He continues to suck on your nipple as he toys with your pussy.

“Soaking through your panties,” Wonwoo tuts. “My dirty girl.”

Your heart lurches in your chest, and you’re shocked that you like the way his words feel. It’s a sinful kind of praise, and it makes you dizzy as you watch him, anticipating what he’ll do next. 

Wonwoo takes his time as he licks and sucks your nipples, playing with your pussy through drenched fabric.

It’s a relief when he finally tugs your pants down, leaving you in only panties.

Then, Wonwoo sits up, tugging his shirt off with one motion.

Your jaw drops at the view of his bare torso. He’s lean but muscled, and you wish you could trace the lines on his skin, but Wonwoo made it clear that tonight is about you. 

“I’m going to eat you out now,” Wonwoo explains, as he sinks to the floor. “Bet you taste like nectar and sunshine.”

Talking about your ‘taste’ makes you shy, and you close your thighs, only for him to gently pry them open.

“Don’t be bashful, baby,” Wonwoo coos, pressing kisses to your skin. 

“What if I don’t taste like nectar and sunshine?” you ask.

“I can already smell it on you,” Wonwoo promises, an attempt to be assuring, but now you’re talking about smell, and it makes you even more anxious. “You know what, let’s leave taste and smell out of this for now, okay?”

“Yes, please,” you nod, biting your bottom lip.

Wonwoo hooks his fingers in your panties, slowly dragging them down your legs.

The cool air of the room on your wet core makes you groan, back arching a little as you writhe against the bed.

Cold hands grab your thighs, confidently spreading you open. 

“Just breathe,” Wonwoo reminds you as he leans forward and licks the entirety of your core lewdly.

“Shit!” you gasp, thighs quaking.

The demon chuckles. “That’s the first time you’ve ever swore.”

You slap a hand over your mouth, and he shakes his head at you, returning to his task.

Soon, you’re moaning through your fingers, and your other hand reaches down to grab at his hair, keeping his face buried between your thighs.

He eats you out like a starved man, ravaging your pussy with licks and sucks that have your head spinning in the best possible way.

And then Wonwoo begins to growl, and you’ve never heard anything so erotic.

Your own gasps and whimpers are filling the room, and you can feel something getting tighter and tighter in the pit of your stomach.

“Wonwoo,” you pant. “I think… I think I’m going to cum!”

He releases a groan, and the vibration of it on your clit makes your legs shake. All of your muscles are tense, waiting for that final push-

Then you look down, and your eyes lock with his. His pupils are blown, and he looks absolutely demonic, but there’s something so incredibly sexy about this powerful demon worshiping you with his mouth on your core-

You cum like an electric shock, your entire body jolting, muscles releasing only to clench again as the waves surge through you.

You scream, grabbing at the bed sheets like an anchor as your orgasm overtakes you.

Wonwoo is unrelenting on your core, groaning and eating you messily, and it only makes the whole situation more erotic.

You’ve been to Heaven, but nothing has ever felt like this.

“Wonwoo!” you scream when the pleasure begins to feel like it’s too much, like you can’t contain or sustain this type of ecstasy anymore.

The demon pulls away immediately, looking up at you.

“Angel,” he breathes, “you’re glowing.”

“What?”

“You’re glowing,” he repeats. Wonwoo grabs your hand from the bed, lifting it so you can see that your skin is literally aglow.

“Is this normal?” you gasp in panic.

“I’ve never seen it.”

“And you fuck a lot of angels?” you snap.

“Not really,” he laughs, pressing a kiss to your inner thigh. “I find most of you to be too high-strung.”

“I’m high-strung.”

“But it’s endearing on you.” His thumb gently rubs your glit, and you jolt, releasing a gasp. “Glowing can’t be harmful.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure it’s just pent-up energy,” he muses. “Should I give you more?”

You take all of one second to consider his words before nodding. “More.”

Wonwoo nuzzles against your inner thigh with a laugh, and then he teases a digit between your pussy lips, gently sinking it into you.

You groan, your inner walls having never been touched before.

“So warm,” Wonwoo breathes. “So tight.”

He gently finger fucks you, teasing your hole open, and he brings his mouth to your clit again.

His pace is slow, and you know he’s letting you acclimate to the stimulus. 

You can feel yourself dripping on his digit, and the slick is making it all too easy for him to work you open. Soon, he adds another finger, and you groan desperately, loving the slight stretch.

“Gonna make you cum on my fingers before I give you the real thing,” Wonwoo explains.

“Okay,” you whimper.

He returns to sucking on your clit, but he’s not being as gentle as he was before.

You can feel that tension building again, and with each slick sound of his fingers fucking into you, you know you’re getting closer to the edge.

Whimpers escape your lips, and you gasp when he crooks his fingers, hitting a spot that has your whole body coming alight with pleasure.

You’ve heard Wonwoo talk about the ‘g-spot’ before, and you’re pretty sure he just found yours.

Your toes are curling, muscles getting incredibly tight as his pace quickens.

“I’m close!” you cry out, grabbing the bed sheets again, your heart racing in your chest.

Wonwoo groans a sound of affirmation, and again, his noise of pleasure is what sends you over the edge.

Just like the first time, he works you through your orgasm, unrelenting, while the pleasure courses through you. You’re a throbbing, whimpering mess by the time Wonwoo pulls away, and you watch with shy delight as he licks his fingers clean, moaning at your taste.

“How did that one feel, angel?” he asks. 

“So good,” you whimper. 

Wonwoo stands up, looking down at your nude form.

“Ready for the real deal?”

“I’m scared,” you admit, seeing the outline of his cock through his pants.

“That’s natural,” Wonwoo breathes, undoing his belt. “And if you still want to change your mind…”

“No.” You swallow the lump in your throat. “Let’s do this.” 

Wonwoo pulls his pants down, and suddenly, his cock is slapping up against his stomach.

Your jaw drops at the sight of him. He’s long… well, you’re pretty sure he’s long, not that you have much to compare it to. 

“That’s going to fit inside of me?” you ask.

“Angel, your pussy is wetter than a slip and slide, it won’t be a problem,” Wonwoo laughs.

“Just… go slow.”

“Not medium?” he teases.

“Wonwoo…” you groan.

“I’ll go slow,” he promises, now fully nude as he climbs on top of you. “Don’t worry.”

Wonwoo presses his lips to yours, and you wrap your arms around the back of his neck, pouring all of your attention into the meeting of your mouths.

Wonwoo slowly begins to rut, teasing his cock through your wet pussy lips and bumping your clit. The grinding feels phenomenal, and soon you’re a moaning mess beneath him, your core aching to be filled.

As if he can read you, the demon reaches for the base of his cock, lining the tip up with your wet hole. His mouth moves to your throat, giving you space to speak if you need him to pause or slow down, but as his tip slips inside of you, you realize there will be no need for breaks.

Sure, the stretch is new, but it’s not bad.

In fact, your pussy is trying to swallow him up, and with each inch after inch, you feel more and more complete.

Wonwoo truly is your opposite, the yin to your yang, and it feels phenomenal to finally be connected like this.

“You okay?” Wonwoo asks, and you can see his muscles feathering, as if it’s taking every ounce of self-control for him not to let loose and fuck you stupid.

“Feels good,” you groan, wrapping your legs around his hips to pull him further into you. 

Wonwoo moans deeply, and a moment later, he’s fully sheathed in your wet core.

You both release sounds of pleasure together, and your lips meet in a fiery kiss.

You love tangling your fingers in his hair, and it makes him kiss you harder. He’s still fully inside of you, unmoving as your walls adjust, but soon, your own hips are rocking, and he takes the cue to begin to thrust.

The first movement is shallow and slow, and you revel in the drag of his cock against your inner walls.

You cry out, throwing your head back, and Wonwoo latches onto your throat, sucking and nibbling.

Your pebbled nipples press against his chest, and each movement toys with them.

You can feel Wonwoo everywhere. He’s completely commanding every one of your senses, and not a single thought is going through your mind except for one word: more. 

His pace is increasing, and you get the sense that he’s reacting to your sounds, figuring you out based on your whimpering and whining.

You pull Wonwoo away from your throat by his hair, and you open your eyes, looking up at him.

God, he truly is the most beautiful being you’ve ever seen. 

He’s truly a vision, lust-blown pupils and all, his hair a mess from where you’re tugging on it. 

You breathe in each other, lips almost meeting but just separate, and the teasing makes everything more seductive.

Wonwoo pulls out of you suddenly, flipping you onto your side. He moves behind you, a cold big spoon as he enters you again. His breath is hot on your shoulders, and he takes the opportunity to gently bite your neck, making you gasp. You reach behind yourself, grabbing his hair again, which earns you a groan of pleasure. 

His hand is on your hip, and he fucks into you desperately, adjusting your body ever so slightly, opening your leg a little so he can hit deeper.

“Wonwoo!” you whimper when his hand slips from your hips to your core, his fingers teasing your clit.

“That’s it, scream my name,” he grins, biting your earlobe and making you shiver.

“Wonwoo!” you say it louder this time, unable to contain yourself as he works you closer and closer to the edge again.

“Gonna cum on my cock, huh, angel?” he chuckles. 

“Yes, I’m so close,” you whimper, pussy tightening around him.

“Not yet.” Wonwoo pulls out of you suddenly, and you whine, only for him to adjust you. 

Now you’re sitting on top of him, with Wonwoo propped against the headboard.

“Why am I on top?” you ask, confused.

“Oh angel,” he licks your nipple, “just because you’re on top doesn’t mean you’re the one who is in control.”

His hands are on your hips again, and he lifts you slightly, allowing him to plow up into you.

You cry out from how deep his cock is hitting you, from the way he’s using you like a ragdoll.

You throw your head back, and his mouth latches onto your nipple. Your hands fly to his hair, tangling in the dark curls as he fucks you stupid.

Each smack down of your core on his cock has pressure on your clit, and you can feel that orgasm bubbling again.

You feel drunk, or, what you think being drunk would feel like. It’s a pleasurable dizziness, a mind numbing euphoria and a tingling that flutters through your entire body.

Wonwoo growls, and you know it’s a sound of affirmation, a sound to push you toward the edge.

A few more rough thrusts have you tumbling into ecstasy, your entire core clamping down on Wonwoo’s cock. Your head falls forward, your lips making contact with the crown of Wonwoo’s head as he also groans. He pulls off of your nipple, panting desperately as he holds you down, his cock burried in your throbbing pussy.

You know he’s cumming too, and feel his muscles twitching, his shoulders tight with tension.

And his sounds… nothing in Heaven or on Earth sounds the way Wonwoo does when he’s wrapped in pleasure.

Your entire body sings with delight as the two of you hold onto each other, jolting with the aftershocks of your extreme highs.

The two of you hold each other, breathing in one another.

Wonwoo leans his face against your breasts, and you cradle him.

You’ve never felt this close to anyone.

For a moment you can forget that he’s a demon and you’re an angel.

None of that matters right now.

Finally, Wonwoo pulls away with a sigh. “This changes things.”

“It does,” you agree.

“We’re bound together for as long as Mingyu lives, so… you better not decide you hate me tomorrow.”

You laugh. “You irritate me, but I don’t hate you.”

“I’m not going to stop telling Mingyu to pursue his sexual desires.”

“I never expected you to,” you admit with a sigh.

“And you’re… okay with it now?” 

“As long as it’s consensual, fine, he can be as dirty as he wants to be.” 

Wonwoo laughs, cuddling close to your chest again. “See, in this day and age, some sins like premarital sex are outdated.”

“We could debate that,” you laugh, running your hands through his hair.

“I think I would like that.”

“I feel like it would be a case of unstoppable force meets immovable object.” 

Wonwoo chuckles, and you love how beautiful he is when he smiles. “Sounds like us.”

“But we can’t let our sexual escapades get in the way of doing our job for Mingyu,” you declare.

“I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from your work,” Wonwoo groans. “You’d probably bite my cock off if I tried.”

“Consider yourself warned.”

“Consider yourself worshipped.”

“Huh?” you blink down at him.

“You’re still glowing, angel.” Wonwoo plays with a piece of your hair. “It’s been a long time since a demon like me has had anything to look up to.”

“You look up to me?”

“In some ways, but don’t make this more of an embarrassment than it already is.” Wonwoo lets out a sigh. “You’ve reformed me… slightly.”

“Don’t tell me it’s the power of good pussy.”

“Great pussy,” Wonwoo corrects. “And no. If I’m being honest, I think you’ve been changing me for the better for a while, bit by bit.”

“I’m happy to hear that.”

Wonwoo smiles. “And I’m just happy.”

“I can live with that.” 

☀️ mlist + an. thank you for reading! this one was fun, it was a little late to be posted because my puppy has a tooth infection and it's been a hell of a week. reminder! Patreon charges on the FIRST of every month, so if you're going to get my Patreon, just be aware of that, or wait until June 2nd :)

🍭 support me by. sending a tip here or here - or become a patron to access monthly bonus content and extensions for fics like this one :) find the Patreon teaser below! 

🔮 preview. Your core tingles as you test the bindings on your wrists. There is truly so much he can teach you about the darker side of sex, the pain that turns into pleasure, the freedom of being completely immobilized and at the mercy of someone you trust to take care of you. 

cw/ tw. Unprotected sex, bdsm themes, wrist bondage, pleasure dom!Wonwoo, oral/pussy eating, wonwoo has powers in this… including a long demon tongue, overstimulation, finger fucking, body/breast worship, squirting, dacryphilia (arousal from tears/crying),  dirty talk, praise, multiple reader orgasms, etc…   I petnames. (hers) angel. 

👹 rating. 18+ explicit I wc. 2.6k I teaser wc. 140

🌙 starring. Wonwoo x afab!Reader

bonus

To your shock, Wonwoo isn’t pushy with you the way he’s pushy with Mingyu. He hasn’t said a word about the soft sex the two of you have continued to have for months now, and he hasn’t made you feel lesser than him for being vanilla either.

Wonwoo treats you very differently than he treats Mingyu, but you know that every time Wonwoo brings up rough sex in Mingyu’s ear, it’s because Wonwoo himself has an interest in it.

The demon has talked about being a sexual pleaser, and your need to please him has grown too. Can you really hold Wonwoo and yourself back from reaching another level by dabbling with the BDSM themes he’s so fond of?

Can you… condemn him to vanilla sex for as long as the two of you are connected through Mingyu?

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[sailorsoons]

Until Death (x.mh)

PAIRING: Minghao x f. reader SUMMARY: As the second daughter to one of the most powerful businesses under the Choi Syndicate, you’ve always lived your life free of responsibility - until your sister dies and you become the heir. So when your family announces one of your new responsibilities as heir is an engagement to the son of a powerful shipping conglomerate, it comes should come as no shock. Minghao, however, is full of surprises, each one of them more deadly than the last. WC: 33,779 AU: Mafiaverse, Cyberpunk, Arranged Marriage GENRE: Smut, Angst RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. WARNINGS: Graphic violence and assassination attempts, descriptions of blood and on screen murder (two with a knife, one with a garrote), mentions of off page deaths of a sibling and a parent (one via suicide), references to organized crime/syndicates with political marriages, power plays, and illegal activities, references to physical abuse from a family member but honestly very vague and ambiguous, hemes of grief, trauma, deception, and identity secrets, some power imbalances throughout, lots of showcasing of disparity of wealth throughout, some angst and a lot of lying, reader is kidnapped, explicit language, explicit sexual content featuring oral (f. receiving), vaginal fingering, unprotected penetrative sex, multiple orgasms/positions, uhhhhh I think that's it. It's a Syndicates fic y'all, as always read with caution. Smut is warned in-text when it starts and stops. A/N: I have been working on this chapter since November 2025 and it is finally here. I'm going to apologize in advanced if the plot seems a bit twisty turny or if the motives are a bit weak - taking that long between the first 15k I wrote for this fic and the second 15k I wrote for this resulted in me writing a completely different story than what I started with. Also - reader was supposed to be a lot more mystical but it's just sort of vague in this. She is not literally magical in a fantasy sense, but rather the same way that there are mysteries of the universe and energies etc. i really hope this makes sense - thank you for being patient with me as I put this chapter out. I think I like this one... maybe. Also, we are introduced to three new characters who are relevant in the rest of the series - especially Kero :) This fic takes place during the events of Baby for your timeline purposes. A/N 2: It is recommend you read the other works of the Syndicates collection before you read this fic - specifically Baby. You don't have to read the others to understand the fic as I try to sum up the world and plot well, but I'm not perfect so ready this totally separate of the other stories might not be as easy as I crack it up to be! A/N 3: This is un-beta'd we die like men.

COLLECTION | ASK | NOW PLAYING: UNTIL DEATH | SYNDICATES WORLD GUIDE

THE EVENING OF YOUR SISTER'S DEATH, YOU HAD DRAWN THE WORLD, REVERSED FROM YOUR TAROT DECK. You remember staring at it, unsettled, tracing the details as if the lines themselves could tell you what was coming.

It was one of those rare, hand-crafted decks, a fragment of the old world, tangible and delicate. In a world with so little physical art and so little understanding of the universe, you'd cherished the deck, a small luxury in a world where most people wouldn't have understood.

You remember knowing the card was a warning. The only trouble was you didn't know what for. You left the card face up on the desk and blew out your candles, your mother's voice calling through the estate's intercom again, impatient and angry because you were late.

Again.

To her, being late was a condition, not a habit. To you on that rainy November evening, it had been a kind of salvation, though perhaps salvation wasn't the right word. You didn't believe in gods or higher beings, but you did believe in the strange, quiet ways of the universe.

Strange, like how lingering over a single tarot reading could keep you from stepping into the restaurant when the gas explosion tore through the back of the block - when your sister, waiting at your usual table, became the first member of your family to die.

Gone in a moment, the entire direction of your life rearranged.

The world, reversed.

-

The rain over the Upper District is thin and metallic. It sheets off the glass buildings in vertical lines, turning each tower into a waterfall of neon and water. You watch the rain from the back of the car, forehead pressed to the cold window. The city slides past, a smudge of light.

Nexus Capital rises ahead of you, a monolith of glass punch through the low cloud ceiling. You stare at the building that's a feat of architecture with a list of awards and features in architectural magazines. You don't understand why a banking building needs to be an architectural work of art.

You don't find it to be very artistic anyway. Nexus Capital is one hundred and twelve floors of smoked glass and carbon fiber, no logos and no name, but a solid black tower threaded with light that everyone knows when they see it glow against the horizon.

Most nights, it turns invisible, like a trick of the light. If it weren't for the purple LEDs pulsing through the building's framework now, lighting it up to make air travel safe, you wouldn't even see it, though you know exactly where to look.

The car turns into the private ramp beneath the plaza, the security gates opening slowly. The car pauses as the driver cracks the window to state your business and clearance information. You wait, staring dully out the window as the scanners read the car for weapons and trace the plates. When it clears, the driver pulls through, continuing down the spiraling ramp toward the sub-level reserved for people who don't use the public lobby.

People like you.

You step out into a cold, concrete garage. Security guards are waiting on either side of the elevator for you, their charcoal suites pristine. They nod politely as you approach, heels clicking. One presses his palm to the panel, the lift doors opening with a soft hiss.

Your ride is eighty-nine floors, no stops. You breathe slowly, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Four counts in, hold for four, exhale eight. Even numbers. Good numbers. Your pulse steadies.

The reflection in the glass wall of the elevator is jarring: black dress, black blazer, hair tamed, heels, minimal jewelry. The girl who used to sneak out of charity galas to stare up at the moon and fill jars of water to collect its energy is nowhere in sight.

A chime indicates your arrival and you stiffen. The lift opens directly into an executive corridor of basalt floors and recessed lightly. It smells faintly of cedar in the hall, no doubt pumped in by an unseen air filtration system, meant to give the offices an old, serious feel.

The eighty-ninth floor is nothing but meeting rooms and executive spaces. You walk along the network of empty rooms now, knowing the way by heart - you'd practiced the route a million times. Normally, even after hours, the meeting rooms would be full of people. This evening's meeting is high profile though, so the entire floor has been reserved and dismissed.

Double doors greet you as you turn a corner. A security guard is outside, tipping his head to greet you before opening the door to let you in. Inside is a massive board room full of people.

One entire wall is made up of glass, Hyperion glittering on the other side: neon arteries, ribbons of traffic, the distant strobe of a casino in the Pearl District. The table in the center of the room is a massive rectangle of smoked quartz, lit from beneath so it looks frozen.

You go straight to your side of the table where your father and board members sit. There's a single, high-back chair for you next to your father - it used to be your mother's, but after she'd killed herself a few months ago, she bequeathed the chair to you.

Her ghost clings to you every time you sit in the chair, a coolness sticking to your skin. You grit your teeth. This room needs sage and perhaps some selenite. It has neither, so you ignore the way a shiver slides up your spine, phantom fingers reminding you of the heaviness of her absence. Ghosts don't like to be ignored, but no one else in this room can feel the way spirit lingers, the way memories have a way of clinging to a place.

Today is not a day for fear and superstition. Today is the kind of day where you have to ignore all of your instincts in favor of being practical and analytical - the kind of girl your sister would have been, instead of you, the strange one who believed in the energies of the universe and its strange higher powers.

Lifting your eyes, you peer across the table as your father clears his throat to settle the room. Xu Minghao is seated directly across from you, the polished surface of the crystal table stretching like eons between you. He's narrower than the file photos, dressed in a suit so dark that it seems to eat the light around him. His hair is longer too, styled neatly around his ears to rest against his collar bones. It suits him, you think.

He's prettier than you realized, too. His face is exquisitely balanced between sharp and soft, his eyes fierce and burning as he stares at you, his mouth soft and supple. His equally sharp jawline is offset by a gentle nose, a blend of contrasts that make him breathtaking to look at.

And extremely intimidating.

"Shall we begin?" Your father asks. He's using his calm voice, the one he likes to use to show he isn't intimidated.

The Xu side inclines heads in near-perfect synchrony. Minghao's father, Xu Jian, sits at the center opposite your father, his hair dark and long like his son, threading with silver at the temples. Odd, you think. In a world where showing age is so rare, you find it fascinating that the Xu family's patriarch has deliberately decided to show his age. A powerplay, perhaps, that he does not fear how fast the world around him is moving, nor is he influenced by the trends of appearing young.

Xu Luli is the opposite. Minghao's mother is a radiance of youth, dressed in immaculate dove silk with a single jade pendant the size of a small egg pinned to her blazer. Her face has no obvious lines, full and flushed with color like she's still in her twenties. It's unsettling, and when your eyes flick to Minghao, you realize how much he looks like her with his full lips and sharp eyes. He's nearly her mirror, save for his eyes are dark and near-black where hers are uncanny stormy grey.

Across the table, Minghao sits perfectly upright, his hands folded loosely on the table. No rings, no watch, no jewelry at all. There's just a faint scare across the first knuckle of his right hand, pale against otherwise flawless skin.

Your father gestures to the lead counsel on your side to begin. She taps the table and a holo screen blooms above the quartz, rotating for all to see. It's a splitting of proposed assets, tallied net and financial worth, assets both tangible and liquid, and everything else about you both true and not splayed for everyone to see.

"Xu Worldwide Logistics currently moves forty-three percent of all container freight through Hyperion's docks in the Civ District," the lead counsel begins. "Post-marraige, joint control of the merged entity will be split sixty-forty in favor of Xu Worldwide Logistics, with veto rights retained by Nexus Capital."

Xu Jian smiles. "Forty-three percent is a conservative assessment of our business. Perhaps seventy-thirty would be more appropriate."

"Sixty-five," your father answers, smiling. "Thirty-five. That feels more appropriate. Our assumptions of your capital are conservative, as you say."

Jian bows his head and agrees.

You watch in silence as your assets are debated for you - assets you didn't have until a year ago, when your sister had been blown apart in a freak accident. Your hands sweat looking at the figures and numbers that shouldn't belong to you, the endless amount of credits, properties, offshore accounts and liquid assets you don't even understand.

Swallowing past a dry patch in your throat, you glance at Minghao. He doesn't look at the rotating holograms of your entire net worth reflected for a room full of suits - he looks directly at you. He's not staring, exactly, but you fight the urge to shiver anyway. His gaze is intense and cataloging, like he's reading every tiny expression on your face.

In fact, he probably is. Minghao's family isn't from Hyperion, but they've clawed their way to the top with the money and empire they've built in Hyperion, which means they know how to play the game. After all, if they didn't know how to play, they wouldn't be sitting at this table negotiating a political marriage to gain access to the one of the city's most powerful Syndicates.

"Along with the marriage comes guarantees," your father says, catching your attention. "Of additional security for shipments."

No one says Choi Syndicate. No one has to. This entire marriage is for the Choi Syndicate, who are seeking an advantage in the Yong Syndicate-owned shipping yards in the Civ District. While the Xu family has remained neutral thus far, the fact that you're all sitting in a room discussing your legal marriage to the heir of their business is an aggressive move for the Xu family.

"Additionally," your father adds, as though sensing the unsaid danger in the room, "Nexus Capital is partnered with Aegis Security Corp. They're a long-standing client of ours, and are happy to provide additional support, both personal and professional to the Xu family and clients."

You can't help the way you start to roll your eyes. Aegis Security Corporation is a legitimate business portfolio pledged to Nexus Capital, but that certainly isn't the security your father is promising. He's promising the Xu family Choi Syndicate protection, a silent acknowledgement that by being here in this room, they are agreeing to the risk of being targeted by other Syndicates but will be offered the protections of guns, money and blood that the Choi Syndicate can offer.

The smile the Xu patriarch gives assures you that he is right where he wants to be, though his son remains expressionless, eyes unreadable.

Minghao's mother leans forward, her jade pendant catching the light. "And the personal union? We understand the principal heirs will co-own the new holding company directly. We would like the details of residence, public representation, and succession details clarified."

This time, you do cringe. You can't help it. The word succession details crawls inside of your ribcage and threatens to start corroding. She means where will you live, who gets to be the press's shining star, and who inherits if someone dies inconveniently.

Or conveniently, depending on if you die and all your assets default to the man across the table. Which is a real threat that you've talked about with your father, knowing that he could be signing you over for someone to assassinate you and claim rights to all that you own. It is exactly why the proposal keeps the shipping assets in favor of the Xu family and the banking assets in favor of your family, a shared split but a majority of both residing with the original shareholder.

Your father looks to you to answer Minghao's mother. The message is clear: you’re the woman of the family. Speak to your counterpart.

"Residence will be the penthouse at the Observatory," you answer. "It's at the edge of the Upper District near the Estate District."

"The Observatory?"

"A starter home for us to settle. When we decide to have a family, there is a private residence left to me in the Estate District as dictated by my mother's will." She leans back, pleased. Your eyes drift to Minghao. "I assume Mr. Xu has no objection to living above the clouds to start."

"Height has never bothered me," he answers. His voice is soft, but the way he says it makes the hair on your arms raise. "It's a generous gift."

You learn forward, resting your forearms on the cold table top. The sleeves of your dress ride up just enough to show the faint bruise on your left wrist, fingermarks from last week when your father decided punctuality required emphasis. You adjust the sleeve, but when you look up, you see Minghao's eyes latched to the spot.

"Public representation," you continue quickly, trying to keep him engaged, "will be joint. Galas, council meetings, the usual. We smile, we shake hands, we let the photographers snap pictures. Public image is a joint effort and a joint success."

Both of his parents nod, pleased. Minghao is still staring at your covered wrist. "As far as succession, if one of us dies, the surviving spouse inherits full voting control of the merged entity for a minimum of five years. After that, it reverts to the strongest board proxy. Standard widow's clause."

"What is your security like?"

Minghao's question catches you offguard. You're unsure if he means the traditional security you use as the heir to one of the city's richest families, or the Choi Syndicate security you use to ward people away from you. You're sure he doesn't mean the spell jars hidden in the drawers of your room or the spell oils you tinker with.

"Standard," you offer. It seems like a safe answer.

"Standard." He frowns. "I find that the standard rarely does the job."

His father starts to speak, but Minghao lifts a finger, barely a centimeter. You watch in shock as it silences his father. It's so subtle you're unsure if anyone else notices it. Strange, for a son to dictate what a father does. You file that bit of information away for later.

"Do you have a recommendation, then?" You ask. "Feel free to propose something less standard."

His mouth twitches, a ghost of amusement. "Security protocols should be put in place. Travel routes, choices of driver, general schedules, should all have a shared veto. If one of us believes a risk is unacceptable, the other yields. No appeal."

Your father makes an angry sound. "You're asking for the right to countermand my daughter's security detail? That's entirely too controlling and rather convenient if you wanted her assets."

The accusation ruffles the feathers on the other side of the table, but Minghao remains nonplussed, eyes flicking to your father. His expression has barely shifted, but there's something subtle there, something sharp.

"I'm asking," he corrects, voice soft, "That neither of us dies stupidly because the other was too proud to listen. I find that joint decisions on matters of travel and security are often best, especially considering that this marriage will be highly publicized."

"Fine," you answer before your father can object. "Shard veto, with the amendment that our security teams are jointly chosen. You may not employ any member of security who has not been vetted and agreed upon by me personally."

Minghao inclines his head. "Agreed."

Above the table, a redline version of the agreement drafts as you trade amendments. Your eyes drop down to the scar on his knuckle again. It's thin and precise, the kind of mark left by a wire garotte or a very sharp knife. Not the sort of scar you get from yachting around the world like you've been told he does frequently.

Strange. In just a short manner of time, the list of strange things about Minghao grows longer. Something about him tugs at your tuition, a feeling of premonition you can't place. 

When you look back up, Minghao is watching you. His mouth twitches and your skin burns like you've been caught. You try to work out the expression on his face, but as his mother brings up the section regarding children, it's like dunking your head into ice cold water.

"Two," she says smoothly, fixing you with a pointed stare. "Minimum. More is fine. Bloodline continuity is non-negotiable. Two is safe, should the other-"

She cuts herself off, face going white. No one speaks. Your father is stiff next to you - you don't even think he's even breathing. Luli looks like she doesn't know what to do, caught between needing to apologize and the terrible of making such a bad social faux pas.

It's a reminder that the Xu family isn't from here. Arkos isn't a city that far away, but it's foreign enough in social structure, political makeup and culture that you're reminded how hard the Xu family must have worked to adapt to Hyperion's complex pecking order and social norms, and Luli has just made a terrible mistake. Were she in a room of Hyperion socialites or Syndicate women, she'd probably never recover.

"Should the other die," you finish for her. "Yes, we're quite familiar with the concept. Two minimum makes sense. Do you have a preference on gender?"

The silence in the room is so complete you can hear the faint echo of the city outside. You wait, staring across the table, trying to do anything but think about how intimately familiar you are with parents needing an heir and a spare, especially in a city like Hyperion. Luli's lips part, then close, surprised at how quickly you've addressed her concern and moved on.

"So do you?" You ask again, eyes flicking between Minghao and his mother who glance at one another. "I'm only asking because some families still care about sons carrying the name. Saves awkward paperwork later."

"Gender is irrelevant," Minghao answers. "Healthy heirs are all that matters."

"Yes," his mother agrees. "Healthy. And timing?"

You lean back in a dead woman's chair. Not for the first time, you wonder if this is what your sister had to sit through. Though you were only a few years apart, your sister is alien to you. Unfamiliar. Did she have to sit through board rooms and negotiate terms and rights to her womb? She did have to pledge herself to a total stranger and promise to pop out heirs?"

Of course she did. You wonder if she was any good at it. You never asked her. You'd been too busy hiding away from your family in the gardens, watching butterflies land on the water lilies while the house keeper told you about craft and how certain herbs had metaphysical properties. You’d been fascinated by her and her practice, an ancient, earthy belief that most people thought was nonsense.

"Five years," you tell her. "Minimum. Our data shows that the city's current climate is not ideal for infants." You pause as the lead counsel shows the data in question. "After that, we can revisit timelines. Medical oversight may be split eighty-twenty, with my priorities and preferences emphasized."

"I would prefer-"

"Accepted," Minghao says softly, cutting off his mother. She leans back, pursing her lips. You don't know much about Xu Luli, but she looks like someone who would prefer far more control over the birth of her grandchildren. Minghao's eyes slide back to you. "A final item, if you will."

Your father gestures for him to continue. Minghao reaches inside of his pocket and produces a matte-black rectangle no larger than one of your tarot cards. There's no logo or text, so dark that it drinks the light in like his suit does. He sets it on the table and flicks it with a finger, sliding it across the table like oil slick.

You blink in surprise when you realize it's a comm device, thin enough to slice paper with the faintest holo-sheen on it. You've never seen its make before, and you look back up at him, questioning.

"A private channel," Minghao says, addressing you. "Encrypted. Off-grid. Not monitored by family, counsel, or security. For discussions that do not belong in the meeting minutes."

Next to you, your father's scoff is immediate and sharp. "She doesn't need-"

"Voluntary, of course," Minghao assures. "Either party may choose never to use it. It exists, though. Personal devices will be the main point of contact."

Xu Jian's smile is thin. "A gesture of good faith and a family tradition. The Xu family places emphasis on having direct contact with our partners in times of turmoil."

"And what turmoil do you predict to befall this city?"

Minghao's father spreads his hands. "The world is ever-changing. It is not a reactionary practice, but perhaps a proactive one."

Your father's fingers drum on the table. The rhythm is familiar - you've heard it in the back of cars, against the arm of the couch, on the top of a desk. It's the telltale sign of his increasing irritation, the need to do something with his fingers before he strikes.

After a long beat, your father nods. "Voluntary."

Minghao dips his head. "We have no other amendments."

The lead counsel taps the table. The contract above ripples, red lines bleeding into final black. A soft chime confirms transmission, and you look down to see the new draft appearing in the table's interface in front of you. Your name is already glowing in the signature line, waiting for your official sign off.

Swallowing hurts. Your throat is desert-dry as you pick up the stylus, hating the way it shakes in your hand. You grip it tighter, fighting off the tremor as you glance up instinctively.

Minghao is no longer watching you. His head is bowed, stylus moving in a single, fluid stroke that ends in a flourish. He sets the stylus down with deliberate care, aligning it parallel to the edge of the table before he looks up at you again, expectant.

You look down and sign, a nervous trickle of fear cutting through you. Once executed, the documents appear across the interface in rotation, allowing for the room to sign as witnesses. You keep your gaze fixed to the document rather than him, but you can feel the eight of his stare settle on you like a blade pressed to the hollow of your throat.

"Ajourned," your father says as soon as the final signature is to document.

Chairs roll back in a sudden rush of sound. Quiet chatter rises, the polite and rehearsed gratitude backtracking the soft shaking of hands. A side door you hadn't noticed opens and two white-gloved staff glide in with trays of chilled plum-infused water, coffee, and tiny plates of yuzu macarons dusted with gold leaf.

You cringe. The refreshments are small but you know they cost more per bite than most people in the Lower District make in a week, the display of wealth so suddenly unfamiliar to you that you feel your stomach flip.

People begin to mingle. Your father is already shaking Xu Jian's hand, voice pitched politely again. Luli is laughing at something one of the lead counsel members is saying bright and lilting.

You stand, knees shaking. The air feels a little too thick for you, your pulse a frantic bird trapped inside your ribcade. You don't bother excusing yourself verbally - no one in the room notices you. They never do. So no one stops you when you slip through the door into the corridor.

Outside the boardroom the air is cooler. You breathe in the cedar-scent, walking away from the room. Your heels are too loud and you soften your steps, making it feel like you're sneaking off. And you kind of are, honestly. You need a break, a breather from the formality and the cage of formality.

You find a smaller meeting room, windowless and lit only by a single strip of amber light along the ceiling. There's a narrow table with four chairs and nothing else. You lean back against the door for a moment, letting out the breath you'd been holding the entire meeting.

Reaching into the pocket of your blazer, you produce a silk-wrapped bundle. The cards are warm from your body heat, the silk falling away as you unwrap the tarot set. You walk toward the table, shuffling the cards. You feel your anxiety ease with the familiar weight of them in your hand, the soft schk as they shift in your fingers.

You don't even ask the deck a question. You just need the feel of them, need something familiar in this strange building with these strange people. The cards speak anyway, three cards slipping from the deck to clatter on the table, face-up.

The Tower, upright. The Moon, reversed. Death, upright.

It feels cold in the room. You stare at them, teeth working your bottom lip as you process, your eyes dragging over each guard. Lightning splitting stone. Lies and illusion dissolvering. And ending that's a beginning. It's the usual trio that's been haunting you since you drew the World, reversed a year ago.

You don't hear the door open as you look over them. It isn't until you see a shadow fall over them that you flinch, whirling around with your hand flying to your chest.

Minghao stands just inside the threshold, one hand still on the handle, the other loose at his side. He closes the door without a sound, tilting his head to peer around you at the table of cards. You step to block his line of sight, vision pounding.

"Oh, it's you-" You break off, unsure what to say. He probably has no concept of tarot cards anyway. "It's a… hobby of mine."

Minghao says nothing. He approaches with deliberate, lithe steps until he's standing next to you but with a respectable distance between you. You catch the faint scent of pine and cold air clinging to his jacket, refreshing.

"What do they mean?" He asks, voice soft. "When they fall like this? What do you see?"

"You know what they are?"

"I know it's strange that you have them. You don't strike me as a wicked woman." You frown at the term wicked woman. It's slang for the women who work backdoor craft and ritual practices - you're curious how someone of his status knows the word at all. He points to the cards on the table. "Tell me, please."

You step forward, fingers tightening around the deck. "The Tower means sudden change. The collapse of something that was supposed to be stable. Violence, sometimes."

"The Tower like the rulers of the Syndicates?"

"Yes."

He hums. "Keep going."

"The Moon reversed is lies coming undone. Secrets dragging into the light whether one wants them to or not."

"I see. And Death?"

"Death isn't always literal." You don't know why you feel the need to clarify, but you do. "It's transformation. The end of one thing so another can begin. You can fight it or you can walk through it, but you never stay the same."

Minghao is quiet for a long moment. The light bathes him half in shadow, half in light, like a dark angel. He's so beautiful it's hard to think straight for a moment, hard to realize this is the man you're going to marry.

"You're practiced at reading these, then?"

"Very. I trust very few things, but these have never lied to me."

"You're too honest," Minghao's gaze lingers on the Death card before he turns to leave, not sparing you a glance. "It will hurt you one day."

—

The night of your engagement part, the party planning committee led by Xu Luli outdoes itself. The Sky Venue at The Elysian is an architectural wonder - one hundred and thirty-three floors up, the entire top level has been gutted and rebuilt into a single floating garden suspended beneath a retractable dome of smart glass.

Tonight, the dome is open to the stars. The air is warm despite the cooling season, the climate controlled by tiny micro-drones flying around the open dome, naked to the eye. The air tastes faintly of night-blooming jasmine, and guests wander through the garden with glasses of champagne.

Waterfalls pour from above into man-made koi ponds, night lilies floating on the rippling surfaces. Servers in white silk glide past, careful to avoid the ponds as they serve golf leaf canapes and cocktails served in what you think might be diamonds. In the corner, a string quartet plays on a platform of transparent glass suspended thirty meters above the ground, music cascading down and over the crowd.

Spared no expense, someone mutters as you walk by. Of course you didn't. This is the night that your family alongside the Xu's are selling you to the city and showing off their wealth.

A statement night, really.

You stand near one of the koi pongs in a gown of liquid obsidian. There are thousands of microscopic diamonds hand-stitched into the dress, making it look like you bend the light the same way as your fiancée's suit. Your neckline plunges just enough to be daring, and the back is open to the base of your spine.

A single strand of black tourmaline beads is loped around your wrist. To anyone not paying attention, it looks like diamonds. To you, it's grounding, steadying you against the thousand eyes currently cataloguing you.

Minghao finds you before you find him. He appears at your left shoulder without a sound, a flute of champagne in his hand. You flinch when you see him - over the last two months, you've been entirely unable to adjust to the way he materializes out of thin air.

"You look like a dark priestess," he murmurs. "Very on-brand, wicked woman."

You turn to him, trying to control your pointed smile. "Call me that again and I'll make your mornings quite unpleasant. I will hide hex bags where you will never find them."

His mouth twitches. He doesn't look at you, his eyes scanning the crowd, sharp as ever. He hands you the glass and you take it, knowing better than to dismiss him in public.

"Threats already," he observes. "We're not even married yet."

"I'm not a wicked woman," you say. "It's rude to call me one. I'm a practitioner. Kind of. I wanted to be. I don't sell phony fixalls from behind a Rose Room in the Lower District."

"And what is it you practice?"

"None of your business."

He hums. "You smell of incense and herbs, wicked woman. It's nice."

"If you're trying to upset me-"

"I'm trying to distract you." He glances at you, dark eyes glittering. "You have an angry resting face. It makes people think you're unhappy to be here."

"I am unhappy."

He lets out a small sound. You realize it's amusement and you feel an odd twitch behind your ribs. "I told you already, you are too honest."

In the last two months since your engagement, your interactions with Minghao have been minimal. He is doggedly polite, formal, and stiff, saying all the right things and smiling at all the right times, but none of it is real. He's so practiced and rehearsed that at first, you thought it might be real. But the more you watch him, the more you realize that Minghao is the perfect imitator.

Except now. His poking and prodding seems in jest, though you know there's certainly something more to it, something important that you're missing. This light banter is new to you, and you dislike that he asks questions about your practice. The elite don't often take kindly to those who believe in powers beyond money and Syndicates, but Minghao seems more amused than disturbed.

You glance beyond Minghao, eyes settling on the Tower of the Choi Syndicate. You feel your mouth go dry at the sight of Choi Moojin. He stands a distance away with his wife, dressed in a bespoke midnight suit, the mountain emblem embroidered in a threat of silver at his cuff.

The Tower of the Syndicate is the single most powerful person in the room, if not the city. Though there are two other Syndicates in the city, the Choi Syndicate has been strong the last few years, gaining a slight power foothold both politically and economically.

Not territorially, though. Their loss of the Port of Hyperion being located in the Choi-dominated Warehouse District to the Yong family had been a blow, and was the entire reason that your wedding to Minghao was happening at all.

As long standing patrons dedicated to the Choi family, your union to Minghao guarantees better assurances for Choi-owned shipping freight and better sway and management with the shipping authority.

A smart match. A political one. All dictated because the Tower of the Choi Syndicate needed it. Strange, that your entire life has shifted at the command of a man you've never personally met because he needs something from you that he'll never pay you back for.

A little ways away from the Tower and his wife, their children argue. At least, that's what it looks like they're doing. Seungcheol leans against a pillar nearby, murmuring something to his sister, expression heated. She ignores him, staring out into the crowd as though she can't hear him at all.

The Choi heiress is the kind of beauty that commands the attention of the entire room, even now as her brother mutters urgently to her. Recently engaged herself, you're surprised you don't see her fiancée lurking about. You're sure that Kim Yijun was on the guest list. Instead, she ignores Seungcheol, a haunted look on her face, a beautiful dove with a broken wing. She'd looked like that the last time you'd seen her too, an empty shell of the girl you'd gone to etiquette school with.

"Strange," Minghao murmurs, drawing your attention back to him. "To see them in person."

"Why?"

"They seem normal."

"They are."

Minghao hums but doesn't answer. Perhaps he has a point - they do seem normal. But why shouldn't they? They're two of the most privileged people in the room, growing up under a banner of Syndicate peace and prosperity. Had he expected obvious criminality? Knives and guns, threats of violence?

The way he observes them with his mouth slightly downturned tells you he might have expected exactly that. He's unfamiliar with the Syndicates, and you think belatedly of the scar on his knuckles, the one you often wonder after.

You drain your champagne in one swallow. "They're here to make sure this is a union they support, not cause violence."

"The union was their idea." You cut a glance at Minghao. It's a truth that no one says outloud, least of all here. He returns your stare, his eyes inky and unreadable. "They wouldn't suggest it if they didn't support it."

"You told me being too honest would get me hurt one day. Maybe you should consider that as well."

"Should a husband not be honest with his wife?"

A passing server offers caviar on mother-of-pearl spoons. You ignore him, your eyes on the Choi heiress who turns to her brother and says something that shuts him up. Minghao gives the server a single look and sends him scurrying away, your fiancée sliding a step closer to you.

"You strike me as someone who uses truths to hide other truths," you note, looking him up and down. "You'll tell me one honest thing to make me confident while you hide six others."

Something flickers behind Minghao's eyes. It's that same flare of something like that first day you met him. Maybe surprise or recognition. You're not entirely sure, but it does something to you that you can't name, a little tug right behind your ribcage.

"Observant."

"I have to be."

"What have your cards told you about tonight?" You give Minghao a sharp look. He doesn't look at you but he sighs. "It wasn't a barb. I'm not sparring with you- not anymore, anyway. I’m trying to get to know you."

He laces his hands behind his back, waiting. Minghao is good at waiting, you've noticed. He doesn't ask for things twice, and he never clarifies himself - save for you. There is power in silence and waiting others out, and Minghao maneuvers that silence like a carefully sharpened blade that he's intimately familiar with.

"The same three cards," you tell him eventually. "The Tower. The Moon, reversed. Death."

Minghao hums. "Violent change. Illusions stripped away. Transformation."

"You don't have to pretend to believe in it for my sake."

"I don't know what I believe in. Perhaps there is some truth to your tarot and the spell jars you keep hidden in your pockets. Who is to say?"

Before you can answer, a ripple moves through the crowd. You watch as heads turn and you find the source. The Tower is moving, slow and inevitable toward you. Your heart lurches and you glance around, looking for your father, who should be here to receive this conversation, but he's nowhere to be found.

Minghao's hand settles at the small of your back, making you swallow thickly. The heat of his palm against your skin is an inferno, but it grounds you as the Tower approaches with his wife, children and Wisdom in tow.

You glance at Yoon Minji, the Wisdom of the Choi Syndicate. You hadn't noticed her at first, the woman a near imperceptible shadow lurking behind the Tower's wife. She's dressed in a blue so dark that it's almost black, hair pulled back and slick as oil. Her son is at her side, a twin shadow that you have heard is her image in more than just physical likeness.

Choi Moojin stops an arm's length away. Up close, he's larger than you remember, the kind of presence that fills up a room and makes you feel small. His eyes are fathomless, but surprisingly warm, a weird offset to the danger you know he poses.

"You look beautiful," he says, voice soft. "Congratulations on your engagement. Your families must be proud, you're an exquisite couple with good taste."

You dip at the knees and lower your head, bowing as deep as decorum for the moment demands. "Thank you, Tower. Your blessing is appreciated."

Seungcheol steps around his father, offering his hand to Minghao while his sister lingers behind him, a strange look on her face as she watches you, almost like panic. Her brother shakes Minghao's hand firmly before he takes yours and kisses the top politely. "Congratulations."

Minghao's fingers flex against your spine, the tiniest pressure before you drop Seungcheol's hand and the Choi's drift away. You feel yourself exhale as they do, relief flooding your system at their obvious approval. The Mountain will stand behind your marriage, which is as good as signing the paper and saying your vows.

The Wisdom goes with the Choi's, dipping her head toward you with a small smile that unsettles you, but her son lingers, drifting closer with a lazy grin.

Jeonghan offers a hand to Minghao. "A union of banking and shipping. Tell me, does love come standard with the merger, or is that an optional upgrade?

It's crass. From what you know of Yoon Jeonghan, it isn't surprising that he likes to see you squirm. Though he's next in line to be the Wisdom of the Choi Syndicate when his mother steps down from the title, you're unsure if he's suited for it if he can't help but make inappropriate barbs at an engagement party.

You have half the mind to tell him so, but it's Minghao who answers, a sharp smile on his face as he shakes Jeonghan's hand. "We prefer equity over love."

Jeonghan laughs, delighted. "Enjoy the party. Congratulations on your union."

With a final wink, Jeonghan drifts away, chasing after Seungcheol who is arguing with his sister again. The Tower ignores his children, clapping someone on the back from Nexus Capital's board of directors.

Minghao's hand slides from your back to your wrist, thumb brushing the tourmaline bracelet once before he drops his hand entirely. You don't dare look at him. The touch is intimate and softer than you expect. It unsettles you that it’s the softest bit of warmth anyone has shown you in years.

Your fiancée waves to a group of people familiar to him but not to you. You expect him to lead you over and introduce you, but he doesn't, drifting away from you with a final look that you can't read. You watch him go, the place where his hand rested burning like a brand.

-

Your new penthouse is too large for two people. You knew that before you moved in, but with someone as quiet and absent as Minghao, it feels like you're on your own most days.

The penthouse occupies the entire crown of the residences at The Observatory in the northeast corner of the Upper District. Your new home is four thousand square feet of smoked glass, matte black steel, and pale ash wood that leaves the home cold.

The main living space is a single open expanse, the kitchen bleeding into the dining room and lounger. Floor to ceiling windows frame the open space on three sides, letting in the spill of city flights on a clear night. Tonight, it's cloudy, the fog on the glass pressing close and obscuring the world. It makes you feel like you're in your own dimension far away from Hyperion.

Your bedroom is in the east wing of the apartment, Minghao's is in the west. Two totally opposite ends of the space you're supposed to share together. Live in together. Be married in together. He'd requested your rooms remain separate, and though it hadn't bothered you at first, it does now.

It doesn't matter what bothers you, though. There's no one around to complain to. Your days have settled into a brittle sort of rhythm: you get up at seven to go to the gym to find him already gone. You never see him leave but when you make your mugwort and lemon tea, the kettle is always warm. He returns sometime between nine and noon, hair damp, expression icy. He gives you a polite nod, then vanishes to his wing of the apartment.

No words. Nothing.

You spend the hours alone learning the layout of your home. It's different from the rolling estate of your family. Smaller and bigger all at once, lacking the intricacies and oddities of a home that has been in a family for generations.

The windows never open - you suppose that makes sense, this high up. The air is triple-filtered and scent-neutralised, making the rooms feel dead and clinical. You decide to combat this every Wednesday after the cleaners have gone.

As soon as they're gone, you begin your work. The routine is simple, nothing extravagant. You take a small bundle of palo santo from the tin you keep with your tea and light one end, letting the sweet smoke rise. With the woody smoke drifting from the lit end, you walk the apartment slowly, clockwise while thinking on your intentions.

You trail the smoke along the windows, under the sofa, around the legs of the stools at the island. You grow hesitant when you near Minghao's room, but you let the smoke drift toward his door anyway. You don't open it, but your hands trace the doorframe, a small peace offering.

As you work, your mind empties save for your little intentions: peace, protection, harmony. You're kneeling in the middle of the living room, passing the palo santo beneath the low coffee table one last time when the front door opens without warning. You sit rod straight, turning to see Minghao come into the apartment. Your eyes flick to the clock and you frown. He's early today.

He's dressed in black workout clothes, hair damp, a bottle of water dangling in one hand. He stops the moment he sees you.

Smoke curls between you. He says nothing and neither do you. You half expect a question, a raised brow, anything. He looks at the palo santo in your hand, the thin ribbon of smoke, and then back to you. Something shifts in his expression that you can't place, but he doesn't say anything.

Instead, he steps carefully to the kitchen, giving you a wide berth despite the physical distance already between you, and opens the fridge. He takes out a second bottle of water, and sets it on the island counter top toward you.

"You look dehydrated," is all he says before he tips his head and walks back to his wing.

You remain on your knees, staring at him, lips parted a little. His bedroom door shuts with a distant click, leaving you in the silence and the curling smoke.

Eventually, you get up, knees cracking as you do. You feel a little dizzy and realize you are thirsty. You have no idea how he was able to clock that you're dehydrated by simply looking at you, but you file it away as one of Minghao's oddities, a neverending list that points to him not being the arrogant rich kid you expected.

Heading to the counter, you grab the water, the condensation on the bottle cold and exactly what you needed. As you drink it, Minghao surprises you by coming back out, a bag over his shoulder. You frown, eyes dropping to the bag.

"I'll be gone for three days," he tells you. "I'll see you on the morning of the third day."

"Where are you going?"

"Business." You don't like the ambiguity, but he's already halfway out the door. He hesitates and turns to you, mouth opening and closing as he chooses his next words carefully. "This is your home. Practice how you'd like."

"Pardon?"

"Your… practice. You don't need to hide it from me, Wicked."

You scowl. "I told you not to call me a wicked woman."

His mouth tilts. "I'm not. Simply wicked, is all. Not quite a wicked woman, not quite a practitioner, hmm?"

You glare through his logic and he shrugs, heading for the door and slipping through like smoke.

-

"Here," you say softly, shoving a bundle into Minghao's hand. He raises his brows, eyes skirting the crowd around you. "This is for you."

It's not the best time to give him the gift, but Minghao is never at the penthouse and keeps hours strange enough that you almost never see him despite living with him. The charity auction for the Archaeology Restoration Fund swells around you under the floating sky of the Lumina Tower, but as a moment of quiet opens up while you're standing next to the orchid walls, you take your change.

His dark eyes flick to your face, then back to the offering. He unwraps the silk with careful fingers, revealing the bracelet nestled inside. It is a deep blood-red cord, braided deliberately by your own hands over several quiet nights in the penthouse. Woven into the threads are three fine strands of your own hair, unmistakeable. At the center hangs a small, polished azabache charm, a piece of jet stone you sourced a few days ago. The stone is smooth and cool, carved with subtle protective sigils only visible under the right light.

He stares at it for a long moment, thumb brushing over the braided cord and the jet stone. Something unreadable flickers across his features before he quickly schools it away.

“You made this?” His voice is low, almost cautious.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"The red is for strength and safety. The azabache is for warding off the evil eye. The hair binds my intention."

"It's not a curse?" You scowl and his mouth twitches. "You threatened to hex me, forgive my hesitation."

Minghao turns the bracelet slowly in his fingers, the azabache catching the soft light. He runs his thumb over the braided strands of your hair, expression softening by the smallest degree. "You continue to surprise me."

"Yeah, well. You don't have to wear it if you don't want to."

Minghao is quiet for another long beat. Then, without a word, he slips the red bracelet onto his right wrist. The contrast of the vivid red cord against his black suit and pale skin is striking. He flexes his hand once, as if testing how it feels, then looks back at you.

"Thank you." There's no mockery or deflection as he lowers his hand. "I'll wear it."

"Don't read too much into it."

"Hm. Too late. Thank you, Wicked."

For a moment, the nickname sounds fond instead of teasing, and the noise of the gala fades. The glowing orchids, the drifting lanterns, the murmur of high society - all of it recedes and leaves the two of you standing in this small pocket of quiet among the spectacle.

-

When you were a little girl, you always imagined that your wedding might be somewhere in a forest, somewhere where forests still legitimately existed. You'd be barefoot, feet planted firmly on a mossy ground, and your hands would be bound in red ribbon to your lover, covered binding oil distilled from flowers and herbs over your wrists until the ribbons were saturated and heavy with the smell of herbs.

This wedding is not that.

The air in the bridal suite is scented heavily with orchids and warm vanilla, the florals spilling over their vases and decorating every surface even here when no one can see them. You stand motionless before the towering mirror, the weight of your gown weighing you down as attendants move around you, adjusting the train of your dress and the butterfly-delicate gossamer of your veil.

Thankfully, the gown is a little like what you imagined. Forgoing the traditional white, it's made of layers of midnight silk, covered in thousands of hand-stitched obsidian beats and microscopic diamonds that fracture in the recessed lighting, turning it into layers of constellations. It spills dramatically into a trail of inky fabric.

You'd commissioned the dress six weeks ago, requesting the design to echo the deep, light-devouring suits Minghao favored. It was a deliberate statement of unity, power, and ultimately, ownership. You'd done it on purpose, and your father had approved when he'd seen it for the first time this morning.

A small win.

Your fingers drift beneath the long sleeve on your left wrist, tracing the black tourmaline and jasper cord hidden against your skin. The cord feels warm, a quiet tether to something older and more certain than the spectacle awaiting you. You breathe deliberately - four counts in, four out. It calms the frantic bird trapped behind your ribs, but only barely.

The reflection in the mirror is alien to you. You've never seen yourself look more elegant and composed, but inside you still feel like the little girl who collected moon water in jars and whispered secrets into manifestation journals.

Beyond the heavy double doors, the ceremony garden waits. The Garden of Eden is one of the city's finest venues, a floral dream suspended three hundred floors above Hyperion's rain-slicked streets. Real, living soil fills massive engineered beds through the space with towering tropical ferns planted, their glossy fronds glinting with dew. Multiple water falls cascade from tiered rock formations into koi ponds, the splash audible even from behind closed doors.

You'd chosen the venue because it was the closest thing you could get to the living earth in Hyperion. Minghao's mother had chosen it because it was the most luxurious venue she'd ever had access to up until now, a haven reserved for the elite. The commonfolk of Hyperion didn't have access to house plants, much less the night-blooming jasmine climbing up trellises and arches or the deep blood-red roses and exotic orchids dotting the aisles.

Hundreds of guests are already seated under the domed ceiling with an engineered twilight sky. Hidden audio systems weave strings and the resonant hum of crystal bowls through the space, frequencies chosen to evoke harmony and solemnity. You can hear the din of the crowd over the sounds, the Upper District elites shimmering in jewels and silks worth more than entire city blocks.

A soft knock interrupts your thoughts. Mina, your lead attendant, slips inside. She's only a few years older than you, but she's sharp-eyed and had years of service with your family, previously working with your sister. You don't mind her - she's not a friend, but she's also not unfriendly, which you'll take.

“It’s time, miss," she informs you. "The Tower and his family are seated and the Xu family is positioned. The garden is ready."

You nod once, throat tight and dry. There is no escape. The contracts were signed in that cold boardroom months ago. You'd known since the moment your sister died that this is what your life was now - the Tower upright, sudden change. The moon reversed, lies coming undone. Death, upright, great transformation. You'd been pulling the same cards for months, each the same thing.

It was the universe's way of telling you that this was your fate, as inescapable as any hard law or scientific rule.

Fragrant air greets you in the corridor. The staircase is full of flowers and dripping in vines, the steps covered in moss and trailing ivy that release sweet smells with every step. Swallowing, you walk down the stairs carefully, attendants behind you and ensuring you don't trip until you're at the bottom of the staircase behind a private screen, preparing to turn the corner and walk down the aisle.

Taking a breath, you turn the corner. Your heart pounds in rhythm with the distant music as the aisle comes into full view. The aisle stretches in front of you, a pathway edge with living white orchids. The ceremony cuts right through the heart of a lush garden, mist curling around the guests feet as they rise, hundreds of them moving in a wave of silk and murmurs.

Eyes track you from every angle - envy, calculation, hunger, approval, curiosity - but you keep your gaze fixed forward, suddenly latching to the man waiting beneath the grand arch of vines and cascading blooms.

Minghao is a shadow given form. He's dressed in black on black, the fabric so absolutely it seems to absorb the light and color from the greenery. His hair is styled longer, framing the exquisite balance of his face. His eyes find yours instantly, intense and unreadable, a stillness that calls to you.

Your pulse thunders as you start the walk. The train trails behind, gently managed by two young attendants as mist from the nearest waterfall kisses your skin, cooling the heat rising in your cheeks. Anxiety coils tight in your stomach, a living serpent, but you move with the trained grace of someone who has practiced this exact path in rehearsals. Future matriarch. Bride. Pawn in a larger game of shipping lanes, banking power, and Syndicate alliances. You wonder if your sister felt this same suffocating weight on her own path or if it was cut too short to ever consider it.

When you reach the altar platform, Minghao extends his hand. You offer him yours, hating the way your hands shake. He grips your hand firmly, and the contact sends a subtle spark up your arm, grounding amid the overwhelming sensory storm of the garden. For a single heartbeat, the hundreds of eyes, the cameras, and everything else recedes, leaving only you and Minghao.

His eyes are fathomless, easy to lose yourself in. His hand tightens a fraction around yours, his eyes only for you. "Temperance upright," he murmurs, only to you. "Patience. Balance. You embody those qualities. I appreciate them."

You blink in surprise when you realize he's talking about the tarot cards. You don't know what to say, the compliment stunning you, but Minghao doesn't wait for you to respond. His eyes flick to the officiant, a respected and neutral legal arbiter provided by Hyperion's council for this special occasion. She's dressed formally, her face perfect and impassive, making it impossible to tell how old she is.

Her voice is solemn but commanding as she urges the guests to sit, the ceremony beginning. Your hand remains in Minghao's, dropped between your waists as you stare ahead with unseeing eyes. You hear the officiant's voice, but you barely hear the words, your pulse loud in your ears as your heart hammers, each word spoken another piece of your sealed fate.

Ahead, the officiant speaks of alliance between houses and the merging of love and families. When you exchange rings, your hands are shaking again, stilled only by Minghao's gentle fingers as he clasps your hand to steady you, helping you slide the plain obsidian band onto his fingers, his sleeve pulling up just slightly to reveal his red bracelet.

Your ring is just as dark, inlaid with gold leaf and precious black stones that make it glimmer and flash dangerously. It feels heavy. Permanent. You watch as his nimble fingers slide it onto your hand, the single scar on his finger catching the light.

"Say the vows," the officiant instructs softly.

"I take you as my husband," you start, nearly whispering. You glance up at him and he nods a fraction, urging you to continue. You continue, voice clearer. "I vow to stand beside you in shadow and in light, in power and in duty, in prosperity and in peril, until this union is dissolved by law or by death."

Minghao doesn't miss a beat. "I take you as my wife. I vow to stand beside you in shadow and in light, in power and in duty, in prosperity and in peril, until death."

"It's-"

He cuts off the officiant's correction. "I know the words."

Your heart flutters, Minghao's choice to skip until this union is dissolved by law or by death a deliberate choice. Somehow it feels more powerful the way he's said it, like he's promising only death can tear you away from him. You think perhaps it's just the last bits of you clinging to the idea of romance, the idea of love that makes you feel that way.

The officiant pronounces you husband and wife and thunderous applause erupts, mixing with the hush of the waterfalls. Minghao lifts your face toward his with careful fingers, his touch lingering at your jaw, fingers gentle as they tilt your face upward. His eyes flicker with something so quickly you don't catch the emotion, and then he's leaning forward, pressing a brief, chaste kiss to your lips. He tastes faintly of wine, the touch lingering as he pulls away quickly.

Husband and wife. The words sink deep, heavy as the rings now on your fingers.

-

The reception is an ode to extravagance that most people cannot fathom. Spanning across three floors, each level opens into cascading terraces of real gardens with multi-tiered waterfalls feeding into glowing pools where rare bioluminescent koi swirl and swim. Walls of ferns, flowering vines, and fruit-bearing trees create alcoves with glass benches and trickling fountains. Each table is overflowing with food that won't be eaten, servers passing by with platters of rare chocolates dusted in edible gold and endless flutes of vintage wines and champagnes.

You navigate the crowd at Minghao’s side, his hand a near-constant presence at the small of your back. The contact is grounding for you but probably possessive in the eyes of your onlookers - and there are many. But only a single onlooker matters tonight, and as Choi Moojin approaches with his wife, you feel your spine go rigid until he offers his formal congratulations and blessing. As always, his daughter lingers nearby with that familiar haunted expression, her brother behind her like a shadowed gargoyle.

You smile until your cheeks ache. You exchange pleasantries with board members, accept compliments on the dress, the venue, the fabricated love story fed to the press. The floral scents grow heavier, the constant murmur of voices and music pressing against your temples. The bird in your chest flutters more desperately with every passing minute, and after nearly an hour and a half of relentless performance, you need a break.

"I need a moment," you murmur to him. "I'm just going to go to the upper powder room terrace. I'll be brief."

He studies your face carefully, then nods. “Take Mina and let security know where you're going."

You slip away with your attendant after telling security where you're going and getting their nod of affirmation before they mutter instructions into an earpiece. Mist from a nearby waterfall cools you off as you walk up the stairs, Mina helping with the heavy train. When you're finally alone on a private terrace, security just outside, you let yourself relax against a stone fountain, drawing in deep breaths of the mineral-rich air.

For the first time since the ceremony began, your practiced smile slips. Your feet hurt, your neck and shoulders ache, and you're starving, wishing you could stop the pleasantries for a moment to just eat. 

A small, wet gasp cuts through the peaceful trickle of the fountain and you spin around, startled. Time fractures as you try to put the pieces together of the image in front of you. A man dressed as a server with the lower half of his face obscured by a mask stands directly behind Mina, a gloved hand clamped over her mouth while she screams into his palm. He draws a sharp blade across the softness of her throat, scarlet spraying.

Mina's eyes widen in terror, locking onto yours for a single, agonizing heartbeat before they glaze over, her body convulsing once before she goes limp. Blood pours down the attacker's arm and down the front of her uniform, spilling red onto the terrace floor.

A scream rips from your throat, raw and primal, echoing off the stone walls. "Security!"

No footsteps thunder toward you. No shouts of alarm. The doors remain closed. The posted guards don't answer your call, and the music and laughter from the reception floors below continue uninterrupted, as if the universe itself has muted you.

Terror floods your system like ice water. Your heart slams against your ribs so violently you feel it in your throat. Adrenaline surges, sharpening every sense while simultaneously making your limbs feel distant and heavy.

Your right hand dives into the hidden slit of your gown, fingers closing around the small, discreet knife you've kept on your person since your sister's death. You yank it free, gripping the handle with enough force that your knuckles hurt as you pivot from the fountain, putting it at your back for a sliver of protection.

The attacker releases Mina’s collapsing body and he crumples to the ground in a heap of blood-soaked fabric, her eyes open and staring. The masked figure turns toward you with predatory calm.

"Security!" You scream again, the sound of your voice bouncing off the terrace walls.

No one answers, and a single, horrifying realization crashes over you - either the guards have been compromised or they're dead, and this attack was timed with terrifying precision.

There's no time to think as the attacker lunges.

You twist desperately to the side, the blade whistling past your ribs by inches. The movement throws you off balance on the wet stone, but you slash out wildly with your own knife, catching the attacker’s sleeve and drawing a thin line of blood. He grunts angrily and pivots, his knife slashing at you again. You duck and stumble backward, the fountain’s stone foundation scraping painfully against your hip as you use it to keep distance.

Fear is a living thing inside you now, clawing at your lungs, making every breath sharp and ragged. I’m going to die here. On my wedding night. In front of a fucking fountain while people drink and celebrate without knowing. The thought fuels a desperate surge of fury and you lunge at him this time, catching him off guard as you stab upward.

You manage to nick him, but you don't know how to fight and his retaliation of your anger is brutal as his knife flashes against and slices across your forearm, cutting through silk and skin in a burning line of pure agony. Blood pours instantly, hot and slick down your wrist and hand, making your grip on your own knife slippery and you scream out in pain.

A second strike follows before you can recover, a deep gash opening up across your upper left arm as you turn away from him. The pain is white-hot and blinding, and you let out another choked, animal sound as your vision narrows, blood roaring in your ear.

Every heartbeat sends fresh agony through the gashes, but terror keeps you moving. You kick out hard, your heel connecting with the attacker’s knee and he staggers but recovers easily, closing the distance to kill.

And then Minghao is there, exploding onto the terrace like a force of nature. One moment he's at the door, the next he's a blur of controlled violence as the killer turns to face the more immediate threat. Minghao is fast, stepping inside the man's guard, hand shooting out to grip his wrist and twist with bone-cracking force. A sickening crunch echoes and the man screams, the blade clattering to the ground.

The man swings with his free hand, but Minghao ducks under the wild punch with fluid precision, driving his elbow upward into the man’s throat in a devastating strike. The sound is wet and choked, the cartilage shattering under Minghao's elbow.

You stumble backward against the fountain’s stone foundation, left arm hanging useless and burning, blood streaming down your fingers in hot rivulets. Your own small knife trembles in your right hand, slick with blood. Fear still claws at your throat, tight and awful as Minghao - your husband for less than two hours - moves like something trained for this exact kind of violence. The polished, soft-spoken heir from the boardroom is gone. In his place is something sharper, darker, and far more dangerous.

The attacker tries to recover, lashing out with a desperate kick, but Minghao catches the leg, yanks it forward, and slams his knee into the man’s inner thigh with brutal force, dropping him to one knee. Then Minghao is behind him, a single arm snaking around the attacker's neck. For a second, your eyes meet Minghao's, his gaze ice and fire all at once. Then, he snaps the man's neck hard, the crack loud and final.

The attacker’s body goes limp instantly, collapsing in a heap beside Mina’s body. Blood pools beneath both bodies, mixing with the water from the fountain and staining the delicate white orchids that edge the stone paving.

Minghao is heaving, catching his breath as he stares at you across the violent terrace. He takes a single step toward you before chaos erupts in the doorway, heavy footsteps thundering across the stone as members of the Choi Syndicate flood the space. Seungcheol is in the room first, face like thunder and gun in hand. Jeonghan is behind him, the lazy smirk gone and replaced with deadly focus, armed and gun raised over Seungcheol's shoulder.

Seeing Soonyoung surprises you - you hadn't realized the Sword of the Choi family was here. You'd heard he'd been unpredictable and unhinged as of late, but from what little you knew of him, he was Seungcheol's first line of defense and probably went everywhere the Tower's son did.

Behind him, you vaguely recognize another Sword of the Choi family speaking into a comm at his wrist. You've met Joshua several times at galas and parties, his family high up enough in the Choi Syndicate to run in the elite circles - you even remember them being disappointed he'd become a Sword instead of a socialite or something less violent.

More personnel pour in behind them, your father’s security, Nexus Capital executives, event staff in panicked disarray. The peaceful mist of the terrace turns thick with the metallic stench of blood and the overlapping shouts of orders while you lean against the fountain, light-headed and bleeding.

Your father’s voice cuts through the noise like a whip. “Shut it down! Shut the entire fucking wedding down! Seal the floors now!" He pushes through the growing crowd, face flushed with fury. “I want this building locked. Find out how the hell this happened under our security! Someone’s head will roll for this!”

The chaos swells. Guests from the lower levels begin to murmur and push upward as rumors spread like wildfire. Security teams from both families clash in their attempts to take control, voices rising in overlapping commands. Someone is already photographing the bodies. Another is calling for medical extraction.

Through it all, Minghao moves straight to you.

“Everyone back!” he barks, voice sharp as Nexus Capital security moves toward you. "I will handle my wife. Get away from her."

Minghao sits you on the edge of the fountain, the water spraying your back and soaking through your dress. He drops to his knees in front of you, shrugging off his jacket in one fluid motion and pressing the expensive fabric hard against the deep gashes on your left arm. The pressure sends fresh waves of white-hot pain radiating through your shoulder and chest, but you bite back a cry.

“Breathe," he instructs, voice soft. "In for four, out for four."

You look at him sharply. "How do you know that?"

"You did it the entire time we were at the altar, Wicked. Where are you hurt?"

"Cuts on my arms."

"Deep? Tell me ba-"

Your father pushes closer, still shouting as he interupts whatever Minghao was about to say. “Minghao, let my people handle this. We need to get her to a secure-"

“No,” Minghao snaps, rising to his full height while pulling you to his side, hands pressed against your wounds to staunch the bleeding. “No one touches her except me right now. This is my wife. My responsibility.”

The possessiveness in his tone sends a strange shiver through you, mixing with the adrenaline and pain. He begins guiding you slowly away from the fountain, toward the far side of the terrace where the chaos is slightly less suffocating, his hands never leaving the wounds, applying constant, firm pressure.

Joshua separates himself from the Syndicate group and approaches carefully, hands raised in a clear non-threatening gesture. Minghao pulls you away but you squeeze his arm and whisper, "Syndicate. High up. Don't offend him."

"I don't care-"

"I can help," Joshua cuts in, earnest and gentle. "My fiancée is here tonight. She’s an ER nurse and is always prepared because I'm a bit of a disaster. She has supplies in her bag. Let her patch your wife quickly and privately. We can move to the adjacent private lounge. It’s secure.”

Minghao’s jaw tightens and his eyes flick to you, assessing the amount of blood still soaking through his jacket and the way your legs are beginning to tremble. For a long second, he seems ready to refuse. Then he gives a single, curt nod. “Briefly. Privately. No one else comes near her.”

Joshua signals quickly. A moment later, a woman in an elegant deep emerald gown slips through the crowd, escorted by a man you don't know. Her expression is focused and professional, despite the surrounding chaos. She doesn't waste time with introductions, marching toward the small, adjoining private lounge just off the terrace.

Inside, the space is quiet, dimly lit with warm amber lighting, furnished with low couches and lush potted plants. She works with swift efficiency, focused on helping instead of introducing herself. She orders Minghao to keep pressure on your wounds while she cuts away parts of your dress to clean the gashes with antiseptic. The sting makes you hiss through your teeth, fresh tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. Minghao’s free hand finds yours, squeezing gently, surprising you.

"Cuts are deep but clean," she says, voice clinical. "No major vessels hit. You’ll need proper stitches and antibiotics soon, but this will hold for now."

She applies quick-acting clotting powder, then wraps your forearm and upper arm in tight bandages. The pressure is firm, immediate relief against the constant bleeding. Throughout it all, Minghao stays close, one hand on your back, the other assisting where needed.

Your mind spins. Mina’s lifeless eyes flash behind your eyelids every time you blink. The wet sound of her gasp. The way the attacker moved, professional, silent, deadly. This wasn’t random. This was targeted. On your wedding night. In the middle of the most public spectacle Hyperion has seen in years with some of the heaviest security you've ever been around.

You glance up at Minghao. His face is a mask of controlled fury, but his touch on you remains careful, almost tender as the woman finishes securing the last bandage.

"That'll hold until you get her to her own private care."

“Thank you,” you manage, voice hoarse and shaky. The pain is still there, a deep, throbbing burn, but it is no longer actively bleeding you out.

Minghao helps you to your feet, keeping his arm securely around your waist. He nods once at Joshua and his fiancée. "We're leaving."

Joshua nods and opens the door, letting you back into the chaos.

Outside, your father is still shouting orders to shut everything down, demanding answers, threatening careers. Syndicate members move through the growing crowd like shadows, securing perimeters. Soonyoung and Seungcheol stand guard near the doors, expressions grim while Jeonghan leans against a wall, watching everything with those sharp, unreadable eyes.

Minghao keeps you tucked firmly against his side as he guides you out of the private lounge and through the swelling chaos of the upper terrace. His arm around your waist is unyielding, taking most of your weight while his other hand maintains relentless pressure on your bandaged left arm.

Every step sends fresh throbs of pain radiating through the deep gashes, but the clotting powder and tight wraps are holding. Still, warm blood seeps slowly through the bandages, staining the sleeve of your ruined obsidian gown. The once-beautiful dress now hangs heavy and ruined, torn silk clinging wetly to your skin.

“Clear a path,” Minghao growls, cutting through the crowd.

Syndicate members fall in around you without question, creating a protective bubble as he steers you toward a discreet service corridor hidden behind a wall of flowering vines. The lush greenery brushes against your shoulders, leaving faint pollen and the sweet scent of jasmine on your skin. Mist from the waterfalls still clings to the air, now carrying the unmistakable metallic tang of blood.

Your head spins. The adrenaline that kept you upright during the fight is crashing hard, leaving your legs unsteady and your vision edged with black spots. You lean heavier into Minghao’s side, inhaling the faint pine and rain scent that always seems to cling to him. He doesn’t falter. His grip only tightens, steady and sure.

The private exit corridor is dimly lit with recessed amber lighting, two armed guards stationed at the end snapping to attention when they see Minghao, stepping aside instantly. A reinforced service elevator waits. Inside, the space feels claustrophobic, the mirrored walls reflecting your bloodied, disheveled appearance back to you.

Minghao says nothing. He simply helps you out when the elevator doors open directly into an underground private garage reserved for the highest tier of guests. . An armored black car idles, its engine humming. The driver steps out briefly to open the rear door and Minghao helps you inside first, easing you onto the leather seat with surprising care before sliding in beside you. The door seals with a heavy, reassuring thunk, and the car pulls away smoothly.

Minghao leans forward toward the driver and speaks in a fluid, melodic language you have never heard before, making you frown. It doesn’t sound like any of the common trade tongues used in Hyperion or Arkos, but the syllables roll off his tongue with effortless familiarity, carrying the weight of something old. One of the dead languages, you think. The driver responds in the same tongue, short and affirmative, before accelerating.

You stare at Minghao, startled. He settles back against the seat. His suit is ruined with your blood, the dark black of his shirt somehow darker. His hair is slightly disheveled for the first time since you met him, a few strands falling across his forehead. His eyes are sharp and unblinking, fixed entirely on you. He hasn’t relaxed. Not even slightly. His posture remains coiled, ready, one hand resting on his knee while the other occasionally flexes as if wanting to reach for a weapon.

You swallow hard, meeting his gaze head-on. “Was that your people? Did your family arrange this? To test me? To test the alliance?”

Minghao doesn’t look away. His expression remains unreadable, but something flickers behind his dark eyes. “I’m not sure."

The honesty lands like a stone in still water. No deflection. No smooth corporate reassurance. Just the stark truth that unsettles you more than any lie could have. In a world built on calculated performances and half-truths, his directness feels dangerous and alien.

You let out a shaky breath, leaning your head back against the cool leather. The city lights streak across his face in shifting patterns of neon violet and electric blue.

“Thank you,” you whisper after a long moment. “For saving me."

Minghao’s jaw tightens. "You’re no use to my family dead.”

The words aren't kind or romantic. They carry no warmth, no reassurance. Still, they're true. In this transactional marriage of power, your survival is an asset. The bluntness stings a little, and it unsettles you. He's repeatedly told you that honesty would get you killed, and hear he is being honest himself.

Well. Honest to hide other truths, you're sure, as is his way.

You study him in the shifting light. The scar on his right knuckle stands out pale against the dried blood on his hands and you're reminded of the way he dismantled the attacker. It wasn't a survival reflex like your clumsy attempt had been - it was the training of someone who practiced and who fought efficiently, someone professional.

"Who are you?" You ask, narrowing your eyes. The car glides through a tunnel, plunging you both into momentary shadow before neon lights wash over you again. “You’re not who my family was led to believe. That wasn’t the fighting style of a logistics prince. You killed him like you’ve done it before.”

Minghao’s gaze hardens. He leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees, watching you with that intense, cataloguing stare that makes your skin prickle. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

The warning hangs between you and you can feel the weight of his hidden truths again. None of it makes sense - the scar, the ancient-sounding language, the way his father deferred to him with a single finger twitch in that boardroom. Something isn't right with Xu Minghao, but you don't know what.

"I think I deserve to know who I just married," you say evenly. You ignore the warning, the throbbing in your arm. "My family thought they were allying with a neutral shipping empire from Arkos but you fight like someone who was trained to kill. You played into being an idiot party boy. You are not."

Minghao exhales slowly through his nose. For the first time, you see a flicker of something almost like weariness cross his features. He leans back again, eyes never leaving yours.

“This marriage is transactional,” he says evenly. “You don’t need to know everything about me. You only need to know that you're my wife and I would go through great pains to keep you alive. It has to be enough.”

The finality in his tone closes the subject like a door slamming shut. You want to argue, to demand more, but the pain in your arm is sharpening as adrenaline fully ebbs, and exhaustion is pulling at the fraying edges of your patience.

Minghao continues watching you, tense and alert, as if expecting another threat to emerge from the shadows at any moment. His hands, still stained red, rest on his thighs as the armored car glides through the upper levels of Hyperion’s streets, the neon sprawl of the city reduced to blurred streaks of violet, crimson, and electric blue beyond the tinted windows.

The car eventually slows and turns into a private underground entrance beneath a sleek, unmarked residential spire in the Upper District. Not the Observatory penthouse you selected as your starter home, but something else. A contingency location, you realize. One of the secure safehouses that must have been part of the joint security protocols you both negotiated and approved during those long, tense meetings.

When the vehicle comes to a stop, Minghao exits first, then reaches in to help you out with careful hands. His arm slides around your waist again, supporting your weight as your legs threaten to buckle on the polished concrete. Two figures step forward immediately from the shadows of the garage, security personnel you recognize from the joint vetting process you and Minghao conducted weeks ago.

A woman named Elara with sharp eyes and a calm demeanor, and a man named Kai, broad-shouldered and quiet. They were among the handful both of you had personally approved after rigorous background checks and interviews. Neutral. Capable. Unaligned with either family’s deeper entanglements.

“Status?” Minghao asks them.

“All clear, sir,” Elara replies. “The building is locked down. Three additional teams on the perimeter. No unauthorized movement.”

Minghao nods once, satisfied, and guides you toward the private elevator. The ride upward is silent except for the soft hum of machinery. When the doors open, you step into a spacious, fortified apartment that is elegant but deliberately understated compared to the Observatory penthouse.

Minghao leads you straight to a wide, low couch in the main living area, easing you down with surprising gentleness. Elara and Kai take up positions near the entrance, professional and unobtrusive. A medical attendant has already been prepared in an adjoining room, but Minghao waves off immediate further treatment for now.

He kneels in front of you, his bloodstained hands resting lightly on your knees as he studies your face. For a long moment, the only sound is the soft hum of the building’s air filtration system and the distant murmur of the city far below.

“I need one of your little wicked jars,” he says quietly. “The one you’re still hiding on yourself.”

You blink, startled despite the fog of pain and exhaustion. "Why? And how do you even know I have one?”

Minghao’s mouth twitches, the faintest bit of amusement. “I’m observant.” He glances meaningfully at the torn sleeve of your gown where the bandages peek through, then back to your eyes. “And considering you’re still alive after what just happened, they must work. I would like to keep one with me for what I’m about to go do.”

"What are you about to go do?"

"Something very violent."

The request hangs between you and you hesitate before you lift your trembling fingers to reach into the hidden inner pocket sewn deep into the bodice of your dress. The small glass jar is still there, warm from your body heat. Black salt, rosemary, hematite, sealed with wax and a drop of your blood. You press it into his waiting palm. The glass looks small against his bloodstained fingers.

Minghao closes his hand around it carefully before tucking it into the inner pocket of his ruined suit jacket. "Thank you."

He rises to his feet, but doesn’t step away immediately. Instead, he looks down at you with that intense, unreadable gaze. “Do not leave this safehouse until I return. Elara and Kai have their orders and they answer to us both. Doctor Tzintzun is here - I understand she is your family doctor."

You nod. "Be careful. Please."

Minghao lingers one final second. His thumb brushes a stray strand of hair from your forehead in a gesture so unexpectedly gentle it contrasts sharply with the violence you witnessed barely an hour ago. It makes your heart skip, the breath getting stuck in your lungs for a moment. Then the mask slips back into place, the familiar cool and controlled calm you know.

He lifts his wrist, flashing the bracelet you gave him. "You’re protecting me, right? I'll be fine. I’ll return before dawn. Rest. Let the doctor fix your arm, Wicked."

He turns and walks toward the entrance without another word. Elara and Kai acknowledge him with respectful nods as he passes, and the door seals behind him with a solid, final sound.

The silence that follows feels immense. You lean back against the couch, staring out the windows where the city’s distant lights glitter like cold stars. Your left arm pulses with deep, aching fire, but the bandages hold. Mina’s face flashes behind your eyes again, her wet gasp and spray of blood, the way her body crumbled. You swallow hard against the rising nausea.

Doctor Tzintzun sticks her head out of the adjoining room. "Ma'am? Whenever you're ready."

You nod and allow her to come out and help you to your feet. She guides you toward the adjoining room to clean, stitch and re-bandage you again. As she does, your mind drifts back to the car ride and specifically, your new husband.

None of it makes sense. The ancient language. The brutal efficiency with which Minghao ended the attacker. His unflinching honesty when you asked if it was his people. The blunt truth about your value to his family. And now, the small spell jar resting against his chest as he walks into whatever shadows he’s about to confront.

You close your eyes as fresh antiseptic stings the wounds, tourmaline cord still warm around your wrist. The universe had warned you with its cards. The Tower falling. Illusions stripped bare. Death and transformation. Tonight, it delivered all three in blood and violence, but a steady sense of foreboding had been building all night, like the cards aren't done with you yet.

You wonder, as the pain dulls under medication and exhaustion finally pulls you under, what exactly Minghao is doing out there and what background taught him to be this way. As you fall asleep, you hope the small jar of salt, herb and intention will be enough to bring him back so you can find out.

-

Minghao moves through the rain-slicked unverbelly of the Civ District like a shadow. The neon glow from distant shipping cranes reflects off puddles stained with oil and blood, turning the narrow alley into a fractured mirror of Hyperion’s endless hunger. He's swapped the ruined wedding suit out for something more form fitting and breathable - and more importantly, free of your blood.

He'd scrubbed his hands free of your blood a few hours ago, but now someone else taints his knuckles as he presses his hand to his chest, ensuring the small spell jar that is tucked there is undamaged. It's a strange talisman, this jar that you've given him. He doesn't think they work, exactly, but it's a fascinating little practice, this stuff of yours. He's since looked into practitioners and the culture of women who practice craft, but he still can't understand how or why you came to it.

Still, he likes to wear the bracelet you gave him, often looking at it before going into a room to add another body to his list or before he has to do something he needs strength for. He's never thought much about luck, fate, or the universe, but now he carries the jar and bracelet on him like personal tokens of faith and protection.

Of all the things that Minghao finds most surprising, how often he thinks of you now is number one on the list. This marriage between you is purely transactional, a bridge between Nexus Capital's banking power and the Xu family's growing logistics empire. A calculated move to secure favor with the Choi Syndicate as instructed by the Virate to expand foothold in Hyperion.

But, strangely enough, he is fascinated by you. He's not fascinated by much, but when he'd seen you in that board room hiding bruises beneath your sleeves and drawing your peculiar tarot cards in secret, he felt a slight crack in his plan to use you and push you to the side. You were not the sheltered, obedient heiress they described. You were something sharper. Something that watched the universe with quiet, stubborn belief.

And tonight, someone tried to kill you.

He'd been shocked to find you with a knife in your hand despite the terror in your face. He'd heard you scream - he still doesn't know how, considering how far he had to run to get to you. The universe, perhaps. It impressed him to see that you'd fought back despite how bad you were at it, and the steadiness in your voice when you asked him point-blank in the car, whether his people had tried to kill you had nearly cowed him.

Most heirs in this city would have crumbled. You fought. You pushed. You handed him the spell jar without fully understanding why he wanted it, just that he did. He doesn't know what he wanted either, but it's warm against his chest and it's nice to have. Perhaps if a little jar of rocks and dirt and blood can save you from an assassination attempt, it can save him from whatever plot is unraveling in the shadows.

Minghao’s jaw tightens as he reaches the service door of the nondescript warehouse. The man inside - Strakos - is a mid-level fixer who'd coordinated the attacker's movement tonight. He'd been sloppy, though, and Minghao was incredibly good at finding out information in a city that didn't understand the nuances of the Virate.

He slips inside without sound. The interior is dimly lit by hanging work lamps, the air thick with the smell of rust, seawater, and cheap synth-cigarettes. Strakos sits at table, back to the door, reviewing holo-feeds of some shitty porno that makes Minghao's blood boil. This man had helped plan your death, and he's sitting in the middle of a warehouse, fully clothed watching someone get fucked over a couch.

Minghao strikes before Strakos has time to react.

One hand clamps over Strakos's mouth, yanking his head back while the other loops a thin wire garrote around his throat. Strakos thrashes, hands scrabbling at the wire as Minghao gathers it in his hand and pulls, his mouth brushing against Strakos's ears.

"You ruined my wedding," he murmurs.

The wire cuts through flesh and blood wells instantly, hot and dark. Strakos bucks wildly, knocking over the table as he gurgles, hands clawing at his throat. Minghao holds firm, knees braced against the chair as he pulls, gritting his teeth. Strakos's struggle is ugly and desperate, his feet kicking as the chair legs scrape against concrete, wet chokes escaping despite the crushing pressure.

Minghao’s mind remains clear, detached. This is not rage. This is correction. The Virate taught him long ago that hesitation kills empires.

He thinks of your face in the car, exhausted but determined, eyes wide with pain as you demanded the truth anyway. He thinks of the way you pressed the spell jar into his palm without hesitation. Of the faint scent of incense and herbs that always clings to you, the quiet rebellion of your tarot cards and hidden rituals. You are not soft. You are not simple.

You are as unexpected to him as he is to you, he thinks. And he's been very sloppy around you, unguarded and far too honest in the way that he keeps thinking will get you killed.

The wire sinks deeper. Strakos's struggles weaken, then cease entirely. Minghao holds the tension a few seconds longer, ensuring Strakos is dead before he finally releases, the body slumping forward onto the table with a dull thud. Blood drips onto the concrete floor, and Minghao smashes the phone to stop the crude holo from playing.

Minghao wipes the garrote clean on the dead man’s sleeve and tucks it away. He scans the room quickly, deleting the holo-feeds and pocketing a small data chip that might contain further connections. Only then does he pull out his encrypted comm device - the same matte-black rectangle he gave you all those months ago - and dials his father.

Xu Jian answers on the second ring. "Son."

“It’s done,” Minghao says quietly. He stares at the corpse, expression impassive. "Now to trace the loose threads of the web to the spider."

A long exhale on the other end. “Be careful. Your little display at the reception has the Choi’ curious.”

Minghao’s mouth curves into something that isn’t quite a smile. “Let them wonder. The message is clear: she is under my protection now."

"They don't know we're Virate. You could have exposed us."

"I made a calculated decision and you'll say nothing more of it. The Choi Syndicate has other things to worry about than wondering if we're Virate. I want you to look into who hired these scum. If it was Virate, we have a problem."

"It will be done."

In Arkos, under the old laws of the Virate - a loose but iron-bound confederation of family lineages bound by blood oaths far older than the Syndicates - Minghao isn't the quiet heir he is in Hyperion. He's the patriarch, the lead of his family, raised from childhood within the Virate's hidden ranks and trained in their shadows, a hidden member loyal to the Triptych.

Jian might appear to be the head of the family in Hyperion, but Minghao's elevation through blood and merit in the Virate is where the Xu family truly gets their power. While his father played the public face of Xu Worldwide Logistics here in Hyperion, planting seeds and building legitimate fronts, Minghao had been the blade ensuring those seeds took root. The true power behind the throne.

Of course what he did tonight was a risk. He knows that. Honestly, if he was doing what the Virate asked of him, he would have let them kill you. You weren't actually a necessary piece to the puzzle, but he knows that with you alive, he has a better narrative with the Choi Syndicate and it's annoyingly perceptive Wisdom and her son.

Minghao grimaces at the thought of Jeonghan and his eyes that see far too much. He knows that tonight will be a grave error and that the Wisdom's son will dig his teeth into Minghao and ask questions and prod, but it can't be helped now. What's done is done and Minghao had taken a calculated risk that he could keep the Choi's away from the Virate ties in favor of saving your life.

His father sighs on the other end like he can hear Minghao's thoughts. "This marriage is already more complicated than we anticipated."

"She is not what we expected,” Minghao admits. "She fought tonight, though she doesn't know how. Most heirs would have just screamed and died."

"You sound fond."

Minghao exhales slowly. Fond. The word feels too small, which unsettles him. From the first boardroom meeting, something had shifted. What was meant to be a strategic union already matters more than it should, and just meeting you has complicated Minghao's world when Minghao has never had complications before.

He killed for you tonight without hesitation. Not just because you are a valuable asset, but because the sight of your blood on the terrace floor had ignited something cold and possessive in his chest. He's unused to the feeling.

"I protect what belongs to me," Minghao says eventually. "She is Virate now, though she doesn't know it. I'm committed to her safety as I would be for you or mother."

His father chuckles softly. “You always did prefer the old ways. Be careful, son. You cannot lean on the Virate. We're in the shadows.”

"I know the rules. I was forged by them.”

Minghao ends the call and slips the comm back into his pocket. For a long moment he stands over the body, rain drumming steadily against the warehouse roof. His thoughts return to you again and again, like a current he cannot escape.

You, sitting across from him in the car, shaken and unflinching as you asked whether his people had tried to kill you. The quiet strength in your voice when you thanked him even after his blunt reply. The way you fought with that small knife, desperate and untrained.

This marriage was never supposed to matter beyond its utility. Yet tonight, watching your blood spill, something fundamental had shifted. You're no longer simply the Nexus heiress - you're his wife, and in the old customs of the Virate, that bond carries weight far heavier than any corporate contract.

Minghao straightens his jacket and leaves the warehouse the same way he entered. The rain washes away the last traces of blood from his hands as he walks toward the car, ready to shower and sleep.

He'll return before dawn, as promised. And later, he'll find the remaining threads of tonight's violence and cut them clean. And perhaps, in the quiet of whatever time he finds, he'll decide how exactly he's going to be a husband to a woman who believes in tarot cards and moon water in a city that only worships power, violence and credit.

For now, the head of the Xu family has done his honor bound duty to his wife, and somewhere across the glowing city, you're probably sleeping. Bandaged but alive, carrying the barest hints and pieces of Minghao's secrets and your strange, annoying charm with you.

Minghao touches the small jar in his pocket once more, feeling its faint warmth against his chest, and allows himself the smallest ghost of a smile in the darkness.

-

Minghao steps out of the armored car into the private underground garage of the safehouse, the rain from the Civ District still clinging to him like second skin. The neon glow of the city filters down in muted streaks, casting long, fractured shadows across the concrete.

He moves on autopilot, muscles aching from the night's violence. His mind is still razor sharp though, cycling through every detail of the kill, every loose thread he'd severed tonight.

Elara and Kai materialize from their posts near the elevator, postures alert. They relax when they see Minghao and bow respectfully, straightening as he approaches. They're among the few personnel both you and Minghao jointly vetted, neutral enough to serve the new union without picking sides.

“Report,” he asks, walking into the kitchen.

“All secure, sir,” Elara replies immediately. "Doctor Tzintzun treated her and gave her something for the pain and to sleep. She’s resting in the east wing suite. She did ask about you."

Minghao’s chest tightens at the words. She asked about you. Of course you did. Even bleeding and exhausted, you pushed for answers, for truth. He nods once.

"No one comes in or out. Not even her father or anyone from Nexus Capital."

Kai inclines his head. “Understood. The Choi Syndicate has sent discreet inquiries. Mr. Kwon personally. They’re offering additional support.”

“Let them offer,” Minghao replies. “We accept the appearance of cooperation, nothing more."

Minghao dismisses them with a wave and heads toward the east wing, leaving them back at their posts. He finds you in the master suite, tucked beneath dark sheets. Your face is relaxed in sleep, but tension still lingers in between your brows and your jaw as you frown. The black tourmaline cord peeks from beneath the edge of the bandages on your wrist. Minghao stands in the doorway for a long time, simply watching the steady rise and fall of your chest.

Something unfamiliar and dangerous twists behind his ribs. He had not anticipated this complication. The scales feel tipped out of balance, like something new has taken root, and he doesn't know what to do about it.

Minghao finally turns away and moves to the bedroom across the hall to strip off his tactical gear with mechanical, practiced movements in the bathroom. He's careful with your little spell jar, setting it down gingerly on the counter where the low bathroom light catches the glass.

He lets the scalding water melt everything but his thoughts away. He stands under the spray, watching the water swirl around his fink and fade from pink to clear. The heat feels good, unwinding his muscles and burning him to the point that the only thing left are thoughts of you and this new predicament he's in.

When he can't take the heat anymore, he steps out and changes into something soft and comfortable before settling in the middle of his bed with his computer in front of him. With the tap of a key, the screen projects holograms around him in a circle, broken only by his arm as he inserts the data chip from Strakos' warehouse into the computer.

He finds limited information on it - remnants of someone referencing the union of Nexus Capital and Xu Worldwide Logistics. He taps his fingers on his knees. The enemies in Hyperion are endless, but few of them have killing power. Most of the people in the city who hate his family are business competitors, minor patrons of various Syndicates in Hyperion. None of them have the power to send a Syndicate-sanctioned attack on his wife, which means this hit is higher up than simple city corporations.

It could be Syndicate, he supposes. He's still learning about the nuances of the three powerhouses that sit at the top of the food chain in Hyperion, but he's not convinced the Kim or Yong family would be moved enough by the marriage to do something so public about it - especially not with Choi Moojin's daughter engaged to Kim Yijun as a sign of union.

A sour feeling settles in Minghao's stomach. The easiest conclusion to make is that the threat is from the Virate. A finger of dread traces his spine at the thought. In a way, families of the Virate were similar to families of the Syndicate - they vied for power, it was always at war, and the most powerful family was always the one that was ten steps ahead. Unlike the Syndicates of Hyperion though, the families of the Virate collectively answered to the three heads of the Virate, the Triptych.

Except members of the Virate didn't know the Xu families were members. Outside of the Triptych, the Virate didn't even know Minghao existed. To them, Xu Jian was a retired member who had moved to Hyperion when he was seventeen after being honorably discharged and given the blessing of the Virate. Even with their blessing, Jian had given up all ties, powers, assets and favors from the Virate for life. That was the way it worked. His wife Luli, who had tried to leave the Virate once before, had joined him.

They'd left a key part of them there, though. Their son. The Triptych was in need of a family with old ties to be removed and relocated elsewhere, someone they could trust and that could believably sever ties with the Virate. The Xu family had been just that, and they'd given their only son to the Triptych to raise in the shadows, nameless and unclaimed as a Shade, forged in the Triptych's perfect image of an assassin before sending him to do the single thing he'd been created for: win over a Syndicate in Hyperion.

He sighs. He's tired - he's always tired these days, even more so than when he was a teenager learning how to become a shadowed killer. The lying and scheming is often harder than the killing, and trying to uncover his enemy hiding in the dark without access to real Virate influence and pull is a challenge.

An email to his personal catches his attention. It's one of the Trustees of Nexus Capital with more of Minghao's access to his new assets - your assets that are now his. It's overwhelming. Nexus Capital’s vast banking networks, offshore accounts, silent partnerships, voting proxies. Pages of sensitive data scroll past full of liquidity reports, hidden holdings in Syndicate-adjacent ventures, influence maps.

Minghao swallows. It's exactly what he wanted. With this level of access, the family can begin weaving influence deeper into Hyperion's financial arteries, and through the Choi alliance, they can steer shipping lanes and capital flows without the Syndicates ever realizing a new, quieter power is embedding itself beneath their foundations. The Choi's believe this is nothing more than a political marriage for port advantages. They have no idea what the Virate is capable of.

Minghao should feel satisfied. This is entirely the reason he was given to the Triptych and raised as a Shade, a nameless member in the shadows, someone without influence and without a name, but one of the most valuable members of their society. Everything is proceeding according to plan, and yet for the first time in his life, he feels sharp, unwelcome conflict like the edge of an enemy's blade.

His gaze drifts again toward the door where you sleep just across the hall. You were never part of the equation. You were meant to be kept at a distance, polite and useful, a spoiled brat who would go to parties and be the socialite Minghao was told you were. Instead, you have lodged yourself under his skin and you haven't even done anything - you'd simply looked at him after he'd killed the attacker tonight not in fear, but wary recognition that Minghao was also not what he seemed.

Protecting you tonight had felt instinctive. Necessary. The thought of you lying dead beside Mina had ignited a cold fury he rarely permits himself. And that realization terrifies him.

Loyalty to the family and to the old ways has defined Minghao's entire life - every choice he has ever made. It gave him purpose when his father focused on building the legitimate Hyperion front, it forged him into steel when he was being wiped and cut and tested. Attachments were always meant to be managed, never indulged, and yet here he is sitting in a safehouse, conflicted over a wife he doesn't really know.

If future objectives ever require sacrificing your safety, or keeping truths from you that could destroy the fragile trust beginning to form - what then? A few months ago, Minghao would have said he'd cut you away no problem. Now, he thinks he might need to cut you out like cancer, nearly killing himself in the process to sever the tie.

How unsettling. He isn't sure how he's gotten here, but as always, it's up to him to figure it out. Right now is not the time, though, so he rolls his shoulders and continues working through the remaining hours of darkness, mapping pressure points within Nexus Capital, noting which Choi figures might be influenced over time. Every new door opened by the marriage is another step into Hyperion's core, his entire purpose.

The first hints of dawn begin to lighten the sky beyond the glass of the bedroom. He glances up and realizes his current work has no business being done in the light of day, so he powers down the computer, the cyan numbers and screens vanishing. He stands and shuffles across the hall to check on you, opening the door as quietly as he can.

You're still asleep, breathing steadily in the same position he left you in. Sighing, he sits down in one of the chairs, leaning so his elbows are on his knees and his chin rests in his elbows, staring at you as you sleep.

For the first time in his life, the sharp edge of his purpose feels negotiable. Not abandoned or broken, but rather complicated by the strange, stubborn woman sleeping in front of him.

Perhaps you are wicked, but rather for the things you do to him instead of your actual deeds.

-

The last place you want to be tonight is the Eternal Bloom Gala at the Celestial Atrium in the Pearl District. The atrium is a floating marvel suspended between three interconnected spirals, gardens far more exquisite than even your wedding dominating every space. Though it looks nothing like your wedding, it's close enough to make your stomach turn, your fingers brushing across the closed wounds, still healing since the attack three weeks prior.

Massive domed ceilings of smart glass reveal the night sky above Hyperion, projected stars mingling with the real ones when the clouds part. Tiered terraces overflow with tropical foliage and cascading waterfuls that tumble into artificially glowing pools full of night-blooming lilies the size of dinner plates.

Crystal lanterns drift lazily overhead like captive moons, casting warm golden light that softens every sharp edge of wealth on display as women glide through the gardens in gowns of liquid silk and embroidered starlight. Servants in white move like ghosts, offering flutes of shimmering vintage and tiny edible sculptures dusted with real gold leaf.

Tonight, you're playing the part of socialite perfectly despite the bone-deep exhaustion that clings to you even now. Your gown is a deep forest green this evening, chosen to complement the venue’s living opulence and because it has sleeves that high the healing scars on your arm. Minghao stands a few paces away, devastating in a green so dark that it's almost black, his presence a dark anchor amid the glittering crowd.

Your husband is a startlingly good date. He's attentive in public, close enough for appearances, but never quite warm. He speaks to you more than he used to, small observations about the room, quiet comments on people passing by, but the deeper questions you ask still meet that same polite, impenetrable wall.

Despite asking multiple times, he still won't tell you who trained him to kill with such clinical efficiency. Won't explain the ancient language he used with the drive that night. It doesn't matter how much he dances around your questions - you still probe, willing to chip away at his armor with every conversation if you have to.

You turn your attention back to the circle of high society ladies surrounding you. As much as you hate it, they're the gatekeepers of Hyperion's upper echelons, wives and daughters of banking dynasties, shipping magnates, and Syndicate families. Their gowns shimmer in jewel tones, their smiles sharp as broken glass.

Though exhausted, you have spent the last hour slowly weaving Minghao into their world, dropping careful mentions of his insights on logistics and neutral trade routes, painting him as a valuable new addition to the delicate balance of power.

Lin stands at the center, as she usually does. She's always been a ring-leader, now married to a mid-level Sword whose name you forget. She carries herself with the confidence of someone whose family has hovered near the inner circle for generations. You've known her since you were teens, your circles overlapping heavily enough that she feels almost like an old yet complicated acquaintance.

Tonight, she's in deep crimson silk that catches the lantern lights like fresh blood, her smile sweet on the surface but sharp underneath You don't miss the way her eyes linger on Yoon Jeonghan as he glides by, bowing politely to the women and giving them all his dashing smile. You don't think it's dashing at all, feeling your spine stiffen as the Wisdom's son winks at you and Minghao before vanishing into the crowd.

Suianne is next to her, and you're surprised to see her. She'd married into the Yong family and though the Syndicate's were currently at peace, the Yong family and the Choi family had been fighting at the docks which was the entire reason you got married to Minghao. Neither of you speak of business tonight, instead focusing on her pretty, navy gown that flowers like water.

Eva stands to Lin’s other side, beautiful and brittle in shimmering silver, still nursing the very public sting of being discarded by Kwon Soonyoung after she let him into her bed. From what you'd heard, he's not spoken to her since and as you watch her eyes flick around the gala, you can see the humiliation that still clings to her.

The three of them form a petty but influential ring, always watching and always trading secrets. They're not your favorite women to spend time with, but you don't have friends. Not really. Your sister had always been the one to establish the relationships, and you'd only started after she'd died, making for awkward conversations and learning social queues clumsily.

Lin leans in slightly, lowering her voice as a drift of jasmine-scented mist curls toward you. "You have to tell us - honestly. How are you really finding married life with your mysterious Xu heir? The whole city is still rumbling about your wedding. I'm so glad you're alright."

You offer a measured, slightly tired smile, letting them see the exhaustion beneath the polish to make the performance more authentic. "Minghao is quieter than most men, but there's a steadiness to him I enjoy. He remembers small details."

"He certainly watches you closely," Suianne notes, tilting her head. "A man in love, I suppose."

You glance across the garden where Minghao stands speaking with a small cluster of neutral businessmen. His dark eyes find yours almost instantly, holding for a heartbeat too long. He tilts his head as if to ask are you okay and you nod back. He seems appeased, eyes flicking back to the men he's speaking to.

The two of you have moved back into the Observatory penthouse full time. The space no longer feels quite so vast and empty now that he joins you for breakfast some mornings. He even is willing to sit in the living room while you light palo santo, watching you warily. He still deflects every real question about his past, but the silence between you has grown less brittle.

"He's attentative," you agree, turning back to them. "Last week he remembered I prefer lemon-mugwort tea in the mornings without me saying anything. We’ve settled back into the penthouse, just the two of us above the clouds. It’s peaceful. We're still learning."

Eva lets out a soft, bitter laugh, swirling the liquid in her glass. “At least he comes home to you. Kwon Soonyoung fucked me senseless for three weeks straight and now pretends I don’t exist when we’re in the same room. The man is a ghost after he gets what he wants.”

Lina's smile turns knowing. "That's what you get for fucking the mad dog and thinking you could mend him after she left him."

Eva looks put out by Lin's comment, but Suianne drops her voice to a whisper. "Speaking of her - no one has seen her in weeks. Not since her engagement party. You used to be close with her, weren't you Lin?"

"We're still close," Lin sniffs. "She's simply busy with her fiancée. Kim Yijun is a demanding man." She waves a hand and turns to you. "Enough about Baby. Tell us more about your husband. Is he as intense in the bedroom as he looks in public?"

Eva shouts Lin's name as the question lands like spark on dry tinder. Heat floods your face instantly and your mouth opens and closes. For a moment, all your carefully practiced poise deserts you and you're left staring at Lin who looks rather smug, like she's caught you in a lie.

"Um," you manage. The women burst into delighted laughter, clearly pleased to have cracked your composure. “He is considerate. But that's not something I'm going to discuss in detail."

A smooth voice interrupts from just behind you. “Oh, Lin, you terrible thing. Must you scandalize the poor girl in public?”

You turn, grateful for the interruption, as a woman you don’t recognize steps into the circle with effortless confidence. She's utterly striking, tall and elegant in midnight blue silk that pools around her like shadows, her dark hair swept up with silver pins.

“Minael,” Lin says warmly, reaching out to clasp the woman’s hand. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight. And with your husband, no less.”

Minael’s husband steps forward beside her, a tall, well-built man in impeccably cut black. His features are sharp, with cool grey eyes that seem to take in everything at once.

"Sato Ken," he introduces himself, offering his hand with a polite smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

You extend your hand to shake his, and the moment your palms meet, your gaze drops down involuntarily to his hand. There, across the first knuckle, is a thin, precise scar, nearly identical to the one on Minghao’s hand. Pale, deliberate, the kind left by wire or a very sharp blade. Not the sort of mark one expects on a society husband.

A chill slides down your spine. Ken's grip is firm, lingering just a fraction too long, and when you meet his eyes again, he's studying you with an intensity that feels uncomfortably familiar, As if he is cataloguing you the same way Minghao does.

Something in your gut turns rotten. A chill settles over you as you stare at Ken. Beyond him, something catches your eye. Near the top of the trees, a black bird lands, shuffling its wings. It's so black it's almost blue, oil-slick feathers shining in the light as it shuffles, craning its head until it blinks two beady eyes at you. You stare at it for a moment - you don't think you've ever seen a crow in the city before.

And then it flutters its wings and flies away through the open roof, vanishing into the inky sky like it was never there at all.

“Pleasure to finally meet you,” Ken says smoothly, bringing your attention back to him. “We’ve heard much about the new Xu-Nexus union.”

Minael laughs lightly, linking her arm with Lin’s. “Darling, you must tell me everything later. I’ve been dying to hear how the mysterious Arkos heir is settling into our little ecosystem.”

The conversation shifts around you, but you remain hyper-aware of Ken. He stands slightly behind his wife, eyes occasionally drifting back to you with that same probing focus. Something isn't right about Sato Ken. His wife seems perfectly well and good at socializing and you can tell Lira and the others are doting on her, but her husband is bad at this, his presence a palpable edge to the softness of his wife.

A tingle prods at the back of your neck, and instinct tells you to be wary of him. You engage with him little, ensuring that his wife is positioned between the two of you at all times. Your finger brushes against your bracelet, warm from your skin and grounding.

Thankfully, Minael and Ken don't linger long. After a few minutes of polite exchange, they drift away toward another group, the eerie man casting one final, lingering glance over his shoulder at you before disappearing into the foliage.

Moments later, Minghao appears at your side, moving with that silent grace you have come to expect. His hand settles lightly at the small of your back, warm through the silk. You suck in a breath, glancing at him, a little startled by his nearness.

“Are you ready to go home?” he asks quietly, voice pitched so the others can hear. “We were supposed to stay another hour, but you look exhausted.”

“Yes,” you murmur. “Please.”

He nods once and excuses you both from the group with polished grace, and guides you through the gardens toward a private exit. As you walk, you glance back one final time to see Ken watching you from across the atrium, half hidden behind a curtain of jasmine vines. An odd, unsettled feeling twists in your stomach and you turn away, leaning slightly into Minghao.

The armored car waits in the secure bay below. Once inside, the doors close behind you and the vehicle glides smoothly onto the road. You don't hesitate, getting onto your knees and reaching into your dress for the wrapped tarot deck you'd hidden in your pocket.

Minghao watches you from across the seat, eyebrow slightly raised. “Now?”

"Hush."

You shuffle the cards, the soft shck of the cards familiar. You don’t ask a specific question out loud. You rarely need to anymore. The deck knows, and three cards slip from the deck and fall face up onto the seat as you shuffle.

The Devil, upright. Ace of Swords, reversed. Nine of Wands, upright.

You stare at them, heart sinking. Chains and bondage. Blocked clarity. A wounded warrior still standing guard, exhausted but defiant. The message feels heavy, layered with warning. Something binding. Something obscured. Something that requires continued vigilance despite deep fatigue.

Minghao leans forward slightly, studying the cards with open curiosity. “What do they mean?”

You don’t answer immediately, tracing the edges of The Devil with one fingertip. The image of chained figures stares back at you. Your mind drifts to Ken's scar, to the way he studied you.

"Well?" Minghao asks again.

You glance at him. "Do you know Sato Ken?"

"Who?"

You frown. "The man I just met at the party. He had a scar like yours, and grey eyes."

Minghao goes unnaturally still. "What scar?"

"You have a scar on your finger." You reach out and grab his hands. He lets you, frowning as you lift his hand to the light and point to the faint scar on his knuckle, thin as can be. His hands are warm in yours, the fingers rough against your skin. "This one."

Minghao stares at where your hands are linked. "That scar specifically?"

"Yes."

A vein in his temple twitches before he shrugs a shoulder. "I don't know a Sato Ken."

Not for the first time, it sounds like Minghao is telling the truth. But you think about the way he uses truth to hide other things, and as you drop his hands and look back to the cards, you wonder which card is Minghao. The man in chains or the wounded warrior still standing guard. Maybe both.

-

Being in the Lower District alone is a bad idea. You have no choice, though. Hours in the library in the Legal District have led you here, an impossible lead buried in nonsense files. It hadn't been easy to find - Sato Ken hadn't brought up any solid leads, nor had his wife. But your search had revealed a Sato Rhia who had died in a car crash a decade ago with her husband and adopted son, a young boy who was named Zhi Yuan, not Sato Ken, but who had the same uncanny grey eyes and the beginnings of a face like the man you remember from the gala.

Pulling your coat hood up against the drizzle, you begin walking toward the nearest transit hub that will take you down to the Lower District where your research indicated the shelter was. If Zhi Yuan passed through the system, someone might remember him. Someone might know how a boy with grey eyes and a future scar ended up.

You get lost twice trying to find the train to take you to the Lower District. You've never been there without security personnel, and when you finally board the train, you feel a sense of apprehension as the car rocks back and forth, neon smearing by on the windows before it shoots underground.

Sitting near the head of the car, you settle with your hand tucked inside your coat, finger brushing the hilt of your small knife. The other rests against the tiny vial of protective oil in your inner pocket, its glass warm and grounding.

Through the scratched windows, the city becomes visible briefly as the train dives in and out of subterranean tracks. People huddle under leaking overhangs, begging for credits or hovering near fires for warmth. When the train stops, you step out and cringe, the smell of too many bodies living close together hitting you all at once.

Climbing the stairs is dangerous, the grime and rain making the ascent slippery. You hesitate to touch the rail when you see the rusted filth, and instead ask the universe to keep you from busting your ass.

The streets here are narrow and chaotic, slick with oily rain that reflects stuttering neon signs in iridescent puddles. Real rain falls harder at this level, drumming against rusted metal awnings and corroded pipes. Gang tags in glowing spray-paint pulse on every wall, though above them are the looming symbols of the Syndicates.

Street vendors hawk bootleg data pads, hacked implants, and vials of questionable stims from flickering stalls. The air grows thicker, heavier, carrying the unmistakable smells of unfiltered rain, and fried street meat. You feel painfully exposed, your coat too clean and posture too refined for this district.

Eyes follow you - some curious, some calculating. You keep your head down but your sens sharp, hand never far from your knife as you navigate the rain-slicked streets.

The shelter squats at the end of a dimly lit side street, a squat brutalist building reinforced with bolted steel plates and outdated security cams that flicker with static. Faded holographic signage above the entrance flickers with the building name, though it's broken and half on so none of the letters seem to make sense.

Rain drips steadily from the overhang as you push open the reinforced door. Inside, the air is warm and stale. You curl your nose, immediately missing the freshness of recycled air. You hadn't realized what a privilege it was until now.

Rows of cramped cots line the main hall. A few residents glancing at you curiously. A man mopping the floor with water that doesn't look any cleaner than the sticky tile nods politely at you. You approach the front desk where a middle-aged woman in a worn uniform flicks through data on a tablet under the weak glow of a buzzing fluorescent bar.

“Excuse me,” you say, keeping your voice low. “I’m looking for information about someone who might have stayed here as a child. His name was Zhi Yuan. This would have been around twenty to twenty-five years ago. I think he was adopted by Sato Rhia and her husband Amar.”

The woman studies your face, noting how obviously out of place you are before she ignores you and goes back to reading whatever is on her tablet. You grit your teeth and pull out your phone, tapping the small tile on the desk to transfer credits.

"Try again," you say through your teeth.

She glances at the credits and stiffens, rolling her shoulders as she begins typing. "Zhi Yuan?" She repeats, voice raspy. "Might not have the records that far back."

"That far? It was only twenty something years ago."

She huffs. "Listen lady, we don't got fancy storage here. We delete shit."

"Are you going to do the search or not?"

She grumbles and hits a few keys. "All I've got is some random kid from Arkos here for a few weeks. That's it."

"That's it?"

"You can transfer me more credits, but it won't do shit."

You think about leaving a handful of rusty nails, but you force a sharp smile. "Thank you so much for your help."

As you reach the door, the older man in stained janitorial coveralls pauses his mopping. He's weathered with deep lines around his eyes and hands scarred from years of hard labor. He glances at you, then at the woman behind the desk.

"You shouldn't be chasing ghosts down, miss," he whispers. "Not that one."

You pause, turning back. “What do you mean?”

"The boy. Let him stay dead. Virate operates that way."

The word lands like cold steel against your spine. Virate.

It's an unfamiliar word to you, but it tugs at your gut, like something is telling you it's important. “What is the Virate?”

The man’s expression shutters immediately. He looks over his shoulder toward the back rooms, then back at you. For a moment, genuine concern flickers across his weathered face.

Better that you don’t know,” he says quietly, almost urgently. “Go home, miss. The Lower District isn't for you."

He returns to mopping without another word, the wet slap of the mop against cracked tile the only sound between you. You stand frozen for a long second, heart hammering, before pushing open the door and stepping back into the relentless rain.

-

Minghao sits across the table from his mother in the private tearoom of the Xu family residence in the Upper District. The space is deliberately designed, a copy of old Arkos interior design and architecture. Low tables of dark lacquered wood rest on mats woven from rare fibers imported at great expense, and the walls are paneled in warm cedar that release a faint, woody smell.

Soft paper lanterns hang at varying heights from the ceiling, their golden light diffused and flickering gently, mimicking the old-world illumination of ancestral estates back in Arkos. Outside the reinforced floor-to-ceiling windows, Hyperion sprawls in an endless, restless web of neon arteries, flickering holograms, and rain-streaked towers piercing the low cloud ceiling.

Rain taps steadily against the glass, a metallic percussion that Minghao has long since learned to tune out since moving here. Inside, the air is warm and fragrant with the steam rising from the teapot and the subtle notes of jasmine.

It should feel peaceful. Instead, it feels like the calm before a storm he himself is about to unleash.

Xu Luli pours the tea with the same graceful precision she has always possessed, her movements fluid, the delicate porcelain cup gliding silently across the surface of the table as she pushes it toward him. Her grey eyes catch the lantern light as she lifts her cup, sipping.

Luli looks eternally young. It's always unsettling to Minghao that his mother doesn't look like she ages, while his father lets himself age freely. He knows it's a status and power play, but he hates the way he looks at his mother and sees someone frozen in time, someone he will eventually surpass because augmentation and longevity is not for him.

Minghao watches her hands. Elegant. Steady. The same hands that once ran through his hair when he was a young boy, before the Virate claimed the rest of his childhood and turned him into a trained weapon, a blade at their beck and call.

He takes a slow sip of the tea, letting the rare Arkos blend warm his chest and ground him. The flavor is complex, floral and slightly bitter, with an underlying earthiness that reminds him of the herbs you roll into handles and distill into oils that you like to spray across doors and clothes and objects.

"You look well," Minghao offers, sipping his tea.

Luli smiles at him softly, the kind of smile she reserves only for him. "You look tired. The marriage has been… eventful."

“Eventful,” Minghao echoes, a dry note threading through his voice. He studies her face in the golden lantern light, noting every micro-expression. "My wife and I have not had an easy start."

"All marriages are complicated. Your father and I were not always easy, either."

“Now that you've mentioned it, I’ve been thinking about your life before Father. Before the Xu name became yours.”

Her fingers pause for the briefest moment on the teapot handle. Minghao catches it, the tiny tightening at the corner of her mouth, the way her stormy grey eyes flicker once toward the reinforced window overlooking the glowing, rain-streaked city below. The lanterns cast shifting golden patterns across her flawless face, highlighting the elegant line of her jaw.

“It was a difficult time,” she says lightly. "Your father and I found each other at the right time."

"You were out of the public eye for a while. Why was that?"

"Youthful rebellion," she snorts. "I thought I could escape the expectations placed on me. Your wife has done a better job at hers, I will admit."

"And yet you think she's wicked."

"I never said wicked. She's just strange."

Minghao tilts his head, watching her with the same intense, cataloguing focus he once used on targets in shadowed rooms. The lantern light plays across her features, softening nothing.

"Was there someone before my father?" The question catches her off guard and her cup clinks sharply against the plate when she sets it down. "I always wondered. I never could figure out what made you leave."

"Minghao-"

"The Triptych always told me you wanted to leave," Minghao continues, nodding. He puts his chin in his palm, watching his mother keenly. "And that's why they were willing to part ways publically, that you'd asked for it. But your first departure from the Virate wasn't after you received permission. So what was it?"

"Son…"

"I'm not angry. I'm just looking for some answers."

Luli is quiet for a long moment. She lifts her own cup, takes a slow sip as if buying time, and sets it down with deliberate grace. The soft clink of porcelain against lacquer sounds unnaturally loud in the quiet room. Outside, the rain intensifies, drumming harder against the glass.

“Yes,” she admits at last. “I ran away with a lover.”

The admission hangs heavy in the air between them. Minghao nods, mind racing ahead. His eyes drop down to the red bracelet you'd given him, the azabache charm cool against his skin.

"Who was he?" He asks.

"Someone unsuitable. From outside the Virate. He was very charismatic, brillitan in his own way. I thought I could disappear and live outside the rules."

“And then?” he prompts when his mother falls silent again.

“I became pregnant.”

The words land like a blade between his ribs. Minghao goes very still. The lantern light suddenly feels too warm, the cedar scent too heavy. His mother continues, her voice trembling only slightly now, each word pulled from somewhere deep and painful she has clearly tried to bury for decades.

“I carried the child to term. A boy. We lived happily for a year before he decided that the child and I were too much. So I went back." She swallows. "The child wasn't Virate, though. So they took him and offered to place him somewhere safe and give me a new start, a single offer of mercy.”

"A safe start," Minghao echoes. "They offered to let you part with the Virate publicly if you did favors for them privately, didn't they?"

She chews her lip and nods. "I married your father and then we had you. You know the rest from there. We had you until you were five. Then we moved and you were theirs."

Minghao’s mind races, pieces clicking together with brutal, crystalline clarity. Grey eyes. The thin, precise scar. The way Sato Ken had studied you at the gala. You'd been unsettled by Ken, though Minghao had neither seen the man nor heard of him. None of his contacts knew of the name Sato Ken, and a quick online search had simply told the story of a businessman who married into a wealthy family.

In any other circumstance, Minghao might have disregarded it. But you'd been unsettled more than usual, insisting that the man with grey eyes - a Lin family trait from his mother's side - had the same scar as him. He trusted your instincts.

It was the same scar the initiated members of the Virate had, one where a finger had been severed during interrogation only to be later surgically added back on. The scar was always a reminder that members had passed, that they'd like the Virate take a part of them during an interrogation that felt realer than anything else Minghao has ever gone through, and that they could take it just as easily again.

He rubs his finger now, fingers brushing over the scar, remembering the snap of the bone and the way he'd nearly bit through his tongue. He'd not given up the information, though, and that had been enough to pass and earn the digit back.

If you were unsettled by a man with grey eyes and the same scar… well, Minghao didn't believe coincidences. Not since he had started watching you read your tarot and scribble into dream journals when you thought he wasn't paying attention.

“Does father know?” he asks eventually, voice low and tightly controlled.

“No. No one does. Only the Triptych."

Minghao exhales slowly, mind already spinning through the implications. If this Sato Ken was Minghao's brother - either by blood or initiation - he existed only in the dark. Which meant he was a Shade, and no one but the Triptych knew he existed. It unsettles Minghao more than he would like, mind scrambling to find a motive. Jealousy? Resentment? A move within a move by the Virate? It could be anything.

As a Shade himself, Ken shouldn't know Minghao existed. Not even the most coveted of the assassins belonging to the Virate knew the identity of one another, which was why Minghao thought nothing of Ken at the gala - hadn't even seen him. It makes him feel shaken, a ghost slipping by him that Minghao was trained to find, to see.

Worse was that Ken had seen you. Approached you. Shaken your hand. He'd done all that and Minghao simply hadn't noticed him. Years of Virate training had failed him, and he'd let something as dangerous as a Shade get close to you. It not only wounds his pride, but it wounds him.

Minghao feels the red bracelet you gave him shift against his wrist again. The azabache charm feels heavier suddenly, a small weight of your strange faith pressing against his skin.

He stands abruptly, the low table creaking as his knees push against it. Rain continues to lash the windows, the sound growing louder as the storm intensifies outside.

"I have to handle this," he mutters.

"What?" She asks, slipping into Zhenwen, a language dead to the world for generations but kept alive by the oldest families of Arkos. "What's happening?"

"Your illegitimate son tried to kill my wife."

"No," Luli shakes her head. "He was adopted into a family, outside of the Virate."

Minghao tsks. "You think the Virate gave away your child without training him? The Shade is born in darkness and has no name. I would know."

Luli closes her eyes, a single tear slipping down her eternal face. Minghao turns away before the sight can soften him. He cannot afford softness right now. Not when the delicate balance he has spent years maintaining is suddenly threatening to shatter around him for a haphazardly protected secret.

"I will do what I must for my family," Minghao tells her, steeling himself. "Blood for blood."

"Blood for blood," she agrees.

As he walks out of the room, he touches the red bracelet on his wrist, thumb brushing over the braided strands of your hair woven into the cord. The small protective charm you made for him feels both absurd and strangely vital at this moment. He wonders what you would say if you knew the truth, that the man you married carries blood older and darker than anything you have imagined. That the secrets he keeps are not just his own.

Whatever game is being played either by this half-brother of his or by the Triptych, Minghao will end it.

But for the first time, the thought of collateral damage makes his stomach turn because now, the collateral has a name, and she sleeps in the east wing of his penthouse and sticks her nose where it doesn't belong because she's too smart for her own good.

-

Thick, metallic air swallows you the moment you step into the bar. Sweet smoke chokes the room, the neon bleed of alternate reality systems flickering from behind closed doors. A few patrons sit slumped over table tops, nursing drinks lazily as though they're half in a dream. Most of the doors are shut, the private alternate reality rooms cutting them off from the bar and everything else in the real world.

Energy shifts immediately. Your skin prickles, and you scan the room, sensing the way energy here is a vacuum, like these rooms that offer everything but reality suck the essence of the soul out of the body.

The rain from outside clings to your coat in silver beads, but the oppressive warmth in the bar immediately makes your back and neck start to sweat. You step into the bar further, letting the door shut close behind you, cutting off the sound from the Pearl District. Neon from the district streets leaks through frosted windows in fractured violet and electric blue, painting the high wooden beams in shifting colors.

A few figures who move with the careful grace of people who have stepped between realities one too many times. You scan them all without making it obvious, your fingers brushing the black tourmaline cord hidden beneath your sleeve. The small knife in the hidden slit of your coat presses reassuringly against your ribs as your gaze settles on the woman behind the bar.

She's pretty, pouring someone a drink as she laughs at something the customer says. A simple black tank top shows toned arms covered in faint tattoos that seem to shift when the light hits them at the right angle. Her features are difficult to hold onto, like she's someone you might forget the moment you turn away while being strangely magnetic.

You drive toward the bar, hyperaware of the way the bartender notices you. Based on the description, you think she's who the Tower's daughter told you to find.

Kero, she'd said, eyeing you warily. Kero is good at information. Are you okay, though? I can help if you're in danger, you know that, right?

It had been a kind offer whispered at a gala last week, a rare moment where the two of you had been in the powder room and you'd been insane enough to ask her for a good source of information in the Syndicate.

Your heart pounds thinking about it again, remember the way she'd raised her brows and urge you to tell her if there was something wrong. Her kindness was a rarity in the Syndicate, and though you were somewhat familiar with her, facing her full on had been nearly overwhelming.

The bartender turns toward you as you slide onto a stool, her lips curving into a grin as she leans one hip against the bar.

"Hi," he drawls, eyes flicking up and down as she drinks you in. "New face. You look very expensive, sweetheart. What can I pour you?"

“I’m not here for a drink,” you say evenly. “I’m looking for Kero.”

Her smile doesn’t falter, but something sharp flickers behind her eyes. She tilts her head, studying you more carefully now, as if reassessing the woman standing in front of her.

"Kero is around. What do you need?" She asks eventually, fingers tapping the top of the bar.

"The Tower's daughter told me Kero might be able to help me with some information."

The words land with weight. She straightens slightly, the playful curve of her mouth diminishing. Mentioning the Tower’s daughter commands absolute authority here, you realize. She gives you a long, measured look, dark eyes tracing over your face, your coat, the way you hold yourself, drinking in every detail.

"I'm nothing if not a humble servant to the Tower and his children," she says eventually. "I'm Kero. You can come with me, sweetheart. Keep your pretty hands where I can see them, yeah? Baby is a good friend of mine, but I don't know you."

She slips out from behind the bar fluidly, exchanging a quick, wordless nod with the burly bartender who steps in to cover her station seamlessly. You follow, weaving between tables. No one notices you as you walk by, each customer staring off into nothingness with a glazed over expression that makes you shiver.

Kero leads you to a narrow hallway, the walls covered in flickering frames of alternate reality landscapes. You glance at them as you walk by, looking into lush forests, empty beaches, and night skies. At the end of the hall, she stops and presses her balm to a hidden scanner, a heavy wooden door hissing open after her clearance passes. She gestures for you to enter first, grinning and winking as you pass by her.

The private room beyond is small but surprisingly comfortable, a storage space turned lounger. Dim amber sconces cast warm, flickering light across two worn leather armchairs and a low table. A plush couch sits against one wall, and shelves hold bottles of rare liquor, scattered data pads, and a few precious paper books.

Kero closes the door behind you, engages the lock with a soft click, then turns with that same half-smile. She gestures to one of the armchairs, leaning casually against the table’s edge. You sit gracefully, unwilling to let her know that she makes you feel off keel.

Something about her unsettles you. In the dimmer room, her features are even harder to latch on to, like her eyes change everytime you look away or her hair is a shade adjusted. She watches you like a cat watches a mouse as you sit, and though you know mentioning the Tower's daughter has awarded you some power, you're not sure it's given you immunity here.

“So,” she says lightly. "What kind of trouble are you in, hmm?"

"Who says I'm in trouble?"

"It's written all over your face. You're tense as shit."

You give a small, knowing smile. “I’m not used to the Pearl District. That doesn’t mean I’m lost.”

Kero cocks her head. “Damn, no VR for you, huh? You rich types don’t really need to escape reality. You have everything you could ever want.”

“Not everything.”

"Unless you're trying to escape that fancy marriage."

"So you know who I am?"

Kero pushes off the table and walks over to a chair, dropping into it unceremoniously before pivoting sideways to hook the backs of her knees over the arm.

“Of course I do,” she snorts, dropping into the opposite chair and hooking her knees over the arm. “Big wedding. I wasn’t invited. Not high enough up the ladder, you know what I mean?”

"No."

"You're very honest, Mrs. Xu."

You meet her eyes without hesitation. “I’m very honest, yes.”

The name Mrs. Xu still feels foreign, but you no longer flinch. You so rarely hear people use your new legal name - most people still often see you as the heiress to Nexus Capital, content to use your family name because in this city, Minghao has married into your family, not the other way around.

"I met a man a few days ago at a gala and he left me with questions," you start slowly. Kero raises her brows. "No one really seems to know who he is, which isn't common among the elite."

She snorts. "You came here because someone isn't as well known as you?"

You ignore the barb, continuing, "He gave me the name Sato Ken. He doesn't seem to be much - just a mid-level businessman who married the daughter of a Patron of the Choi Syndicate. I think he might have a second name, though. Do you know anyone by the name of Zhi Yuan?"

Kero shakes her head. "Should I?"

"I don't know. Do you know what the Virate is?”

Kero’s entire posture changes in an instant. The lazy sprawl vanishes. She unhooks her legs and plants her boots on the floor with a quiet thud, leaning forward sharply and the playful glint in her eyes hardens into something guarded and alert.

“Virate,” she repeats, voice low and sharp. “What are you doing with the Virate?”

"I don't know what the Virate is."

"Of course you don't." She stands in one fluid motion, pacing a tight circle behind her chair, one hand dragging through her hair. “Tell me how you came across the Virate. Explain in detail."

You do. You tell her about the man from the gala, how something about his energy felt misaligned, your instincts screaming. How your research led you to the foster home in the Lower District where the cleaner had given you the strange, ominous warning about the Virate. About how you think Sato Ken and Zhi Yuan might be the same person.

Kero stops pacing. She steps closer, extending her right hand under the nearest sconce, palm down. You're not sure what you're supposed to be looking at until your eyes catch the smallest little scar, silver and right over the knuckle. Just like Sato Ken. Just like Minghao.

"Did he have a scar like this? Do you know?" She asks.

"Yes."

Kero pulls her hand back, flexing it once before sinking into her chair with heavier grace. The leather creaks as she rubs her temple, staring at the low table for a long beat while distant bass throbs from the bar’s VR rooms and rain drums steadily against the outer walls.

“Alright,” she says at last, voice quieter. "The Virate isn’t some street gang or Syndicate. They're like the Syndicate's here in the city but the structure is very different and they're a lot more complex. Think generations of bloodlines that build a shadow confederation that works in the cracks most people never see. They pull kids through foster systems, adoptions, quiet placements. Forge them. Shades, they call the ones with no names. Ghosts trained from blood and bone to serve the Triptych - the three who sit at the top.”

"Okay," you say slowly. "So you're saying maybe Sato Ken was Zhi Yuan previously, and now he's Sato Ken and he's a member of the Virate."

She shows her hand again, the silver scar making you shiver. "Virate initiation. They take the same finger during interrogation to see if you break. If you don't, they give you the finger back. If you break, you die."

You sit frozen, the weight of her words pressing down like cold rain. Minghao has that scar. You think of Minghao’s brutal efficiency on the terrace, the dead language in the car, the way he always deflects with half-truths. Your heart beats hard, frantic.

"If Sato Ken isn't a real name, you might be dealing with a Shade. It's hard to say. Shades are hard to find and are usually found only if they want to be… being uncovered for them is like death. They're the hidden assassins the Triptych likes to raise. Not even standard members of the Virate know who they are." Kero leans back. "Did he make any threats or have you seen him before?"

"No," you tell her. Your mind is on Minghao and not Ken - Yuan, whatever his name is. "Just met him at a party. My gut tells me he's important."

"If your gut managed to find an assassin for the Virate, that's a pretty good stomach."

You hum, noncommittal. "So you're a member of the Virate?"

"Was," she corrects. "Left when I was thirteen."

Both of you sit in silence as your mind races through fragments that feel too sharp to ignore. The scar on Kero’s knuckle. The identical mark on Sato Ken - Zhi Yuan. And Minghao. That thin, precise line across his first knuckle that you’d noticed from the very first boardroom meeting. The way his father deferred to him with a single finger twitch. The ancient language he spoke in the car after the wedding attack. The effortless violence on the terrace. The way he knew about your practice without you ever showing him.

The realization settles heavy in your chest. Your husband - the man who pressed his jacket to your bleeding arm, who wears the red bracelet you braided with your own hair - is not who anyone thinks he is.

Kero doesn’t mention the Xu family once. Doesn’t connect Minghao to any of this. Her ignorance of your husband’s involvement is louder than any confirmation could be- Minghao is an unknown member of the Virate. A Shade, Kero had called it. A ghost wearing the face of a logistics heir, planted here for purposes far beyond shipping contracts and political marriages. You keep your expression neutral, swallowing the storm of questions and fears that you can't let consume you - not here, not with this stranger.

“Thank you,” you say quietly. "This helps."

You reach into the inner pocket of your coat and pull out two things: the sleek, matte-black digital card and a small silk pouch you’d prepared weeks ago during one of your quiet Wednesday rituals. You set the card on the low table first, then slide the pouch toward her with careful fingers.

“If you ever want a new private account set up, use this," you tell her. "It's completely clean and untraceable, with access to resources most people here only dream about in these AR rooms you run." You point at the pouch. "This is for protection. Black salt, rosemary, a bit of hematite. I made it myself. It’s nothing fancy, but… it's my way of showing gratitude."

Kero stares at the offerings, genuine surprise flickering across her face. She picks up the silk pouch, turning it over in her scarred hand. “You made this?” Her eyes lift to yours, sharper now. “Are you a practitioner?”

“I dabble. It was something I started as a kid to pass time. I.. didn’t have much of a childhood and some of the housemaids practiced.”

Kero’s lips curve into a faint, knowing smile, but she doesn’t press. She tucks the pouch into her pocket with surprising care. “If you ever want to apprentice with real practitioners, go to the Silver Thorn Apothecary in the Lower District, near the old canal bridge. Tell them Kero sent you. They don’t take just anyone, but they might make an exception.”

“I appreciate it.”

Kero leans back, studying you for a long moment. The amber light softens the edges of her shifting features. “Watch yourself with the Virate. They don’t play by Syndicate rules. They bind blood, erase names, and turn children into weapons. Once you’re in their sights, it’s hard to get out.” She pauses, tilting her head. “Still… there’s something about your energy. Stubborn. Grounded. I like it."

A small grin tugs at your lips. “I’m trying. I should go. Thank you again, Kero. For everything."

You stand and she rises with you, holding the digital card in her hand. "Don't be a stranger, Mrs. Xu. Try to stay alive."

Rain hisses down on you as you leave, your boots splashing softly in the shallow puddles pooling in the concrete. The Pearl District is alive with partygoers, tourists and socialites heading to clubs, casinos and more, their laughter harsh against the churning of your mind.

Minghao is a Shade. You know with utter certainty, somehow. He's a ghost - a weapon, and you have no idea what it means that he married you or what he wants. He'd told you that you were no use to his family dead and you still believe that, but now you want to know for what.

In an alley between buildings, you dig around in your pocket for your cards. You shuffle them quickly, rain beading on their glossy surface as you do. Three cards slip out one by one, catching on your wet hands until you pull them out of the deck and flip them over.

The Tower. The Moon reversed. Death.

Thoughts of the cards haunt you all the way to the train. Your hood is pulled low, the black fabric of your coat blending into the sea of weary commuters. The bracelet on your wrist feels heavier than usual, a quiet anchor against the unease crawling up your spine.

Pressed between a businessman muttering into his phone and a woman clutching a synthetic flower bouquet, a sense of unease creeps up on you. Eyes on you. Not the casual glances of strangers, but something deliberate and predatory.

The doors hiss shut and the train lurches forward, accelerating into the tunnel with a low whine that vibrates through your bones. You keep your gaze fixed on the scratched window, watching the blur of service lights streak past like dying stars. Your hand slips into your coat pocket, fingers brushing the matte-black comm device Minghao gave you months ago. The private channel. Encrypted. Off-grid. You haven’t used it yet, but it feels good to have in your hand.

You shift your weight, scanning the car without turning your head. Faces blur in peripheral vision, a sea of tired eyes, downturned mouths, and people asleep in seats. No one stands out. No one meets your eyes for too long. Yet the sensation builds, a slow pressure like storm clouds gathering before lightning splits the Tower.

Two stops pass and your pulse quickens with each one. At the third, you make a split-second decision to get off that's nowhere near your intended route toward the Observatory. You elbow your way toward the doors as they open, stepping onto the platform and into the sub-level station, ait thick with the scent of damp rot and the distant rumble of freight loaders. Neon signs flicker overhead, advertising cheap stim-packs and off-grid betting dens.

You don’t look back. Not immediately. You weave through the sparse crowd, heels clicking against cracked concrete, and take the exit stairs two at a time. The streets above are narrower, hemmed in by crooked buildings and powerlines that spark intermittently in the thin rain. You turn left, then right, cutting through a market alley where vendors hawk sticky buns and meat skewers, fat sizzling.

Still, the feeling follows.

Your breath comes sharper now and you pause at a corner stall, pretending to examine a rack of knockoff jade pendants while your eyes flick across reflections in a rain-streaked metal panel. Nothing. A shadow shifts two stalls down, but it's gone when you focus. Your instincts, honed by years of the universe’s subtle nudges, scream a single name.

Sato Ken.

The thought lands like a cold blade between your ribs. The scar on his knuckle flashes in your memory. So does his polished smile and the way his gaze had lingered too long at the last charity function, heavy with something unreadable. You’d felt it then too. The Devil.

You quicken your pace, ducking down a narrower side street. The rain intensifies, sheeting off overhangs and turning the ground into a slick mirror of fractured neon. Your coat clings to your skin, heavy and cold. Heart hammering, you slip into a shadowed alley between two derelict storage units where it smells of rust and urine.

Crates are stacked haphazardly against one wall, providing meager cover where you press your back to the damp brick, breathing through your mouth to stay quiet. Water drips from a rusted pipe overhead, steady as a metronome. For a moment, only the distant train rumbles and your own pulse fills the space.

A splash confirms you're being followed and you don't hesitate. Your fingers close around the comm device, pulling it free with trembling hands. The surface is cool, almost alive under your touch, drinking in the faint alley light. You activate it with a press of your thumb, the faint holo-sheen blooming like starlight in the dark. The private channel connects with a soft chime that feels too loud in the confined space.

It rings once. Twice.

“Come on,” you whisper, voice barely audible over the rain.

Your free hand grips the small knife in your other pocket, though the blade feels inadequate against whatever waits in the shadows. The universe had warned you. The cards had warned you. Death upright. Transformation through violence.

The line clicks open and Minghao's voice comes through, low and immediate. "What's wrong?"

You've never been happier to hear his voice. The sound of his calm and controlled voice nearly buckles your knees. You lean harder into the wall, eyes darting to the alley mouth where a silhouette might appear any second. Rain sluices down your face, mixing with the cold sweat on your skin. The feeling of being watched intensifies, a prickling heat at your nape like fingers hovering just above your spine.

"I need you to find me," you tell him, voice barely audible. "I'm about to get taken or killed."

"Wicked-"

"You have access to my medical records," you interrupt. "You should have been emailed how to access. I have a subcutaneous tracking chip. Activate the emergency beacon with the password given to you - it pings your private network. Do it now."

Footsteps again, deliberate now, closing in from the alley’s entrance. A shadow detaches from the gloom, tall and masked.

“I know you’re a Shade,” you whisper. “Maybe I mean nothing to you at all, but you saved me on our wedding night and if I’m still important to your family, you need to find me. Or at least my body."

Minghao says your name - not wicked woman, not wicked - just your name. You say nothing else, swallowing as you drop the comm in the rain and crush it under your heel, the sharp crack lost to the sound of increasing downpour.

When the figure steps out of the shadows, all you can see are the grey eyes. You stare at him head on, refusing to show him fear despite the way your hands tremble in the cold rain.

"Is your husband coming?"

"Yes."

He nods. "Good."

-

Thunder shakes the penthouse. It's not loud enough to drown out the hammering of Minghao's heart as he gets dressed frantically. For once, Minghao feels like he might be panicking. He's not entirely sure - panic is a foreign concept to him. As a Shade of the Virate, he doesn't operate in adrenaline and panic - he simply exists in the detachment of calm and deliberate decision making.

This doesn't feel like that. He has no idea when he started caring about you so much - can't even really figure out when it happened. He supposes between the random late night dinners, the rare instances of breakfast, and the weekends when he watched you sit at the coffee table with your little herbs and candles muttering to yourself, he decided he liked you.

Had you been the elitist, snobby socialite he assumed you were going to be, he wouldn't be in this situation. Yet fate - because he's starting to believe in fate - had put you into your position - unprepared and woefully unjaded - through the violence of your sister's death, and put you directly into Minghao's path. He doesn't know what else to call it, because only destiny could be this specific.

Rain crawls in silver streaks down the windows, turning Hyperion into a smeared galaxy beneath the clouds. Minghao stands in front of the open wardrobe in a black compression shirt and tactical trousers, fingers gone motionless around the clasp of his chest holder as the information he'd requested through your instructions appears across the retinal display he'd put over his right eye.

PATIENT STATUS: ELEVATED STRESS RESPONSE WARNING: HEART RATE EXCEEDING SAFE BASELINE WARNING: ADRENALINE EXCEEDING SAFE BASELINE WARNING: CONCUSSION DETECTED LOCATION PING: ACTIVE LOCATION: 908 LOWER WATER STREET, WAREHOUSE DISTRICT, HYPERION 3094304

Minghao watches as your biometrics spike violently across the lens. Oxygen levels unstable, cortisol flooding yourself, neutral activity elevated. Nothing in your current vitals tells him that you're dying, which is the single positive news he has while he finishes buckling the holster before he opens another hidden compartment in his room, revealing weapons.

He takes the knives and two guns. They charge at his touch, the pulse letting him know they're primed as he holsters them. The red cord around his wrist slides with his hand movement, the azabache charm clicks against the gun as he removes his hand.

You'd looked so serious when you handed it to him, like you were testing him. He hadn't seen it then for what it was - a leap of faith to see if he was serious about you practicing your little customs without fear from him. Now he knows that he'd passed the test, because you'd start being more open around him. Not hiding things. Calling him and telling him you needed his help.

Minghao yanks a jacket over the holsters and accesses the medical feed again with a blink of his eyes. Nothing has changed, and your location still pings in an abandoned shipping corridor near Pier Nine. It's in Xu territory, a dock that belongs exclusively to Minghao's father, and by extension, Choi Moojin.

The hours Minghao has spent trying to track down his half brother have gone to waste. It appears that his brother has the jump on him, and why shouldn't he? Zhi Yuan or whatever the name he goes by now has known Minghao existed for far longer than Minghao has known he had a sibling, and it's clear that you've been in his sights for a while as an obvious attempt to get to Minghao.

Minghao is going to kill him. He made the decision long before you'd called him. He had decided before his mother even finished telling him about Yuan, about the first born son she naively thought the Virate gave away. It doesn't matter if Yuan is blood, though. He'd spilled the blood of those under the protection of the Xu family, and Minghao was bound by honor to pay him back.

Blood for blood.

It's not an easy situation. Minghao doesn't know if his brother is here by authorization of the Virate, or if he's gone rogue. The right thing to do would be to contact the Triptych, but Minghao has no plans of doing that. It's too much of a risk if they've sanctioned whatever attack this is, so he's decided to do what he wants. He knows it'll have consequences - he has carried out the punishment for this kind of thing plenty of times.

"Fuck," Minghao sighs, running a hand over his face.

As much as he wants to do this alone, he knows that the odds will be better if he has leverage. Everything with the Virate and the Triptych especially is above leverage and moves within moves, and Minghao doesn't have any right now. So he picks up the phone and dials a number he's never called before, heart hammering as the phone rings.

"Xu Minghao," Jeonghan answers softly. "What can I do for our favorite shipping heir on a rainy Thursday evening?"

Minghao slips a knife into the sheath at the base of his spine as he speaks. “I need a deal.”

Jeonghan pauses. "Oh?"

"In exchange for leverage and information on the Virate."

"I'm listening."

"I need protection and support from the Choi Syndicate if the Virate comes knocking at my door."

Jeonghan's no longer amused or joking when he says, "And why would they do that?"

"Agree to it before I say anything."

Jeonghan pauses. "Why'd you call me?"

"You're the heir to the Wisdom and you're smart. You'll know whether I'm lying or you'll figure it out yourself. Now I want a deal before I say anything."

The Observatory feels too high, too isolated tonight, suspended above the storm like a fragile glass cage. Neon from the distant Pearl District bleeds through the fog in fractured violet and electric blue, painting the matte black steel beams in shifting hues that do nothing to calm the unfamiliar knot twisting in his chest.

The line is silent for a beat too long. Jeonghan’s voice returns, stripped of its usual lazy amusement. “A deal, how bold. Alright - I, Yoon Jeonghan, Second to the Wisdom, affirm that the verbally negotiated agreement between us is valid and binding, and will be upheld by the Choi Syndicate under penalty of death or exile. Talk."

“The Virate,” Minghao starts, running a hand through his hair. "I'm a member. They raised me as a Shade. Nameless. Trained for killing and secret work. My family’s move to Hyperion, the logistics empire, this marriage - it isn't just business moves, it’s for the Virate. They wanted someone nameless but loyal to sow seeds and gain influence with one of the Syndicates of the city, ideally the Choi Syndicate."

A soft whistle from the other end. “And here I thought you were just another pretty Arkos heir playing at power. Continue.”

Minghao’s jaw tightens. He moves to the bedroom door, glancing once toward the east wing where you should be safe. The biometric feed in his retinal display pulses steadily, your location fixed, stress elevated but alive. For now.

“I have an unexpected target on my back,” he says, already striding toward the private elevator. “A Shade operative. One I didn’t know existed until recently. He orchestrated the wedding attack. Tonight, he has her. I’m on my way to eliminate him. It might blow back. If the Virate decides I’ve gone rogue or exposed too much, they’ll come for cleanup. I need Choi Syndicate support if that happens - protection, resources, a buffer. In exchange, I’ll give you information useful for leveraging a partnership with the Virate in Arkos. Real leverage. Names. Structures. Weak points the Triptych would rather keep buried.”

The elevator doors hiss open. Minghao steps inside, the mirrored walls reflecting a man dressed for violence. His hair is still damp from the earlier rain, eyes sharp and unblinking. Jeonghan is quiet again, but Minghao can hear the calculation in the silence, the Wisdom's son weighing angles, risks, opportunities.

"Hm," Jeonghan hums. "Interesting. You know this verbal agreement could be void based on your intent to threaten the safety of the Syndicate, right?" Minghao doesn't answer as the elevator plunges downward. "Why trust me with this?"

“Because you’re useful,” Minghao answers flatly. “And because my wife is bleeding time in a warehouse while we talk. Agree or don’t. But if I walk into this alone and don’t come back, you lose the chance at whatever game you’re playing with the docks.”

“You’re more interesting than I gave you credit for, Minghao. Fine. Deal. Choi support if the Virate comes calling. You deliver on the information. And try not to die, Baby would be devastated if the lead she gave your wife ended up with her dying."

Minghao pauses. "We'll discuss what you mean later."

"Sure."

Minghao pockets the phone. His mind cycles through possibilities of Yuan’s training, the scar, the grey eyes that matched his mother’s. Blood for blood. The old laws demanded it, but something sharper cuts beneath the duty now. Your voice on the comm, steady even in terror. The way you’d crushed the device rather than let it lead danger straight back here. Stubborn. Honest. Wicked in ways that had nothing to do with tarot cards.

The doors open into the cold concrete expanse. Elara and Kai snap to attention near the armored car, but Minghao waves them off with a sharp gesture. “Stay here. Guard the penthouse. No one in or out. If I’m not back by dawn, call Yoon Jeonghan."

“Understood, sir.”

Minghao slides into the driver’s seat himself, the engine humming to life. Rain hammers the garage ramp as he accelerates upward, the city’s neon arteries blurring past. His grip on the wheel is steady, but the red cord around his wrist catches the dashboard light.

His hands tighten on the wheel. He's ending this game of shadows tonight.

-

Your head throbs with a deep, nauseating pulse that radiates from the back of your skull down through your jaw. The world tilts when you try to lift it, the edges of the dim warehouse blurring like wet ink on parchment. The concussion is surely courtesy of the desperate headbutt you'd delivered when Zhi Yuan had grabbed you in that alley. The satisfying crunch of his nose breaking still echoes faintly in your memory, a small, defiant victory amid the terror.

Thick ropes bite into your wrists and ankles, securing you to a heavy metal chair bolted to the floor. The warehouse is vast and derelict, one of the many abandoned husks along the Lower Water Street docks where Xu shipping containers sit in rows.

Rain hammers on the corrugated roof overhead, leaking in thin streams through gaps in the panels to form oily puddles on the concrete. Dim emergency lights cast long, sickly yellow shadows across stacked crates and rusted forklift skeletons.

You test the ropes around you subtly, keeping your movements small, but there's no give. Your small knife is long gone, though the black tourmaline bracelet is still there, warm against your skin, a fragile tether.

Across from you, Zhi Yuan is seated casually on an overturned crate. Blood has dried in dark rivulets from his broken nose down over his mouth and chin, staining the collar of his shirt. The injury makes his sharp, balanced features turn grotesque, his grey eyes eery in the low light. He holds a stained cloth in his hand, dabbing occasionally at the swelling in his face.

"You're not what I expected," he admits. "Though I suppose any woman associated with the Choi family fights back."

You lift your chin, ignoring the way the motion sends fresh dizziness spiraling through you. Fear coils tight in your gut, but you refuse to let it show. You meet his gaze evenly, challenging every boardroom lesson your father ever drilled into you since your sister's death.

"Headbutting you was worth the headache," you mutter. "Though I imagine it hurts worse on your end."

His mouth twitches into something like a smile. "I've endured worse. You know, most heiresses would be sobbing by now. Begging. Offering credits or Syndicate favors."

"I'm not worried."

"You think your husband is coming?"

"I know so."

He leans back and sighs. "I know so too." His eyes watch you carefully. "I saw the way you looked at my scar at the gala. Same as his. You don't miss much, do you?"

“Enough to know you're a threat. What do you want, Zhi Yuan? Or is it Ken? Does the Virate let you keep any name at all?"

His grey eyes narrow slightly, but the amusement doesn't fade. "Names are fluid for us. Tools. Zhi Yuan was the boy the system forgot. Sato Ken was the man who married well and smiled at galas. Neither is real. But you can call me Yuan. It's... familiar."

“Familiar because of whatever connection you have to my husband.”

Yuan stops dabbing his nose and watches you for a long moment. He rises slowly, pacing a few steps through the puddle-streaked space. His boots splash softly. Yuan drags another crate closer and sits across from you again, legs stretched out casually.

“Tell me,” he drawls. “How does it feel to be married to a man who was never meant to have a wife? A real one, anyway.”

“It feels like he's going to kill you." You stare at him. "And if he doesn't, the Choi Syndicate will. I'm not some random woman you can steal away in the middle of the night. Your turn - why me if this is about him or the Virate?"

"I was at your wedding, you know?" He cocks his head. "You made a beautiful bride. The intent was to kill you and turn the Choi Syndicate against him, but once I saw that he cared, I knew that wouldn't work. They would see his honestly. So now you're just bait. My brother owes me a conversation."

The revelation hits you like a physical blow. Your breath catches sharply in your throat. Brother. You look into Yuan's eyes and don't know how you missed it - Luli looks right back at you, the cool grey, the calm eye of the storm.

Yuan watches your reaction with dark satisfaction, leaning back slowly. “Yes. Luli’s firstborn. The one she tried to hide. I found out about him by accident, you know? There he was, golden second son, raised by our mother and Jian in relative comfort, given a public name and legit empire to inherit while being a Shade for the Virate. All while I rotted in foster homes and training cells, learning how to kill before I could read properly. It wasn’t fair. He got life, the light, the illusion of choice. I got the shadows and the scars."

The Devil upright. A man in chains, who cannot escape what he is bound to. The tarot cards make sense, suddenly. You're looking at the devil, a man who cannot or will not escape the fate he thinks he's tethered to. You think of the Nine of Wands upright - a wounded warrior still standing guard, exhausted but defiant - and realize it's Minghao. Someone stuck between two worlds.

"I don't care where you're from or who you're related to," you spit out. "Only a weak man pities himself to this degree."

It hits a nerve. Yuan stands, violence written all over his face, but a device on the table a few feet away chimes and shows a hologram of a map, a red dot pinging as it approaches. Your heart lurches when you realize it's Minghao, throat tightening as the dot speeds through the roads of the Warehouse District.

"Finally," Yuan sighs. "I get to meet my brother."

Thunder rolls in the distance. Your heart hammers in your chest as you watch the entrance door, hearing the hiss of tires and the slamming of a car door. You can barely breath until the heavy metal door is being ripped open, rain pouring in as a dark silhouette slips through. Minghao shuts the door behind him, water streaming off of his black jacket, hair plastered to his forehead and neck. His eyes are unreadable, scanning the room before they fall on you.

Minghao strides forward, ignoring Yuan entirely. Your heart stutters, the violence in his eyes like nothing you've seen.

"Are you okay?" His voice cuts through the rain, low and steady.

You manage a nod, the motion sending fresh spikes of pain through your skull. The ropes bite deeper as you shift, but you hold his gaze. “I’m alive.”

Minghao’s jaw tightens, a muscle feathering along his cheek. For a heartbeat, the polished heir you met in the boardroom vanishes completely. This is the man who snapped an assassin’s neck on your wedding night. This is the Shade.

"Good. I'll be just a moment, okay?"

You nod and only then does he turn to his brother. Yuan is standing, clearly annoyed. The resemblance is unmistakable now that you know to look for it - the same sharp-soft balance in their features, the same predatory grace. But where Minghao carries a coiled stillness, Yuan vibrates with resentment, grey eyes burning with untapped rage.

“Brother,” Yuan greets. “Took you long enough.”

Minghao doesn’t waste words on pleasantries. “You’re no family of mine. We cull men weak enough to be driven by petty jealousies.” Minghao gestures to him. “Knives only. Old way. No guns. No tricks. You and me."

Yuan’s smile widens, splitting the dried blood on his lip. “You still cling to the old customs? You're a little princeling here - you aren't Virate.”

“I honor what I am,” Minghao replies. He shrugs off his jacket, letting it fall to the wet floor. Beneath it, the compression shirt clings to his frame, revealing the holster straps and the faint outline of the small spell jar you gave him, still tucked against his chest. The red bracelet on his wrist stands out like a slash of blood against pale skin. “Do you?”

Yuan laughs, low and bitter and strips down to a similar compression shirt as Minghao. Two blades appear in his hands, thin, wickedly curved karambits that catch the light. “I was forged in the same dark you were. Let’s see which of us the Triptych favored more.”

Minghao draws his own knives. No flourish. Just efficient, practiced motion. One in each hand, shorter than Yuan’s but perfectly balanced. He rolls his shoulders once, eyes never leaving his brother’s face as the rain hammers the roof in relentless sheets and water drips from cracks overhead, plinking into puddles that spread across the concrete like spilled ink.

You test the ropes again, heart hammering against your ribs. The black tourmaline bracelet feels warm against your skin, a small circle of your own intention. You close your eyes, sucking in a short breath as you center yourself and focus on the single intention you have: Minghao living.

The fight begins without warning and you flinch. Yuan lunges first, a blur of motion across the wet floor, his karambit slashing in a wide arc meant to open Minghao’s throat. Minghao twists inside the reach, blades flashing up to parry. Metal screams against metal and sparks fly, tiny and bright in the dimness. They separate, circling each other like lions.

Yuan attacks again, faster this time, feinting low before slicing high. Minghao ducks, but not quite fast enough as the blade catches his shoulder, opening a shallow line of red. Blood wells immediately, mixing with rainwater. Minghao doesn’t flinch. He counters with a vicious upward thrust that forces Yuan to leap back, boots splashing.

Each collision is brutal, knives cutting air. Feet slide on the slick concrete, searching for purchase. Yuan is slightly taller, leveraging reach, but Minghao is faster and more economical with his movements, his efficiency brutal as he slashes Yuan across the rib, tearing fabric and flesh.

Minghao presses the advantage, driving Yuan backward with a series of rapid strikes. Their blades lock, faces inches apart, and for a moment, they strain against each other, muscles corded, breath visible in the damp air. Yuan’s grey eyes gleam with something like joy.

"I knew you liked the girl," Yuan goads. "This isn't business for you. This is emotional."

Minghao headbutts him hard and Yuan's face explodes in blood again, the damage you'd done earlier doubling. He stumps and Minghao follows, his knives dancing in a pattern too fast for you to track as he cuts open Yuan's shoulder, his forearm, his thigh. Minghao moves like pain is irrelevant, cutting Yuan until the man is screaming and kicking at Minghao for distance.

Yuan feints left, then spins, driving a blade toward Minghao’s kidney. You suck in a sharp breath but Minghao pivots and catches Yuan's wrist, twisting violently with a sickening pop. Yuan roars, dropping one karambit while swinging wildly with the other. Minghao takes a cut across the chest for it, but he doesn't let go. Instead, he yanks Yuan forward and drives his own knife upward where it sinks into Yuan's side, just under his ribs.

Yuan gasps, eyes widening. He tries to pull away, but Minghao holds him close, almost intimate. Their faces are inches apart, rain dripping from Minghao's hair onto Yuan's cheek.

"Blood for blood," he says, voice hard. He says something to Yuan in that same language you don't understand before he twists the knife.

Yuan’s mouth opens in a silent scream while his free hand claws at Minghao’s shoulder, leaving bloody streaks. His grey eyes lock onto Minghao’s for one long, terrible second. Then the light in them gutters out. Minghao yanks the blade free and Yuan collapses to the wet concrete with a heavy splash. Blood spreads beneath him, dark and final, mixing with rainwater and oil. The body twitches once, twice, then stills.

Minghao stands over his brother for a long moment, chest heaving, blood running down his arms and torso. Then he turns to you. The shift in him is immediate and devastating as the killer melts away into something soft. He crosses the distance in three strides, dropping to his knees in the puddle before your chair

His hands are trembling as he unties the ropes at your wrist, careful as he cuts through them with the knife slicked in his brother's blood. His dark eyes search your face frantically, cataloguing every bruise, the swelling at your temple, the way you’re favoring your head.

"Are you hurt?" He murmurs. "Tell me where. Please."

Please. You don't think you've ever heard him say that. Not to you. The way he says it is devastatingly soft, his sharp eyes round as he looks up at you, hands hovering like he doesn't know what to do.

“I’m okay," you whisper.

Minghao cuts away at the ropes around your ankle before tossing the knife and pulling you forward, careful not to press against any injuries. His embrace is fierce and gentle at once, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other spanning your back. You can feel his heart hammering against yours, fast and terrified in a way his face never shows.

It's the first time he's touched you - honestly touched you - since your brief kiss at the altar and the night you were almost killed. His touch is grounding and warm, the smell of him comforting but laced with the metallic tang of blood. You pull away, your hands hovering as you look at all the places he's bleeding.

“You’re bleeding-"

“It doesn’t matter.” He pulls you back in, his voice muffled by your hair. "You are nosey and you are stubborn and you are fascinating. Thank you for calling me."

"Minghao, you need stitches."

“Later.” He presses his forehead to yours, eyes closed. Rain drips from his lashes. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters right now.”

The spell jar is still pressed between you, warm against his chest. You can feel its faint outline. The red bracelet on his wrist brushes your skin as he cups your face again. Something inside your chest cracks open, relief, fear, the strange blooming warmth you’ve been trying to ignore for months.

“I knew you’d come,” you whisper.

“I will always come for you.” The words are quiet, almost reverent. He kisses your forehead, then your temple, avoiding the bruise, then the corner of your mouth. Not possessive. Just desperate reassurance. “I’m sorry you had to face him alone."

“I headbutted him. Broke his nose.”

A soft, startled laugh escapes him. “Of course you did.” His thumb traces your jaw. “My wicked, impossible wife.”

He helps you stand, supporting most of your weight when your legs threaten to buckle. The warehouse spins for a moment, but his arm around your waist anchors you. He keeps you turned away from Yuan’s body, shielding you with his own as he guides you toward the broken door.

Outside, the rain is still falling in torrents. Minghao’s car idles just beyond the entrance, lights off, engine humming low. He helps you into the passenger seat with painstaking care, buckling you in, checking the angle of your head, murmuring soft instructions to breathe slowly. Then he rounds the car and slides behind the wheel.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. Rain lashes the windshield. Minghao’s hands grip the wheel, knuckles white. Blood still trickles from the cut on his chest, but he ignores it, eyes fixed on you.

“I killed my brother tonight,” he says eventually, voice hollow. “For you. I need you to know I would do it again. I understand I have not been forthcoming or warm, but I care for you.”

You reach across the console and take his hand. His fingers curl around yours immediately, tight enough to hurt. The red bracelet shifts between you.

“I know,” you whisper. “Thank you.”

He lifts your joined hands and presses a kiss to your knuckles, eyes closing again. When they open, the intensity is back, but softer now. Protective. Possessive in a way that feels like safety rather than the chains you'd felt that first meeting in the boardroom.

“Let’s go home,” he says. 

You nod, exhaustion crashing over you like the rain outside.

-

Doctor Tzintzun finally steps back, wiping her hands on a sterile cloth. The Observatory penthouse is quiet except for the low hum of the air filtration system and the distant patter of rain against the floor-to-ceiling windows. Fog presses close outside, turning Hyperion into a muted glow far below

The doctor packs her kit with efficient movements, glancing between you and Minghao. “The stitches on your arm will hold, but keep them dry. Concussion protocol is in place - rest, dim lights, no screens. As for you, Mr. Xu, those cuts were deep. Change the dressings in six hours. Pain management is on the bedside table. Call if anything worsens.”

Minghao nods once, voice low. “Thank you. Elara will see you out.”

The door seals behind them with a soft click, leaving the two of you alone in the low-lit living room. Your body aches in new and old places, your temple tender from the concussion. But you’re alive. He’s alive.

Minghao sits on the wide, low couch beside you, closer than he’s ever been in this space. The black silk robe he wears hangs open at the chest, revealing the edge of white bandages and the hard planes of muscle beneath. His hair is damp, falling across his forehead in dark strands. The red bracelet you made him still circles his right wrist, the azabache charm catching the soft amber light from the single lamp. He hasn’t taken it off.

You shift slightly, the oversized shirt you wear - his, you realize - riding up your thighs. The silence stretches, thick with everything unsaid. The fight. The blood. The truth of what he is. Your eyes trace the line of his jaw, the faint scar on his knuckle, the way his chest rises and falls with careful, controlled breaths.

He turns toward you, dark eyes intense in the dimness. For once, there’s no polished mask, no deflection. Just raw, unguarded focus on your face.

“I don’t know why you get under my skin,” he says quietly. "I was trained not to let anyone close. Attachments were liabilities. You were supposed to be a transaction - a bridge that was useful and controllable."

He reaches out, fingers brushing a strand of hair from your cheek with surprising gentleness. The touch lingers, callused fingertips tracing your jaw. “But you fight back when you should crumble. You read the universe in cards and smoke and believe in it so stubbornly it makes me question everything I was forged to be. You called me when you were terrified and trusted me to come.”

His thumb strokes your lower lip, eyes dropping to watch the motion. The air between you crackles, charged like the moments before lightning. Your pulse quickens, heat blooming low in your belly despite the exhaustion and pain. You can smell him, clean skin, faint pine.

“I don’t understand it,” he murmurs, leaning closer. "You affect me. You make me want things I was never meant to have.”

"So have them," you murmur.

He laughs and kisses you. It’s not the chaste brush from your wedding. This is real and hungry, months of restrained tension exploding between you. His mouth claims yours, tongue sweeping in to taste you deeply. You moan softly into him, hands fisting in the front of his robe, pulling him closer. He tastes like mint and rain and something darker, needier. His hand cups the back of your neck, tilting your head to deepen the kiss, the other sliding down your side to grip your hip.

The world narrows to the wet slide of tongues, the soft sounds of breath and need, the heat of his body pressing you back against the couch cushions. Your bandages pull slightly but the pain is distant, drowned in sensation. His scent envelops you. The low groan vibrating from his chest makes your pussy clench.

He breaks the kiss only to trail his mouth down your neck, sucking lightly at your pulse point. “Tell me to stop,” he rasps against your skin, voice wrecked. “If this is too much after I lied-"

“Don’t you dare,” you whisper, threading fingers through his damp hair and tugging him back up for another searing kiss.

Minghao makes a low sound and shifts you both, pulling you into his lap so you straddle him. The robe falls open completely, revealing his bandaged torso and the hard length of him pressing against you through thin fabric. Your shirt rides up, bare thighs against his hips. He’s already hard, thick and hot, and the realization sends a fresh wave of arousal flooding through you.

He kisses you like a man starving, hands roaming under your shirt to cup your breasts, thumbs circling your nipples until they pebble tight and you let out a shaky sound, overwhelmed.

“So fucking perfect,” he growls, breaking the kiss to yank the shirt over your head.

Cool air kisses your skin, then his hot mouth is on you, sucking one nipple deep while his fingers pinch and roll the other. The wet heat of his tongue, the gentle scrape of teeth, the suction - all of it pulls desperate whimpers from your throat. You arch into him, grinding down against his cock, feeling the thick ridge slide against your dampening folds through your panties.

“Minghao-" His name breaks off on a moan.

He switches sides, lavishing the other breast with the same filthy attention, sucking hard enough to leave imprints of his teeth on your skin. One hand slides down your stomach, dipping beneath the waistband of your panties, fingers finding you soaked.

“This wet for me already?” he murmurs. “My wicked wife.”

Two thick fingers push inside you without warning, curling deep. You cry out, hips rocking instinctively as he starts to pump them slowly at first, then faster, thumb finding your clit and circling with devastating pressure. The wet, obscene sounds of his fingers working in and out of your pussy fill the room, mixing with your gasps and his low groans. He kisses you again, swallowing your moans as he finger-fucks you harder, scissoring and curling until you’re trembling on the edge.

“Come for me, baby,” he demands against your mouth. “Let me feel it.”

The orgasm crashes over you, sharp and sudden, and you clamp down hard around his fingers, thighs shaking as it rips through you. He doesn’t stop, working you through it with deep, steady strokes until you’re whimpering his name.

He pulls his fingers free, bringing them to his mouth and sucking them clean with a groan. “Taste so good. Need more.”

Before you can catch your breath, he lifts you effortlessly, ignoring the way you yelp, hands hovering near his injuries. He lays you back against the wide couch and kneels between your spread thighs, peeling your soaked panties down your legs and tossing them aside. The cool air hits your exposed, dripping pussy, making you shiver. Minghao stares like a man possessed, eyes dark, lips parted.

He spreads your thighs wider, hooking your legs over his shoulders, and buries his face between them. The first long, slow lick from your entrance to your clit draws a broken cry from you, his tongue parting you like velvet.

“Fuck, you’re dripping for me,” he mutters, voice muffled.

He sucks your clit between his lips, tongue flicking rapidly while two fingers plunge back inside you, fucking you in time with his mouth. It makes you suck in a sharp gasp, lost to the heat of his tongue, the stretch of his fingers. You fist his hair, hips grinding against his face as another orgasm builds fast and brutal. He curls his fingers against that perfect spot inside you, sucking hard on your clit, and you shatter again with a sharp scream, thighs clamping around his head as you come again.

He laps you through it, gentler now, until you’re twitching and oversensitive. Only then does he rise, wiping his glistening mouth with the back of his hand. His cock strains against his pants, a wet spot forming at the front that makes you eager. You reach for him, tugging the fabric down, freeing his thick, heavy length to reveal a flushed dark head slick with precum. You wrap your hand around him, stroking once, and he hisses, hips jerking.

“Need to be inside you,” he rasps, voice wrecked. “Now.”

He sits back on the couch, pulling you into his lap again so you can straddle him with your knees sinking into the cushions on either side of his hips. His cock slides hot and bare against your soaked folds as you grind down, coating him in your arousal.

“Fuck me,” you whisper lips dragging against his. "Like you mean it. Like I'm yours. Like you should have on our wedding night"

Minghao grips your hips, eyes locked on yours, and pulls you down onto him in one smooth, relentless thrust that has you gasping into his mouth, your hands cradling his face.

The stretch is exquisite, burning pleasure as he fills you completely, bottoming out with a shared groan. You’re so wet he slides in easily, but the fullness makes your breath hitch. You can feel every ridge, every throb of his cock buried deep enough to make you shiver.

"Fuck," he hisses. His hands knead your ass, guiding you to rock on him. “So fucking hot and wet around me.”

You start moving, riding him slow at first, savoring the drag of his thick cock against your walls. He floods your senses - his scent, the taste of him still on your lips from earlier kisses, the sight of his bandaged, muscled torso flexing beneath you, the feel of his hands guiding you harder, faster.

He surges up, capturing your mouth in a messy kiss as he thrusts up to meet you. The angle hits deep, grinding against that spot inside of you that has you twitching. Sweat slicks your bodies where they press together, his heart pounding against yours.

“Ride me harder,” he growls, one hand pressing your lower belly, feeling the bulge of his cock inside you. “Want to feel you come on my cock.”

You do, grinding down with fluid rolls of your hips until the pressure builds again. He sucks harshly against your neck then lower, biting and licking his way toward your chest. The feeling of his teeth scraping against you sends you over, coming around him as you hide your face in his neck, crying his name.

Minghao curses, flipping you onto your side gently with your back to his chest. He's careful as he lifts one of your thighs and hooks it over his, and he slowly thrusts back into you from behind in a single, fluid stroke. His arm wraps around you, hand cupping your breast, pinching the nipple as he fucks you with long, drawn out thrusts that have you panting.

"My pretty wife," he pants against the shell of your ear, nipping lightly. "Fate brought you to me. I know it. I never believed before until you."

You moan helplessly, pushing back to meet every thrust. Another orgasm crashes over you, vision whitening as your walls flutter and squeeze him. Minghao groans deeply, pace faltering until he buries himself to the hilt, hips jerking as he spills inside you.

You stay locked together, panting, bodies slick with sweat. His cock softens slowly inside you but he doesn’t pull out, holding you close. His hand strokes lazily over your stomach, down to where you’re still joined, feeling the mess of your combined release leaking out.

After long minutes, he presses soft kisses to your neck, your shoulder, your jaw. Turning your head, he kisses you properly again.

“I never intended this,” he murmurs against your lips, breaking the kiss. “I was supposed to use this marriage, keep my distance, and fulfill the Virate’s purpose. But you deserve better. You deserve a real husband. Protection, honesty, partnership. I promise you that - until death, like I said. No more shadows between us."

"I would like that," you whisper, looking up into his eyes - open and honest for the first time. "Thank you."

Rain taps against the window as you lay there, tired and safe in his arms. For once, you don't worry about anything - there is nothing to worry about. The Tower has already fallen. The illusions are gone. All that remains is what you choose to build from the wreckage.

-

The wedding you always imagined is better than your first one. Late afternoon light filters through the canopy of trees in soft, dappled gold, catching on the mist that clings to ferns and low-hanging moss. The air carries the scent of damp earth, pine resin, crushed herbs, and night-blooming jasmine. For once, the rain has paused, like the earth is letting you have this brief moment among the trees.

This is nothing like the extravagent wedding suspended three hundred floors above the city. No cameras. No political theater. Just earth. Just intention. Just truth.

You're barefoot on a small clearing of soft moss and fallen petals, wearing a simple slip of midnight silk that brushes your ankles. Minghao stands across from you, barefoot and dressed in loose black linen that makes him look less like a Shade and something softer. More solid. Something yours.

A length of hand-dyed red silk binds your hands together, soaked through with oils, saturated with the smell of rose and mugwart and something bitter. Baby stands a respectful distance away beside Seungcheol, her haunted expression gentler today, almost peaceful. Jeonghan leans against a tree with his usual lazy smirk while Kero grins, all teeth.

“This is the one that matters,” Minghao murmurs. "Until death."

You smile. "Until death, Xu Minghao."

[hansiris]

summary: after 90 years of cryosleep, you wake to a world that has left you behind. the red room is eradicated. hydra is in hiding. you are the living remnant of a long-gone super soldier project that shaped you into the ultimate weapon. but now, the other side of the same coin has awakened, and you're the only one who can rein him in before its too late.

wc: 11.5k

cw/tags: winter soldier!seungcheol x black widow!reader, angst/comfort with fluff and a happy ending, reader's red room alias is an OC (basically the red room equivalent of a supersoldier) but no other description is given, implied fem!reader, cameos from 3mix and antman!dk and spiderman!hansol, dark content ahead, please read below warnings before reading

dark content warnings: graphic violence, descriptions of blood and death, discussions of handlers/shock therapy/mind control/bloodlust/assassins and other themes associated with marvel comics' winter soldier character, dangerously protective seungcheol, even more dangerously protective reader, alcohol/drinking, food/eating, the bad guys are slimy and gross and misogynists (it's ok we kill them), themes of codependency, please let me know if there are others I should add and consume media at your own discretion!

note: i spent wayyyy too long figuring out how to photoshop seungcheol's face onto sebastian stan as the winter soldier's body so do NOT say it is AI or i will feed you to kwon soonyoung. anyway hope you like this, i luv luv luv luv luv infinity saga mcu (don't ask me about current mcu...) so this was one of my favorite fics to write ever hehe. also shoutout @noniesgummysmile for feeding my winter soldier!scoups delulu...couldn't have done this without you eia lol. enjoy!

likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated! <3

Casablanca, Morocco – 2025

The port has changed since you visited 90 years ago. 

The weather remains relatively the same, the city bathed in constant humidity from the adjacent ocean and comfortably warm in stark contrast to the sweltering summer days. A mild breeze carries the smell of salt and tanker oil, the latter bringing more pungent scents than the steam ships you remember. Below you are rows upon rows of shipping containers in every color and size imaginable, outnumbering the wood-paneled warehouses you’d traversed in 1935. The soft lapping of waves is overshadowed by humming machinery, buzzing electric lines, and distant rattling of various machines. You find no quiet in the sky, dark and obscured by the lights illuminating the port. Even after two years of waking up in an entirely new millennium, you still aren’t used to the cacophony of sounds that comes with decades of technological advances. 

It’s so loud. Everything is louder in this new age.

“Are we sure he’s coming?” Nayeon’s voice crackles through your earpiece and you startle, nearly falling backward off your perch on the catwalk of a massive crane. You hear her chuckle and she waves at you from her position on another crane. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Don’t be fooled. The more you get to know her, the more you get to know her tricks, too,” Jihyo adds, barely visible under the cranes from her spot between two containers. 

“They’re both tricky. Let’s leave it at that,” Jeongyeon concludes, and your ears are overrun as the other two adamantly do not leave it at that. You let yourself smile, if only a little bit. The Red Room never allowed you to make friends, much less ones as close as the three ex-Widows that had helped you adjust to the new world. You were still hesitant to call them friends despite how easily they referred to you as one, even going so far as to volunteer themselves to help you capture Choi Seungcheol.

Shit. 

You take a deep breath and refocus your energy on the task at hand. The watch on your hand–an analog one you chose when you politely declined a newfangled digital thing–reads nearly midnight. 

“I’m not sure, honestly. He's…programmed,” you choke on the word like poison, “to return to Casablanca and be retrieved by Hydra handlers after every mission. Even if he's just as unnerved as I was by this new world, his brain will guide him to what it knows, and that's Casablanca.” You hesitate and remember how you were also programmed to do something similar, though your rendezvous point was Jakarta. “This is all a hunch, though, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared of getting put back under if this whole plan fails.” 

“We’d never let that happen,” Jeongyeon promises you. “Plus, the world doesn’t work like that anymore.” You sigh.

“Two years out of a test tube and I still don’t know how the world works,” you frown.

“That’s okay. Just know that no one’s getting put on ice again as long as we’re around.” The sincerity in Jihyo’s voice makes your chest a little lighter. 

“Except maybe Mina, just to see her reaction. I think it'd be funny,” muses Nayeon and you finally crack a smile. However, any smart remark that you could contribute dies in your throat as a flash of silver dashes between two containers a few yards away from Jihyo’s position. Your heart drops like a stone into your stomach. 

He’s here.

“Jihyo, 4 o’clock. Eyes up,” you order, your voice lethally serious. The energy in the entire port seems to shift as you double check your descender secured to the rail of the crane. “Remember, he doesn’t know you and he’s not trained to find out.” He probably doesn’t even know me anymore. “He’ll eliminate adversaries on sight and we’re about to ambush him. Proceed with caution.” 

“Copy,” Jihyo confirms, already slipping through the containers like a shadow.

“I’m in position,” Jeongyeon states and you catch the clinking of a tranquilizing tube being loaded into her rifle. “Get me eyes on him and I’ll wait for your signal.”

“Got it. Nayeon, on my mark.”

“Ready when you are, boss,” she murmurs, dangling off the catwalk like an impatient spider.

“Be careful, all three of you,” you warn. “And as a personal favor, try not to fuck him up too badly. Please?”

“We won’t kill your boyfriend, we promise,” Jeongyeon swears with a teasing lilt in her voice. You swallow thickly and ignore the rising warmth in your face but don't argue.

“Okay. Jihyo, you have permission to engage,” you state and Nayeon is already halfway down her rope by the time you start descending. Warm air rushes past your face as your controlled fall brings you to the ground within seconds. You unclip the descender from your belt and sprint in the direction of Jihyo and Seungcheol. Nayeon throws herself into the fight with a roundhouse that Seungcheol blocks easily with his metal arm, shoving her off and using the momentum to swing at Jihyo, but she’s too quick. Both her and Nayeon play their parts perfectly, keeping Seungcheol distracted enough for you to find an opening to hit him with a syringe of the same tranquilizer in Jeongyeon’s rifle. As the best sharpshooter of her generation in the Red Room, Jeongyeon was the last resort if you, Nayeon, and Jihyo were incapacitated. 

You stalk through the shadows, circling the fight while sweat beads on your forehead and a feverish sensation chokes your body. The monster that the Red Room trained within you was baring its teeth, eager to kill and kill and kill the way you were built to. That carnal, animalistic part of you whispers to throw Jihyo and Nayeon aside and take down Seungcheol yourself, a side effect of the Red Room’s supersoldier serum that only you had survived experimentation with. You were itching to fight him, like some part of your brain recognized him as your true equal and wanted to consume him entirely. Your serum-infected psyche recognized him as your enemy, and you wanted to tear him to shreds. The urge nearly overwhelms you but you fight it down like bile, gripping the syringe tighter and waiting for the other Widows to do their jobs. 

You have a handle on the bloodlust until Jihyo falls down and stays down, and your vision goes scarlet red. 

It’s as if your mind takes a backseat to your body, lunging forward to grab Seungcheol’s metal arm by pure instinct and twisting as hard as you can, the jerking movement making the syringe fall from your other hand. Nayeon is quick to grab it and retreat backward, dragging an unconscious Jihyo away. Your arm trembles with effort, your super strength against his until your muscle gives way and you duck as he swings on you, your leg shooting out like lightning to throw him off-balance. You exchange bruising blows with him and find yourself panting from the effort it’s taking to restrain the side of you that wants to claw out his throat entirely. You’re barely thinking clearly, partially registering that the other Widows are saying something to you but not knowing what they’re trying to convey. Your mind is at war with itself, hellbent on the urge to kill and shaking with the restraint of keeping him alive enough to tranquilize. He’s in full tactical armor, including a dark mask covering the bottom half of his face, so your best bet in subduing him completely is to get the tranquilizer into his neck. You risk a glance over your shoulder and feel a sobering chill run down your back as Nayeon touches Jihyo’s head and gapes at the sticky blood coating her palm. 

With a shudder and a cry that tears itself from your throat, you let the bloodlust take over and all but drag him onto the floor. It's the perfect opening to seize Seungcheol’s metal arm and force it in a direction you know it’s not supposed to go. He thrashes like an animal in a trap, clawing and slamming his fists against your leg that keeps him from escaping, but the pain is nothing but numbness in the face of your single goal of crippling his greatest weapon. He roars in rage but you keep your grip on the metal limb until it wrenches off of him entirely with a sickening crunch. He goes limp and you briefly panic that you killed him until you spot the shallow rise and fall of his chest. You don’t fare much better; your vision is spotty and you feel like you’re watching yourself from a third-person perspective as Nayeon tosses you the syringe. You catch it in one hand and sink it into the side of Seungcheol’s neck, keeping him in your hold until his eyes shut completely. 

You lay there on the floor, heaving and half-dead until Jeongyeon arrives to secure Seungcheol’s restraints. You somehow manage to bring yourself upright as the extraction team arrives, squinting in the blinding headlights of the armored vehicles. Waving off the EMT trying to get you onto a gurney and mumbling something that resembled an apology to Seungcheol is the last thing you remember before you black out entirely. 

—

Madripoor – 1939

You first meet the Winter Soldier two weeks after you’re given the serum.

A modified version of Hydra’s supersoldier formula is what you were told was injected, trading the parts that would give you muscles as large as a gorilla’s for enhanced vision and metabolism. You were meant to be the ultimate weapon of stealth, a knife in the dark slipped into the ribs of the Red Room’s enemies. The scientists succeeded, for the most part–you were the deadliest Widow in the program before the serum and only became more lethal after it. What the scientists didn’t account for were the sudden, overwhelming fevers of bloodlust that possessed you whenever you trained with other prospective serum recipients. The serum whispered to you like a demon, pushing you to use any means necessary to survive…even if it meant your hands were covered in blood by the end of an everyday spar. The Red Room had blurred the lines between creating a soldier and creating a monster, and you were the sole survivor of all consequent experimentations. They called it ‘Project: Arachne,’ but you later took on the moniker solely as your own after the others disappeared.

The monster you had become paled in comparison to the shell of a man that Hydra was puppetting. 

“Where did you find such a creature? Such strength, such rage,” one of your handlers remarks, circling the Winter Soldier as he stands like a statue in the center of the room, a private chamber in the back of a dive bar that reeks of mildew. The air sticks to you like moldy glue, sweat running down your back and threatening to melt off the picture-perfect face of makeup you were required to wear. Once a pirate stronghold, the island nation was now a cesspool of criminal activity, brimming with drug kingpins and mercenary gangs that kept the streets in a constant state of warfare. Madripoor is a chaos you cannot control, a steaming shithole completely opposite of the pristine halls of the Red Room. If you had to choose, it would be the last place you would ever set foot in again. “What a beast you have created!”

“He was a soldier that had fallen off a freight train in the Alps; we found him and made him into something we could use,” the Winter Soldier’s primary handler explains with a smile that looks more like a sneer. “Of course, there were some fixes to account for,” he continues, gesturing to the bionic metal arm on the Soldier’s left side. “Except for this, however, he was a picture perfect specimen.” The sight before you makes your stomach turn. The serum and the Red Room’s experiments had left you with at least some semblance of your own mind, but it seemed like the man in front of you was nothing but a machine activated whenever Hydra needed someone disposed. But without that role? The Soldier was a puppet, his eyes empty and his face blank in a way that nauseated you. 

“You’ve put us miles ahead of our enemies with this creation,” a deep-voiced stockholder that frequented the Red Room booms from behind you. The Soldier remains motionless, the bottom half of his face covered by a dark mask, but you catch his eyes flickering to the source of the voice and narrowing, ever so slightly. His face was blank, but his distrust of those who had brought you here was apparent. 

“You are too kind, really,” a beady-eyed Hydra scientist declares with a humble hand over his heart. You suppress the urge to claw his insect-like eyes from his skull when his attention turns to you, looming over you as you sit perfectly poised on your seat, your legs crossed and back straight like a fucking doll. “But I would like to discuss this beauty. Does she speak?” A clammy hand moves in slow motion to caress your face and you catch his wrist in your fingers, sinking your nails into his flesh not enough to make him bleed, but enough to make him hesitate. 

“This beauty can speak for herself, sir,” you correct with a saccharine smile. Your handlers chuckle at your antics and a firm hand on your shoulder makes you release the Hydra scientist. Your nausea increases tenfold at the touch and you fight the instinct to stiffen, knowing that reacting in such a way would only make your handlers upset. Instead, you turn to the handler behind you with a kind look that falters when you see him looking at the Soldier rather than at you, a sort of sick amusement flashing behind his eyes. 

You turn back to what could be drawing his attention and see the Soldier’s hand resting on his gun. His face is expressionless, but you swear the muscle in his jaw has tightened. He’s staring past you at your handler and his hold on your shoulder, eyes dark as a storm. He makes no move to draw the firearm, yet the mere presence of his hand against it is enough to sour the jovial atmosphere in the room. If he wanted to, this Soldier could have all of you in a puddle of your own blood before you could blink, and the polite conversation tapers into tense silence as those in the room make the same realization. As if testing what the Soldier would do, your handler tightens his hold on your shoulder and you swallow. The Soldier’s, in turn, tightens around his weapon. 

“I believe your soldier is threatening me,” the handler behind you observes lightly. The Soldier’s stare is molten, and if looks alone could kill, your handler would be halfway to Hell already. “It seems he does not appreciate my interactions with Arachne,” he continues, his thumb brushing over your skin in a way that has you sinking your nails into your palms to keep from jerking away. The Soldier’s eyes dart to the imperceptible shake in your hands.

Before you finish blinking, everyone in the room is pointing a gun at each other, and the Soldier’s pistol is aimed straight between the eyes of your handler. You stand on instinct and draw your own gun from its holster on your thigh, leveling the barrel at the Soldier’s forehead. He doesn’t even blink, his gaze remaining past you and your weapon. Your handler’s grip remains and he seems unbothered when he speaks, though the sharp edge of his voice tells you otherwise.

“I thought he was completely erased of morality, doctor,” the handler grits. 

“Perhaps one more round of shock therapy will do him some good, just to kill that last part of him that might remember his life before,” a Hydra scientist chuckles nervously, eyeing the Soldier with unease. A dozen guns or more are pointed at the Soldier like a morbid sort of halo, yet all you can see is the rage burning behind his eyes. Whether he was conscious of it or not, the Soldier was ready to kill your handler for touching you. It makes your heart unwillingly flip.

“‘Perhaps’ is right, doctor,” your handler agrees. “We wouldn’t want our stakeholders questioning the loyalty of their prized weapon.” The handler’s grip on your shoulder finally leaves, and the Soldier returns his gun to its holster. The rest of the room takes a breath, but you still feel air catching in your throat when the Soldier’s eyes meet yours and you recognize your own anger flaming in his dark irises. Your chest aches in a way more painful than any wound you experience during training. Two guards who the Soldier could probably snap in half like toothpicks grab him by the arms and escort him out of the room, leaving you with the Hydra handlers as well as your own. 

Your mouth is moving before your mind can realize what you’re questioning, damning you to several days worth of harsh training as punishment for speaking out of turn.

“What is his name?” You ask, your voice low and guarded. You feel the irritation of your handlers stick into the back of your neck like needles, but you have to know. It feels wrong not to know.

“He is the Winter Soldier, Arachne,” someone answers patronizingly and you shake your head. 

“Before. Who was he?” You turn to the scientist that wanted to caress your face and blink up at him through your eyelashes, putting on the mask of a stupid, innocent girl who asks the wrong questions at the wrong time. Your gamble works and the weak-brained one indulges you.

“‘Choi Seungcheol’ was the name on his dogtags when we found him, but he doesn’t answer to that anymore.” You nod, satisfied, and stare at the closed door where the Winter Soldier had been dragged away. “This won’t be the last time you see him, Arachne. You’ll be working together frequently on missions while Hydra and the Red Room sort out the kinks in the supersoldier serum formula.” I don’t want to work with him, you think to yourself. I don’t want him to have to be whatever it is they want him to be. 

I don’t want him to live like this. Like me. 

“Understood,” is all you reply with. 

—

When Seungcheol dreams, moments pass in and out like sunlight refracting through water. 

At first he’s stepping out of Mingyu’s Chrysler, helping a girl whose name he’d already forgotten hop out after him. It’s before the war, before the guns and the metal arm and you. Mingyu and his latest lady-friend are already hand-in-hand and skipping toward the entrance of the dance hall, leaving Seungcheol with this random girl who he thinks he might have seen at the soda fountain a few times before. Her hand is soft and clammy in his when she grabs it and drags him along too, talking airily about the importance of having a matching headscarf whenever one dons a dancing dress. Ever the gentleman, he nods along and pretends to be interested, even when he feels like a goldfish flopping around in the middle of Times Square. 

When they finally push into the dance hall, Seungcheol finds himself looking for a face in the crowd that he’s not sure belongs in this memory, yet searches for anyway. The music of the big band roars and he’s on the dance floor in a blink, mechanically sorting through awkward movements while the girl in front of him slowly loses her patience. His limbs feel like gelatin and wooden logs at the same time, and his date soon becomes bored of him and latches onto the arm of another boy. Later in this memory, Seungcheol knows the boy will become too handsy with her. Mingyu will have to drag Seungcheol away from killing the guy after the latter slams his fist into the creep’s nose, and Seungcheol will remember it as the first time he felt vindicated in causing someone pain. 

He enters a set of double doors at the back of the hall and finds himself in a different memory. If the thrill of the dance hall is distorted from noise and fluorescent lights, this one is soberingly clear. Same sticky air, same mildew stench, same dark shadows. He’s in Madripoor and his arm is extended, pointing the barrel of his pistol at a shithead Red Room agent that’s been keeping his hand on your shoulder for far too long. Whatever Hydra had done to him had made his body answer to his handlers rather than his own mind, so Seungcheol wasn’t completely sure how he was able to move independently in the first place. Maybe it was muscle memory, maybe it was the way the silent panic in your eyes made his vision go blood red. He didn’t know you, not yet, but his mind snarled around like a caged animal at the idea of someone laying a hand on you. The anger superseded any brainwashing Hydra had done to him, and only fortified itself after the subsequent rounds of shock therapy made in an attempt to rid him completely of his own sense of self. Call it Fate or divine connection, but something deep within Seungcheol’s soul outright rejected the idea of you being harmed. In this dream, he thrashes against the hands that drag him away, screaming for you. When he looks back at you, your handler’s hand returns to your shoulder and he’s slammed with so much white-hot rage that he nearly blacks out.

The memory shifts again, and Seungcheol is falling. Frigid air whips past his face, stinging like knife cuts, yet he’s flailing about in slow motion as the snowy canyons of the Alps envelop him like a casket. Mingyu’s hoarse cries are lost among the sounds of the chugging steam train and the splash of Seungcheol’s body as it collides with an icy river, the same river that keeps him cold enough to stay alive until he’s found by Hydra scouts. His vision blinks in and out of focus, the stark-white blizzard sky being replaced by the dingy hallways of Hydra’s medical facilities, where he’s all but blinded by a huge circle of light as the surgery to remove his left arm commences. He blinks again and he’s lying on cold concrete, having had his ass handed to him by another Winter Soldier candidate. His metal arm creaks as he pushes off the ground, spitting a glob of blood and saliva against the floor before rising to face his opponent again. He’s too slow to dodge the next swing and his head hits the ground hard, his body landing with a defeated thud. 

The world lurches and he feels the sensation of wet earth between his fingertips. He’s tense, waiting for the next trauma-inducing event to begin, but there’s nothing but the setting sun and the endless rows of tulips surrounding him. Amsterdam. He blinks against the fading light and stands. You’re a few feet away in tattered tactical gear covered in blood that isn’t your own, looking out over the fields of flowers with a kind of sadness that makes panic flare in Seungcheol’s chest. Of all the memories Seungcheol was bombarded with when he slept, this was the one he hated the most. 

“They’re gonna put me under soon,” you whisper, your voice raspy like you’d been crying. You watch the horizon like it’s your next adversary. Not only had you slipped away from the Red Room long enough to eradicate nearly every agent under the Winter Soldier program, you’d also brought Seungcheol’s mind back to himself. You had broken a dam in his mind that Hydra had so painstakingly built, allowing the flood of memories and emotions and all the things that made Seungcheol human to come rushing back to him. “They’ll know it was me, and they won’t like what I did to you.” 

“You freed me,” Seungcheol says. He wants to reach out to hold your hand, or at least brush your fingers, but that’s not the way this memory works. He didn’t do it then, so he’s tortured by the inability to do it now. “You broke whatever words they put in my head.”

“I didn’t break the words, I killed the ones who used them,” you croak, frustrated. “Someone else could come along and find that God-forsaken book with the trigger words and take control of you again, and I won’t be there to stop them, and–” A sob tears itself from your throat and he sees the same rage that he adored so much burning in your eyes. You were the only one whose anger could ever come close to matching his own. “They could make you worse because of me, and it would be my fault that they did.” 

“They would have to catch me first,” Seungcheol says with grave seriousness. He knows it’s foolish for him to say, knowing damn well Hydra does capture him and put him in the cryo-tube again until they figure out how to reprogram his mind to do what they wanted him to do. “I won’t let that happen.” He does let that happen, unfortunately, as he’s lured into an abandoned nuclear facility two weeks later under the pretense that you would be there. 

“I wish I knew you under different circumstances,” you scoff bitterly. “Or I wish the Red Room ripped out my brain entirely so it could never learn how to care for you so deeply.” He knows you don’t mean it to cause him pain, but his heart winces all the same. Maybe in another life, you would be the one he’d take dancing. Before the war, before the fall off the train, before everything. It would just be you and him, laughing at Mingyu’s shenanigans and dreaming about a future you didn’t know how to want. 

“Do you really mean that?” When he meets your eyes, the fire behind them has dulled into tired coals. 

“I do. I hope that, in another universe, we’re together…and we’re happy,” you wish, and that’s where Seungcheol’s mind cruelly refuses to play any other memories. You and the tulips fade into darkness, and he succumbs to dreamless sleep. 

—

Avengers Headquarters, Upstate New York – 2025

“That’s about to be the fourth one you break this week, and it’s only Wednesday,” notes a teasing voice from the doorway of the training gym. SLAM! Your wrapped fist completes its arc into the punching bag and, just as Jihyo had predicted, the rope it hangs from gives way, sending the bag flying across the room. You pause, catching cold, dry breaths of air conditioning, before retrieving the downed bag and tossing it into the growing pile in the corner. Only then do you turn to Jihyo, who’s watching you with a clever glint in her eye. 

“You shouldn’t be so far from the med-bay,” you point out and she shrugs. 

“I had a concussion, not a broken spine,” she reasons. “I’m fine.” She looks fine, in most senses of the word, but guilt still weighs on your shoulder for putting her in that situation. You look at her for a few moments, still skeptical, but relent and move to hang a new bag. “Hey, aren’t you gonna ask why I’m here?”

“It better not be to spar with me. You’re supposed to be on bedrest for another three days.”

“Which I think is overkill, but agree to disagree,” she grumbles and you shoot her a look. “It’s been nine days since we captured him and I got knocked around a little bit. If I’m being honest, I’d say you’re faring worse than me.” 

“How so?” 

“For one, you’ve been in this gym more often than your own room, which means your sleep schedule is fucked up.”

“Sometimes I hear Seungkwan’s TV through the walls and it bothers me,” you protest. “I come here because it’s quieter.” Jihyo raises an eyebrow.

“Nayeon caught you pacing outside the containment ward even though Jihoon said you’re allowed to go in.”

“There’s a laundry room across the hall from the entrance. I was waiting for a load to finish,” you protest. The ex-Widow’s frown deepens at your blatant half-lie and she gestures to the many broken punching bags you’d sent flying in the days since recovering from the capture mission. 

“You can look me in the eyes and tell me that is normal?” 

“Stress appears different on everyone, Jihyo,” you conclude too carefreely and something different blinks across her face. The light frustration shifts into a muted sort of sadness, like she was purposefully dialing down her emotions to avoid upsetting you. 

“You haven’t been eating meals with us. Jeongyeon, Nayeon, the rest of the girls. We miss you,” she says quietly and your shoulders slump. You drag your hand down your face.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I just,” you inhale, trying to find the words. “I don’t want to burden you all with my baggage. Seungcheol, he’s the last person I would expect to show up from my past, and it hurts. Seeing him like that…it hurt.” Jihyo nods. 

“I get it. I felt the same seeing you in the cryotube on that last raid,” she sympathizes. You chew the inside of your cheek. “We’d heard stories about the Arachne project and how the last surviving participant had disappeared. We couldn’t have imagined we’d find you, but I’m so glad we did.” Jihyo approaches you now, taking your hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay for you to open up to us about how you’re feeling. You don’t have to go it alone anymore.” 

“Since when did the Red Room give empathy classes?” You ask wryly and she chuckles. 

“Since we broke out of their mind-control and started leaning on each other more,” Jihyo replies, nudging you with her shoulder. “We’re the only ones who will get it, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you,” you say. “I haven’t had the chance to properly–” She cuts you off with a wave of her hand. 

“You don’t need to say all that. It’s just what friends do for each other,” she cuts in and you finally give her a tired smile. “Now, are you finally going to let me tell you why I came over here?”

“It wasn’t just for a motivational speech and to tell me to stop bulldozing the punching bags.” Her chuckle turns into a bark of laughter. 

“That, yes, but I also came bearing news,” she shares with a sparkle in her eye. “Choi Seungcheol is awake.” Your heart stutters. 

“He is?” Jihyo exhales.

“He’s awake, and he’s refusing to cooperate unless he sees you first.” 

—

Casablanca – 1942 

After three years of assignments in collaboration with the Winter Soldier, you’ve done something extraordinary–you’ve helped him recover some semblances of his memories. 

Granted, it’s an ongoing process that brings more backtracking than it does progress. You’re not entirely sure how you did it, but somewhere during the downtime of missions, you began asking him questions just to see if he had the facilities to answer them. To your surprise, he was able to answer you almost immediately, though sometimes his expression twisted like he was trying to wrench the memory out of his brain with his bare hands. Over time, you learned small things like his hometown, his friends, and fractals of his life before becoming the Winter Soldier. Your single-sided questions gradually transformed into full conversations, and your talks helped ease the strain of being the Red Room’s most prized weapon. In another world, you could see yourself being friends with Choi Seungcheol, perhaps even something more. 

Sometimes, he remembered too much. 

That’s when Hydra wiped him and started from scratch. 

“Are you real?” He rasps unexpectedly from beside you on the external catwalk of a shipping warehouse. Question number one. You watch him from the corner of your eye, your focus never wavering from the bustle of a ship making a stop for the night at the port. He asked the same question every time his mind returned to him, even if it was only temporarily, like it was a ritual. He had to make sure you weren’t just a figment of his imagination. 

Seungcheol has been dead silent since you met with him in Budapest, the biggest indicator that Hydra had ‘wiped’ him–that is, they shocked his brain into oblivion until the only thing he could understand was his handlers’ commands. When Seungcheol didn’t talk, it meant that he couldn’t remember what he had to discuss with you, but it didn’t mean it was completely gone; it was just deeper in his psyche, and it was up to him to pull it back out. 

Now it seemed, as you watched the dockworkers begin to unload the ship, he’d returned to you. 

“I’m real,” you say without any noticeable emotion, as stable and neutral as you can manage. 

“Are we in danger?” Question number two. On a few rare occasions, you would spend an entire mission with Winter Soldier-only, completely wiped Seungcheol, only for his true self to appear in a relatively inopportune moment (e.g. getting shot at). He described it to you as being in a dream; he knew what the mission was, where he was located, and the task he had to complete, but it was like watching it from an outside perspective. Only when he registered that you were you did he feel like he was back in control of his body. 

“No, we’re not in danger,” you answer, shaking your head. Your eyes narrow on a large crate with a bright red ‘X’ painted on it. One side of the crate is the size of your entire armspan, yet the item inside was a vial no larger than your pointer finger. You didn’t know much about it beyond that, other than that the Red Room wanted it and you were tasked to grab it. “We will be soon, though. That’s our target.” You nod to the box and Seungcheol’s gaze follows it as it leaves the cargo hold and is moved in the direction of your position. 

“Did–” Question number three. He swallows and you wait for him, finally turning to look as he steadies his breathing. “Did I hurt you?” You shake your head again.

“No, you did not hurt me.” Seungcheol breathes a visible sigh of relief. 

“Okay.” You check your descender and practice the timing one last time in your head–you drop onto the package, Seungcheol covers you as you open the crate and retrieve the vial, then throw a smoke bomb and disappear.

“Ready?” His eyes darken over his face mask.

“Ready.” 

The sensation of falling is familiar as the rope goes taut and you drop from the catwalk. The crate wobbles as you land on top of it, the dockworkers startling with a shout of alarm. As you jump down to open the package, you see their shadows reach for something to use as a weapon, but Seungcheol is already there. He’s the closest thing to a demon you’ll ever see, stalking through the darkness and downing enemies. As he takes down the last of the dockworkers near the crate, you grip the side of the wooden box, channel the strength given to you by the Red Room’s serum, and pull. 

Nothing happens.

You give another strong tug, then another, then another until you realize that the side of the crate isn’t budging. You scowl. The serum had given you strength, but there were also other tradeoffs to increase your speed, agility, and enhance your senses for covert operations. For a moment, you toss around the idea of punching a hole in the crate, then realize that you risked damaging the vial inside. Before you can ask, Seungcheol is already at your side, staring at the unopened crate with you.

“It’s still closed,” he monotones and you fight the urge to roll your eyes.

“I see that,” you grumble. “Not all of us got the serum that gave us biceps the size of milk jugs.” He motions for you to back up. “Don’t you dare punch that shit.” Even under his mask, you can tell he’s staring at you incredulously. 

“What do you take me for, an animal?” Yes. He thinks for a moment and shakes his head. “Don't answer that.” Seungcheol then grips the same spot that you had with his human arm and tugs. The side of the crate gives way as easily as ripping a sheet of paper, and you can’t tell whether to be mad that he got more super strength or mad that you can’t stop staring at his arm. He’d ripped off the side of a wooden crate, and he didn’t even need to use the metal arm. “There you go.”

“My knight in shining armor,” you say dryly, stepping up to observe how the vial was encased. Thankfully, it was only a few layers of anti-shock plexiglass that you remove easily, and soon the vial is safe and sound in your belt. Mission accomplished. “Let’s get out of here. You know the way?” Seungcheol nods.

“Keep close,” he says before ducking into the darkness. 

You follow him through the dim-lit streets and alleys of Casablanca to the bar where you would be retrieved by your handlers. It isn’t too late in the night and there are still a generous amount of patrons around as Seungcheol opens the door to the bar, putting you in a state of unease while you slide onto a barstool. Seungcheol stands beside you in between your stool and the next, leaning against the bar with his metal arm hidden by a glove and his jacket sleeve. He’s removed his dark mask and, to any untrained eye, you look like a pair of unassuming shadows that happen to haunt the bar. 

“You don’t want to sit?” You ask after Seungcheol quietly orders you an Old Fashioned, rye with extra bitters, without you needing to request a drink. He’s positioned himself between your barstool in the next, his back to the counter and his head tilted to look at you while also keeping tabs on the rest of the room. Your voice is soft, barely perceptible in the raucous noise of the bar, but Seungcheol doesn’t need to hear anything else right now. 

“I’ll stand. Easier to be close to you,” he says and you hate the way it makes your heart flip. Affection and love were not something afforded to you, yet you loved to look over the edge of what it would be like to care for Seungcheol freely. “Need anything?”

“Not unless you have a Tiffany bracelet hiding in your pocket,” you say lightly and he does that same huff-laugh again. His eyes are dark but the shadow that typically hangs over them is softened in the yellowed light. 

“Tiffany & Co. That’s in New York, right?” 

“It is. Do you remember New York?” 

“New York from before, or New York now?”

“I rarely ever ask how you remember things now, Seungcheol,” you point out and he nods, the muscle in his jaw tightening. “What do you remember about before?” He’s silent for a few moments and the space between his eyebrows pinches.

“Mingyu liked to pick up girls in the diners. Said paying for a girl’s meal was the way to get her heart,” he recalls slowly and you fight back a snort. 

“He really believed that?”

“Mingyu believed a lot of things,” Seungcheol continues, “and most of them were about how to properly woo a woman.” The bartender returns with your Old Fashioned and Seungcheol only nods to him rather than paying him, a kind of silent agreement that your drink would be on the house. You don’t question it. The rye is cheap and there are a normal amount of bitters, but it’s smooth enough as it runs down your throat. 

“And how do you believe you should properly woo a woman?” You posit, momentarily forgetting who you were and who he was. This was the fine line you walked, indulging that desire to be normal and flirt and want, all these things the Red Room had trained out of you. 

“I don’t remember most of the things,” Seungcheol begins honestly, “but I do know that knowing how she takes her alcohol is a good start.” 

“It’s an excellent start.” You smirk over the rim of your glass and fight the urge to shiver when his gloved hand brushes your lower back. The noise around you dims and you scan his face slowly, cataloging every detail of it. What draws your attention the most are his eyes, always his eyes. There was a rage that burned behind them, but it seemed to temper itself when you were near. You didn’t know what to make of it and didn’t have the words to describe it, only that you liked his rage. It matched your own, and it made you feel seen. “Want a sip?”

“Alcohol doesn’t affect us, Arachne,” Seungcheol reminds you quietly and you wave him off. 

“It’s not about getting drunk. It’s about feeling normal,” you correct. He looks at you curiously.

“And alcohol, it makes you feel normal?”

“As much as I can, considering what we’ve been made into.” You shrug and he carefully takes the glass from your hand, rotating the cup so that his lips make contact at the exact spot where you had taken your sip. Your breath catches. He doesn’t break eye contact even as he takes one, long drink, swallowing like it was water and handing it back to you like he hadn’t just thrown your entire brain into a live volcano. 

“Pretty good,” he murmurs. “Up to your standards?”

“I’ve had better,” you lie. You’ve never had alcohol outside of missions, and even then, you tended to fake drinking to blend in with the crowd. “Drinking with company tends to raise my mood, though.”

“Am I good company?” Your eyes sparkle.

“You’re the only company I want.” Before he can reply, movement in the darker shadows of the bar catch his attention. Half a dozen men in three-piece suits huddle together, murmuring, but their gazes remain on you for a duration that makes Seungcheol’s skin crawl. Their eyes rake hungrily over your body and his vision starts going red, his hands unconsciously clenching into fists. He imagines five different ways he could dispose of each of the men, starting with the one that just licked his lips and seemed to be preparing to approach you. “Why do you look like you’re about to kill everyone in this bar, Seungcheol?” You ask in a low tone, your voice coming much closer to his ear than previously. You’ve leaned even closer to him, the smell of your perfume intoxicating him worse than any alcohol. 

“Assholes at your six,” he snarls. You gently but firmly take his cheek in your hand and pull his face to look at you.

“Why the fuck should I care about them?” His face is inches from yours, but his fiery eyes remain on the group behind you.

“You shouldn’t.” The muscle in his jaw is tense enough to cut diamonds.

“So why do you?” You inquire and Seungcheol’s face burns from something he can’t name as he finally meets your eyes. 

“Because they’re looking at you like they own you. No one owns you,” he seethes, his anger boiling over. Your face remains unchanged except for the slight pinch between your eyebrows. You seem to think on his words for a moment and then nod to yourself, removing your hand from his face and downing the rest of your drink in one swallow. 

“It’s stuffy here. Let’s leave,” you order suddenly and Seungcheol’s anger sobers. “We can wait for the rendezvous outside.”

“Did I say something to upset you?” You smile in a way that doesn’t reach your eyes and lace your fingers in his, tugging him toward the exit.  

“No, you just say things that make me think a little too hard on things I’m not allowed to want.”

—

Avengers Headquarters, Upstate New York – 2025

You’re not sure what you’re expecting when you enter his area of the containment ward, but you’re caught off-guard all the same. 

They’ve put him in a dark shirt and pants that stretches over the rippling cords of muscle you, once upon a time, could never stop staring at. Instead of a hospital bed, they’ve transferred him to a fortified metal chair with cuffs as thick as your arm holding his limbs in place. His breathing is ragged when you step into the room and he raises his head to look at you slowly, like he was moving through syrup. When his gaze falls on you, you see sparks of recognition try to come to life in his eyes. 

“It’s you.” You wait just outside of the painted lines on the floor that put him in an imaginary box, remaining just out of reach. You’d been put into the cryotube before he had, so you had no idea what had happened to him in the time between you going under and him going under. What he had become in that time without you was a mystery, and there was a real chance that they had programmed him to kill you on sight. Staying out of his reach was not only for your physical safety, but also to keep you from breaking and succumbing to the urge to touch him for the first time in decades. “I know you.” You just keep staring at him, face blank and still as a statue. Your silence makes him hesitate. “Are you–are you real?” You nod stiffly.

“I’m real.” His muscles flex as he subtly tests the strength of his restraints. You pretend not to notice. “The chair’s just a safety precaution.”

“Are we in danger?” 

“Not if you keep your mind,” you answer truthfully. Panic flashes across his face, like it was truly a possibility he might lose himself again. “I won’t let them take it from you again.” His eyes scan your body, narrowing on the bruises and scars left behind from the fight during his capture. 

“I hurt you,” he croaks. Your heart twists. That’s not the question he’s supposed to ask.

“You were doing what you needed to survive,” you correct gently, stepping over the line on the floor and into his space. Seungcheol stills as you draw nearer until you’re on one knee in front of him, close enough to feel his ragged breath. One wrong move is all it takes for him to headbutt you into the afterlife, yet you feel no shred of fear as you shakily reach for his face. He seeks your touch almost immediately, leaning into your palm with a slump of his shoulders. “You’re with me again, and that’s what matters.” He shakes his head like he thinks you’re a hallucination and you pull away your hand. 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Widows infiltrated and took down the entire Red Room. They found me in the cryotube during a raid two years ago.” Your voice falters. “I’d been asleep since 1944.” 

“You’ve been alone.” The ghost of a wry smile tugs at your mouth. 

“For the most part, though I did have the ones who found me. Three of them helped me find you in Casablanca.” Realization hits Seungcheol like a bucket of cold water. 

“The one who was bleeding, is she–”

“She’s alive. All three of them are, thanks to some well-timed bloodlust on my end that only you have the capabilities of matching,” you state dryly. It’s meant to be reassuring, but you can tell it only makes Seungcheol uneasier. “They hold no grudge against you, nor do I.”

“Maybe you should,” he murmurs. Your face hardens.

“Don’t you dare say that. Don’t you dare think I can hate the one person that understands what I am.” 

“You’re not a what; you’re a person,” he grits and your chest pangs. “You have to believe that. If you don’t, how am I supposed to believe that I’m human too?” 

“That’s not fair to either of us,” you whisper. “I can’t hold you together if I don’t know how to hold myself together first.” 

“You’re pretty damn good at doing it without trying, Arachne,” Seungcheol says softly. “You make me human, even if you don’t see yourself as one.” He holds your gaze a moment longer and lets the tension hang like thick fog, before sighing and sitting up straight. “How long do you think until I can walk around freely?”

“Depends on how well you behave,” you reply, the corner of your mouth tugging upward. “You’ll be let go as soon as the doctors say you’re psychologically sound.”

“As in, I won’t rip out the throats of everyone who breathes in my vicinity,” he deadpans and you nod. “Got it.” 

“I’ll come again in a few hours.” You stand to leave, your legs still slightly sore from the fight during his capture, but Seungcheol rasps your name with a strangled, panicked cry. 

“Wait. Please don’t go. Not yet.” You still, staring down at a man you’ve stood beside–killed beside–as he’s begging you to stay for the sake of his own sanity. “Can you stay a little longer?” 

“Seungcheol, you need rest,” you insist.

“Please. Just for a bit.” You exhale and nod. His shoulders drop in relief.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Yeah, I can stay.”

— 

SECURITY REPORT #080895 | LOCATION - [REDACTED] | TIME - 0200 HOURS

EVENT - BREACH

DESCRIPTION - ROGUE ASSET (ARACHNE)

CASUALTIES - 99

You snap after Hydra wipes Seungcheol’s mind for the eighth time. 

It’d taken him three days for him to even show some semblance of recognizing you, and five more hours of reconnaissance for him to fully remember what you were, who you were. He’d broken out of his trance with a violent thrash, collapsing against the wall with such force that it cracked. You sat on the floor with him, his face in your hands as you forced him to look at you, for what seemed like forever until he finally won over whatever Hydra put in his mind this time. By the time it was over, you were both drenched in sweat and shaking like leaves in the wind. For the first time since you’d known him, the fire in Seungcheol’s eyes was nearly gone, replaced by something broken and tired. 

It made you want to burn the world to the ground. 

He knew what you planned to do, at least some semblance of it; part of you was grateful that he didn’t offer to help you, nor did he try to stop you. You understood each other’s rage, and the only way for you to channel it was to seek vengeance against the only person you cared about. 

Logistically, there was always a period of up to twelve hours after you requested extraction from a mission, enough time for you to track the coordinates Seungcheol had given you and slip into the Winter Soldier Project’s base of operations. You beeline for the security room, dispose of the guards as easily as blinking, and lock every door in the facility before cutting the power completely. The base falls into complete darkness and you bypass turning on the emergency lights. Your eyes, enhanced by the Red Room’s serum that made your night vision akin to a cat’s, adjust immediately and you let the familiar silence of darkness wrap around you like a security blanket. A low siren indicating a security breach echoes against the concrete walls, and you stalk into the void with knives in your hands and your gun locked in its holster. 

You don’t fire a single shot that night. Every soul that you send to the underworld dies by your hands or the blades in them as proof of your rage and to feed the carnal need for blood that roared every time you remember what they did to Seungcheol. The scientists and doctors are easy enough, as are the handlers. The other test subjects that received the serum prove to be a challenge, but they aren’t trained to fight in darkness as well as you are. Their serum also does not make their eyes as strong as yours, so they sacrifice power for accuracy that never lands. In less than an hour, every Hydra agent in the facility is on the floor and your boots are slick with blood. After the last body hits the ground, you breathe in the copper-tasting air. You don’t regret it, not a single kill, and soon enough you’ve nabbed a truck and started on the road for Amsterdam. 

—

Seungcheol is wary of almost everything in this new age, but there are three things he knows for certain. One, that the food he eats for breakfast alone is miles better than whatever he was eating a century ago. Two, that cars of this era can go faster than he could even blink. Three, that you are just as much of an anchor as you were before you said goodbye in that goddamn tulip field. 

“Earth to Seungcheol, hello? Are you reading?” You say with a tilt of your head, lightly tapping his temple with your finger. It’s been a few months since you’d found him in Casablanca and everyday feels more reassuring than the last. In the soft sunlight of the Avengers compound common area, you look almost at peace, a stark contrast to how Seungcheol normally saw you. You’re a completely different person now that the Red Room isn’t breathing down your neck, and it slowly encourages him to bring his guards down as well. His stiff, awkward interactions with the other former Widows has evolved into some interesting conversations that don’t require your patient mediation. It isn’t abnormal for people to see you together like this, you with a computer or a notebook scribbling down whatever your next mission is, and the former Winter Soldier just sitting beside you, like there was nowhere else he’d rather be. 

“I don’t have a book with me, how could I be reading?” He frowns and you smile. The act alone makes his heart trip over itself. 

“It’s just an expression. Instead of reading books, you’re reading signals, like how the space people did when humans went to the moon,” you explain and his confusion deepens.

“Space people as in aliens, or…?”

“The people controlling the spaceship,” you laugh. “The ones making sure it didn’t crash and burn on national television.”

“Right. Television. That’s a thing now.” He scrunches his eyes shut and drags his metal hand down his face, a new Vibranium-reinforced appendage that you’d called in a favor for after Seungcheol began complaining that his old one was creaking. “How’d you do this alone? Adjust to an entirely different world?” You pause, your pencil hovering over the page of your notebook. 

“It was hard at first,” you admit. “But it got easier when I realized that nothing ever really changes, it just evolves. The bones of everything I knew are still there, but they just look different.” An idea lights up in Seungcheol’s mind. 

“Are you able to find information about places on that thing?” He asks, nodding at your laptop. Your face pinches like you’re fighting a laugh and he gives you a pointed look. 

“I didn’t say anything!” You protest with your hands raised in surrender. 

“You didn’t need to. I could hear you laughing at my cluelessness in your head from over here,” he shoots back with no malice. “Can you just–can you look up a restaurant downtown? Darling Diner.” You shrug and your fingers clack against the keyboard. Your eyebrows draw together and you lean closer to the screen, clicking around for an amount of time that makes Seungcheol feel embarrassed that he even asked. “It’s probably dead now, sorry for making you–”

“It’s still open,” you interrupt, surprised. “‘The original Darling Diner, serving New York since 1928.’ Is that the one?” He leans over to you and you turn the screen to face him. The exterior color is changed and the neon sign is in a different font, but the building is the exact same as the one where he and Mingyu used to go after school. 

“Holy shit. That’s the one,” Seungcheol mutters. “I can’t believe it’s still around.” 

“Did you frequent it often?” Seungcheol chuckles.

“Often? Mingyu and I were there every day of the week. All the staff knew us by name, even tried to set us up with their daughters.” An amused glint shines in your eye.

“Oh? Do tell about all the girls you’ve romanced at this diner,” you tease and Seungcheol stutters, his face suddenly hot. He swallows and the silence makes you stifle a snort, another sound that he’s never heard before but would never tire of hearing. “I’m kidding, I promise. You’ve told me all about the times you’ve third-wheeled Mingyu’s dates.”

“Yeah, that jackass always made me take a walk up and down the street when he wanted to give the girls a kiss goodnight,” he reminisces. 

“Jesus, how many girls was he kissing?”

“I lost track after the fifteenth.” He shrugs and you both burst out laughing until your stomachs hurt. When the giggles die down, Seungcheol takes a deep breath and steels his nerves. “Does it…does it say when the diner closes?” You blink and scroll around a bit before nodding.

“1:00 in the morning, every day,” you reply. “Why?”

“Do you have any dinner plans?” Seungcheol asks and you try not to look too excited. 

“I do not.”

“Would you let me take you out to dinner then? I can tell you if the quality is as good as I remember it being.” Your smile is brighter than every star combined. 

“I would love to.” 

A few hours later, you’re tucked into a well-worn leather booth scarfing down a plate of food as large as your head. The sun is giving its final bows and the diner is humming with hushed conversation amidst the soft clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen. Seungcheol has regaled you with at least six new stories about his escapades with Mingyu before they enlisted, and for a minute you let yourself imagine that this was a normal life. You were on a normal date with a normal guy (with a totally normal arm) in a normal diner on a normal night. Normal. How odd. 

“Where’d you go?” He asks as the waitress in a grease-stained apron clears your entree plates from the table. You blink back to the present and try to ignore the way Seungcheol’s arms are flexing under the sleeves of his henley shirt. You offer an apologetic smile. 

“Sorry, I’m not sure. I guess I got too caught up in the moment.” You fidget with a crumpled straw wrapper, if only to not get flustered by Seungcheol’s unwavering attention. “I like this. Being with you.” He nods almost solemnly. 

“I do too.” 

“I’m half-expecting someone to barge in and try to recapture us,” you chuckle dryly, though you’re not entirely kidding. 

“Is that why you keep glancing at the door like we’re still on the run?” Seungcheol gently questions. 

“A habit I can’t shake, unfortunately,” you sigh. “Nayeon calls it ‘the white rabbit’ theory.” 

“Like from that book about the girl who smokes with a caterpillar?” 

“Among other things, yes,” you snort. “It’s essentially a fear that whenever something feels too good, something bad comes along to ruin it. The white rabbit gets you, is what she says. I guess I’m…I’m waiting for the rabbit to come through the door.” Seungcheol is quiet as he digests what you’ve shared with him. Then, slowly as to give you time to pull away, he reaches for your hand. You let him take your fingers in his and run his thumb over your bruised knuckles, an act so delicate that you forget to breathe. The rest of the diner falls away until it’s just you and him in the dingy yellow light, holding on to a moment that isn’t as fragile as you think it is. 

“If the rabbit comes in, I’ll shoot him,” Seungcheol mumbles after a while. You choke on a surprised laugh that falters when you see the grave seriousness etched into his features. “I’m serious.” He thinks back to Amsterdam, to the suppressed panic you were trying to hide from him in that fucking tulip field, and how he let you go without so much as lifting a finger. He could have done more to protect you. He should have done more. “I’ll die before I ever let someone take you away again,” he promises and your eyes start watering unexpectedly. You swallow thickly and nod, not trusting your voice to remain steady. 

The waitress arrives with a single strawberry milkshake like a car horn on a quiet street, making both you and Seungcheol startle and swear colorfully under your breaths. She tosses two more straws onto the table and leaves without another word. You both share a look as you stifle your laughter, the moment effectively ended but not broken. 

“Damn, maybe the real rabbit was our waitress,” you joke and Seungcheol makes a noise from his throat that sounds vaguely like a chuckle. “A little cliché, isn’t it? Sharing a milkshake with two straws?” You unwrap both and stick them on either side of the glass.

“You say cliché, but I remember it as Mingyu’s special closer,” replies Seungcheol. You lean in and take a sip and he does the same, your noses nearly brushing. “Good?”

“Delicious,” you whisper. His eyes dart to the corner of your lips and his thumb wipes your mouth without thinking. You don’t stiffen, but he does halfway through the action, pulling away abruptly like he’d been caught doing something wrong.

“Sorry, you had a…something on your face.” Your eyes are too knowing and he flushes under your gaze. 

“It’s okay, I didn’t mind.” Your voice lowers and you lean forward over the glass again so close that Seungcheol can count the different flecks of color in your eyes. “Though you could also just kiss me next time that happens,” you murmur with a clever smile. “Unless that was also part of the Mingyu Special, in which case I don’t really want to–” 

“I get the point, sweetheart.” Your teasing is cut off by Seungcheol closing the distance and softly placing his lips on yours, like you would explode if he moved too suddenly. He feels you smile against the kiss, though it might’ve been because he was smiling first. You hum and pull away just enough to nudge his nose with yours, the milkshake between you forgotten. “You taste like strawberries,” he grins. 

“Is that okay?”

“More than,” he confirms. “I like kissing you.” He hesitates before speaking again. “I…I like you.” Your joy falters. 

“I’m not the easiest person to be with, Seungcheol,” you remind him uneasily. 

“I don’t need you to be easy,” he murmurs. “I just need you.” 

“And if I prove to be too much trouble?” Seungcheol shakes his head adamantly. 

“You said it yourself. I’m the one who’s made to match you. I’m asking you to let me.” You search his face but find nothing but conviction and raw determination. 

“You’re sure about this? About me?”

“If I wasn’t, you’d have never been able to break me from Hydra’s control,” he says and the tiniest part of you starts to believe him. 

“As long as you don’t let the white rabbit get me,” you caution with a poorly-hidden smile. “Now c’mon, let’s finish this and get out of here. Jihoon’s car isn’t gonna speed itself.” 

—

Casablanca – 2026

“We really should stop meeting like this,” jokes an all-too-familiar voice over your shoulder as you watch the waters of the port shine in the early afternoon sunlight. You push your sunglasses up onto the top of your head and turn to look at Seungcheol as he approaches, looking too good for someone who was just on a flight for over twelve hours. When he’s close enough, you loop your fingers until the belt loops of his pants and tug him to kiss you. You hum in contentment when his hands immediately position themselves on your hips. “Someone’s happy to see me.”

“Mmm, I know you like when I’m clingy,” you reply and he shrugs. 

“I plead the fifth. Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re right on time,” you reassure him. “They’re about to engage.” Seungcheol’s stomach turns uneasily.

“You’re sure they’re okay to take this on their own?” 

“They’ll be fine. They’ve been training together for months. It’s about time they did a mission on their own.” You grab the earpiece case from your pocket and pop one into Seungcheol’s, connecting him into the comms system as the two trainees take their places. “Ant-Man, Spiderman, confirm positions.”

“I am in a position,” replies Seokmin through crackled static. “Not sure if it’s the right one.” Seungcheol gives you a skeptical look and you wave him off. You’re starting to feel relieved that you didn’t assign them a night mission as their first job. “You don’t happen to know where my extra vial of Pym particles are, do you?”

“You won’t need any more than you usually use during training, so just be smart with how you shrink. It’s just like the training simulations,” you explain patiently. Seungcheol has begun pacing back and forth and checking the magazine of his guns. 

“Am I allowed to use web-bombs on this mission?” Hansol inquires and you pinch the bridge of your nose. “Also I’m in position. I have no idea where Seokmin is.” 

“You can use web-bombs sparingly. Be sure to call out when you’re going to use them, since you tend to get Seokmin caught in the crossfire as he’s shrinking and growing.” 

“Wait! If I go gigantic, you’ll be able to find me!” Seokmin proposes with too much enthusiasm. 

“Do not go gigantic, Ant-Man. I repeat, do not go gigantic,” Seungcheol commands. 

“I didn’t know Seungcheol was supervising us too,” mumbles Hansol a little indignantly. “Pressure’s on, I guess.”

“Wow, scary!” Seokmin adds. “The most terrifying Avengers making sure we don’t mess up. I guess I can’t be funny today.”

“No, be funny,” Hansol frowns. “It makes this more fun.”

“Your mission is to identify the contents of a shipping container. Where the fun lies in that, I’m not sure,” Seungcheol states incredulously. He presses a button on the earpiece to mute his microphone and turns to you. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just handle this? We could be in and out in under five minutes.” You shake your head and squeeze his hand. 

“The Winter Soldier and Arachne are here as backup. We don’t need to be scary on this job; we need to be mentors,” you remind him gently. “Trust me, I’m just as nervous for this mission as you are.” 

“I doubt that,” Seungcheol laments and you chuckle. Your smile drops suddenly when five different shipping containers fall over with loud metallic crashes as Seokmin’s Ant-Man suit grows to become as tall as the cranes. Swinging on his arms and throwing web-bombs like no tomorrow is Hansol, and the dockworkers are running about in a state of panic. The targeted container is nowhere in sight, and half of Seokmin’s leg is now in the water. You and Seungcheol share a look and sigh. “Well, shit.” 

“So much for subtlety,” you agree, unhurriedly pulling your batons from their sheaths on your thighs. Seungcheol dons his black mask and pulls the detachable sleeve away from his Vibranium arm. “I could use an Old Fashioned after this.”

“Rye, extra bitters,” he continues. The corner of your mouth turns down when you realize you’ve misplaced a knife on your belt, and Seungcheol is quick to hand you one of his. “Maybe I’ll give it a try today. Seems like a drinking kind of night, if we survive this.”

“This is easily survivable compared to what we’ve done in the past,” you scoff, adding the knife to your array and stretching your neck from side to side. 

“Sorry, I mean the press conference that’s gonna come our way once the press hears that Ant-Man got half his foot stuck in a crane,” corrects Seungcheol and you shrug. 

“Just another day, isn’t it?” You smile at him and he winks at you. 

“Guess so.” He cracks his human knuckles.

“Got my six?”

“You know it.”

“Great,” you grin, pressing one more kiss to his cheek. “Let’s clean up their mess.”

in case you didn't know: reblogging is the best way to support your favorite authors! if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi!

[sailorsoons]

Until Death | Teaser (x.mh)

PAIRING: Minghao x f. reader SUMMARY: As the second daughter to one of the most powerful businesses under the Choi Syndicate, you’ve always lived your life free of responsibility - until your sister dies and you become the heir. So when your family announces one of your new responsibilities as heir is an engagement to the son of a powerful shipping conglomerate, it comes should come as no shock. Minghao, however, is full of surprises, each one of them more deadly than the last. TOTAL WC: ~35k AU: Mafiaverse, Cyberpunk, Arranged Marriage GENRE: Smut, Angst RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. TEASER WARNINGS: Reader having anxiety and some mild allusions to disparity of wealth and people overlooking reader often. A/N: We have arrived at the next chapter of the Syndicates! See you Sunday! DROP DATE: Sunday, May 24 at 5 pm CST

COLLECTION | ASK | NOW PLAYING: UNTIL DEATH

The lead counsel taps the table. The contract above ripples, red lines bleeding into final black. A soft chime confirms transmission, and you look down to see the new draft appearing in the table's interface in front of you. Your name is already glowing in the signature line, waiting for your official sign off.

Swallowing hurts. Your throat is desert-dry as you pick up the stylus, hating the way it shakes in your hand. You grip it tighter, fighting off the tremor as you glance up instinctively.

Minghao is no longer watching you. His head is bowed, stylus moving in a single, fluid stroke that ends in a flourish. He sets the stylus down with deliberate care, aligning it parallel to the edge of the table before he looks up at you again, expectant.

You look down and sign, a nervous trickle of fear cutting through you. Once executed, the documents appear across the interface in rotation, allowing for the room to sign as witnesses. You keep your gaze fixed to the document rather than him, but you can feel the weight of his stare settle on you like a blade pressed to the hollow of your throat.

"Ajourned," your father says as soon as the final signature is finished.

Chairs roll back in a sudden rush of sound. Quiet chatter rises, the polite and rehearsed gratutude backtracking the soft shaking of hands. A side door you hadn't noticed opens and two white-gloved staff glide in with trays of chilled plum-infused water, coffee, and tiny plates of yuzu macarons dusted with gold leaf.

You cringe. The refreshments are small but you know they cost more per bite than most people in the Lower District make in a week, the display of wealth so suddenly overwhelming to you that you feel your stomach flip.

People being to mingle. Your father is already shaking Xu Jian's hand, voice pitched polite again. Luli is laughing at something one of the lead counsel members is sayingl bright and lilting.

You stand, knees shaking. The air feels a little to thick for you, your pulse a frantic bird trapped inside your ribcade. You don't bother excusing yourself verbally - no one in the room notices you. They never do. So no one stops you when you slip through the door into the cooridor.

Outside the boardroom the air is cooler. You breathe in the cedar-scent, walking away from the room. Your heels are too loud and you soften your steps, making it feel like you're sneaking off. And you kind of are, honestly. You need a break, a breather from the formality and the cage of formality.

You find a smaller meeting room, windowless and lit only be a single strip of amber light along the ceiling. There's a narrow table with four chairs and nothing else. You lean back against the door for a moment, letting out the breath you'd been holding the entire meeting.

Reaching into the pocket of your blazer, you produce a silk-wrapped bundle. The cards are warm from your body heat, the silk falling away as you unwrap the tarot set. You walk toward the table, shuffling the cards. You feel your anxiety ease with the familiar weight of them in your hand, the soft schk as they shift in your fingers.

You don't even ask the deck a question. You just need the feel of them, need somthing famliar in this strange building with these strange people. The cards speak anyway, three cards slipping from the deck to clatter on the table, face-up.

The Tower, upright. The Moon, reversed. Death, upright.

It feels cold in the room. You stare at them, teeth workikng your bottom lip as you proccess, your eyes dragging over each guard. Lightning splitting stone. Lies and illusion dissolvering. And ending that's a beginning. It's the usual trio that's been haunting you since you drew the World, revsered a year ago.

You don't hear the door open as you look over them. It isn't until you see a shadow fall over them that you flinch, whirling around with your hand flying to your chest.

Minghao stands just inside the threshold, one hand still on the handle, the other loose at his side. He closes the door without a stound, tilting his head to peer around you at the table of cards. You step to block his line of sight, vision pounding.

"Oh, it's you-" You break off, unsure what to say. He probably has no concept of tarot cards anyway. "It's a… hobby of mine."

Minghao says nothing. He approaches with deliberate, lithe steps until he's standing next to you but with a respectable distance between you. You catch the faint scent of pine and cold air clinging to his jacket, refreshing.

"What do they mean?" He asks, voice soft. "When they fall like this? What do you see?"

"You know what they are?"

"Know it's strange that you have them. You don't strike me as a wicked woman." You frown at the term wicked woman. Its slang for the women who work backdoor craft and ritual practices - you're curious to how someone of his status knows the word at all. He points to the cards on the table. "Tell me, please."

You step forward, fingers tightening around the deck. "The Tower means sudden change. The collapse of something that was supposed to be stable. Violence, sometimes."

"The Tower like the rulers of the SyndicateS?"

Your pulse throbs in your neck. "Yes."

He hums. "Keep going."

"The Moon reversed is lies coming undone. Secrets dragging into the light whether one wants them to or not."

"I see. And Death?"

"Death isn't always literal." You don't know why you feel the need to clarify, but you do. "It's transformation. The end of one thing so another can begin. You can fight it or you can walk through it, but you never stay the same."

Minghao is quiet for a long moment. The light bathes him half in shadw, half in light, like a dark angel. He's so beatiful its hard to think straight for a moment, hard to realize this is the man you're going to marry.

"You're practiced at reading these, then?"

"Very. I trust very few things, but these have never lied to me."

"You're too honest," Minghao's gaze lingers on the Death card before he turns to leave, not sparing you a glance. "It will hurt you one day."

[vernonverse]

OUR FREQUENCY ✶ Boo Seungkwan

SYNOPSIS. Years after fame pulled him apart, Seungkwan finds his way back to his first love: you. Now working as a radio producer, you’re trying to move forward with your life... until he decides to break a few rules to pull you out of a bad relationship and win back your heart.

PARING. Idol!Seungkwan x Radio Producer!reader 

GENRE | TAGS. One-shot, childhood friends to lovers, second chance, mutual pining, slow burn-ish, fluff, comedy, smut.

WC. 30.1k+

RATING. Explicit adult content (MINORS DNI).

WARNINGS. Alcohol consumption, mentions of food, jealousy, small descriptions of a toxic/controlling relationship, explicit language, miscommunication, descriptions of ptsd, longing, miscommunication, angst, hurt/comfort, verbal conflict/argument, cheating undertones, smut, semi-public intimacy, dirty talk, dry humping, oral (f. receiving), fingering, mentions of blood and cuts.

AN. 1. First of all, I’m officially coming out of hiatus with this hehe. 2. Vocal unit are the only ones famous in this, and Seungkwan is retiring. I also changed some things in their debut timeline, etc., so if anything seems strange, that’s why. 3. Fun fact: Don Capri is a real restaurant in my town.

🎧SOUNDTRACK. spring into summer - lizzy mcalpine, too young - louis tomlinson, gimme - got7, crazy in love - seventeen, late night talking - harry styles, perhaps love - howl and j.ae, together - seventeen, this town - niall horan, fresh out the slammer - taylor swift, love is on the radio - mcfly.

— This fic is written for the First Time Caller collab hosted by @studiosvt! I had so much fun writing this, the theme is amazing and it really got me inspired. Please make sure to check out the other amazing fics too! 💗

JUNE 2012

The air in Jeju at five in the morning had a specific smell: a mixture of saltpeter and damp earth. For you, that smell would always mean home. But for Seungkwan, from that day on, that smell would be just a memory stored in a distant compartment of his mind.

You were both sitting on the stone parapet behind Jeju-si High School. It was your spot, a blind one for the security cameras where the school wall meet the precipice overlooking the ocean. Below, the waves crashed against the rocks with rhythmic violence.

A pair of wired headphones connected the two of you, and the music playing was an acoustic demo of Last Love he’d recorded on his phone. His voice, still hoarse from sleep — because he’d woken up in the middle of the night to record it so he wouldn’t forget and you could listen — filled the silence between you.

“You’re not going to need a stage name name,” you finally said, kicking your heels against the stone, the thought occurring to you all at once. “Seungkwan is great. It’s unique. Boo too.”

He let out a nasal laugh, the vapor of his breath condensing in the cold of the early morning, his heels mimicking the same movement as yours. Seungkwan studied your profile, not understating why you gaze was avoiding his.

“Why does it sound like you’re going to cry when you say that?”

You shrugged, sulking internally. “I’m not.”

You did felt like crying, way more than you liked to admit. You were incredibly happy and proud of him, but you couldn’t shake the fear in the pit of your stomach telling you everything was about to change. And as silly as it sounded, you were trying to hold on to that small part of who he was in that moment.

“Then are you already planning my marketing?” He bumped your elbow with his. “I haven’t even stepped through the company gate yet. I could be sent back in the first month if I can’t keep up with the pace of the other trainees.”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “Don’t talk nonsense.” Below you, the waves began to decrease in intensity as the day began to rise. “I saw you rehearse that choreography until your feet bled at the harvest festival. Pledis doesn’t know what’s coming for them.”

“You should come with me,” he says like if it were the easiest thing in the world, eyes locking with yours with a small sparkle.

You can’t help but laugh at his suggestion, turning to him. The bluish light of pre-dawn sculpted his profile, and you felt a tightness in your chest that you couldn’t name. It was pride, but it was also the anticipatory grief of a loss.

“And do what? I can’t sing or dance for the life of me, Kwanie.”

“You can be my manager.”

“I’m pretty sure they already have people for that,” you argued, like that was the only problem.

“Then you’ll be my producer,” he countered instantly, his voice dropping the playful edge. He shifted his weight, turning his body entirely toward you so that the wire of the headphones tugged slightly between your ears. “It’s only eight months, tokki.”

You want to tell him he’s not coming back in eight months. That there’s no way in hell they’ll let him go without turning him into something bigger than this island could ever hold. But instead, you take a deep breath and watch the waves below.

“Eight months is a long time. There’s time to have had a child in that time.”

He scoffed. “A child with whom?”

“I don’t know! Youngjae is cute.” You shrugged again, pouting just to annoy him before flicking his forehead lightly. “We’re sixteen, dummy.”

Cho Youngjae.

He’s a cool guy. Tall, looks like a baseball player or something equally appealing, even though he’s only a few years older than the two of you. He’s always announcing that he wants to be a surgeon. Seungkwan swears he thinks he’s a good guy. The problem is that everyone at school knows he has a big fat crush on you.

And so does he.

“Why are we suddenly talking about Cho Youngjae?”

“Well…” There you were, avoiding his gaze again. “He invited me to watch him practice and get banana milk after school the other day.”

Seungkwan’s entire posture stiffened, and even though he tried so obviously to hide it, you noticed. The rhythmic kicking of his heels against the stone parapet stopped abruptly, leaving only the sound of the crashing waves and the soft hum of his own voice through the shared earbuds.

“Practice,” he repeated, his voice flat, devoid of the melody it usually carried. “And banana milk. Wow. He really pulled out the big guns, didn’t he?”

He looked away, staring out the horizon where a thin, pale line of orange was beginning to bleed into the indigo sky. The jealousy he felt wasn’t a sharp pain; it was a dull, heavy ache, a realization that while he was moving toward a future with the possibility of bright lights and crowded stages, he was leaving a vacuum behind.

And people like Cho Youngjae—people who didn’t have to leave, people who could stay and buy you a snack after school—were already waiting to take his place beside you.

“He’s just being nice, Kwanie. Don’t be like that,” you mumbled, though you secretly relished the way his jaw tightened.

“I’m not being like anything,” he retorted, though he finally reached up and yanked the earbud out of his ear. The silence of the morning rushed in to fill the space. “It’s just… you don’t even like banana milk that much. You like the strawberry one.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” you countered, crossing your arms over your chest to shield yourself from the dawn chill.

You didn’t even know Seungkwan cared that much about strawberry milk or banana milk.

He turned back to you, and the playfulness was gone. He wanted to tell you not to go with Youngjae. He wanted to ask you to wait the eight months. Or ten. However long it took for him to get settled. He wanted to promise he would call you every night. That he’d send you the demos of every song he learned. That you shouldn’t let some high school baseball player wannabe make you forget about him.

But that wouldn’t be fair to you.

So instead, Seungkwan exhaled deeply and softened his expression as he sat back down beside you, slipping his side of the earbud back in.

“And you?” he asked, changing the subject, as he always did when the conversation was about to get too serious. “Are you going to keep hiding your talent for communication behind the inn counter?”

You sighed, glancing towards the horizon, where the orange line was growing bigger.

“My mother needs me here, you know.” You leaned your head against his shoulder, feeling the sturdy warmth of him through his jacket. “Since my father passed away, the inn is all we have.”

“But—”

“It’s fine, Kwan,” you breathed, watching the sun finally break over the water. “The women around here don’t retire, they just merge with their work.” You shrugged. “Plus, someone has to carry the sheets and check in the tourists who think the island is an amusement park.”

There was a melancholy in the way you spoke, even though you tried to be humorous about it, and Seungkwan noticed.

“It’s temporary, tokki,” he said, resting his head against yours. “Someday you’re going to be the voice everyone hears on their way to work. I’ll be in the back of a black van on the way to some show, and I’ll turn on the radio, and I’ll hear your voice.”

You smiled, but the smile didn’t reach your eyes. The idea seemed like a perfect fairy tale. A few years back, you would have believed it wholeheartedly. Now, you knew that the distance between Jeju Island and stardom in Seoul was greater than a few kilometers of ocean; it was an abyss of social classes, restrictive contracts, and a lot sleep deprivation.

“Just…” you said suddenly, voice lost its lightness. “Promise me.”

Seungkwan leaned closer, the headphone cord stretching between you. “Promise what?”

“Promise you won’t abandon me.” He looked rather confused, opening his mouth to argue that he wouldn’t, but you didn’t let him finish. “Not physically, I know you have to go. But don’t let whatever is waiting for you there… change you.”

“Tokki…”

“Don’t let them turn you into a product I can’t recognize. I want that, ten years from now, if we meet again, I can still see the boy who used to steal tangerines from the neighbor’s orchard with me.”

He held your hand. His skin was warm against yours, which was frozen by the wind. “I could never forget you, even if I tried. You are my anchor, tokki. Seoul can give me the world, but Jeju is where my heart is.”

Even if that were true, the two of you couldn’t help but laugh when Seungkwan fell silent.

“You’re so dramatic, Boo,” you breathed, watching the sun finally break over the water. “Pledis really is going to love you.”

Silence returned, but now it was different, the sun finally breaking through the sea’s edge and bathing the volcanic rock in gold. It was your signal: Seungkwan will be leaving for the airport in less than three hours.

“It’s time,” you murmured, though you wished you could freeze time. “Your mother must be finishing her coffee. She’ll be furious if you leave on an empty stomach.”

You stood, grabbing his wrist and pulling him along toward the low houses of the neighborhood, your hands brushing against each other but never truly intertwining due the silent fear that the contact would be too painful to break afterward.

“Are you really sure about this?” you asked, voice faltering slightly. You kicked a small stone, eyes fixed on your own feet. “Seoul is… far. Like, really far. It’s not like going to the airport. It’s another world.”

Seungkwan looked out at the sea in the distance. In Jeju, the horizon seemed like the end of everything. In Seoul, he heard the horizon was made of skyscrapers.

He takes a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“Okay.”

As you reached his door, the smell of seaweed soup and grilled fish wafted through the cracks. It was his last breakfast as a nobody. Before entering, you paused under the stone portico. You held his shoulders, forcing him to look at you one last time without the distractions of the adult life that awaited you.

“Listen carefully,” you began, voice firm despite the urge to cry. “Don’t look back when you get on that plane, okay?”

“What—”

You covered his mouth with both hands. “Just… let me finish, please.” He nodded, looking between your hands over his mouth and your eyes. “Jeju will be here. I’ll be here. But these… these are your dreams now. They’re no longer our childhood plans, they’re your reality. Go and conquer everything you said you would.”

Seungkwan pulled you into a quick, tight hug. It was the kind of hug meant to hold on to the other person’s scent for long days.

“I’ll go,” he whispered against your hair. “I swear I will.”

You watched him go inside, his silhouette swallowed by the warm light of the kitchen where his family awaited him. You stood there for a minute, alone in the morning chill, knowing that from that moment on, your lives would never be the same.

Then you walked toward your mother’s inn, the battery-powered radio in your pocket weighing like lead. You had a shift to work, sheets to change, and an ordinary life to lead, while he was about to become a constellation.

PRESENT

Studio B at the Jeju City Broadcasting was roughly the size of a walk-in closet—practically a shoebox—and smelled distinctly of stale iced americano, sea salt drifting in from the open window down the hall, and Seungkwan’s ridiculously expensive cedarwood cologne, which had seeped into the walls over the months.

It was a chaotic, cramped little ecosystem, and for the last fifteen years, it had been you’re entire world.

“You’re tapping your pen again,” Seungkwan murmurs, not even looking up from his phone as he lounges in the squeaky host’s chair.

You immediately freeze your hand over the mixing console. “I am not tapping. I am keeping time.”

“You’re tapping,” he insists, casually reaching across the desk to steal the iced Americano you had bought for yourself and yourself only. “And it means you’re stressed about the timing of the transition for the second segment.”

You snatch the coffee back, glaring at him as condensation drips onto your meticulously highlighted run-of-show. You sigh. “I’m stressed because you went off-script yesterday and we had thirty seconds of dead air while you monologued about the emotional depth of a drama you watched in 2018. If you—”

“—miss the cue, Chief will throw a fit,” he finishes, waving a hand dismissively. “I know, I know.” He finally puts his phone down and shoots you a blinding, practiced smile that practically sparkles under the fluorescent studio lights. “Relax, tokki. You’re working with a professional.”

You roll your eyes so hard they actually ache. You hate that damn nickname he gave you when you were eight years old and your front teeth refused to grow no matter how long you waited and wished for them to, giving him endless fuel to tease you until you finally threatened to beat him to death.

After so many years apart, you would have expected Seungkwan to forget that damn nickname. Especially now that you were both already in your thirties. But no. Quite the opposite, actually.

Your phone buzzes against the console, vibrating so violently it nearly rattles off the edge. You don’t have to look at the screen to know who it is, and the familiar knot of dread tightens instantly in your stomach.

[Youngjae - 8:14 PM]: Are you seriously working late again? You told me you’d be done by 6.

You sigh, picking up the device. Your fingers hover over the keyboard, already drafting an apology you didn’t actually owe him.

You didn’t use to work late until six months ago, when Seungkwan arrived and the Chief reassigned you from the Non-stop Nostalgia show to the late-night slot. The workload had doubled now that his co-host had given birth three weeks earlier than expected and you were filling in for her because, of course, you didn’t find a replacement for her sooner.

[You - 8:15 PM]: I’m sorry, babe. The 9:00 PM live slot is still a mess. They still haven’t found anyone to replace Yoona and we’re scrambling. I might not be out until 11.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.

[Youngjae - 8:17 PM]: Whatever. You always put that stupid station first. [Youngjae - 8:17 PM]: I don’t even know why I bother making plans with you. You need to figure out your priorities.

You lock the screen and set the phone face down. A heavy, exhausting silence settles over you, and you can feel Seungkwan’s eyes on you, studying you, even though he doesn’t ask anything.

You trace the edge of the promise ring Youngjae had given you six months ago; a silver band that felt more like a shackle than a symbol of affection. You are constantly walking on eggshells, constantly apologizing for having a career, constantly trying to shrink yourself to fit into the “normal, peaceful life” you thought you wanted.

Why were you with him? That was a question you didn’t like to ask yourself.

“Hey. Earth to PD-nim.”

You jolt, snapping your head up to see Chan, the junior writer, waving a hand in front of your face. “Sorry,” you blink, shaking off the lingering guilt. “What is it? Did we secure a backup for tonight?”

Chan’s eyes were wide, a mix of sheer panic and starry-eyed excitement. “Chief Kang is calling for an emergency meeting in the briefing room. Right now. And yes, we secured a backup. Apparently, he pulled off an absolute miracle.”

You push yourself out of your old squeaky chair, grabbing your clipboard and glancing in Seungkwan’s direction, who, for some reason, avoids your gaze.

“A miracle? Who did they get with three hours’ notice?”

“Just get in there,” Chan urges, practically shoving you toward the door and following right behind you.

The small briefing room was buzzing with frantic energy when you walked in. Chief Choi Seungcheol—a notoriously stressed, soft man who practically lives on black coffee —is pacing in the front of the room like he was trying to outrun whatever news he was about to deliver.

The small radio station belonged to his grandparents, and since you were hired after returning from university, you’d seen the ups and downs he’d faced trying to keep this little corner of Jeju running over the years as radio slowly faded for the younger generation. It had basically been on life support, kept alive mostly by the island’s elderly listeners… well, until Seungkwan arrived and the audience grew exponentially.

As soon as you take your seat, Seungcheol slams his hands down on the table.

“Alright, listen up,” he barks, though there’s a triumphant gleam in his eye. “We’re not going to hire someone to replace Yoona.”

Your eyebrows arch in shock as you set your clipboard down on the table. “What? But Seungkwan needs a co-host now!”

He’s smiling almost maniacally at you now. “Yes! And we’re giving him one.”

The sound of the door opening and closing catches your attention, and when you look back, Seungkwan is standing there, his lips wrapped around the straw of your coffee as he stares at you with a mischievous glint in his deliberately wide eyes.

You look between Seungkwan and Seungcheol, taking exactly the amount of time it takes for a breath to pass before realizing what’s going on.

“Okay, no!” you say, immediately getting up from your chair to walk out of the room, but Seungkwan quickly steps toward you and places his hands on your shoulders.

“The listeners want this,” he argues. You grimace, pulling away from him as the condensation from his iced coffee brushes against your skin before sitting back down. “Yesterday Gyeonghee halmoni stopped me on the street just to tell me you should be the permanent co-host.”

Gyeonghee halmoni was the oldest woman in your neighborhood, and you knew she listened to the radio religiously, always insisting she was never too old to take love advice. You knew she was a particular fan of the Time Capsule of Love segment, where you only played very old love songs, mostly because she called almost every night to make a request.

It was at her eighty-ninth birthday party that you and Seungkwan reconnected six months ago.

“Gyeonghee halmoni is biased,” you say, shaking your head. “She watched us grow up.”

Seungkwan doesn’t just sit; he sprawls into the chair next to you, leaning in until the scent of that expensive cedarwood is all you can process.

“My mother said the same thing too,” Chan says from the corner of the room where he’s squeezed in, raising his hand slightly as if he were in a classroom.

“The ratings for the ‘PD-nim interjections’ are higher than the guest segments, and you know it,” Seungkwan adds, his voice dropping into that smooth, persuasive register he usually saves for the microphone. You liked to think you were immune to it.

“I am a producer,” you hiss, ignoring the way Seungcheol is nodding along like Seungkwan is delivering a sermon. “I stay behind the glass. I don’t talk into microphones. I manage the chaos you create, Boo Seungkwan. I don’t join it!”

Especially considering the program’s content: relationship advice and dating reality shows. What did you know about relationships? Nothing. Your own relationship was proof of that. Seungkwan, on the other hand, apparently knew a lot, which was exactly why he was perfect for the job.

You blamed only yourself for being in this situation, for not looking for a replacement for Yoona sooner, for leaving everything to the last minute. Now you were stuck in this position.

“But that’s exactly why it works!” Seungcheol interjects, pacing across the small rug in the center of the room. “Your chemistry, the bickering. It’s nostalgic.” Seungkwan is now the one nodding alone to the nonsense. “It’s Jeju’s childhood friends story, only now you’re both working together. It’s a goldmine. The sponsors are already asking about the girl who rage baites Seungkwan.”

“The girl has a name,” you mutter, rubbing your temples. “And she has a boyfriend who is currently one text away from a total meltdown if she gets home any later.”

At the indirect mention of Youngjae, Seungkwan’s expression shifts. The mischievous glint doesn’t disappear, but now he also looks noticeably annoyed. You know his opinion of Youngjae inside and out. It isn’t news to you now, just like it wasn’t news when you were teenagers.

He glances at your phone, still gripped in your hand, and then back at your face. He sees the fatigue you try to hide behind your professional mask and the way your shoulders are slumped not from work, but from the weight of the apology you’re still drafting in your head for later.

“Think about it, Y/N,” Seungcheol insists, looking at you expectantly. “This could double our listeners.”

The room goes quiet as you close your eyes and bury your face in your hands to avoid the three pairs of eyes fixed on you, waiting for you to change your mind. Even Chan looks like he’s about to faint from the drama of it all.

Your phone buzzes again.

[Youngjae - 8:27 PM]: Don’t expect me to wait up. You’re being selfish.

The ring around your finger feels particularly heavy now. You look at Seungkwan. He’s annoying, he’s loud, and he’s currently trying to change your career for God knows what reason. But he’s also the only person in this city who looks at you like you’re the lead character in your own life rather than a supporting role in someone else’s.

You narrow your eyes. “This was your idea.” It’s not a question, it’s an affirmation. It’s clear on his face, because unlike what he tries to convey, Boo Seungkwan is an open book.

He raises his hands to shoulder height in a guilty gesture, but he doesn’t look guilty at all. “You’re perfect for the job, tokki.”

You let out a grunt, throwing your head back. Fucking Boo Seungkwan. Fucking soft spot you still have for him despite everything, especially when he gives you that Boo-Poor-Little-Seungkwan look.

“One week,” you say, after a long sigh, pointing a finger at his chest. “A trial run. If the listeners hate it or if you go off-script about a drama for more than ten seconds, I’m going back behind the glass and you’re finding a new co-host yourself.”

You’re staring at each other, but out of the corner of your eye you can see Seungcheol and Chan celebrating while exchanging a high-five. Seungkwan’s grin is blinding, wide, triumphant, and fucking annoying. He reaches out, not to shake your hand, but to give your ponytail a playful tug, just like he used to when you were ten.

“One week is all I need,” he says, and for a split second, the way he looks at you makes the small, cramped briefing room feel like it’s spinning at a different frequency. “Trust me, PD-nim. We’re going to give them a show they’ll never forget.”

6 MONTHS AGO

The neighborhood recreation center was loud, sweltering, and smelled intensely of freshly fried pajeon. Gyeonghee halmoni’s 89th birthday had essentially become a town festival, and you were already thirty minutes late.

Dodging wandering toddlers and plates of tteokbokki, you immediately spotted the one thing you were dreading: your mother. She was standing by the gift table, deep in conversation with Mrs. Boo.

They were huddled close together, holding paper cups of sweet rice punch, radiating the kind of synchronized, terrifying energy only two mothers who have known each other for over twenty years can possess. You tried to stealthily make you way toward the food buffet first, but your mother’s radar was unparalleled.

“Look who finally decided to show up,” your mother announced loudly, abandoning her hushed conversation to fix you with a pointed glare.

“Hi, mom,” you pratically dragged the word out of you. “Hello, Mrs. Boo,” you greeted, bowing respectfully to Seungkwan’s mother. “I’m sorry I’m late, the afternoon broadcast ran long and traffic was terrible near the—”

“Aigoo, look at you!” Mrs. Boo interrupted, entirely ignoring your excuse as she reached out to pat your arm affectionately. Her eyes crinkled in a warm smile. “You get prettier every time I see you. Are you eating well, sweetheart? You look a little thin.”

“Prettier?” you mother scoffed, though she was secretly pleased. She waved a hand dismissively. “She looks like she hasn’t in a week. All she does is work at that radio station. I tell her she needs to get out, make new friends, but does she listen to me?”

“Mom, please,” you hissed under your breath, feeling your cheeks heat up. “Not here.”

You knew this conversation by heart, but that didn’t mean Mrs. Boo needed to hear it too.

“Ah, let her be, she’s building a career!” Mrs. Boo laughed, though there was a sudden, distinct twinkle in her eye. She leaned in a fraction closer, lowering her voice as if sharing a state secret. “You know... our Seungkwanie is here.”

Your stomach did a strange flip at the mention of his name. “Oh. Really? I thought he was still in Seoul.”

You knew he was back; he’d been the talk of the neighborhood all week. You’d just chosen to ignore the fact, and forget that you could run into him anywhere now, that it was only a matter of time until you did.

“He came back last week. Taking a break,” Mrs. Boo beamed, her pride evident. But then she share a very deliberate, conspiratorial look with your mother. “He was just asking about you the other day, actually. Wondering how his favorite childhood friend was doing.”

Funny, considering he never even bothered to call in the last twelve years, you thought, still holding a polite smile on your face.

Your mother’s eyes lit up with a terrifying gleam. She immediately reached out, grabbing your shoulders and physically turning you away from the buffet table and toward the back of the hall.

“Go say hi,” your mother ordered, giving you a firm push.

“Mom, I literally just walked in. Let me get a plate of food first, I haven’t eaten since—”

“The japchae isn’t going anywhere,” she interrupted, adjusting the collar of your shirt with quick, fussy movements. “He just got here too. He’s standing right over there by the punch bowl looking lonely. Go talk to him.”

“Yes, go catch up!” Mrs. Boo chimed in, shooing you with her hand. “Tell him his mother said to get you a drink.”

Seeing them together like that felt like a childhood flashback; like being forced to stay close to Seungkwan or made to do things with him all over again just because they wanted too. Like being forced to dance together at school events, or serving as ring bearers for the newlywed couple who lived three houses down.

Realizing you had absolutely no way out of this trap, you sighed, offering them both a tight, resigned smile. “Fine. I’m going.”

“Stand up straight!” your mother called out after you in a loud whisper.

You rolled your eyes, smoothing down your outfit as you navigated through the sea of relatives and neighbors until you finally spotted him.

He was standing by the punch bowl, looking both ridiculously handsome and slightly out of place in a crisp, white button-down. Even without the stage makeup and the flash of cameras, Boo Seungkwan had an undeniable glowing aura.

You took a deep breath, trying to push down the sudden spike of nerves caused by the realization that the moment you’d pictured in your head thousands of times was actually happening. Then, quietly, you sidled up beside him.

“Excuse me, sunbaenim,” you said, leaning in just enough to mock a polite bow. “Can I get your autograph?”

Seungkwan turned, a polite, probably practiced smile already forming on his lips, until his eyes met yours for the first time in nearly fifteen years. Then he completely froze.

The plastic cup in his hand halted halfway to his mouth. His eyes went wide, sweeping over your face, your hair, the way you stood there looking at him. You immediately started talking, rattling off a quick string of teasing remarks. He could see your mouth moving, but he wasn’t hearing a single word, almost like he was underwater.

Seungkwan was entirely captivated, his brain short-circuiting as the intoxicating, familiar scent of your perfume hit him. It was scent that instantly bypassed the last twelve years of his life, striking a match directly to the teenage hormones and memories he’d buried long ago.

You stopped talking, waving a hand in front of his face. “Hello? Earth to Sungkwan?”

He blinked rapidly, practically shaking himself out of the stupor. “You… wow. Hi. You look… you look really good.”

You gasped dramatically, clutching your chest. “Oh my God, Boo Seungkwan said I look good. I’m going to write a fanfic about it.”

You could see the moment the shock wore off, instantly replaced by the familiar, comfortable irritation he always fell into when you teased him all those years ago.

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Please. I bet you’ve already written several where we end up in love.”

You clicked your tongue as your shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. “Actually, I think your friend Jeonghan is cuter.” You smiled broadly, watching his jaw drop and his eyes widen again. “He’s so handsome. Is he single?”

You emphasize the word deliberately, watching his face contort as he processes it. But all he says is:

“You think what?” Seungkwan choked out, his competitive streak flaring up in a millisecond. Or at least that was what you thought. Inside, Seungkwan felt a possessive pull toward you that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

You tried to bite your lip to hold back your laughter, but you simply couldn’t, bursting out laughing as you stepped just a fraction closer to him to let two little boys run past you toward the playground.

“You’re still so easy to mess with, Boo.”

His face morphed into an outraged expression, though you could see a smile forming at the corner of his mouth. “And you’re still crazy, I see.”

“He is, indeed, handsome, they all are.” You paused, clearly enjoying his reaction. Your voice dipped playfully as you tapped your chest in a steady rhythm. “...but my heart still beats for Boo Seungkwan. Boo Seungkwan.” You laughed, eyes crinkling. “Old flame, you know. Right?”

If only you knew.

Seungkwan stared at you, his ears turning a violent shade of red. He tried to scowl, to muster up some kind of witty retort, but the sheer relief and joy of realizing you hadn’t changed at all completely overwhelmed him. He let out a breathless, defeated chuckle, running a hand through his hair before dragging the tips of his fingers down his neck.

“You’re terrible,” he muttered, though his eyes were painfully fond. “A decade without seeing you, and within two minutes you’re already giving me a headache.”

“It’s a gift, really,” you replied, finally grabbing a cup of punch for yourself.

The silence was slightly awkward — but only because it’s been twelve years of radio silence —, not uncomfortable, though. In fact, you had a million questions that could fill it, but since starting with Why haven’t you contacted me in twelve years, you stuck-up idiot? was probably a terrible opener, you settled for something lighter.

“So. You’re really back, huh?” You raised an eyebrow, lifting the glass to your lips mostly to keep yourself from saying anything out of spike. “The neighborhood aunties have been gossiping all week. They said you’re officially retired from the idol life.”

“Taking a very long, very permanent hiatus,” he corrected with a dismissive hand, leaning against the table so he could fully face you. “I needed a break from Seoul. Plus I heard my favorite childhood friend was running the local radio station now.”

You quickly built your defenses back up, raising a skeptical eyebrow. Favorite feels ironic, again. You’re almost certain it doesn’t fit what happened between you two over the past years; if anything, it feels like the opposite.

“Not running it. Producing.” It was your turn to correct him. “The afternoon slot. It’s chaotic, and I practically live in the editing booth. But I love it.”

Seungkwan watched your face light up as you talked about the station. The way your eyes sparked—the genuine passion in your voice—was entirely real. It was the same look you used to get when you figured out a particularly difficult math problem in high school, or when you finally beat him in a volleyball match.

“Producing,” Seungkwan repeated softly, testing the word on his tongue. A small, genuine smile broke through his initial shock. “I’ll be honest. I’ve tuned in a few times since I got back.”

You nearly choked on your rice punch. You lowered the paper cup, staring at him suspiciously. “You did? You listened to my show?”

“Of course I did,” he said, shifting his weight. He looked down at his shoes for a split second before meeting your eyes again, his gaze suddenly much heavier. “I wanted to hear your voice.”

The casual confession hit you right in the chest, entirely unbalancing you. This was the danger of Boo Seungkwan. He could flip the switch from annoying childhood best friend who hadn’t spoken to you in twelve years to a devastatingly sincere, loving man without even trying.

Holding a grudge against someone like that isn’t easy.

“I always knew you’d end up bossing people around for a living,” Seungkwan laughed, the sound warm and effortlessly familiar. One smile, and suddenly the years between you don’t feel so large anymore. You hate that most of all.

“Someone has to keep things in line,” you countered, taking the last sip of your punch. You looked up at him, letting the teasing persona slip away for just a moment, offering him a sincere smile. “But really... it’s good to see you, Boo. I’m glad you’re back.”

And you meant it with all your heart, far more than you’d ever imagined.

Seungkwan’s eyes softened, a profound sense of relief washing over his features. He had been so nervous about how you would react to seeing him after so much time had passed, but standing here, falling right back into your easy, comfortable rhythm, he felt an anchor drop.

“It really has,” he agreed, his voice dropping into a more earnest tone. He glanced around the chaotic recreation center, at the aunties dancing and the kids running around, before his gaze settled back on you. “I missed this. And,” he paused, a fond smile pulling at his lips, “I missed you.”

The words sat on the tip of your tongue, but you weren’t going to ruin this moment by saying them.

You bumped your shoulder playfully against his arm. “Don’t get soft on me now, sunbaenim. You have a reputation to uphold.”

“I’d prefer it if you just called me oppa,” he said playfully, bumping his shoulder against yours in return.

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. Back then, it had always been a running joke between the two of you. “Apparently not all your dreams came true.”

Before he could formulate a comeback, a loud voice shattered your comfortable bubble.

“Look at them! Didn’t I tell you?” your mother crowed, suddenly appearing at Seungkwan’s elbow with Mrs. Boo right behind her. Both women looked like cats who had just cornered a very plump canary.“Like no time has passed at all!”

You immediately stood up straighter, shooting a panicked look at Seungkwan. “Mom, please. We’re just catching up.”

“Well, keep catching up!” Mrs. Boo cheered, clapping her hands together. “Seungkwanie, why don’t you get Y/N a plate of food? The poor girl is starving, her mother said she practically lives at that radio station.”

Seungkwan cleared his throat, stepping back into his polite and respectful persona with practiced ease, though he threw a quick amused glance your way. “Of course, Eomma. I’ll take good care of her.”

As the two mothers linked arms and walked away, practically vibrating with matchmaking glee, Seungkwan turned back to you, the smirk firmly back in place.

You let him lead you toward the food, shaking your head even as a smile spread so wide across your face that your cheeks began to ache. In just a few minutes, you realized how effortlessly he could slip back into your life. Boo Seungkwan was home, and suddenly, everything felt a whole lot brighter.

PRESENT

They were right. The number of listeners had increased exponentially in less than a week, and although you hated to admit it, Seungkwan was right. You were happy with what your presence as co-host was doing for the station, more than happy, actually. Even on the street, people stopped you to say how much they loved the show, how they tuned in every night.

Everyone at the station was celebrating the results, and it felt as though everything had come back to life. Besides, you couldn’t deny it: the show really was that good.

Pulled out of your daydream by the sound of someone lazily tapping on the glass, you see the only other person you trust in your control booth: Hansol. He point his indicator at both of you and flashes up three fingers. Thirty seconds to air.

You nod, keeping your eyes locked on the console. The ON AIR sign bleeds neon red across the studio glass, emitting a low, sixty-cycle hum. You push the faders up, and the bright, tropical synth-pop intro of your show, Love Is on the Radio, fills the booth. You slide Seungkwan’s mic fader up first, then bring yours up a second later.

Instantly, the annoying best friend vanishes out of him. His posture straightens, his chin tilts to the perfect angle for a camera that isn’t even there, and he leans into the microphone.

Seungkwan is usually a very confident man, but watching him in his element always feels like seeing a whole new side of the boy you once knew, or the man you found six months ago in his childhood bedroom at his mother’s house, quietly moping and counting the petals on her hydrangeas because he was bored out of his mind.

“I was meditating, not moping,” he defended himself when you brought the subject up two weeks ago, a hand placed over his heart, looking personally wounded.

You were the one who suggested to Seungcheol that he could offer Seungkwan the position after you ran into him at the party. So now, because of your brilliant idea, if the people of Jeju don’t buy into Seungkwan’s “revolutionary ideas” about love and romance, your reputation is going down the drain right along with his.

“Good evening, Jeju! You’re back with your favorite duo,” you say, leaning into your mic with a practiced, bright energy, settling into your radio voice. “I’m your temporary host, Kang Y/N, and sitting across from me is the man who spent forty-five minutes this morning debating whether or not he’s a Taejoon or a Jungwoo: it’s Boo Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan let out a soulful chuckle that rumbles smoothly through your headphones. “Listen, the new season of Single’s Inferno is a sociological study! It’s about the raw human condition! Hello everyone, I’m Seungkwan. And for the record? I’m definitely a Taejoon. I’m loyal, I’m funny, and I look great in a vest.”

When Seungkwan speaks, his voice drops an octave, dripping with the velvety, honeyed charisma that had made him the nation’s beloved vocalist for more than a decade. By now, you’re trained to ignore the things it does to you.

“You’re a Eunseo at best, dramatic and prone to crying in the back of a van,” you retort, checking the monitor. “But we aren’t here to talk about your identity crisis, my friend. We’re here to talk about the Paradise dates. Kwan, as our resident romance expert, what did you think of the bonfire confession?”

You already knew what Seungkwan thought about them, considering the two of you had watched the episodes together on your couch the night before. Your mom and grandmother had spent the entire evening pampering him so much that, at one point, you found yourself wondering whether he was the real member of the family and not you.

“It was amateur hour, Y/N. If you’re going to confess your feelings, you need atmosphere. You need a build-up. You can’t just blurt it out between bites of grilled sea bream!”

You both move like a well-oiled machine. For the first fifteen minutes, it’s a masterclass in broadcasting. The two of you debate the new episodes of the latest season of Single’s Inferno, practically disagreeing with everything the other says for no reason at all, just for the fun of arguing and rage-baiting each other.

“Spoken like a man who has watched exactly three hundred dramas and participated in zero actual dates,” you tease after he describes how perfect one of the dates in Paradise was.

Not that you knew anything about Seungkwan’s love life, considering the two of you hadn’t reached that topic of conversation yet, even if you had already spilled your heart out to him during one drunken night.

Honestly, the less you knew, the better.

“I am a scholar of the heart!” he defends, a hand over his heart, even if you’re the only one who can see him. “Anyway, before we get to our first caller of the night, it’s time for my favorite part of the show. Let’s open our Time Capsule of Love.”

You hit the transition, a nostalgic, grainy vinyl crackle. “Tonight’s request comes from a listener in Aewol who wants to remember their first summer love,” you announce. “Here’s Perhaps Love by HowL & J.ae.”

As the classic track starts playing, you slide the faders down.

“We’re clear for, like, three minutes,” you mutter, stretching your arms as you stand to refill your water bottle and grab a cookie from the box Chan had left earlier, sometime before the show started.

Seungkwan also stretches back in his creaky old chair. You can feel his eyes following you around the room, tracking your movements, and it doesn’t take much to realize he has something sitting right on the tip of his tongue to comment on or ask you.

It was funny how inseparable the two of you had become since reuniting, how effortlessly you’d slipped back into your old rhythm. How well you still knew him and all his mannerisms, like the back of your hand. But there was still one massive elephant in the room: neither of you had said a word about those twelve years of silence.

You wouldn’t say you were exactly okay with it, but at the same time, you were terrified of bringing it up and ruining everything the two of you had rebuilt over the past six months. You could only hope it wouldn’t all come crashing down around you somewhere in the future.

You raise an eyebrow and cross your arms, the water sloshing softly inside the bottle as the music continues to play. “What?”

“Are you going to Youngjae’s place after this?” Seungkwan asks, trying to sound nonchalant as he pretended to examine his fingernails.

“Don’t know yet. Why?”

Seungkwan spins his squeaky chair a half-inch to the left, leaning his elbows on his knees. The playful, broadcast-ready smile he wore just a minute ago completely dissolves, replaced by a tight, familiar, almost sulky frown.

“Just wondering if you’re parking in his driveway tonight,” Seungkwan says, his tone dangerously passive, “or if you’re still relegated to the visitor’s spot three blocks down so his neighbors don’t start asking questions about the mystery woman sneaking in after dark.”

You almost choke on your piece of cookie. You swallow hard, shooting a panicked glare through the glass to make sure Hansol isn’t paying attention to the booth or your conversation, only to find him lost in his own world as always.

“Keep your voice down, tattletale,” you hiss, tossing the rest of the cookie onto a napkin and sitting back down in your chair. “And for your information, he has a very strict building policy. It’s not about me or our relationship. It’s about his privacy.”

That’s a lie, but you won’t give Seungkwan the satisfaction of being right. And he seems to know it, a scoff slipping past his lips.

“Right.” He drags the word out. “The notorious anti-girlfriend bylaws of Jeju real estate,”

“Kwan, don’t start—”

Seungkwan reaches out, tapping the edge of your console. “Are you listening to yourself, Y/N?Privacy is keeping your relationship off Instagram. What he’s doing is hiding you.”

You were past that stage. Past thinking too much about it. Past pretending you didn’t know that Youngjae was hiding your relationship from his friends, family, and even his neighbors. You knew he was. And it was complicated. Or at least, that’s what he’d been telling you ever since you rekindled your relationship a year ago.

Seungkwan, unlike you, had called it what it was the moment you told him you were back with Youngjae, but that only a small number of people knew. At the time, you thought it was just because Seungkwan hadn’t liked him back in your school days. Now, you were starting to have doubts about… well, everything.

But you wouldn’t discuss that here, much less in the middle of a broadcast with Perhaps Love playing as the soundtrack to this conversation.

“We have an arrangement that works for us. He’s a private person, Seungkwan. Not everyone wants their life broadcasted to the masses like you do.”

It’s a low blow, and you know it the second the words leave your mouth. Seungkwan flinches, just barely, but his dark eyes stay locked onto yours. The air in the tiny studio suddenly feels impossibly thick.

You close your eyes, dragging a hand down your face.

It comes and goes. The resentment you feel toward him for never calling or reaching out, for never answering your letters or your calls. It comes and goes.

“I didn’t meant to.”

You see Seungkwan swallow, his lips pouting slightly like he’s choosing his next words.

“I spent ten years hiding every single aspect of my life to survive in the industry, tokki.” His voice drops into a quiet, raw register that makes your chest ache. It’s worse because he calls you that. “So I know exactly what it looks like when someone treats you like a liability instead of a partner.”

“Why do you even care?” you snap, crossing your arms defensively to hide the way your hands are shaking. You really, really want to know why. “You’re my friend, Boo. Not my life coach.”

“I care because it’s pathetic watching you settle for him!” he fires back, leaning closer until his face is just inches from the mic stand. “You sit here every night, teasing me about my expertise on romance, but at least I know how to treat a girl.”

You open your mouth to argue, but the words die in your throat. He’s looking at you with that same fierce, frustrated intensity he had behind the school, in your spot, all those years ago, when Youngjae invited you out for banana milk. And it makes something strange shift inside your chest.

It has been happening a lot ever since Seungkwan came back into your life.

When you look away to avoid meeting his eyes, the digital clock on the monitor catches your attention. 0:15 seconds until the song ends.

“I’m not having this conversation with you right now,” you whisper, your voice trembling as you reach for the faders.

Seungkwan lets out a quiet, nasal laugh that makes it clear he expected you to avoid the subject. You hate that he still knows you so well—just as well as you know him—and you hate even more how easily the two of you slip back into old habits.

“You’re going to have to eventually,” he grumbles, leaning back into his chair as he adjusts his headphones. The hard edge in his eyes softens into something that looks dangerously like pity, and you hate that even more. “Because if he doesn’t figure out how to treat you right, someone else will.”

You want to ask him what he means by that, but there isn’t enough time.

0:03 seconds.

Hansol pops up behind the glass again, pointing a finger again. You take a shaky breath, give him a thumbs-up, and force the lump in your throat down as you slide the faders up and put your headphones back on.

4 MONTHS AGO

It had barely been a month since Seungkwan had reentered your life like a localized hurricane, and the boundaries of your resurrected friendship were still painfully blurry. You had survived the initial shock of his return, the awkwardness of not speaking for so long, and the surreal reality of seeing a former national idol casually drinking cheap instant coffee in the station’s break room.

That night, however, was the first time the two of you had gotten drunk together.

You were both sitting in a small, slightly dingy pojangmacha tucked away in a narrow alley behind the station. Inside, the air smelled of fried pork belly and spicy rice cakes, cut through by the almost clinical smell of spilled soju. Rain lashed relentlessly against the thick orange plastic tarps surrounding the tent, the sound creating a surprisingly cozy bubble that shut out the rest of the city.

“Watch and learn,” Seungkwan slurred slightly, holding up a fresh, condensation slicked green bottle of soju. He grabbed a stainless steel chopstick from the tin cup on the table.

“One of your many new talents?”

He nodded, a smirk tugging at his lips. “They didn’t teach me this in idol training. I had to learn this in the trenches of company dinners.”

With a flick of his wrist that was entirely too aggressive, he brought the chopstick up against the cap of the bottle. Instead of cleanly popping off, the cap flew violently into the air, ricocheting off the plastic tent wall and landing squarely in your bowl of complimentary radish soup.

You stared down at the floating metal cap, and then slowly raised your eyes to look at him.

Seungkwan froze, his hand still suspended in the air, a sheepish, incredibly boyish grin spreading across his flushed face. “Ta-da?”

“You’re paying for my next bowl of soup, Kwan,” you deadpanned, though you couldn’t fight the laugh that bubbled up in your chest. You fished the cap out with your spoon and flicked it at him. “And you’re a menace to society. It’s a miracle you survived Seoul.”

“Seoul was easy,” Seungkwan retorted, pouring the soju into two tiny glass cups, his coordination slightly compromised by the three bottles already sitting empty at the edge of the plastic table. “Jeju is the real battlefield.”

You laughed, arching an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“Yesterday, an auntie at the market smacked me with a leek because I couldn’t remember her dog’s name,” he said with a laugh.

“To be fair, Dooboo is a local legend. You disrespected an icon,” you pointed out, picking up your glass. “Cheers to Dooboo.”

“Cheers to Dooboo,” Seungkwan echoed, clinking his glass against yours.

You both threw back the clear liquid. The burn was sharp but grounding, loosening the tight, perpetual knot of anxiety that lived at the base of your spine. You set the small glass back down on the table with a soft thud and exhaled sharply.

The alcohol was doing its job. The twelve-year gap between you was dissolving with every shot, the comfortable, relentless bickering of your childhood sliding right back into place.

For the last two hours, you’d been trading war stories. He filled you in on the absurd reality of dorm life, grueling tour schedules, and the bizarre diets the agency forced on him. In return, you regaled him with the unglamorous chaos of university life and local radio with callers determined to debate the existence of sea monsters, power outages during live broadcasts, and the time you accidentally played a funeral dirge instead of the morning weather jingle.

It felt incredibly and dangerously good. You hadn’t felt this seen, this entirely yourself, in a very long time.

And that was exactly why his guard didn’t just come down, it plummeted.

Your phone, sitting face up next to your chopsticks, vibrated violently, the screen lighting up the sticky table. The name Youngjae flashed across the glass.

The comfortable warmth in your chest vanished instantly, replaced by a cold wave of dread. You were supposed to meet Youngjae for dinner tonight. He had canceled an hour before you got off work — a vague text about “overtime” and “not wanting to push it at the hospital” — leaving you stranded.

That was when Seungkwan had popped his head into the editing booth and dragged you out into the rain.

You quickly reached out, flipping he phone face down with a dismissive motion. Then you reached for the soju bottle, carefully avoiding Seungkwan’s eyes.

“Who was that?” Seungkwan asked, his tone casual, though his inquisitive eyes tracked the defensive stiffness in your shoulders.

“No one,” you lied smoothly, pouring yourself another shot. “Just spam.”

“At one in the morning?” Seungkwan arched an eyebrow, skeptic. He reached across the table, his fingers gently tapping the back of your phone case. “You looked like you just saw a ghost. Is it work? Did Chief Choi find out you’re the one who broke the coffee machine?”

“I didn’t break the coffee machine, it was a structural failure,” you protested automatically, knocking the shot back. The alcohol hit your stomach, loosening your tongue just a fraction too much. “And it’s not work. It’s just Youngjae.”

Seungkwan’s hand stilled. He swallowed a laugh, and you noticed it immediately in the silence that followed.

“Youngjae?” Seungkwan repeated, the playful lilt completely draining from his voice. No, he thought, not again. “Cho Youngjae?”

You just nodded, and he simply couldn’t string together a complete sentence anymore. You took a long sip of soju straight from the bottle, and Seungkwan exhaled slowly through his mouth, trying not to let it show anymore that the mention of Youngjae’s name had bothered him. With any luck, you’d be too drunk tomorrow to remember it.

“Why is he texting you at 1 AM?”

You sighed, dragging a hand down your face. The soju was making it incredibly difficult to maintain the unbothered facade you usually wore.

“I didn’t know you two were still together,” Seungkwan said before you could answer, in what he hoped was a casual tone, though he couldn’t quite tell if his expression helped sell it.

Shortly after Seungkwan left, you and Youngjae started dating. At the time, you were still in contact with Seungkwan, trying to keep up with him as much as you could. During your phone calls, he kept insisting that Youngjae wasn’t the right guy for you. But when you finally decided to listen to him and broke up with Youngjae, Seungkwan disappeared from your life not long after.

“We dated, broke up, got back together, broke up again, and then got back together and—”

“Are you together now?” he interrupted.

You nodded. “We’ve been dating for eight months.”

Seungkwan blinked, the information processing slowly through the alcohol haze. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“That’s the thing,” you muttered, staring down at your empty shot glass. “It’s… a secret. He doesn’t want the hospital to find out. He says it could ruin his chances of getting a spot at this big hospital in Seoul next year. So we don’t tell anyone. We just… sneak around.”

The silence that fell over the table was sudden and deafening, save for the rain hitting the tarp.

When you finally looked up, you physically flinched at the expression on Seungkwan’s face. The boyish, flushed, drunken demeanor was entirely gone. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked near his ear, and his dark eyes were blazing with a sudden, terrifying intensity.

“He hides you,” Seungkwan stated. It wasn’t a question. It was a condemnation.

“It’s not like that,” you backpedaled, suddenly overcome by the desperate need to defend a relationship you weren’t even sure you wanted to be in anymore. “It’s just practical.”

A frown creased the middle of his forehead. “Why are you doing this? Why are you letting him treat you like you’re something to be ashamed of?”

Because you were terrified of being left behind again. Because Youngjae, with his cold, distant, and conditional affection, felt safer than risking your heart on someone who could truly break it by leaving.

But you couldn’t say that to him. Not yet. Not ever.

“Drop it, Seungkwan,” you warned, your voice trembling slightly. You grabbed the green bottle and practically slammed it onto the table between you. “I mean it. If we are going to be friends again, you drop it. We are not talking about my pathetic love life. We are getting drunk.”

Seungkwan stared at you for a long, almost agonizing moment. The tension between you crackled, charged and unresolved. He looked at the bottle, then at your fiercely guarded expression. Slowly, he reached out and took the bottle from your hand.

“Fine,” he muttered, his eyes dark. He poured you both a brimming shot. “We’ll drop it. For tonight. Drink up, PD-nim. We’re going to a noraebang.”

By 2:30 AM, the combative emotional atmosphere of the pojangmacha had been thoroughly obliterated by a lethal combination of cheap beer, more soju, and the aggressive, blinding neon lights of the noraebang.

You were currently standing on top of a sticky faux leather sofa, clutching a plastic tambourine. The disco ball above you cast spinning, dizzying patterns of purple and green across the tiny, enclosed room. Below you, standing in the center of the room with the microphone cord wrapped twice around his wrist, Seungkwan was giving you an exclusive performance.

“TEARS!” Seungkwan screamed into the microphone, his head thrown back as he unleashed the impossibly high notes of the song.

His vocal control, even while completely blackout drunk, was infuriatingly perfect. He hit the high note, dropped to his knees on the sticky linoleum floor, and pointed dramatically at you.

“Hit it!” he yelled over the instrumental break.

You aggressively smashed the tambourine against your hip, totally off-beat, screaming the background vocals with zero regard for pitch or human decency.

“You’re pitchy!” Seungkwan shouted, scrambling up from the floor. He grabbed a second microphone off the table, and tossed it to you. “Get down here and sing, you coward!”

“Your stage presence is lacking, Boo!” you yelled back, refusing to step down from the sofa. “Give me some emotion!!”

Seungkwan gasped in mock offense. He tossed his jacket onto the floor, jumped onto the small glass coffee table in the center of the room — the table groaning ominously under his weight — and struck a pose better suited to a sold-out stadium than a fifteen-dollar-an-hour karaoke room.

The track switched. The dramatic synth intro of a classic early 2000s heartbreak ballad filled the room.

Seungkwan closed his eyes, clutching the mic with both hands, and began to sing with such exaggerated and theatrical grief that you immediately doubled over laughing. He sank to his knees on the table, reaching a hand out toward you as if you were a lover drifting away on a life raft.

“Why did you leave me?!” he wailed, completely off-script, making the lyrics up as he went. “I gave you my heart, and you gave me a broken tambourine!”

“It was a metaphor for our friendship!” you shrieked back into your mic, tears of laughter streaming down your face. Suddenly, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d laughed that hard. Probably not in years.

You stepped off the sofa, stumbling slightly as the alcohol hit your equilibrium, and marched right up to the table. You pointed your microphone directly at his chest, looking up at him with a defiant, breathless grin.

“You just don’t appreciate my genius!”

Seungkwan dropped the theatrical act, though he didn’t drop his gaze. He reached down and grabbed your microphone hand, pulling you close

For a second, the ridiculous facade completely shattered. You were suddenly entirely too close. Because he was kneeling on the table, you were perfectly at eye level. His chest was heaving, his hair messy and damp with sweat, flushed cheeks, his eyes completely blown out and dark in the spinning neon lights.

“You’re staring, tokki,” he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, the smooth tone vibrating right through the microphone and out into the small room.

“You’re in my space, Boo,” you shot back. You tried to sound authoritative, but your voice came out a little breathless, and you made absolutely no move to pull your hand out of his grip.

He tilted his head, a slow, devastating smirk spreading across his lips. His thumb absently stroked the back of your knuckles. “I think you like it.”

“You’re so arrogant, Boo Seungkwan,” you mumbled, stepping a fraction of an inch closer until your knees were practically brushing the edge of the glass table. “You’ve always been arrogant. When we were younger, it drove me absolutely crazy.”

Seungkwan let out a smug, nasal laugh. “Is that why you were always trying to beat me at stuff?” he teased, leaning in a little closer, the scent of soju and expensive cologne suddenly intoxicating. “Because you couldn’t handle the charm?”

“No,” you said, shaking your head, your eyes tracing the elegant line of his jaw. The spinning purple lights caught the flush on his cheeks. “I was trying to beat you because I was overcompensating. I had the biggest, most pathetic crush on you, and you were completely oblivious.”

The words slipped out with the terrifying ease of a drunken confession, made possible only by the fact that you were, in fact, very, very drunk. And maybe a little carried away by the thought that so many years had passed that none of it mattered anymore.

Or maybe still did… a little.

Seungkwan froze. The playful smirk vanished instantly. His fingers tightened around yours, his entire body going completely still on the table. The karaoke track blared on in the background, a saxophone solo filling the silence, but the air between you had turned to a vacuum.

“You... what?” he breathed, his voice barely audible over the music.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked,” you scoffed, waving your free hand dismissively, though a sudden, hot flush of embarrassment was rising up your neck. “We were fifteen. We spent a lot of time together. It was a statistical inevitability.”

You thought you’d read a article about it somewhere. Or maybe that was just your brain trying to convince itself.

He stared at you, his chest rising and falling rapidly, as if the oxygen had just been sucked out of the room. “You had a crush on me. Back then. Before I left.”

“Massive,” you confirmed, leaning back against the edge of the sofa behind you for balance. You let out a self-deprecating laugh, looking down at your boots. “And then you got on a plane and ruined my entire life. Tragic, really.”

You expected him to laugh. You expected him to tease you, to use it as ammunition for his ego, to make a joke about how he had always known he was irresistible.

But Seungkwan didn’t laugh.

When you looked back up, the expression on his face made your breath catch in your throat. He looked absolutely shattered. The boyish amusement was gone, replaced by a profound, agonizing realization that seemed to physically pain him. He slowly scrambled off the table, standing right in front of you, entirely ignoring the microphone he dropped onto the couch.

“Are you seriously telling me you never realized I had a crush on you back then?” you laughed, throwing your head back. “Jesus Christ. And I actually thought all that fame would’ve made you a little less clueless by now.”

Seungkwan stepped into your space, his hands coming up to gently, almost reverently, cup your face. His thumbs brushed over your cheekbones.

“Y/N,” he whispered, his voice thick with an emotion you couldn’t quite decipher, staring down at you with desperate intensity. “If I had known... I swear to God, if I had known...”

Right then, Seungkwan wanted to kiss you. Desperately.

The urge hit him so suddenly, so overwhelmingly, that it stole the oxygen from his lungs. It wasn’t just a passing thought; it was a physical ache. He wanted to close the distance, press his mouth to yours, and prove to you with absolute certainty that if he’d known, everything would have been different.

For years, Seungkwan had learned how to deal with girls. He had lived his life in a boy group, surrounded by beautiful actresses, stunning idols, and thousands of screaming fans. He knew how to flirt. He knew how to charm. But there was something about you that completely paralyzed him.

Maybe he would never be able to do it. The fear of ruining this—of crossing a line he could never uncross—was paralyzing. And maybe, he thought frantically, that was a good thing.

You were friends, weren’t you?

You had just barely managed to salvage this friendship from the wreckage of the last twelve years. He shouldn’t want to ruin that. He shouldn’t risk terrifying you away when you had just finally let him back in. He should just be profoundly grateful that you were willing to let him be a part of your life again.

But his gaze dropped to your lips, the air practically crackling with the electric, terrifying pull between you. He leaned in, the gap between you closing, his breath warm against your skin.

BEEP.

The song ended with an abrupt, jarring electronic shriek. The machine loudly announced your score in a cheerful, computerized voice: 42.

The spell shattered like a broken mirror.

You both jumped, practically flying apart. The sudden silence in the room was deafening. You immediately spun around, grabbing your coat off the back of the sofa, your heart hammering against your ribs so violently you thought you might actually faint.

Seungkwan cleared his throat loudly, busying himself with untangling the microphone cords, though his hands were visibly shaking.

“The machine is rigged,” he declared, his voice rough and uneven. He refused to look at you, staring intently at the plastic tambourine on the floor. “Forty-two? This machine is completely broken.”

“You were flat,” you lied, your own voice breathless as you practically sprinted for the door, desperate for oxygen. “Completely flat."

By the time you stumbled out onto the streets at 4 AM, the rain had stopped, leaving the asphalt slick and reflecting the streetlights. The freezing sea air hit your flushed face, sobering you up just enough to realize the massive, catastrophic mistake you had just made: you had just confessed your teenage feelings to the man who had just came back to your life.

You stood on the curb, waiting for the taxi Seungkwan had hailed, wrapping your arms tightly around yourself. He stood right beside you, a heavy, suffocating silence settling over the sidewalk. He shrugged off his jacket, stepping close enough to drape it over your shoulders without asking. The fabric was warm, heavy, and smelled devastatingly like him.

“Thanks,” you murmured, pulling it together, refusing to meet his eyes.

“I meant what I said,” Seungkwan said quietly into the night air, staring straight ahead at the empty road. “At the tent. Even if you’re mad at me. You deserve better, tokki. You always have.”

You looked up at him, at the profile of the boy who had once broken your heart, who had only just realized he could have had it all those years ago, and who was now systematically trying to win it back, even if you didn’t seem to realize it yet.

“I know,” you whispered, the lie tasting like ash in your mouth.

PRESENT

“I just don’t know,” Chan mutters, running a hand through his hair, turning on his heel to pace back the other way. “Her profile says she likes hiking and eye contact. What does that even mean?”

The lights in the break room hum with that same high-pitched whine that usually drives you crazy. Tonight, though, you barely notice it, drowned out by the sound of Chan pacing a hole into the cheap linoleum floor.

He glances between your faces, not breaking his pacing for a second. “Is she going to stare into my soul while we eat? What if she’s a serial killer who uses dating apps to harvest organs?”

You lean back in the rickety plastic chair, nursing a lukewarm can of vending machine coffee. Across the small table covered with crumbs, Seungkwan is meticulously trying to free a bag of Honey Butter Chips from the machine’s coils, stubbornly jammed.

“I have great kidneys,” Chan continues. “They’re pristine. I drink so much water.”

Your phone, sitting face up next to your coffee can, buzzes violently against the table. The screen lights up, illuminating the dim space with a harsh white glare, and you don’t even have to look to know who it is. You don’t pick it up, but you see them glowing on the screen.

[Youngjae - 9:14 PM]: Where are you? [Youngjae - 9:15 PM]: You ignored my call. [Youngjae - 9:15 PM]: I left my spare keys at my hospital and I’m locked out. Bring me your set ASAP.

Your heart rate skips, a familiar, ugly knot of anxiety tightening in your stomach. You massage your temples, quickly turning your phone off and pointedly ignoring the messages. He knows you’re at work, for crying out loud. He knows your schedule. He knows you can’t leave right now.

“Are we really having this conversation?” you ask.

“If she harvests your kidneys, I get your green leather jacket,” Hansol chimes in from the corner sofa. He doesn’t even look up from his phone, his thumb lazily scrolling. “Put it in your will.”

“I don’t have a will, hyung!” Chan practically shrikes, stopping his pacing to glare at Hansol. He turns his desperate gaze toward the table. “Look, I’m begging you guys. I haven’t been on a blind date since… well, ever. I don’t know the protocol. I need security.”

Seungkwan finally gives the vending machine a solid hip-check. The coil shudders, and the bag of chips drops with a satisfying crinkle. He scoops it up, tossing a triumphant look your way before turning to Chan.

“Security?” Seungkwan echoes, popping the bag open and immediately offering it to you first, a habit you try not to think too hard about. You take a chip. “What are we supposed to do? Tackle her if she reaches for a steak knife?”

“No! Just… be there,” Chan pleads, pulling up a chair and straddling it backward. “Saturday night. That Italian place near the marina. Don Capri.”

“Wow, that sounds expensive,” you say, entirely off-topic, but not wrong. The restaurant is one of the most expensive in the city. You’ve never been there. Not on a date, anyway. “How much is Seungcheol paying you as a junior writer?”

“It’s dimly lit. Romantic.” Chan throws his hands up in the air. “The point is, if you guys are sitting at the table next to us, I’ll feel safe. If she turns out to be crazy, you swoop in and pretend there’s a work emergency.”

“What if the things go well?” you ask, resting your chin on your fist.

“Then, you just eat your free pasta and leave me alone.”

“Free pasta?” Hansol suddenly looks up, his interest momentarily piqued, before his eyes drops back to his screen. “Actually, never mind. I have plans tomorrow.”

Chan lets out a frustrated groan, dropping his head onto his arms on the back of the chair. He looks up at you through his bangs, deploying a pathetic, puppy-dog pout he knows works on you, because it always does.

“Noona? Please? You’re practically my boss. It’s a liability issue if I get murdered.”

You sigh, taking another sip of the terrible coffee. “Chan, I don’t think—”

“We’ll do it,” Seungkwan interrupts smoothly.

You snap your head to look at him. “Excuse me?”

Seungkwan pops a chip into his mouth, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. He looks ridiculously unfairly handsome in his oversized vintage knit sweater. “We will absolutely do it. It’s perfect. It’s fieldwork.”

“Fieldwork?” you repeat, narrowing your eyes.

“We host a romance advice show, Y/N,” he points out, a mischievous glint in his eye. Hansol suddenly looks very interested in the conversation, and you’re dying to know why.

“And that should justify us going on a date with Chan because…?”

Seungkwan looks at you like the answer is obvious. It’s not. And deep down, you know he’s not saying everything.

“How are we supposed to advise the lonely hearts of Jeju if we aren’t out in the trenches, observing modern dating in its natural habitat?” He chews a chip theatrically and far too loud for your liking. “Besides, you’ve been working too hard. You need a good meal. My treat.”

“I don’t need fieldwork, and I don’t need you to buy me dinner,” you shot back, though your stomach traitorously rumbles at the mention of good meal. “And what if Youngjae—”

You stop yourself, but the name hangs in the air like a bad smell.

Seungkwan’s playful demeanor instantly evaporates. The warmth in his eyes hardens into something piercing and unreadable. He slowly sets the bag of chips down on the table.

“What if Youngjae what?” he asks, an eyebrow raising. “Doesn’t want you going out in public with your friends now?”

Here we go again.

“Shut up, Boo,” you mutter, looking away.

“It’s a favor for Chan, tokki” Seungkwan continues, leaning closer across the table, his voice low enough that Chan and Hansol can’t hear. “A free meal. And you get to spend two hours pretending to be my date. I know you’ve been dreaming of the opportunity.”

If only he knew.

In moments like this you wonder whether he really doesn’t remember the night the two of you got drunk and confessed having crushes on each other when you were younger. That maybe he’s just pretending not to remember, exactly like you are.

You scoff, your cheeks heating up despite your best efforts. You won’t giving him the satisfaction. “In your dreams, and maybe in my nightmares.”

If only you knew.

Contrary to what you believed, Seungkwan remembers that night perfectly. He remembers wanting to kiss you in that moment, and every day that followed. He remembers catching himself wishing, with everything he had, that you still felt the same way, even if he doesn’t believe you do.

And if he had to take you on a fake date under the excuse of keeping an eye on Chan, then hell, he’d do it. He’d do anything to make you feel that way about him again.

“So it’s a yes?” Chan asks, completely oblivious to the sudden tension vibrating between the two of you.

Seungkwan don’t even let you open your mouth. “It’s a yes,” he confirms, his eyes never leaving yours. “We’ll be your security.”

Chan lets out a massive sigh of relief, jumping up to grab Hansol by the shoulders. “You hear that, hyung? I’m going to survive! Now, let me show you her profile.”

As Chan drags a deeply reluctant Hansol toward the corner to inspect the photos on the girl’s profile, you let out a long breath and reach across the table to steal another chip. Seungkwan watches you chew, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he defends himself, throwing his hands up in surrender.

The break room door swings open, and Seungcheol pokes his head in, looking frazzled. “Five minutes to air, you two. Let’s go, the board is already lit up with callers.”

You grab your notes and your phone, practically sprinting out of the break room to escape the look in Seungkwan’s eyes. You make it down the hallway and push through the heavy double doors into the station’s main lobby, heading for Studio B.

But you stop dead in your tracks.

Standing by the reception desk, drenched from the rain and looking absolutely furious, is no one other than Youngjae.

He is wearing an expensive trench coat, his jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle ticks in his cheek. The poor nighttime receptionist looks terrified, shrinking back behind her monitor as Youngjae taps his fingers aggressively on the glass partition.

“Youngjae?” you gasp, your voice echoing slightly in the empty lobby.

He turns, his eyes locking onto you with laser precision. The relief you would normally feel at seeing him is entirely absent, replaced by a cold, sinking dread. He marches across the lobby, closing the distance in seconds, rainwater dripping from his clothes onto your shoes.

“I told you to bring me the keys,” he hisses, keeping his voice low but laced with venom.

“I go on air in five minutes,” you stutter, taking a subconscious half-step back. “I can’t leave the building, Youngjae. Why didn’t you just wait for me to bring them to you after the show?”

“Because I don’t want to sit here for three hours while you play radio host!” he snaps, stepping closer, his imposing frame crowding your space. “This is ridiculous, Y/N. I have a major surgery tomorrow morning. You think your little late night advice segment is more important than my career?”

“It’s not a little segment, it’s my job,” you defend, your voice trembling slightly. “I have responsibilities here.”

“Responsibilities,” Youngjae scoffs loudly, a harsh, dismissive sound. “You play music and talk to lonely housewives.” He holds out his hand, palm up, expectant and demanding. “Give me the keys.”

You reach into your pocket, your fingers brushing against the cold metal of the spare keys, feeling a sudden and overwhelming wave of humiliation. You are the lead producer of the most popular late night show on the island, yet here you are, being scolded like a disobedient child in the middle of your workplace.

Before you can pull the keys out, a solid figure steps up right beside you.

“Is there a problem here?”

Seungkwan’s voice is completely devoid of its usual warmth, the one he usually reserves for you. It’s cold, flat, and carries a quiet authority you’ve rarely heard him use. That’s a side of him you don’t often see. Seungkwan has always been gentle and soft-spoken with everyone, especially you, despite your usual bickering. So for him to speak like that, you know he’s really not having it.

Youngjae blinks, momentarily taken aback, before his expression curls into a sneer. He looks Seungkwan up and down, taking in the knit sweater and the casual stance. “This doesn’t concern you, Boo. Stick to your silly script.”

“It concerns me when you show up at my workplace screaming at my producer five minutes before a live broadcast,” Seungkwan replies, not moving an inch. He shifts his weight, subtly positioning himself so that his shoulder overlaps yours, creating a physical barrier between you and Youngjae. “You’re disrupting the station.”

“I’m talking to my girlfriend,” Youngjae snaps, his voice rising in volume. He tries to step around Seungkwan to get to you, but Seungkwan mirrors the movement, blocking him flawlessly.

“She’s working,” Seungkwan states simply.

“I don’t care if she’s working! She’s my—”

“If you don’t lower your voice,” Seungkwan interrupts, his tone dropping to a whisper, his eyes locked onto Youngjae’s, “I will have security escort you out. And trust me, I know exactly how to get someone thrown out of a building.”

The silence in the lobby is deafening. The receptionist is staring openly now. You can hear the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock.

Youngjae scoffs, trying to mask his intimidation with bravado, but he takes a step back. “You think you’re still a big shot, don’t you? You’re just a retired idol playing host at a local station.”

Seungkwan don’t rise to the bait. He don’t even blink. He just stares Youngjae down with an intensity that makes the air feel thin.

“Youngjae, enough!” You finally find your voice, and it surprises you how steady it sounds. The humiliation burns away, leaving behind a sharp, clean anger at the way he’s speaking to Seungkwan.

You step around Seungkwan, pulling the keys from your pocket. You don’t place them in Youngjae’s waiting hand; instead, you drop them onto the small glass coffee table next to him. They land with a loud, metallic clatter.

“I am at work,” you say, your voice ringing clear and authoritative in the quiet lobby. “You don’t come here and disrespect me. You don’t disrespect my colleagues. And you certainly don’t belittle what I do.”

Youngjae looks at the keys, then back at you, his eyes narrowing. “Are you serious right now? You’re making a scene over this?”

“No,” you correct him. “You made the scene. I am ending it. Take the keys and leave, Youngjae. Now.”

He stares at you, genuinely shocked. You’ve never spoken to him like this before. You’ve never pushed back. But standing here, with Seungkwan’s unyielding presence at your back, you feel a sudden, powerful surge of clarity. You are tired of shrinking.

Youngjae snatches the keys off the table, his face flush with a mix of embarrassment and fury.

He shoots one last, venomous glare at Seungkwan before turning on his heel. “We are talking about this later,” he throws over his shoulder, pushing through the front doors and disappearing into the rain.

The heavy doors swing shut, leaving a ringing silence in their wake.

Your adrenaline spikes, then immediately crashes. Your knees feel a little weak. You let out a shaky exhale, pressing the heels of your hands against your eyes. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I am so sorry you had to see that.”

Seungkwan turns to you, and the intimidating aura is gone. What replaces it is soft, immediate concern. He reaches out, his hands hovering around you as if he wants to pull you into his chest, but instead he settles for gripping your shoulders, his thumbs pressing reassuringly against your collarbones.

“Don’t apologize,” he says fiercely, his voice rough. “Don’t you ever apologize for him, Y/N.”

“He was so loud,” you whisper, humiliated tears pricking the corners of your eyes. “Everyone heard.”

“Good,” Seungkwan says stepping closer. His thumb brushes a stray tear from your cheek, the touch shockingly gentle. “Let them see that you don’t let anyone walk all over you. You were incredible just now.”

You look up at him. The lobby lights catch the deep brown of his eyes, turning them into something almost golden with protective pride that makes your chest ache. He isn’t looking at you with pity. He’s looking at you like you hung the moon.

You want him to kiss you.

And normally, you would say it’s because you were feeling vulnerable, but you know that isn’t it. Being with Seungkwan just inches away from you like this makes you feel like the teenage girl who was hopelessly in love with him. Honestly, you’ve been feeling this way ever since he came back into your life.

“Two minutes!” Seungcheol’s voice booms from down the hallway, echoing through the corridor.

Seungkwan lets his hands slide down your arms, giving your hands a quick, firm squeeze before letting go. You just nod to yourself, taking a deep breath, but as you turn toward the studio doors, he caught your elbow.

“Tokki, wait,” he starts, his voice dropping to a serious register. He steps closer, his shadow falling over you. “We need to talk about what just happened. About the way he treated you.”

You pull your arm back, shaking your head so hard your hair whips around your face. “I can’t, Seungkwan. Not now. I have a broadcast to get through.”

“You’re just going to pretend he didn’t try to dictate your entire life in front of your colleagues?”

“Please,” you cut him off, voice cracking. You look at the studio doors, desperate for the sanctuary of the booth. “Just… leave it alone. For tonight. If you care about me, just leave it alone.”

Seungkwan watches you, jaw tight, clearly wanting to push it further. Frustration and aching sympathy flicker across his face. He finally gives a short, stiff nod. “Fine. But we’re talking about this later.”

You don’t answer, just turn and walk toward Studio B, the weight of the night pressing down on you.

FIVE MONTHS AGO

Seungkwan’s house was entirely too quiet when you arrived. Usually, his home was a chaos of neighborhood gossip, the television blaring something, his sisters’ friends coming and going, and the smell of something delicious simmering on the stove. But today, the air felt subdued.

His mother met you at the front door with a deep, exhausted sigh. “He hasn’t left that room in three days. Ever since the official press release about his retirement hit the news cycle on Tuesday, he’s just been lying there. He won’t eat. He barely talks. It’s like all the light just drained right out of him.”

“I’ll handle it,” you promised, offering her reassuring smile. You gripped the manila folder in your hand a little tighter. “He just needs a push.”

You marched up the familiar wooden stairs, your socks padding softly against the floorboards. You knew exactly the kind of existential dread Seungkwan was currently drowning in. For eleven years, his entire identity had been tied to a grueling, relentless schedule. He was an idol, for crying out loud. He was a performer.

Now, standing on the other side of that massive, terrifying decision to walk away, the silence was probably deafening. He had jumped off the cliff, and he was currently waiting to see if the parachute was going to open.

You were here to be the parachute.

You pushed the door to his childhood bedroom open without knocking. The curtains were drawn tight, casting the room a gloomy and artificial twilight despite it being two in the afternoon.

Seungkwan was lying flat on his back in the center of his bed. He was wearing a faded gray sweatshirt and soft sweatpants, his arms resting limply over his stomach. He was staring blankly up at the ceiling, looking so profoundly lost and exhausted that it made your chest physically ache.

“Is this a wake?” you asked, your voice cutting through the stale air. “Because I’m not wearing black.”

Seungkwan jolted slightly, his head snapping toward the door. His eyes were dark, rimmed with the red, puffy evidence of a sleepless night. “Y/N? What are you doing here?”

“Intervention,” you announced simply.

You walked straight past his desk, didn’t bother to take off you oversized cardigan, and threw yourself unceremoniously onto the mattress right next to him.

The bedsprings groaned in protest as you landed flat on your back, your shoulder practically brushing against his. You crossed your ankles, folding your hands over your stomach, and mirrored his exact posture, staring up at the ceiling.

For a long moment, Seungkwan was too stunned to speak. He just turned his head, staring at your profile in absolute bewilderment.

“You’re invading my misery,” he finally muttered, his voice raspy and completely devoid of its usual bright energy.

“Well, misery loves company,” you countered easily, keeping your eyes on the faded, peeling glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to his ceiling. “Besides, we used to do this all the time. Remember? We spent half of our freshman year lying on this exact bed, staring at those stupid plastic stars.”

Seungkwan let out a hollow, humorless breath, turning his gaze back up to the ceiling. “Yeah. Usually because you were having a meltdown about a chemistry exam.”

“We used to lie here for hours,,” you continued softly, the memory bringing a bittersweet tightness to your throat. “Just talking. Planning out how we were going to conquer the world. We had it all figured out.”

“Now I’m almost thirty, unemployed, hiding from the paparazzi in my childhood bedroom, and you’re running a local radio station on an island we swore we’d escape.”

“Hey,” you admonished gently, shifting your weight so you could bump your shoulder against his. “My local radio station happens to be the second highest rated afternoon program in the district. And that is exactly why I’m here."

You reached over, slapping the manila folder onto his chest. He grabbed it instinctively before it slid off.

“What is this?” he asked, his brow furrowing as he looked at the logo on the cover.

“That is a job offer,” you declared, turning your head to look at him. “Yoona’s co-host is transferring to the morning news division next month. We need someone who can talk endlessly, who understands the entertainment industry, and who is incredibly desperate for a distraction.”

He frowned, his nose scrunching slightly in protest. “I wouldn’t call myself desperate.”

“Maybe not,” you shrugged. “But you do need a reason to get out of this bed, Kwan. And I need someone who won’t trip over the microphone cables. Help out your oldest friend, will you?”

Seungkwan stared at the folder, his thumb tracing the edge of the paper. You could see the gears turning in his head, the terrifying prospect of a new routine warring with the safety of his depression.

Before he could overthink it and hand the folder back, you let the tough-love producer persona drop entirely. The anger and the resentment from the past eleven years had been quietly eroding ever since he showed up at the recreation center, and seeing him like this—so broken and unsure—wiped out whatever was left of your pride.

“I missed you so much,” you whispered, the confession tumbling out of you before you could stop it.

You closed the remaining distance between you, turning on your side and resting your head gently against his shoulder. The fabric of his sweatshirt was soft, smelling faintly of fabric softener and the familiar scent that was just him.

Seungkwan froze for a fraction of a second, his breath hitching audibly in his chest, though his voice still sounded playful when he spoke. “Well, don’t go soft on me now.”

“Okay, forget it,” you said, struggling to stand as you pulled the folder off his chest.

But then, Seungkwan’s arm came up. He wrapped it securely around your shoulders, pulling you a fraction closer until you were tucked perfectly against his side. His other hand reached over, his long fingers finding yours in the space between you and grabbing your hand, intertwining your fingers with a desperate, crushing grip.

He leaned his head down, pressing his lips to the top of your head in a long, lingering kiss.

“I missed you every day,” he murmured into your hair. “Every single day, Y/N.”

You squeezed his hand, a sad smile touching your lips. “Liar. You forgot me.”

“And how could I forget you, tokki?” he asked softly, using the childhood nickname that instantly made your heart skip a beat.

You tilted your head up just enough to look at his face. “Are you still calling me that?”

“Always,” Seungkwan replied without a second of hesitation. He finally looked down, his eyes meeting yours in the dim light of the bedroom. The exhaustion was still there, but the absolute, unwavering certainty in his gaze took your breath away.

You stared at him, the weight of the last decade hanging in the six inches of air between your faces. You had spent so long building walls to keep him out, but lying here, tangled up with him in the quiet sanctuary of his room, it felt like no time had passed at all.

“Promise you won’t disappear this time,” you asked, your voice barely a whisper, entirely stripped of its usual sarcasm. It was a plea. A genuine, terrifying surrender.

Seungkwan looked into your eyes, tracking the slight tremble of your lower lip, the fearful hope shining in your gaze, and his heart physically violently hammered against his ribs. Swallowing down the desperate, burning need to kiss your lips, Seungkwan tightened his grip on your hand and forced a soft, reassuring smile.

“You’re going to get tired of me,” he said, his voice incredibly gentle. “I promise.”

He leaned down, carefully, deliberately, and kissed you on the forehead again. It was sweet. It was safe. It was the absolute maximum amount of restraint he was capable of mustering.

“I’ll take the job, PD-nim,” he whispered against your skin, closing his eyes as he breathed in the scent of your perfume. “I’m not going anywhere.”

PRESENT

The reservation at Don Capri was for 8:00 p.m. By 8:05, you’re huddled in a corner velvet booth with a perfect line of sight to Chan’s table, holding a leather-bound menu high enough to hide your face but low enough to keep table four in view.

“He’s sweating,” you whisper, adjusting the menu slightly. “I can see a bead of sweat on his temple from here. He’s going to dehydrate before the appetizers arrive.”

Across from you, Seungkwan let out a soft, amused hum. He didn’t bother hiding behind his menu. Instead, he sits perfectly relaxed against the velvet, looking entirely in his element.

“He’s fine, tokki. She just laughed at whatever he said,” Seungkwan observes, taking a slow sip of his water.

The second he shuts his mouth, something metallic crashes to the floor.

Seungkwan’s eyes widen. “Though he just knocked over the salt shaker. Give him ten minutes, if he drops his fork, we trigger the station emergency text.”

“Well, at least she doesn’t look like a serial killer,” you note, peering critically at Chan’s date again. She’s pretty, with an easy smile and, to her credit, she seems genuinely charmed by Chan’s nervousness.

“See? Fieldwork. I told you it would be fine.” Seungkwan reaches across the table, his fingers catching the top edge of your menu and pushing it down, forcing you to look at him. “Now stop spying. We are supposed to be blending in. If you keep staring at them, people are going to think we’re private investigators.”

You scoff, though your voice comes out a little breathless. “Blending in? We are sitting in a romantic Italian restaurant, hiding behind potted ferns. We look ridiculous.”

“We only look ridiculous because you’re acting like a spy,” Seungkwan corrects. “If we want to be convincing, we need to act like we belong here. Like we’re on a actual date. So stop slouching.”

And you don’t know it yet, but Seungkwan is fully intent on turning this into a actual date. Or at the very least, showing you how you deserve to be treated on one.

You straighten up, reflexively pulling your jacket tighter. “I am not slouching. I’m trying to be inconspicuous. Which is hard to do when you’re dressed like that.”

Seungkwan looks impeccable, actually. He’s wearing a navy lightweight sweater layered over a striped button-down, the collar and cuffs peeking out; a look so effortlessly devastating it made at least three women trip over their own feet on his way to the table. Your heart had done much the same when he showed up at your door dressed like that.

Not that you would say that out loud, anyway.

“Like what?” he asks, a playful glint in his eye as he leans back, looking entirely too relaxed for a stakeout.

“Like you’re going to a premiere, not babysitting a blind date,” you counter.

“If we’re going to be security, we have to look the part. If I look like a scrub, they’ll think we’re just two random people loitering. If I look like this,” he gestures to his outfit, “we’re a couple enjoying a nice, expensive dinner.”

You do your best to ignore him referring to the two of you as a couple.

He caught your eye and held it, the playfulness fading into something more deliberate. “Besides, you look beautiful tonight. Even if you are trying to hide behind the menu.”

You roll your eyes, ignoring the way your pulse skips. “Stop flirting with me, Boo Seungkwan.”

“Trust me, tokki,” Seungkwan says, a smirk tugging at his lips. You’ve never seen this side of him. “You’ll know when I’m flirting with you.”

A waiter approaches the table before you can say a word. He glances between the two of you, his gaze lingering on Seungkwan’s polished attire before softening when it lands on you.

“Good evening,” the waiter greets in a hushed tone. “Can I start you two off with a bottle of wine? We have a beautiful Sangiovese that pairs perfectly with the chill in the air tonight. Are we celebrating a special occasion?”

You open your mouth to stammer out a polite refusal, to explain that you were just friends having a quick bite, but Seungkwan beats you to it.

“We aren’t celebrating an anniversary, if that's what you mean,” Seungkwan smiles, the warmth in his expression entirely genuine as he looks at the waiter, and then at you. “But it is a special occasion. I finally convinced her to let me take her to dinner.”

The waiter chuckles. “Well, then, congratulations are in order for the gentleman. And for the lady, I promise the food will make the wait worthwhile. Shall I bring the wine?”

“Please,” Seungkwans nods. He don’t look at the menu; he keeps looking at you, eyes searching. “And we’ll put out food orders in now, too. We’ll start with the burrata, please. And for the main… Tokki, you still love the mushroom risotto, don’t you? With the truffle oil?”

You blink, startled. It’s been years since you mentioned that preference, during a crowded high school lunch, of all things. “I... yes. I do.”

“Two orders of the mushroom risotto,” Seungkwan says, turning back to the waiter. “And please, hold the olives for the lady. She hates them.”

The waiter beams. “Coming right up. A wonderful choice for such a lovely couple. I’ll be right back with your wine.”

As the waiter glides away, you stare at Seungkwan, your mouth slightly parts. Your fingers nervously curls into the heavy linen napkin on your lap. You could probably dwell on the fact that the waiter keeps referring to you as a couple, but only one thing is on your mind right now.

“You remembered that?” you whisper, almost disbelieving. “The mushroom risotto?”

Seungkwan leans his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his fingers. “I remember everything about you,” he says simply, shrugging slightly. “Besides, you always look at the past section first, but you invariably order rice dishes when you’re stressed. And right now, you’re tapping your foot against the table leg.”

You immediately still your foot, a flush of heat rising to your cheeks. He is paying attention. He is always paying an agonizing amount of attention to you.

“You didn’t have to put on the whole performance for the waiter,” you murmur, looking down at the flickering candle to avoid the heat of his gaze. “He probably thinks we’re together now.”

“That’s the point of blending in,” Seungkwan says softly. “But it wasn’t a performance. If I am taking you out to dinner, I’m going to do it right. You deserve to be taken out to a place with real tablecloths and good lighting.”

He doesn’t elaborate more. He simply picks up his water glass, clinks it against yours, and smiles. It’s the closest he has come to referencing your love life all evening, but he doesn’t cross the line. He keeps the focus entirely on the present, on the two of you in this dimly lit booth, slowly forgetting why you came in the first place.

The waiter returns, pouring two glasses of the dark red wine. Seungkwan picks his up, holding it out toward you.

“To fieldwork,” he toasts, a teasing smile playing on his lips.

You pick up your glass, the crystal clinking softly against his. “To Chan keeping both his kidneys.”

You take a sip. The wine is incredible, rich, complex, and warming you from the inside out. For the first time all week, the perpetual knot of anxiety in your chest begins to loosen. You lean back into the velvet booth, allowing yourself to actually look at the man sitting across from you.

“So,” you start, feeling a sudden urge of liquid courage. “If this were a real date, what would the great Boo Seungkwan talk about?”

Seungkwan laughs, a sound that rumbles over the ambient noise of the restaurant. “If you really want the full experience, you have to know the fine print.”

You arch an eyebrow, fighting a smile. “The fine print?”

“Yes. I’m incredibly demanding.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

Seungkwan roll his eyes and leans forward, resting his forearms on the table. The candlelight dances across his features, highlighting the playful glint in his eyes.

“I require a lot of attention, tokki. You should know.” He winks at you. “I’m the guy who wants to know exactly what made you laugh on your dive to work, and why you always steal my pens during per-production eve though you have five of your own.”

“Yours are better and more expensive.” You lift a shoulder in your best you-got-me shrug.

Seungkwan doesn’t care. He’d buy a million pens just for you to steal if it made you happy.

He reaches across the table, his index finger lightly tracing the base of his wine glass. “And if this were a real date, I wouldn’t be looking at Chan right now. I’d probably tell you that the candlelight makes your eyes look absolutely incredible.”

Your breath hitches. The banter had shifted gears so smoothly you almost got whiplash. God, you’re supposed to be here to babysit Chan and his date, but right now the only thing you can think about is Seungkwan. You’ve practically forgotten table four exists.

“And then,” he continues, his voice sending a shiver straight down your spine, “I’d spend the rest of the appetizer course trying to figure out if you’re actually as unaffected by me as you’re pretending to be, or if I’m allowed to hold you hand across the table.”

Heat rushes to your cheeks, completely betraying your cool facade. “And what’s your conclusion, Boo?” you challenged, though there’s far less bite in your voice than usual. You can’t believe you’re actually flirting with your best friend right now.

“My conclusion,” he murmurs, his gaze dropping briefly to your lips before snapping back up to hold you stare, “is that you’re definitely not unaffected. You’ve been shredding your napkin for five minutes.”

You are affected. More than you want to admit, and definitely more than you want him to notice. You’ve been like this ever since Seungkwan came back, maybe even before that, when he existed only through blurry livestreams and phone screens.

You look down. The linen napkin in your lap is indeed thoroughly twisted between your tense fingers. You drop it immediately, clearing your throat, but you refuse to let him win that easily.

“You’re very confident in your methods,” you note, leaning forward so that you are mirroring his posture. You tilt your head, letting a slow smile cross your lips. “But I’m curious. You’ve laid out your entire strategy. What makes you think you’d survive my moves?”

Seungkwan pauses, the confident smirk faltering just a fraction as his eyes widen slightly. “Is that a challenge, tokki? What exactly are your moves?”

“Well,” you start, dropping your voice to match his intimate volume. “If this were a real date, I wouldn’t need to put on a performance. I’d just use what I already know."

You reach across the table, your fingers lightly grazing the cuff of his striped button-down, ostensibly to brush away a piece of invisible lint. You feel him tense under your touch.

“I’d tell you that you don’t need the expensive sweater to impress me, even though navy looks undeniably good on you,” you murmur, looking up through your lashes. “I’d point out that you always rub your thumb against your index finger when you’re trying to play it cool. just like you’re doing right now.”

Seungkwan’s hand stills against the table, his breath catching audibly. You bite your lip without thinking, and immediately watch his eyes drop to the movement.

“And then,” you continue, imitating him and thoroughly enjoying the sudden, flustered darkening of his eyes, “I’d remind you that I know exactly what you sound like when you’re genuinely caught off guard. And I’d make it my mission for the rest of the night to hear it.”

Seungkwan visibly swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. The playful banter vanishes completely, replaced by a heavy, magnetic tension that completely short-circuits his brain. You can practically see the gears jamming as he stares at you, completely charmed and entirely at your mercy.

“You know, I’m just... invested in the mission,” you whisper, pulling your hand back and offering him an innocent, victorious smile.

“Right. The mission,” Seungkwan breathes out, his voice slightly rougher than it was a moment ago. He looks thoroughly wrecked by your counter-attack, and thoroughly entertained by it, too.

He reaches out, his fingers grazing your wrist as you reach for your water glass. The fleeting contact sends a jolt of electricity straight to your heart.

“Well, for the sake of the mission, I think we should keep up at the act. In fact, if the waiter comes back, I might just to lean in a little closer.”

“Don’t push your luck, Boo,” you warn, though a traitorous smile brakes across your face.

The burrata arrives, but neither of you pays any attention to it. The air inside the booth feels electric, every glance and teasing smile tightening the tension between you. The complicated reality of your life outside the restaurant fades into the background, replaced entirely by the thrill of Seungkwan’s undivided attention.

He’s flawlessly attentive, anticipating your needs before you voice them, teasing you gently, looking at you with such unwavering focus that the rest of the restaurant seems to disappear.

Once again, you’re laughing more than you have in months—maybe even years. You feel beautiful, interesting, completely captivating under Seungkwan’s gaze. It feels like you’re on an actual date. A hell of a good one, if you’re being honest.

By the time the waiter brings the check—which Seungkwan immediately snatches up before you can even think about reaching for your purse, shooting you a look that brooks absolutely no argument—you feel like you’re floating.

“Chan survived,” Seungkwan notes as he signs the receipt, subtly gesturing toward table four, where Chan and his date are bundled into their coats, flushed and smiling. “No organs harvested tonight.”

“Mission accomplished,” you agree, sliding out of the velvet booth.

As you stand, Seungkwan is already there, holding your coat open for you. You blink, faintly stunned, but slip your arms into the sleeves anyway. His hands linger lightly on your shoulders for a second longer than necessary, and the weight of his touch steals your breath all over again.

“Thank you,” you whisper, turning to look up at him.

“Anytime, tokki,” he smiles, stepping back to let you lead the way out of the restaurant.

TWO MONTHS AGO

Your mother’s inn was perched on a precipice, a jagged, flat-topped plateau of rock where the wind always smelled of salt. You could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs all night long, a rhythmic, slightly violent lullaby that had soundtracked your entire life.

The inn felt like a stubborn relic by now, while most of the city had sprouted sleek, glass-fronted luxury hotels and neon-lit resorts. It was weathered by the sea spray, its white paint peeling in places to reveal the sturdy, dark stone beneath, but there it stood: strong, and holding on.

You family quarters were tucked away at the back on the ground floor. That night, Seungkwan had insisted on walking you home after the show ended.

It started raining all of a sudden, and your mother was outside taking care of her plants when the two of you reached the door, soaking wet. She immediately insisted Seungkwan stay the night instead of walking home in the rain, even though he lived just down the street.

“Aigoo! Look at you both!” she shrieked, dropping a small trowel. “Y/N! Why didn’t you use an umbrella? And Seungkwanie! You’ll catch a cold and lose that voice of yours!”

“It’s just a little water, Auntie,” Seungkwan panted, trying to wipe his eyes, though he looked like he’d just climbed out of the ocean.

“Absolutely not,” she commanded, grabbing both of your elbows and hauling you inside the kitchen. “You are not walking home in this, Seungkwan. It’s pitch black and the wind is high enough to knock you off the cliff.”

“Mom, he lives five minutes down the street,” you reminded her, shivering as the air conditioning hit your wet skin.

“Five minutes too long! The road is slick, and your mother would kill me if her only son got pneumonia on my doorstep.” She was already rummaging through the linen closet, tossing a thick, oversized towel at Seungkwan’s head. “You’re staying. We have the guest room made up, and I’ll find some of your brother’s old clothes. Go, shower! Both of you!”

Seungkwan caught the towel, peeking out from under the white terry cloth. He looked at you, a hesitant, slightly mischievous glint in his eyes. He knew, as well as you did, that staying the night meant more than just avoiding the rain, it meant being back in the intimate, domestic bubble of your childhood, with sleepovers and everything that came with them.

You just shrugged. “You heard her.”

“I don’t want to be a burden...” he started, though his feet were already moving toward the hallway.

“The only burden is your chattering teeth,” your mother countered, already heading toward the stove to put on a pot of ginger tea.

You stood in the center of the kitchen, watching him. Seungkwan looked so out of place in your home, yet he smiled at your mother and thanked her with an ease that didn’t belong to the image you had of him. You didn’t know it, but he felt more at home there than he ever did in his apartment back in Seoul.

“Well,” you sighed, wringing out the hem of your shirt. “I guess we’re watching something here tonight.”

Seungkwan grinned, the water dripping from the tip of his nose. “Then hurry up, tokki. I’m not starting our study without you.”

Thirty minutes later, you left your room with a towel wrapped around your head, already dressed in your pajamas as walked down the hallway toward the living room, listening to your mother and grandmother’s voices as they talked to Seungkwan.

“Honestly, Seungkwanie, you look so thin. Does Pledis not feed their retirees?” your grandmother clucked, setting down a platter of golden-brown pajeon and a bottle of strawberry milk for him at the coffee table.

“Halmoni, you’re the only one who truly understands my nutritional needs,” Seungkwan chirped, his eyes crinkling into that sweet smile that had weaponized fans for more than a decade. He was already very comfortably settled on the sofa.

“Halmoni, stop,” you protested, placing a hand against her back in an attempt to guide her away. “He’s going to get an ego, and I’m the one who has to work with him tomorrow.”

“Oh, hush,” your mother dismissed you with a wave. She wiped her hands on her apron and sat on the edge of the armchair, fixing Seungkwan hair with a look that was equal parts maternal and deeply intrusive. “Leave the poor boy alone, Y/N.”

You could see it in her eyes as the gears in her head turned at terrifying speed, preparing whatever invasive question she was about to ask next. Your mother rarely believed in delicacy, privacy, or minding her own business. Especially when Boo Seungkwan was involved.

“Now, Seungkwanie, answer your Auntie honestly.” You squeezed your eyes shut the second a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, already bracing yourself. “A handsome, successful man like you, finally back home in Jeju... you must have girls throwing themselves at you. Do you have a girlfriend tucked away somewhere in Seoul?”

Your grandmother nodded enthusiastically, not missing a beat as she sat down next to your mother. “Yes! We were just talking about this in the kitchen while you were showering. You know, when you two were teenagers, constantly attached at the hip, we always used to say it was only a matter of time. We always thought you and Y/N would end up together.”

God, that was worse than you could’ve imagined. Even if you actually agreed with her.

Your jaw practically unhinged. You froze right behind the sofa, your hands tightening their grip on the towel wrapped around your wet hair. “Halmoni! Mom! What is wrong with you?”

Seungkwan, to his credit, didn’t choke on his bite of pajeon. But a slow, blooming red flush crept up the back of his neck, visible even under the collar of the borrowed sweatshirt. He looked up at you over his shoulder, his eyes sparkling with a dangerous amount of amusement, before turning his polite smile back to the two women.

“No girlfriend, Auntie,” Seungkwan said politely, though his voice had dropped into that smooth tone that always made your pulse jump. “The group kept me pretty busy. I never really found anyone who could put up with me.”

He paused, taking a slow sip of his strawberry milk. His gaze drifted back up to catch yours, a thoroughly devastating smirk playing on his lips.

“But...” he continued, his eyes locking onto yours, “I have to admit, Halmoni has excellent intuition. I always thought we made a pretty perfect pair, too.”

You let out a strangled gasp, your face immediately burning hot. You grabbed a small embroidered throw pillow off the back of the sofa and chucked it directly at his head.

“Aigoo!” your mother scolded, though she was trying and failing to hide a massive grin as Seungkwan easily dodged the pillow with a laugh. “Y/N! Where are your manners? You don’t throw things at our guest.”

“He’s not a guest, it’s Seungkwan!” you shot back, completely flustered as you marched around the sofa to grab a piece of pajeon, avoiding Seungkwan’s entirely entirely too-smug expression. “And both of you need to stop encouraging him.”

“We’re just stating the facts,” your grandmother stated placidly, patting Seungkwan’s knee. “It’s nice to have you back, Seungkwanie. It feels like things are finally exactly where they’re supposed to be.”

“You know, Seungkwan,” your mother turned back to Seungkwan, her eyes sparkling with a sudden, mischievous memory. “Y/N was always your biggest supporter. Even when you weren’t here to see it.”

A cold spike of dread shot through your chest. “Mom. No.”

“In fact,” she continued, ignoring your frantic eye signals, “she kept a little... archive. In the back of her closet. It’s still there. All those albums and the rare photocards—”

This had to be a nightmare.

“Mom, I swear to God—”

“Photocards?” Seungkwan’s head whipped toward you again, his eyebrows arching toward his hairline. A slow, smug grin began to spread across his face. “Rare ones?”

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” you muttered, your face heating to a shade of red that could rival the ON AIR sign back at the station.

“I’ll go get the binder!” you mother chirped, already scurrying toward the hallway.

“Mom! Don’t you dare!”

You scrambled after her, but it was too late. Within seconds, your mother returned, triumphantly hoisting a thick, plastic-sleeved binder and a dusty box. She dropped them onto the coffee table with a heavy thud.

Seungkwan leaned forward, his eyes wide with delight. He flipped the binder open. It was a chronological history of his career: rare photo cards you’d traded for, newspaper clippings from his first win on Music Bank, and even a crumpled receipt from his first fan meeting in Seoul.

“Is this…” Seungkwan traces the edge of a photocard where he's sporting a questionable bowl from his first studio album. “Y/N, even I don’t have this one.”

He looked at the box, pulling out a lightstick that had been carefully preserved, its battery long dead but the diamond inside still gleaming. He looked from the collection to you, his expression shifting from teasing to something much softer, much more complex.

“You kept everything,” he whispered.

You stood by the TV, arms crossed tightly over your chest, feeling exposed in a way that had nothing to do with radio broadcast. You felt like the teenage girl again, sitting on the parapet, watching the boy you loved walk away toward a life you couldn’t follow.

“It’s just... memorabilia,,” you lied, your voice tight in your throat. “For the history of Jeju’s most famous export.”

Another lie. That entire collection had been your way of staying close to Seungkwan after he cut you out of his life without a single explanation. You didn’t just want to support his career, you wanted to feel close to him somehow, no matter how ridiculous it made you feel.

And honestly, you’d owned far more than what was left in that box. At one point, you even bought a life-size cardboard cutout of Seungkwan. But after one particularly angry night, you threw half of it away. The remaining pieces were only there because your mother had saved them.

Seungkwan stood up, the binder still open to a page of his handwritten lyrics you’d printed out years ago. “Y/N. Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

The frustration that had been building for months — of the twelve-year silence, of Seungkwan sliding back into your life as if he hadn’t left a gaping hole behind — suddenly boiled over.

You looked him dead in the eye, your chin trembling just slightly. “Well, you left, didn’t you?”

The silence that followed was terrible. Heavy. Your mother and grandmother, realizing they’d accidentally stepped into a minefield, quietly retread to the kitchen.

Seungkwan flinched as if you’d slapped him. The smugness was gone. His glow was gone. He looked down at the binder, at the version of himself that had been a start while you stayed behind.

He opened his mouth to speak, but you cut him off before a word could leave his lips. “Let’s just watch, okay?”

PRESENT

The drive back to your house is suspended in silence. It isn’t the uncomfortable, suffocating quiet you’re used to sharing with Youngjae after an argument; it’s a warm stillness. The ambient glow of the dashboard illuminates Seungkwan’s profile as he navigates the winding coastal roads, the faint sound of a lo-fi track humming through the car speakers.

As the tires crunch onto the familiar gravel of the inn’s precipice, the sound of the ocean immediately rushes in to fill the space. Waves crash violently against the rocks below, creating a wild soundtrack for the storm brewing in your chest.

Seungkwan shifts the car into park but leaves the engine idling. The heater blows softly, maintaining the comfortable, intimate bubble you’ve been trapped inside all night. He doesn’t immediately reach to unlock the doors. Instead, he unbuckles his seatbelt and shifts in his seat, turning fully toward you.

You stare out the windshield at the peeling white paint of your mother’s inn, suddenly completely unwilling to open the door. Opening it means the “fieldwork” night is over. It means stepping back into the cold reality where you are the secret girlfriend of a man who doesn’t respect you.

“So…” you start, voice sounding a little smaller than you intended. You turn you head, sinking slightly into the leather set to look at him. “We’re successfully completed the dinner portion of our research.”

Seungkwan rests his arm along the back of your seat, eyes tracing the line of your face in the dim light. “We did. I’d say the data we collected was highly successful.”

And the more e you tried to piece everything together, the more confused you became. Was Seungkwan actively flirting with you? Was he serious about what he confessed that night when you were both drunk? Or was this all just concern disguised as something else, his way of trying to save you from Youngjae?

You couldn’t tell anymore, and that uncertainty was driving your thoughts into complete chaos.

You let out a soft, nervous breath, your eyes dropping to Seungkwan’s mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back up to his eyes. “What happens now, then? In the spirit of a comprehensive study... what are your moves at the end of a date?”

“My moves?” he echoes, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly tone that sends a shiver straight down your spine.

“Yeah,” you whisper, suddenly hyperaware of the small space between you inside the car. “Do you just... say goodnight and drive away?”

“No,” Seungkwan murmurs, leaning a little closer. The faint scent of expensive wine and cedarwood wraps around you. “If it were a real date, I’d walk her all the way to her door. I’d wait until she got inside safely. And I’d still ask her to text me after, just so I could be absolutely sure.”

“And then?” you press, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird desperate to be set free.

Boo Seungkwan’s gaze drops to your lips. This time, he doesn’t even try to hide it, his tongue darting out to wet his own. “And then, if she were looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now...” His voice lowers even more, rough around the edges. “I’d kiss her goodnight.”

The air in the car vanishes at the same time it does in your lungs.

Every rational thought—the fact that you are still technically dating Youngjae, the fact that you work together, the fact that this could shatter the fragile equilibrium of your friendship—is completely eclipsed by the magnetic pull of the man sitting beside you. Your best friend.

You had spent a year starving in the dark, and Seungkwan was suddenly offering you a feast in the light.

Your gaze drops to his lips, slightly parted, before lifting back to his eyes, darkened and blown wide with anticipation.

“Then kiss me,” you breathe, barely believing the words have left your mouth.

Seungkwan freezes. For a single, agonizing millisecond, he just stares at you, his eyes searching yours frantically, as if trying to confirm he heard you correctly, making sure it isn’t a joke or a mistake.

Whatever he finds in your expression broke the last remaining thread of his restraint.

He closes the distance between you in a heartbeat. His hand rises, long fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of your neck, and he pulls you forward just as his lips crash against yours.

There isn’t a hint of hesitation in the way his lips move against yours—only certainty. It’s fifteen years of waiting, of quiet longing, yearning in high school hallways, on parapets, and in agonizingly small radio booths, finally shattering wide open.

His lips are warm and soft against yours, tasting faintly of wine and the chapstick he’d applied before driving you home. The hand on the back of your seat rises to grip your jaw, tilting your head to deepen the kiss, and you gasp against his mouth, a soft, involuntary sound. Seungkwan takes it as permission for his tongue to swipe between your lips.

You melt against him completely, your hands flying up to grip his navy-blue sweater, afraid that if you don’t, you might dissolve into a puddle in his passenger seat. Seungkwan’s kiss is mind-blowing, addictive, and so much more than you ever dreamed it would be when you were a teenager.

The center console digs uncomfortably into your side, but you don’t care. You pull yourself closer, your fingers sliding from his chest up into his soft hair, tugging gently at the strands. Seungkwan groans, a low, incredibly attractive sound that vibrates against your lips as he grows bolder, pulling you over his legs to straddle his lap in the driver’s seat, your skirt riding up considerably.

You don’t hesitate, practically throwing yourself into Seungkwan’s lap, his arm flying to your hips as you giggle when your head lightly hits the car ceiling. Seungkwan likes the sound of your laughter, but he thinks he might have just fallen in love with the little gasp and moan that slip out when he kisses you again.

It’s dizzying, entirely consuming; you feel like your head is spinning. For the first time in months, you don’t feel like you’re shrinking; you feel like you’re the absolute center of the fucking universe.

When you finally pull apart to catch your breath, neither of you moves very far. Seungkwan keeps his forehead resting against yours, your chests rising and falling unevenly in the quiet interior of the car. But when you open your eyes again, his expression isn’t blissful. It’s troubled, worried.

Your stomach drops instantly. Scared of what he might say next, you whisper: “What’s wrong?”

“Y/N,” Seungkwan says softly, his breathing uneven. “I’m not strong enough to pull away from you right now. So if this was just a kiss for research... I need you to be the one to stop this before I—”

You silence him with another kiss, your arms winding around his neck to pull him impossibly closer. Seungkwan make a soft sound against your mouth when you catch his lower lip between yours, your hips rolling against him involuntarily.

Both of you let out shaky groans at the same time when you feel the hard press of him where your bodies meet. Seungkwan’s head tips back instinctively, exposing the long line of his throat, and you immediately take the invitation, kissing your way along his neck while his hands slide down to your exposed thigh.

His fingers give light, lingering squeezes as they slowly travel higher, dangerously close to where you want him the most. The anticipation alone is enough to make you shiver, unsure if you’ll survive the moment his hands finally reach the place you’ve bee aching for him to touch.

You can feel the heat radiating off his body, his scent enveloping you in a dizzying cloud of desire.

Seungkwan’s fingers dance along the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, the light touches leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. His touch is electrifying, igniting a fire within you that threatens to consume you entirely. Your hips rock forward involuntarily, seeking more friction, more contact with the hard length pressing insistently against your core.

“Please,” you whimper against his neck, your voice ragged with need. “Touch me, Seungkwan.”

He groans at your words, his fingers inching higher until they brush against the damp fabric of your panties. You gasp at the contact, your head falling back against the steering wheel as he begins to rub slow circles over your clothed sex. The thin barrier of your underwear does little to dull the sensation, and you can feel your arousal soaking through the material, coating Seungkwan’s fingers.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes, his eyes dark with desire as he watches you fall apart beneath his touch. “You’re so wet for me already. I can feel you throbbing against my fingers.”

Emboldened by your moans, Seungkwan hooks his fingers into the waistband of your panties and pulls them aside, exposing your dripping core to the cool air of the car. He wastes no time before running a finger along your slick folds, gathering your arousal before bringing it to his lips. His tongue darts out to taste you, his eyes fluttering shut as he savors your flavor.

“God, you taste divine,” he murmurs, his voice rough. “I could eat you out all night long.”

His words send a shiver down your spine, and you find yourself rocking your hips forward, desperate for more of his touch.

Seungkwan takes the hint and slips a finger inside your heat, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing in slow circles. You cry out at the intrusion, your walls clenching around his digit as he begins to pump it in and out of you slowly.

“Look at you,” Seungkwan growls, his eyes locked on where his finger disappears inside you. “So tight and perfect. I can’t wait to feel you wrapped around my cock.”

The thought of him inside you sends a wave of heat through your body, and you find yourself fisting his hair, tugging him closer as you grind down on his hand. Seungkwan responds by adding a second finger, scissoring them inside you as he continues to stroke your clit with his thumb.

“Seungkwan,” you gasp, your hips bucking wildly as you chase your impending orgasm. “Don’t stop, please.”

He leans forward, capturing your lips in another kiss as his fingers continue to work you over. His tongue delves into your mouth, tangling with yours as he swallows your moans and whimpers. You can feel your release building, your walls fluttering around his fingers as he brings you closer and closer to the edge.

With one final thrust of his fingers and a particularly hard press of his thumb against your clit, you come undone. Your orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave, your body convulsing as you scream your pleasure into Seungkwan’s mouth. He holds you through it, his fingers continuing to stroke your sensitive flesh as you ride out the aftershocks of your climax.

As you come down from your high, Seungkwan slowly withdraws his fingers from your still-throbbing core. He brings them to his mouth once more, licking them clean of your juice before pulling you into one more kiss. You can taste yourself on his tongue, the flavor a heady mix of sweet and tangy that has your core clenching with renewed desire.

But as you lose yourself in the kiss, the reality of the situation begins to sink in. You’re still in Seungkwan’s car, parked outside of your mother’s inn. At any moment, someone could come looking for you, catching you in a compromising position with your best friend.

The realization hits you not as a gradual dawning, but as a visceral, physical blow. It starts in your stomach, a sudden, plummeting sensation of nausea. You aren’t just exploring a connection. You are cheating. You are cheating on the man you are still technically tethered to, and in doing so, you are dragging Seungkwan into a mess he doesn’t deserve.

You look at Seungkwan’s face—open, hopeful, glowing with the anticipation of what comes next—and the guilt that floods you is suffocating.

You can’t do this to him. You can offer him a fragment of yourself while you are still tied to someone else. You see the way he shifts, his hand moving down to find yours, his fingers interlacing with your own, a silent offer to take this further, to stay, to bridge the final gap between you.

No.

The word echos in your mind, sharp and final.

You pull your hand away as if you’d been burned.

Panic begins to set in, and you pull away from Seungkwan, your chest heaving as you try to catch your breath. “We can’t... We shouldn’t have done this,” you pant, your eyes wide with fear.

Seungkwan frowns, his brows drawing together in confusion. The warmth in his eyes flickers, replaced by a jagged, sudden uncertainty. “Y/N? What is it?”

“I...” Your voice fails you. You try to speak, but the words stick in your throat. The air in the car suddenly feels too thick to breathe. It feels like the walls are closing in, the tinted windows transforming from a shield into a prison.

“Did I... did I cross a line?” Seungkwan asks, his voice dropping, stripped of its earlier confidence. Hurt is already beginning to cloud his features. “I’m sorry, I just—you asked me to—”

“It’s not you,” you gasp, fumbling for the door handle. Your hands are shaking so violently you can barely get a grip on the lever. “It’s not you, Seungkwan. It’s me. It’s everything.”

“Y/N, wait,” he says, reaching out to grab your arm, his touch gentle but firm, trying to ground you. “Talk to me. You’re scaring me. We don’t have to do anything else. We can just sit here. Just talk.”

You can’t look at him. If you do, you know you’ll shatter. You know you’ll stay. You know you would trade your sanity for the feeling of his lips on yours, for the way his hands roam over your body, touching you in ways you’d only ever dreamed about, and that is the most dangerous part of all.

You jerk your arm back, your breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The engine is still idling, the low hum vibrating through the floorboards, matching the frantic, uneven thudding of your heart.

“I can’t,” you whisper, the words barely audible. “I can’t do this. I can’t be this person.”

Seungkwan’s expression falls, his brow furrowing in concern and hurt. “Y/N, wait—”

But you don’t give him a chance to finish his sentence. In a moment of sheer panic, you scramble out of the car, not even bothering to fix your skirt as you flee up the path to the inn’s front door. You can hear Seungkwan calling after you, but you don’t dare look back.

Your hands are shaking as you fumble with your keys, finally managing to unlock the door and slip inside. You lean against it, your heart pounding in your chest as you try to process what just happened.

And for hours, you just stand there, trapped in the hallway of your childhood home, the silence pressing in on you from all sides.

A MONTH AGO

It was Seungkwan’s birthday that night. And despite his repeated protests that he wanted a quiet night in with you and his parents, his group members had blatantly ignored him, flying in from Seoul that afternoon and bringing with them a overwhelming wave of noise, expensive gifts, and a decade’s worth of inside jokes you knew nothing about.

You had been invited—or rather, Seungkwan had threatened to drag you out of the radio station by your ankles if you didn’t show up.

“Here, Y/N, you need to try this cut,” Seokmin announced loudly over the sizzling of the grill, leaning across the table to drop a perfectly cooked piece of pork belly onto your plate. “Seungkwan used to burn the meat all the time when the for of us lived together, so I had to learn how to cook to survive.”

“My cooking skills are great!” Seungkwan defended himself immediately, grabbing his tongs and glaring at Seokmin.

You laughed, covering your mouth as you chewed. Sitting there with them felt surreal, you spent years watching these men on television or through a tiny phone screen, but in person, they were just loud, fiercely loyal brothers who clearly adored Seungkwan just as much as you.

“Don’t listen to them, Y/Nie,” a soft voice chimed in from the end of the table.

You looked over to see Jeonghan resting his chin on his hand, offering you a smile that was practically lethal. He was wearing a simple black shirt, but he somehow still look like he belonged on a billboard in Times Square.

“Seungkwan has many talents. Though, he is notoriously bad at sharing.”

You opened your mouth to reply, fully intending to agree with Jeonghan, but before you could even form a syllable, Seungkwan shifted his chair. He moved a full six inches to the left, strategically placing his broad shoulders directly in your line of sight, entirely blocking Jeonghan from your view.

“Okay, hyung, that’s enough,” Seungkwan said, his ears turning a faint shade of pink. He furiously flipped a piece of meat on the grill. “Eat your pork.”

You leaned back, trying to peer around Seungkwan’s arm. “I was just going to say—”

“No, you weren’t,” Seungkwan interrupted, tossing a piece of lettuce onto your plate with entirely too much force. “You don’t need to talk to him.”

You bit your lip to suppress a massive grin.

Ever since they arrived, Seungkwan has been doing everything he can to keep you far away from Jeonghan. All of it because of the comment you made months ago about thinking he was handsome, inflamed by you bring it up a few more times just to annoy him, insisting that Jeonghan’s face belonged in a painting.

An as soon as you were introduced, you didn’t miss the opportunity to announce that Jeonghan was your bias when asked, something the oldest member of the group took full advantage of, delighting in the sight of Seungkwan’s ears burning with jealousy every time he spoke to you.

It was a very, very fun night.

“Funny that it’s not a collection of his you have shoved in the back of your closet,” Seungkwan whispered, just loud enough for you to hear as he squeezed your waist.

You rolled your eyes, slapping his hand away. “Shut up.”

That was another one of those things you hadn’t talked about yet, and you had no intention of discussing it there with his members watching.

“Are you hiding her from me, Kwan-ah?” Jeonghan teased, his voice dancing with amusement as he leaned sideways to catch your eye again. “Y/N, did he tell you I was dangerous?”

“He’s blocking my view of the painting,” you agreed playfully, thoroughly enjoying the way Seungkwan’s jaw clenched, his tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek.

“I am going to throw you both into the ocean,” Seungkwan threatened, pouring himself a shot of soju. He pointed his stainless steel chopstick at you. “And you. Stop encouraging him. You’re supposed to be on my side. It’s my birthday.”

“I’m on the side of objective beauty,” you teased, bumping your shoulder against his.

Seungkwan rolled his eyes, but a reluctant, fond smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He was more than happy to see you getting along well with his friends, even if he was quietly sulking for your attention.

He leaned in closer to you, dropping his voice so the others couldn’t hear over the sizzling meat. “You’re terrible. I fly my friends down here to meet you, and you immediately try to run off with the visual.”

“You’re a visual too, Boo,” you whispered back, patting his chin, the playful banter suddenly dipping into something much warmer. “Don’t be so jealous.”

Seungkwan’s eyes darkened, a flash of genuine emotion breaking through the easygoing atmosphere. “I’m not jealous,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to your lips for a fraction of a second. “I just know what’s mine.”

Your breath hitched, the ambient noise of the restaurant suddenly fading into the background.

After the night you got drunk together and traded teenage confessions, Seungkwan had started being flirty with you more and more. Your mother and grandmother certainly weren’t helping, constantly fueling the idea that the two of you belonged together.

But before you could unpack that, Joshua clapped his hands together from across the table, catching both of yours attention.

“So, Seungkwan,” Joshua said, raising his glass in a toast. “Now that the escrow officially closed on the Gangnam apartment last week, what’s the plan? Are you buying a place here in Jeju?”

You froze, your chopsticks hovering halfway to your mouth. You turned your head slowly, staring at the side of Seungkwan’s face.

He had sold his apartment? The massive, luxury penthouse in Seoul that he had spent the last five years decorating? The apartment that anchored him to the capital, to the industry, to the life he had built away from you?

Seungkwan’s entire body tensed as he slowly lowered his tongs. He didn’t look at Joshua or his members. He only looked at you, reading the absolute shock radiating across your features.

“You... sold your apartment?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper, entirely oblivious to the other four men at the table.

“Ah,” Jihoon winced softly from across the table, realizing the sudden, drastic shift in the atmosphere. “He didn’t tell you.”

“I was going to,” Seungkwan said quickly, turning fully toward you. A flash of panic crossed his eyes, clearly bracing himself for you to be angry. “Y/N, I swear I was going to tell you. The paperwork just finalized.”

“You sold it,” you repeated, the reality of the situation settling heavy and absolute in your chest. Selling that apartment wasn’t just a financial decision. It meant his retirement wasn’t a temporary hiatus to clear his head. It meant he was not going back.

It meant he was staying for good. That the boy you loved all those years ago—the one who broke your heart by leaving and not speaking to you for the twelve years that followed—was actually back, and he wasn’t going anywhere, just like he promised while lying beside you in his childhood bedroom.

It was too much to process in a room full of people and five pair of eyes on you.

“Excuse me,” you managed to say, your voice breathless as you pushed your chair back from the table. “I just need to use the restroom.”

You didn’t wait for his response. You slipped out of the private room, the noise of the restaurant hitting you like a physical wall as you navigated the crowded hallway toward the back exit. You didn’t go to the restroom; you pushed through the heavy metal door that led to the quiet, dimly lit alley behind the building.

The cold night air hit your flushed face, but it did nothing to slow the frantic beating of your heart.

He was staying. He was actually, permanently staying.

The heavy metal door creaked open behind you. You didn’t need to turn around to know it was him. You could feel his presence, the familiar, grounding gravity that had always pulled you in.

Seungkwan stepped into the alley, letting the door click shut, cutting off the noise of the restaurant. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks, stopping a few feet away from you.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his voice apprehensive. “I shouldn’t have let you find out like that. I wanted to tell you properly.”

You turned to face him, leaning back against the brick wall of the restaurant. You let out a long, shaky breath, shaking your head. “I’m not mad, Kwan. I’m just... stunned. That’s a massive deal. Your whole life was in Seoul.”

Seungkwan visibly relaxed, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders when he realized you weren’t upset, just overwhelmed. He took a slow step closer, the faint light from a nearby streetlamp catching the sharp angles of his face.

“My career was in Seoul,” Seungkwan corrected softly. “My life... my life hasn’t been there for a very long time.”

“But why?” you asked, your voice filled with genuine wonder. “You loved that penthouse. You worked so hard for it. Why would you give it all up?”

Seungkwan stopped right in front of you. He didn’t hesitate. He looked down at you with a raw, terrifying honesty that made your knees weak.

“Because I found a reason to stay here,” he said, his voice a vibrating hum that went straight to your bones. “Because everything I have ever actually wanted is right here. On this island.”

He reached out, his warm fingers gently wrapping around your wrist, his thumb brushing over your racing pulse.

“I’m staying for good, tokki,” he promised, his eyes entirely focused on yours. “I told you that you’d get tired of me.”

You shook your head, not understanding why your eyes were suddenly burning, threatening to fill with tears. “I could never.”

A smile spread across Seungkwan’s face. “Well, then, great. Because I plan on keeping you as close as I can.”

A lump formed in your throat, thick and suffocating. You wanted to throw your arms around his neck. You wanted to tell him that you were terrified, but that you wanted him to stay close to you more than you wanted to breathe. That you wanted to close the distance between you right at that moment.

But then, your phone buzzed violently in your pocket, and you flinched as if you’d been burned, the spell cast over you shattering.

Once again, you knew exactly who it was without even looking. Youngjae had texted you ten minutes ago to say he was waiting two blocks down, parked near the pharmacy to reduce the possibility of someone known see his car.

The ugly reality of your secret life came crashing down, entirely ruining the beautiful thing Seungkwan was offering you. You were still trapped in the dark, and you couldn’t drag him down into it with you.

You gently, painfully pulled your wrist out of his grip. “I have to go,” you whispered, the words tasting like ash in your mouth. “My ride is here.”

Seungkwan’s jaw tightened again. He looked down the street, toward the dark corner where he knew, and you knew, Youngjae was hiding. The disappointment flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t argue. He just took a slow step back, giving you space.

“Right,” Seungkwan grumbled, his voice entirely devoid of the warmth it held seconds ago. “Have a good night, Y/N.”

You couldn’t leave him like this. Not on his birthday. Not after he had just implicitly confessed to altering the entire trajectory of his life for you.

You stepped forward, closing the distance he had just created. You placed your hands flat against his chest, feeling the steady, strong beat of his heart beneath the fine fabric of his shirt. He froze, his breath catching as you tipped your chin up.

“Happy Birthday, Kwan,” you whispered.

Before he could react, you leaned up and pressed a soft, lingering kiss directly to the tip of his nose. It was an old habit, a childhood gesture of pure, unfiltered affection that you hadn’t used in more than a decade.

He sharply inhaled, his eyes fluttering shut as his hands twitched at his sides, desperate to reach for you.

But you didn’t give him the chance. You pulled away, abandoning the warmth of his orbit, and turned on your heel. You walked back into the restaurant to say goodbye to his members, leaving him standing alone beneath the flickering streetlamp. Then you slipped into the passenger seat of Youngjae’s waiting car and disappeared into the night.

PRESENT

You didn’t show up to work for the two days that followed the events in Seungkwan’s car.

Yesterday, you called Seungcheol, claiming a sudden, violent stomach bug. Today, it was a vague text about a “family emergency,” and Seungkwan knows exactly what the emergency is: you’re hiding from him.

He had sat in his idling car for five minutes that night, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white, fighting the overwhelming urge to get out, walk to your door, pound on it, and demand answers to why you ran, what you were thinking, and how he could make you stop worrying.

But he didn’t. Seungkwan had promised himself he would never be the reason you felt cornered, so he stayed in the car a moment longer, than turned the wheel and drove away instead.

Now Seungkwan sits at the desk in Studio B, his hands resting flat against the cool surface as he stares at your empty chair, the digital clock on the monitor blinks relentlessly: 8:45 PM.

Normally, this was the time the tiny broadcast room would be vibrating with frantic, pre-show energy. You would be shuffling through your printed notes, chewing absently on the end of a blue ballpoint pen, and shooting him exasperated looks as he deliberately tried to distract you. The air would be filled with a comfortable banter.

Tonight, the silence is deafening.

He reaches across the console, his fingers brushing lightly over the tape marker that designates your microphone levels.

He misses you. He misses your laugh; he misses the way your eyes crinkle when he finally manages to catch you off guard. He spent twelve years running from his feelings, and now that he has finally stopped running, the object of his affection is sprinting in the opposite direction.

The soundproof door clicks open, breaking him out of his spiraling thoughts.

Hansol and Chan step into the studio, bringing a sudden wave of chaotic energy with them. Hansol looks entirely unfazed, a pair of oversized headphones resting around his neck and a half-empty iced matcha latte in his hand. Chan, on the other hand, looks like he’s walking to his own execution, clutching your production clipboard to his chest like a bulletproof vest.

“Hyung,” Chan starts immediately, his eyes wide with panic as he stares at the massive audio console. “I’m telling you right now, I don’t know what half of these buttons do. If I hit the wrong slider, are we going to accidentally broadcast submarine sonar across the entire island?”

“You’re not going to broadcast sonar, Chan,” Seungkwan sighs, rubbing his temples. “Just touch the faders Hansol marked with the green tape. Don’t touch the red ones. The red ones drop the delay.”

Chan shifts his weight, still staring nervously at Seungkwan. “What if I need to drop the delay?” he presses. “What if a caller starts swearing? What if someone confesses to a crime? Do I hit the red button then?”

Hansol claps a hand down on Chan’s shoulder, unfazed. “If someone confesses to a crime on a local romantic advice show, you let it ride, man. That’s just good ratings.” He shrugs. “Just breathe. You survived a blind date where you thought your organs were going to be harvested. You can survive pressing a plastic button.”

Chan visibly grimaces at the mention of the date, the very date that had been the catalyst for Seungkwan’s entire world tilting off its axis.

The solution Seungcheol had found for your absence was to put Chan in your place, with Hansol supervising him. Yesterday, Seungkwan had tried to manage on his own, but it was clear he didn’t really know what he was doing without you there, aside from talking nonstop, trying to hide that he was lost.

“You guys don’t have to do this,” Seungkwan says, finally looking up at them. His voice lacks its usual bright edge. “I can try run the boards myself again. Cheol hyung said it was fine if we just played an acoustic set for the second hour.”

Hansol takes a slow sip of his matcha, his observant eyes scanning Seungkwan’s face. Hansol is famously quiet, but he misses absolutely nothing. He’s seen the way Seungkwan has been pacing the halls like a caged animal for the past two days without you there, and Seungkwan knows he understands—without needing to ask—that something happened between the two of you, even if he chooses not to intrude.

“We’re doing it,” Hansol says smoothly, pulling out your chair and nudging Chan into it before taking a seat on the tiny sofa against the back wall.

“Hansol, we—”

Buy he shakes his head, raising a hand to make Seungkwan stop talking. “You look like you haven’t slept since Saturday,” Hansol says calmly. “If you try to run the boards and talk at the same time tonight, there’s a high chance of a catastrophe. Just focus on the mic. We’ve got the tech.”

Seungkwan offers a tight, grateful smile. He pulls his headphones over his ears just as the clock hits 09:00 PM.

Seungcheol taps at the glass, giving a thumbs-up, while Chan—holding his breath and looking absolutely terrified—slides the green-taped fader up. The familiar intro of Love on the Airwaves floods Seungkwan’s ears.

He closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, channeling every ounce of his professional training to push the heartbreak down into his chest. He opens them again, leans into the microphone, and forces his smooth, charismatic radio voice to the surface.

“Good evening, Jeju,” Seungkwan purrs into the mic, though the usual playful lilt is tempered by a softer, more melancholic undertone. “Welcome to Love on Airwaves. It’s just me again tonight. Our lovely, brilliant producer and co-host, Y/N, is taking a well-deserved couple of days off. So you’re stuck with just my voice, and a very nervous Lee Chan running the boards behind me. Be gentle with him, folks.”

He pauses, letting the instrumental track swell for a few seconds. “It’s chilly tonight. The kind of night that makes you want to stay inside and think about the people you miss. The lines are open. Talk to me, Jeju.”

The first thirty minutes of the show are a blur of standard calls. A college student stressed about finals, a husband looking for anniversary gift ideas, a girl who can’t decide if she should text her ex. Seungkwan navigates them all with his usual empathy and wit, but it feels hollow.

He keeps instinctively turning his head to his right, waiting for you to chime in with a sarcastic remark or a grounded piece of advice, only to find Chan staring back at him in sheer terror.

“Alright, our next caller is on line four,” Seungkwan prompts, motioning to Chan.

He frantically presses the glowing yellow button. “Let’s welcome Yujin from Seogwipo,” Chan says clicking the mouse to patch the caller through. “Yujin, you’re on the air with Seungkwan.”

“Hi! Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I got through,” a youthful, slightly breathless voice crackles over the studio monitors. “Hi Seungkwan-ssi. I’m a huge fan.”

“Thanks for tuning in, Yujin-ssi,” Seungkwan replies, his tone dripping with honeyed warmth. “What’s on your mind tonight? Is there a boy giving you headache?”

“Actually, I have more of a personal question to you Seungkwan-ssi,” Yujin says, her voice stabilizing.

“Oh? Ask away.”

“Well,” she begins, and there’s a slight pause. “You’re always giving us such amazing advice about love. But you’re so private about your own life! So my friends and I were debating, and we wanted to call in and ask the expert himself.”

Seungkwan feels a slight prickle of apprehension, and he sees Chan freeze, his hand hovering over the equalizer dials, waiting for Seungkwan to give him a signal to cut the call.

But Seungkwan just keeps his voice light. “Yeah?”

“What is your ideal type, Seungkwan-ssi? And don’t give me the standard PR answer about someone with a good heart. We want the details!”

The jazz music in the background suddenly feels very loud, and the timing is almost ironic. It feels like the universe is playing a trick on him. In the corner of the room, Hansol lets out a low chuckle, clearly entertained. Chan looks between Seungkwan and the control board as if wondering which button he could press to save his ass.

It was a softball question. An easy and harmless prompt. The standard protocol was to describe a vague, generalized concept: someone who likes the same music, someone who enjoys long walks, someone kind. It was the answer he had given in a hundred different magazines and a thousand different interviews.

But as Seungkwan looks at your empty chair, at the blue pen abandoned on the desk, his media training completely vanishes. The exhaustion, the longing, and the absolute certainty of his feelings override his filter entirely.

“My ideal type,” Seungkwan repeats softly. The radio-host persona drops away, leaving his voice raw, deep, and devastatingly sincere.

He leans closer to the microphone.

“She’s… stubborn,” Seungkwan starts, his eyes fixed on the tape marker on the desk. “Incredibly stubborn. The kind of stubborn that makes you want to pull your hair out, but also makes you respect her more than anyone else in the world.”

Through the glass, Seungcheol sits up a little straighter. Hansol stops drinking his matcha, his eyes narrowing slightly as he realizes exactly what Seungkwan is doing.

He knew about Seungkwan’s feelings for you. He was the only person, besides Seungkwan himself, who knew. Now you’ll finally know too, or at least now you’d be sure, in case Seungkwan hadn’t made it so painfully obvious on Saturday night.

“She works too hard,” Seungkwan continues, his voice wrapping around the words with a tender reverence. “She’s super tough to the others, but really, she has the softest, most fiercely loyal heart I’ve ever encountered. When she’s stressed, she taps her foot against the table leg and clicks her pens.”

Over the line, Yujin and the room go completely silent.

“She smells like lavender,” Seungkwan murmurs, his eyes glazing over slightly as the memory of the car engulfs him, the heat of your skin, the frantic beat of your pulse beneath his thumb. “She has this laugh she tries to hide behind her hand, but when it slips out, it’s the greatest sound I’ve ever heard. She’s brilliant. She’s so much brighter and more capable than she gives herself credit for. But sometimes… sometimes she forgets her own worth. Sometimes she lets people treat her like she’s ordinary, and it breaks my heart, because there is absolutely nothing ordinary about her.”

The studio is dead silent. Chan’s jaw has practically on the ground, his hand hovering frozen over the faders, his brain still trying to process that Seungkwan is, in fact, talking about you.

“Wow,” Yujin finally breathes over the line, her voice trembling slightly. The playful, gossipy tone is completely gone, replaced by something closer to awe. “Seungkwan-ssi… that doesn’t sound like a type. That sounds like a very specific person. You… you sound like you’re already in love.”

Seungkwan doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t try to backtrack, or laugh it off, or play it as a joke. He stares directly into the microphone, his heart completely exposed to the airwaves. “I am,” he confesses, the two words falling from his lips with staggering, undeniable weight.

Seungcheol stands on the other side of the glass, a smile tugging at his lips, his eyes wide as his hands hover near his head in disbelief. Chan lets out a shocked grunt Seungkwan is certain has just gone out over the broadcast, and Hansol chuckles softly in his corner. Seungkwan already knows he’ll never hear the end of it once the dust settles.

“I’ve been in love with her since we were kids,” Seungkwan says, the emotion finally cracking in his voice, turning it thick and rough. “Since before I even knew what the word meant. I spent twelve years away, and I never—not for a single second—found anyone who could replace her. I came back here for her.”

He swallows hard, his fingers curling into tight fists on the desk.

“I think I pushed too hard recently,” he admits softly, not just to Yujin, but to the thousands of cars, kitchens, and lonely bedrooms tuned in across the island. “I think I scared her. I wanted so badly to pull her into the light that I didn’t realize how blinding it might be. But I just want her to know…”

Seungkwan leans in until his lips are nearly brushing the foam of the mic.

“I just want her to know that I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care how messy it gets. She is the only person I want. And I am just… I am really hoping she’s listening right now.”

He pulls back, his chest heaving slightly. Then he nods at Chan.

Chan, looking as though he had just witnessed a religious awakening, frantically pushes the fader up, cutting the call and flooding the airwaves with the slow, melancholic intro of a piano ballad.

Seungkwan rips his headphones off and buries his face in his hands, the adrenaline crashing out of his system, leaving him completely drained.

From the sofa, Hansol lets out a low, slow whistle. “Well,” he mutters, setting his matcha down. “If she wasn’t listening, half the island is definitely going to text her about it in the next five minutes. You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

Seungkwan doesn’t answer. He just stares at the glowing dials of the soundboard, the echo of his own confession still ringing in his ears, praying to whatever universe is out there that somewhere, in the safety of your bedroom, you had heard him.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

It was early October, the magical pocket of time on Jeju Island when the humid heat finally broke, replaced by a cool, salty breeze that carried the sweet, earthy smell of impending autumn. The orange groves that defined Seungkwan’s neighborhood were heavy, the green fruit just beginning to tip into shades of sunset, preparing to blaze a golden-orange trail across the island.

But Seungkwan, at ten years old, was currently less interested in the cooperative biology of citrus and more interested in beating you to the stone parapet behind Jeju-si High School.

“Slowpoke!” he yelled over his shoulder, his small legs pumping hard through the deep, black volcanic sand. His feet, caked in wet earth and salt, left flying arcs as he ran. “I’m going to get the best spot!”

You were ten paces behind him, gasping and laughing in equal measure. He always did this. He’d start the race before you even agreed to it. “Seungkwan, stop! We said we were just going to gather shells!”

“Winner decides the game!” he shouted back, and that was when disaster struck.

It happened in slow motion. The sand shifted beneath his feet, right where a small cluster of driftwood lay buried. He tripped. Hard. His center of gravity vanished, his body pitching forward, landing with a heavy thud right where the wet shore began.

The laughter died in your throat. “Seungkwan!” You scrambled toward him, your heart pounding.

When you reached him, he was sitting up, staring down at his knee with an expression of pure, unadulterated shock. The fall had split the skin. It wasn’t deep, but it was ugly, the bright red of blood oozing through a coat of dark sand.

Then, the floodgates opened. It wasn’t just a cry; it was a full-blown dramatic event. He gasped for air, his face crumpling, a sound that started as a moan ascending into a loud, wet sob. He wailed. He howled.

“Shh, shh!” You panicked, throwing a glance back toward the street, convinced the entire village would think you were trying to kidnap him. “You’re okay! It just stings. You’re fine!”

He pointed at the knee, his finger shaking, but the only sound he could make was a high-pitched, stuttering breath. The tears were running down his cheeks, mixing with the sand, and he was getting so loud he couldn’t even hear you trying to comfort him.

You tried the logical approach. “Seungkwan, look! I’ll run to your aunt’s cafe. I’ll get a bandage. I’ll get a frozen yogurt! I’ll get two!”

He shook his head violently. He wouldn’t let you leave, and he wouldn’t stop screaming. The sound was slicing right through your nerves.

“Seungkwan, listen to me,” you said, getting closer. “Stop crying. Please.”

His mouth was still wide open, and he was inhaling for another monumental wail when you made an impulsive decision. A split-second, desperate choice to save both of your eardrums and your reputation as his responsible friend.

You grabbed his shoulders, leaned forward, and slammed your mouth over his.

The impact was clumsy. It was sandy, salt-stained, and a little wet. His nose was in the way, and your teeth clicked. But it worked.

His crying stopped instantly. The air rushed out of him in a stunned huff.

You pulled back quickly, your cheeks burning with an intensity that rivaled the mid-summer sun. You didn’t look at his knee. You stared straight at him.

His eyes were wide, round saucers. The tear tracks were still wet on his face, but his wailing was gone, replaced by a stunned, blinking silence. He was staring at you like you’d just manifested wings and turned into a seagull.

For what felt like a lifetime, the only sound was the rhythmic crash of the waves and the faint buzz of a passing Vespa on the road far behind you. The sand felt cold beneath your hands.

“You...” he started, his voice a whisper, the wail having vanished without a trace. “You just...”

You were blushing so hard it felt like your face would catch fire. You grabbed your shorts, jumped up, and immediately started dusting the sand off your knees, incapable of meeting his eyes.

“You were too loud,” you said quickly, your voice unusually high. “I didn’t know how to make you stop.” You pointed toward the main road. “I’m going to get that bandage. Stay here.”

And then you ran. You ran without looking back, away from the beach, away from the confused boy with the scraped knee and the silent stare.

That was the only time you ever spoke about it. When you returned with the bandage, he didn’t mention it. When you walked home, holding two frozen yogurts and not talking, you didn’t mention it. The moment became a shared secret, sweet memory tucked so deep into the closet of your friendship that you eventually convinced yourselves it never really happened.

PRESENT

The static from the radio filled the silence of your bedroom, a low, buzzing hum that mirrored the frantic noise in your own mind. You sat perfectly still on the edge of your bed for several minutes, phone clutched in your hands, its screen glowing with the digital dial of the radio station you had worked at for the last seven years of your life.

He had done it. He had actually done it.

Boo Seungkwan had just broadcasted his heart to the entire island of Jeju, stripping away every ounce of his private life to lay his soul bare on the airwaves. Every word he spoke had been a precise strike against the walls you had spent the last decade building.

A tear slipped free, hot and fast, tracing a path down your cheek before falling onto the screen of your phone. You had spent the last forty-eight hours drowning in guilt and confusion, suffocated by the reality of your secret, toxic relationship with Youngjae, and the terrifying, blinding light Seungkwan was offering.

But hearing his voice crack over the radio, hearing him publicly, fearlessly claim you in a way Youngjae never would, snapped something inside you. It was like waking up from a decade long fever dream. The paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by a sudden, desperate clarity.

You didn’t even bother changing out of your sweatpants. You grabbed your thickest coat, shoved your feet into your boots, and ran out the door.

The walk to his house was a blur of cobblestones and the erratic rhythm of your own heartbeat. When you reached the door, his mother told you he hadn’t come home yet, that he had called to say he’d be late.

Your chest tightened with a brief spike of panic before instinct took over. You knew exactly where he went when his mind grew too loud. It was the same place you went, too.

You park the car near the edge of the cliffside path and begin the steep descent toward the hidden cove behind the school.

The wind whips your hair across your face, carrying the biting scent of sea salt and freezing rain. As you reach the bottom of the path, moonlight breaks through the clouds, illuminating the jagged volcanic rocks that bordered the crashing ocean.

And there he is.

Seungkwan is sitting near the edge of the water, a solitary silhouette against the dark expanse of the sea. His knees are pulled up to his chest, his coat collar turned up against the wind. Seeing him sitting on those exact rocks sends a violent jolt of memory straight through your system of the morning you said goodbye all those years ago.

You take a deep breath, the freezing air burning your lungs, and pick your way carefully across the uneven terrain. He doesn’t hear you approach over the roar of the waves until you are right beside him. You don’t even hesitate, sitting down on the cold stone next to him, close enough that your shoulders are nearly brushing.

Seungkwan jolts, his head snapping toward you. His eyes are wide and red-rimmed, catching the fractured moonlight. For a moment, he only stares at you, as though afraid you’re a mirage conjured by his own desperate mind.

You don’t let him say anything before you do. “You left.” Your voice isn’t loud, but it cuts through the sound of the ocean with absolute precision.

Seungkwan flinches as if he’s been physically struck. He opens his mouth, a panicked apology already forming on his lips, but you hold up a hand to stop him.

“Let me finish,” you plead, your voice trembling but resolute as you pull your legs close to your body and rest your chin on your knees. “Please.”

You look out at the churning black water, unable to meet his eyes yet. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see him nodding for you to continue.

“You left. You got on a plane, and you became a star. And I need you to know… I understand that. I know you had a dream, and I know the industry is a meat grinder. I watched you on television, and I was so incredibly proud of you. I am proud because you listened to me, and you didn’t look back. You did everything you said you were going to do.”

You pause, swallowing hard against the tight knot forming in your throat. Right now. This is the moment when everything comes crashing down around you both. You just hope you can put it all back together afterward.

“But understanding it doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t speak to me for twelve years,” you continue, your voice cracking slightly. You finally turn to look at him, letting him see the raw edges of your wound. “You didn’t just move away, Seungkwan. You completely erased me. You made me feel like the years of friendship meant absolutely nothing to you.”

Seungkwan closes his eyes, a tear escaping the corner of his lashes and tracking down his cold cheek. He bites his lip hard, forcing himself to listen, to take the hit he knows he deserves.

“I had whiplash from it,” you confess, wrapping your arms around yourself against the chill. “I developed this horrible… this complex. I spent the rest of high school feeling completely disposable. If the person who knew me best, the person I loved most in the world, could just drop me without a second thought, then I must not be worth keeping.”

You let out a watery, self-deprecating laugh. “I was a ghost. I was so incredibly sad, Seungkwan. I didn’t start breathing again until I went to university in Busan and forced myself to become someone else, someone who didn’t care, someone who didn’t get attached.”

Someone who would settle for a man like Youngjae just because he promised he wouldn’t leave. The unspoken words hang heavily in the air between you, but you don’t need to say them. Seungkwan understands.

“And now you’re back,” you say, seeing that he wants to interrupt, but you can’t stop now. “And it’s like those twelve years never happened. Telling everyone I’m your favorite childhood friend, confessing and kissing me as if you never broke my heart. How am I supposed to react, Seungkwan?”

You shake your head, your lips pressing into a thin line as you fight to hold back more tears. You know he promised you he wasn’t going anywhere, that he’s was back for good. But that doesn’t lessen the fear you felt that night he kissed, much less erase the twelve years of radio silence.

“You can’t blame me for being afraid that one day you’ll wake up and decide that being here isn’t enough again. Because this time, I’m not sure I’ll be able to survive being without you.”

“Y/N,” Seungkwan whispers, his voice shattering on your name.

He shifts, turning his entire body toward you. He reaches out, his hands trembling violently as they hover over yours, terrified to touch you, terrified you’ll run away again. Everything makes sense to him now. He understands it all with painful clarity, he sees that you weren’t running from him, or rejecting his feelings for you; you were just scared.

“I am so sorry,” he chokes out, the devastation in his eyes making your breath hitch. “I am so, so desperately sorry for what I put you through. You were never disposable. You were the only thing that kept me sane.”

“Then why did you stop calling?” you ask, the question that has haunted you for a decade finally tumbling free. “Why did you cut me off?”

Seungkwan lets out a shaky breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. “When I first debuted, the attention was… completely unmanageable. The sasaengs were relentless. They hacked our phones within the first three months. The company did a sweep of all our personal belongings, our contacts, everything, to see where our vulnerabilities were.”

He reaches into the inner pocket of his coat and pulls out a worn, dark leather wallet. His fingers are stiff from the cold as he flips it open.

“They found this,” he says quietly, holding the wallet out toward you.

Tucked into the clear plastic window, its edges frayed and its colors slightly faded, is a photo strip. It’s the two of you in a cheap photo booth at the Jeju summer festival. You’re laughing, your head thrown back, while a fifteen-year-old Seungkwan looks at you with an expression of such pure, unguarded adoration that it makes your heart stop.

“I carried it with me everywhere,” Seungkwan murmurs, his eyes fixed on the photograph. “It was my anchor. But when the management team found it, they panicked. They thought you were my secret girlfriend. They told me that if the fans found out who you were, they’d destroy your life.”

You stare at the photo, your vision blurring with a fresh wave of tears. He hadn’t forgotten you. He had been carrying you in his pocket across every continent, for twelve years.

“They gave me an ultimatum,” Seungkwan went on, his voice hardening with residual anger. “Cut all contact, change my number, and pretend you didn’t exist, or they would pull me from the debut lineup. They told me it was the only way to protect you.”

He looks up from the wallet, his dark eyes locking onto yours.

“I was a terrified kid,” he confesses, the guilt heavy and absolute in his voice. “I believed them. I thought breaking my own heart was the price I had to pay to keep you safe. But I was wrong.”

He reaches out then, his warm hands finally closing over your freezing ones and drawing them into his lap.

“I should have fought for you,” he says, his thumb tracing your knuckles. “I should have fought the company. I should have found a way. I spent a decade completely miserable because I was too much of a coward to demand the one thing I actually wanted. I let you think you didn’t matter to me, and that is the greatest failure of my life.”

The silence returns, but this time it isn’t a chasm. The resentment and anger you’ve carried for so long simply dissolve, washed away by the crushing weight of his confession. He hadn’t abandoned you. He had martyred himself.

You look down at his hands holding yours, the warmth seeping through your skin and thawing the ice that has encased your heart for years.

“I called Youngjae,” you say suddenly.

The words are abrupt, instantly shifting the atmosphere. Seungkwan stops his movements for a second, his breath catching in his throat. His eyes drop to your mouth before darting back up to your face, terrified of what’s coming next.

“I called him from the car on the way here,” you explain, your voice steady now, carrying an absolute, undeniable certainty. “I broke up with him.”

Seungkwan’s grip on your hands tightens slightly, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths. “Y/N…”

“I told him I couldn’t do it anymore.” A profound weight lifting from your chest with every word. Your breath turns to white mist in the cold air. “I told him I was done hiding in his shadow. I told him I deserved better.”

You pull your hands from Seungkwan’s grip, but only so you can reach up. You frame his face with your palms, thumbs gently wiping away the dampness on his cheeks. His skin is freezing, but his eyes burn with a desperate, wild hope.

“And I told him,” you whisper, leaning in until your foreheads rest together, “that it has always been you. Even when I was furious with you. Even when I hated you. It was always you, Seungkwan.”

A ragged, beautiful sound escapes Seungkwan’s throat, a cross between a sob and a laugh. The tension that has been holding him together for weeks finally snaps.

His hands fly up to grip your waist, entirely abandoning restraint as he pulls you off the cold stone and practically onto his lap. “Y/N,” he breathes against your lips, your name completely saturated with devotion.

When he kisses you this time, it isn’t the frantic, hot and overwhelming collision of the car. It’s a homecoming. A deliberate, agonizingly slow sealing of a promise.

His lips are soft, warm, tasting of salt and absolute relief. He kisses you like he’s trying to pour eleven years of unspoken love directly into your veins, his fingers tangled in your hair as he holds you against him, as though you are the only thing tethering him to the earth.

You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him flush against you, melting entirely into the embrace. The cold wind, the crashing ocean, the messy reality of the radio station, and the fallout that will inevitably come tomorrow, all of it fades into insignificance.

When you finally break apart, you’re both breathless, your faces flushed despite the freezing temperature. Seungkwan keeps his arms locked securely around your waist, resting his chin in the crook of your neck. He lets out a long, heavy exhale, burying his face in your coat.

“I’m never letting you go again,” he murmurs against your skin. “I don’t care who finds out. We’re doing this. We’re doing it in the light.”

You close your eyes, resting your cheek against the top of his head, feeling the steady, strong beat of his heart against your chest. For the first time in a decade, the phantom ache of abandonment is entirely gone.

“I know,” you whisper, pressing a kiss to his hair. “I know we are.”

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[woncheolisms]

rules. (choi seungcheol x reader)

summary: when you break seungcheol’s most important rule, he knows he has to punish you. you just didn’t know how much you would end up liking it.

word count: 4.9k

warnings: angst if you squint, smut, nsfw, dom!seungcheol, sub!reader, spanking, some pain play, praise and degradation, rough (and I mean ROUGH) sex, oral (m receiving), fingering, orgasm denial, lots of dirty talk, daddy kink, mentions of subspace. Pls read at your own risk.

a/n: this is the most out there thing I’ve written seriously…. I usually don’t write dynamics like these so this was an exercise for me too lol. I hope you like it! Feedback is always loved and appreciated xx

Things felt off from the very start.

You know it’s your fault. You had a terrible day, and you should’ve just taken it easy when you got back home. Work was a shitshow, and for hours, all you wanted was to just lay down in your bed and never speak to another human being again. You should have communicated that. Without a doubt, Seungcheol would’ve dropped everything to pamper you. He would’ve drawn you a nice, warm bath and taken over the dishes after dinner. He would’ve rubbed your feet and gotten you something overly sweet for dessert as a treat for getting through the absolute hell of a day you had.

But you didn’t say anything. In fact, you just kissed him harder, with more purpose, and told him dinner could wait. You pawed at his clothes and told him to take you hard and rough. You wanted to feel, but you forgot that your mind is really not strong enough today to handle what you were asking your boyfriend to give you.

Because, you see, Seungcheol has rules.

You had always been a fan of more spice in the bedroom, and you truly feel like you met your match when you got with Seungcheol. For every submissive tendency in your body, for all the times you wanted zero control over your own senses, Seungcheol was more than happy to take the reins. He loved it, basked in it, knew how to play your body like a stringed instrument. His dominance in the bedroom came with only one, all encompassing rule: you don’t do anything he doesn’t give you explicit permission to do. And that includes every single one of your innumerable orgasms.

Usually, you love it. Your job is taxing and overburdening, and sometimes, you want someone else to take charge and just tell you what to do. For years, you have been perfect, the epitome of submission. You’re his good girl, always, disciplined and in-line. There’s only a smattering of brat in you, which Seungcheol tolerates in small doses, but otherwise, you are perfectly pliant, suited for his needs the way he is suited to yours. There’s a harmony here, established by many years of communication and understanding. So you should’ve known. You should’ve said something, told him to take it easy. But you stupidly kept your mouth shut, and hence began your current predicament.

He’s fucking you into the mattress just like you asked, his sweats pulled down just enough to let him pound his cock into you. You’re naked from the waist down, arching, chest constricted in your pale, buttoned up blouse. You hadn’t even let him fully undress you. You didn’t want to take your time, you just wanted him in you. Even when he tried to tighten his grip on you, tried to mumble a ‘slow down’ into your mouth, you didn’t let him, begging, pleading, promising to be good for him if he would just fill you up, and so he complied.

That was the mistake, and it became your undoing when, just minutes later, you are clamping up around him, your body already so stiff and wound up, so glaringly exhausted, that no amount of self control can stop you. You clench hard and come, writhing on the mattress fisting the sheets, wailing as it washes over you in scattered, broken waves. You haven’t even come down from it when tears coat your eyes and you realise what you’ve done.

Seungcheol slows to a stop, still throbbing inside you, but jaw dropped in shock. This might be the first time in years that you’ve come without slurring out your usual ‘please’ or ‘let me’ or ‘can I?’, waiting for his permission. You’d always listened, always done what you were told, never once stepping even a toe out of line.

This is incredibly out of character.

Immediately, he can see it weigh heavily on you. You’re panting, legs still trembling, but your body is stiffening, he can feel it around his dick, and your face is crumpling. He knows you regret it, but he also knows why this happened. He should’ve known. God, he should’ve spotted it the second you walked in through the door. The hard plane of your shoulders, the tight line of your lips. But he had gotten barely two words out of his mouth before you were smothering him with yours, begging in that cute, whiny voice of yours that you need this bad. He had stupidly agreed, and now he’s watching you fall apart.

He needs to fix this.

“I’m-” Your voice is pitched and wobbly. Your arms tuck into your body, legs pulling together as much as they can with him between them. You’re trying to shrink yourself. “‘M sorry. Cheol, I’m so-”

This isn’t on you, he knows this. This isn’t your fault at all. If anything, it’s his. He should know you well enough by now to estimate what you need and give it to you. But now is not the time to beat himself up. You need to forget this happening, or you will do what you always do; think about this to the point of spiraling and making yourself sick with guilt. He also knows that no amount of reassurance is going to make you forget it.

Through your teary vision, you hear a tut of disappointment, and then your boyfriend pulls out. You’re filled with dread, because you don’t want him to step back. You know you’ve fucked up. This is one of his most important rules. There’s just no conceivable universe where you’re allowed to cum without Seungcheol telling you to, and already, guilt is striking your chest like stab wounds from knives.

“That wasn’t like you, sweetheart.” His voice is rough but soft. “I’m very surprised.”

You sniffle, resisting the urge to curl into yourself. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” You feel his hands on your bare knees, closing them and sitting back on his haunches. You sit up shakily, blinking hard to try and see him in the relative darkness of the room. The golden light from the lamp hits the side of his face. His expression is blank. You can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“I am sorry.” You insist again. “I don’t know what came over me-”

“I don’t know what came over you either.” He tilts his head, watching you. “Thats not how good girls behave.”

Your heart lurches. This is your biggest medal. Your point of pride; being good for Seungcheol. Never once in all your years of doing this had you let him down. Never. The mere thought of it might push you to panic. Before you can say anything, you feel Seungcheol’s hand, strong and sure, run over your jaw and cup the back of your neck. He squeezes slowly, affectionately, and you lean into it, wet eyelids fluttering. Every fibre in you hopes he isn’t mad.

“When good girls misbehave, they have to be punished.” He whispers. “I know you never have before, princess, but you know it’s fair.”

You swallow tightly before hesitantly nodding. It’s the rules. You step out of line, you get punished. You will do anything to make up for your misstep. You will take any punishment.

“Okay.” You sniffle. Seungcheol sighs and nods.

“Good.” He says, not ‘good girl’. But you don’t deserve to be called that right now. “Strip.”

Seungcheol stands as he watches you shakily undo your blouse buttons. You tug it off and reach back for your bra. When you’re sat bare before him, you watch him tuck his erection back into his sweats, seating himself on the edge of the bed with his back to you. He reaches an arm back to gesture to you.

“Come here.”

You comply, crawling to him on your hands and knees. He maneuvers your body very easily, settling you on his lap until your stomach is pressed to his thighs, strong and sturdy under the soft material of his pants. Your legs dangle, ass sticking out. You flush at the position, realising what’s coming. You’ve been spanked before, mostly during sex when Seungcheol is whispering dirty things into your ear from behind and slapping your ass. But never like this. You almost jump when you feel his hand run up your right asscheek.

“I think ten sounds good.” He hums. “You will count, and you will say thank you after every single one. Got it?”

Your eyelids flutter. You rest your head on your arms. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

The first one is the biggest shock to your system. Seungcheol’s hand comes down with unbelievable force, full palmed and encompassing your entire ass cheek. You yelp loudly, fingernails digging into your arms. Immediately, tears spring into your eyes. You were just wondering why he decided to do only ten, but now it’s clear to you that even ten will be more than anything you can withstand.

“O-one.” You immediately choke out. “Thank you, sir.”

The second one marrs your other asscheek, stinging just as much, and your entire face scrunches as you cry out. You writhe where you’re draped over his lap. Your skin is screaming, and you already feel dizzy.

“Two.” You heave, the very air feeling like torture on your skin.

“Two what?” Seungcheol snaps. “Already forgetting the rules? Don’t make me start over, princess.”

You shake your head immediately, trying to take long breaths. “I’m sorry, sir. Thank you. Thank you.”

You whisper it again, and again, even as he lands more spanks on your ass. It feels heated now, like it’s on fire, and by the time you reach eight, you are lightheaded, sobbing openly, poor pussy clenching around nothing as the sensitivity spreads all the way down your thighs as well.

Seungcheol tuts and sighs, you can hear him over the sound of your own cries. You lurch when he caresses your stinging skin. He reaches down, one thick finger sliding through your slit and pressing into your aching nub. Your eyes roll, the feeling so intense that you can barely process it. You’ve been edged before, so many times, you’ve been overstimulated and wanting, but never has it felt this divine, the pleasure curling around the tendrils of pain running through your body. Seungcheol dips a finger into your squelching hole, sinking it in to the last knuckle, and you wail at the feeling.

“So wet, baby.” He coos. “Greedy little thing, you even enjoy your punishment.”

“I’m sorry.” You whimper, trying everything in your power to not buck back into his finger. When he pulls out, you almost cry, but he wastes no time, using that already wet hand to spank you again, just as harsh, not losing steam at all.

“N-nine.” You weep. “Thank you, sir.”

You almost feel like you’re seeing spots in your vision. Seungcheol reaches between your thighs again, like he knows this is becoming too much. He cups your pussy, sliding his fingers through the sopping mess side to side, just enough to stimulate your clit.

“Last one, princess.” He encourages. “Ready?”

You nod weakly, voice cracking when you cry out again as his hand meets your ass one last time. You choke out the number, the thank you. You’re openly tearful, face nearly as wet as your cunt, and finally Seungcheol moves. He lifts you up, placing you very gently on your back in the center of the mattress. You feel his lips on your forehead, and you bask in the feeling.

“Such a good girl.” He says finally, hand caressing through your sweaty hair. “You took that so well, baby.”

You keen, pussy clenching desperately around nothing.

“‘M your good girl.” You slur.

You don’t see the fond smile on his face, eyes soft with affection. He kisses your forehead, your cheeks, any part of you he can reach.

“Yes, you are.” He reassures you. “My perfect girl. Your first time and you did so good.”

You whine, shaky hands reaching up to claw at his shirt. He takes the hint, sitting back to tug it off, followed by his sweatpants. His cock bobs up, thick and hard, leaking copious amounts of precum.

“I think you deserve my cock now, princess.” He hums. “For being such a good girl.”

You nod eagerly, spreading your legs before he can even do it for you. He settles between them, running the angry, throbbing head through the sticky mess in your slit. He does that a few times, coating his shaft until it’s glistening, before finally reaching down and nudging the entrance. When he slides in, your jaw goes slack, eyes rolling at the feeling. Your ass still stings, especially where it rubs on the sheets, but it sends pleasant, burning tendrils shooting through your skin, and it adds to how sensitive you already are. It does nothing but augment your arousal even more. You moan wantonly as Seungcheol bottoms out, and you hear him softly curse.

“Perfect little cunt.” He groans. “Tight as anything even after I’ve fucked it for so many years. You’re molded to me, aren’t you baby?”

You nod eagerly as he starts moving, your moans punched out of your throat with every thrust, little ‘uh, uh, uh’s that only seem to spur him on more. You’re dripping consistently, wetting his cock as it rams in and out of you at a punishing pace. Every slam of his hips into you jolts your body, your breasts bouncing, and his hungry eyes train on every movement.

“You’ve got the prettiest tits, baby.” He grunts, one hand reaching up to pinch harshly at your left nipple and tug. You cry out. Then, he lets it go, reaching a hand back and bringing it down to harshly slap the swell of it. You gasp.

“Good?” He rasps. You nod enthusiastically and arch up, tempting him more. He groans and does it again, the sting making your eyes roll.

“Dirty slut.” He grits out. “You love this. Love getting slapped around, don’t you?”

You’re so far gone as he rams into you, nearly delirious with it. Even after so long of being together, there are things you’re discovering not only about Seungcheol, but about yourself as well. You’re sinking into the depths of depravity, and you want to fall further into it. So you blink wetly up at your boyfriend, eyes wide and big.

“Only if daddy does it.”

Seungcheol’s hips stutter. You can see the shock pass over his face, but it hardens immediately. His pace slows. He slams his hips into yours and stays there, leaning down closer to you.

“What did you just say?”

You bite the inside of your cheek, clenching wildly around his suddenly still cock. “Only wanna be slapped around by daddy.”

You can see, in real time, Seungcheol’s eyes darken as his pupils dilate. He bites the plump of his bottom lip. Beside your head, his hands fist the sheets tightly.

“You’re playing a dangerous game.” He grits, voice low and brassy. You swallow tightly.

“You don’t like it?”

The corner of his mouth twitches. He pulls out slowly until only the head of his cock is snug inside you. Then, he lurches forward, slamming into you so hard your whole body jerks. You gasp.

“I love it, baby.” He does it again. “Maybe a little too much.”

You can’t speak, all the breath knocked straight out of your lungs with every harsh, deep, slow thrust of Seungcheol’s hips. His head smooches the opening of your cervix, a shooting sensation through your lower abdomen that makes you gush around his thick cock. You feel his hand encircle your neck, and your toes curl in anticipation.

“You’re gonna be a good girl for Daddy then, sweetheart?” Another thrust. You feel your hair brush the headboard as your body is pushed up by sheer force. You nod vigorously, unable to say the words. His grip on the sides of your throat tightens, and you start to feel a little lightheaded.

His pace is brutal, picking up speed as he slams into you over and over. He uses his free arm to tuck just above your head so you don’t slam into the bed frame, but he doesn’t let up even once. He mutters the most filthy, unbearable things in your ear, telling you how you’re his perfect little cocksleeve, made to take him whenever he wants it, no questions asked. That he has trained your pussy to be this way, the perfect little slut for him. You moan whenever he loosens his grip on your neck, choking out how much you love getting fucked hard by daddy, how you’re just a hole for him to fuck and use, and when you can’t take it anymore, you ask him the golden question.

“Can I cum, daddy?”

His thrusts immediately get harsher. “Don’t you fucking dare.” He grits. “You think you deserve to, after cumming without permission? I’ve barely forgiven you for that, baby. You’ve got a lot of making up to do before you get a reward.”

You wail, chest heaving as you clamp desperately around his throbbing, huge cock. You know he’s right. You’ve been bad, and some spanking and one offering of your wet pussy isn’t enough to earn you forgiveness. So you don’t protest. You don’t ask again. You only agree.

“I’m sorry for asking, daddy.” You babble. “You’re right, I don’t deserve it. I’m just daddy’s little cum dump. I’ll take whatever daddy will give me.”

Seungcheol’s groan is broken. “God, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I love it, sweetheart. Being such a perfect girl for me, fuck.”

You shake and cry as he fucks into you some more, your head now tilting forward as he folds you closer and closer to the headboard, crowding you against it. You can’t barely breathe at the force. And finally, finally, his movements turn sloppy.

“Think you should be allowed to take my cum?” He grits out. “Feels awfully like a reward, no? Have you earned it, baby?”

Your face crumples. You want to feel it inside you so bad, the heat of his release warming your insides. But you know what he wants to hear, you know you haven’t been good enough to deserve a big reward like that.

“No, daddy.” You whimper. “I don’t deserve it. I haven’t been good.”

Seungcheol’s smirk is sick. He licks over his bottom lip. “You’re so self aware tonight.” His tone is near-mocking, and it makes you tighten pathetically.

When he abruptly pulls out, it feels like getting your insides ripped from you. His hand moves rapidly over his wet cock, and he shuffles up until he’s straddling your torso.

“Open your mouth.” He grits. You immediately obey, sticking your tongue out. Your eyelids flutter when the first rope of it hits your lips, dripping over your tongue. Some of it splatters on your cheek, but you manage to catch most of it as he groans and shudders above you. You can’t take your eyes off him, sweaty and shaky, muscles shifting under his pale skin as he rides his high. Your poor pussy clenches around nothing, deprived so suddenly of the intense pleasure. You swallow every last drop, using your fingers to collect whatever your mouth missed and popping it between your lips. Seungcheol is heaving as he shifts back.

Even though your legs are shaky and you feel dizzy, you manage to sit up, making wide, pleading eyes at your boyfriend.

“Can I clean you up?”

You can see how soft and fond his smile is, the little dimple indenting his cheek with it. He sits back leaning on his hands and nods.

“Go ahead, baby.”

You settle between his legs, using little kitten licks to clean your mess, and some of his, off his soft cock. It twitches under your ministrations, already getting half hard as you keep going. He sighs and hums approvingly, running a soft hand through your hair. This was half your motive, anyway, because you like to see this power you have over him. He’s in control, always, but his dick hardens at your very touch, and that makes you giddy.

He pulls you away with a gentle tug on your hair. You lick your lips for any remnants of his taste, blinking eagerly up at him.

“Lay back now.” He whispers. “I’m not done playing with that pretty cunt.”

He sits with your legs framing his hips, laid back on the mattress. You look up at him half with anticipation and half with hesitation, because you know he will toy with you until you’re begging to cum, and even then, you don’t know if he will let you.

He runs his hands gently up your thighs, delicate brushes that only wind you up more. You try to lay perfectly still, knowing he doesn’t like it when you’re impatient. He massages the creases of your thighs, playing with your pussy lips, stroking over them softly. You’re already sensitive from the harsh fucking he gave you just earlier, so you’re twitching a little before he has even properly touched you. You don’t want to beg, mostly because you still think you’re not entitled to it. This is for him. He wants to play with you, it’s not for your pleasure.

(You both know that it is.)

Finally, his fingers slide through your slit, parting your lips to open you up. Your hole quivers, twitches, and he watches it with heated eyes. He hums and his eyes are reverent as he traces the lines of your pussy. He nudges your clit just barely, and you let out your first, tiny moan.

“Don’t hold back, baby.” He coos. “You let me know whenever it feels good.”

You comply beautifully, little whimpers and sighs that accompany every touch of his fingers over your aching center. He takes his time as he toys with your clit, rubbing, flicking, pinching it until it is swollen and throbbing under his fingers. He circles your opening to collect the wetness, using it to smear over the rest of your cunt and leaving you wet all over. When you feel like your skin is quietly buzzing, hypersensitive because of his touches, he finally dips into your entrance, sliding his index finger in to the last knuckle. You sigh in palpable relief, clenching hard around the digit.

“Yes.” A tear slips down the side of your face. “Thank you, daddy.”

He likes that, because he moves it the exact way you want it, curling it and probing your most sensitive spot. He adds another quickly, watching every shift in your face as you swallow his fingers greedily. Two of his thick fingers means a stretch, the kind that you love, and when he scissors them inside you, you moan loudly.

After your last failed orgasm, this one builds too quickly. Your face pinches, your legs stiffening as you hold back. Seungcheol notices, and it only makes him finger you harder. You whine in protest.

“What’s wrong, baby?” He goads you.

“Feels-” You almost choke as he curls both fingers hard into your sweet spot. “Feels so good. Please.”

“Please what?”

You buck your hips into him, self control slipping. “Please, can I cum, daddy?”

Seungcheol hums, as if contemplating. His fingers don’t slow for a single second.

“I don’t know. Do you deserve it?”

Your face crumples. You want to, you do. But the submissive, depraved part inside you shakes its head. You know if you are to cum, you want it to be on his cock. So you squeeze your eyes shut and whimper out a little ‘no’.

“Then keep taking it like a good girl.” Seungcheol responds. You know he likes that you’re depriving yourself of this. It strikes a sick part of him. The sounds of his fingers fill the room, filthy, sopping noises that come from his digits slamming into you over and over. You are panting heavily, gripping the sheets so hard that you’re almost afraid you will rip them, toes curled and legs stiff, doing everything in your power to not gush over his fingers, to prove to him that you can take whatever he will give you and you won’t do anything you’re not allowed to.

Seungcheol pulls out his fingers just when you think you’re reaching your limit. His wet hand comes down with a harsh spank on your tingling pussy. You scream. He does it two more times, and you weep through it. Finally, you can’t take it anymore.

“Please.” You sob. “Please, daddy. Need your cock. Wanna cum on it, please.”

By this time, he is throbbing hard again, and he wastes not even a single second, groaning as he tugs your body down and stuffs your aching cunt full of himself once again. His pace from the start is rough and fast. There’s no indulgence in him anymore. Watching you shake and tremble under him as he abused your pussy must have been enough, because he is nothing but primal need now. He’s so hard it’s almost painful, like you’re being impaled, but the relief of the stretch has you wailing loudly. The room is dense with the smell of sweat, sex and cum, noises picking up as he fucks you the way you need. Your mind blanks, focused on nothing but the wonderful feeling of it. Your body sings, glows, buzzes with anticipation because this time, you know he will let you reach your peak.

You don’t even have to ask. He cups your jaw, tilts your head and slots his lips into yours. He kisses you until you can’t breathe, your walls spasming hard around him, more than ready, as he whispers.

“Cum.”

You nearly black out.

It’s less like a wave and more like an electric shock, shooting through your body and freezing every nerve inside you. Your breath catches and your lungs scream. You cry and wail through it, not even caring how you sound as you gush around Seungcheol’s cock. He rubs harshly over your poor clit, prolonging an already intense high. You arch so deeply you feel like your soul is leaving your body. You babble nonsense, a mix of swear words, thank yous, and incoherent phrases. Seungcheol holds you down after a bit, draping his weight over you to ground you, and it’s such a welcome feeling that your whole body relaxes into it. When the roaring in your ears lessens, you hear his endless praises, telling you how good you are, how sexy and perfect, cumming so beautifully like that. He thrusts shallowly into you, not even properly leaving your cunt, rutting into you so you’re not empty for a single second.

“That was divine, sweetheart.” He sighs. “So pretty when you cum. You want another reward for being such a good girl? You want my cum?”

You’re already nodding before he even finishes speaking, blinking your tear-heavy eyelids.

“Please, daddy. Need it.”

He shushes you, brushes the hair off your face and presses his forehead to yours.

“No more begging, baby. You deserve it.”

And then he floods you, two or three more thrusts until you feel warmth coat your insides. It’s perfect, it’s everything you could’ve asked for and more. He empties his balls into you, thrusting until it dampens into a slow grind, plugging his cum inside your thoroughly fucked out hole.

It’s silent for a long time before Seungcheol moves. Your chests rise and fall together, slowly catching your breaths. He’s draped over you still, and it feels so reassuring that you can’t help but whine in protest when he moves. It makes him chuckle.

“If you get cold like this, your muscles will be very sore in the morning, sweetheart.” He reasons. He would know, the gym freak that he is, so you curl into yourself as he trudges into the bathroom. You can hear water running, and a familiar fruity aroma quickly drifts into the room through the open door. He’s running you a bath.

The warm water is like balm on your skin as he carries your body into it. You moan appreciatively, letting your boyfriend knead and press into your thighs. His front presses against your back as he slowly works over you in blissful silence, laying tiny kisses on your shoulders as he works. After a while, he finally speaks.

“So,” he begins, “what happened at work today?”

You blink, thinking. After a few seconds, you giggle.

“Honestly, I don’t even care anymore.”

That makes him laugh. “Well, I guess that’s a job well done for me.”

You turn in his arms just a bit to lay a kiss on his lips, and he returns it so softly and sweetly that you almost want to cry. This time from unadulterated bliss.

You don’t even know if you have the words to tell Seungcheol how much you love him. But when he squeezes your body tightly to his, you think you don’t have to. He already knows.

feedback is appreciated! <3

[sailorsoons]

Overtake | Part II (c.sc)

PAIRING: Mercedes!Driver Seungcheol x f. reader Summary: Seungcheol and your brother Joshua battle over everything - pole positions, championships, the title of Mercedes’ best driver. The one thing they were never supposed to fight over was you.  WC: 19,882 GENRE: Exes to Lovers, Best Friends to Lovers, Brother’s BFF AU: Smut, Angst RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. WARNINGS: Lost of tension and angst, reader sacrifices what she wants constantly for Joshua (her brother) and feels like she is responsible for him, mentions of a parent’s death, petty drama, non-linear storytelling, Joshua and Seungcheol are both unfair and stupid in a lot of parts of this, explicit language, feelings of betrayal/sneaking around, sexually explicit content including oral (m. receiving), vaginal fingering, thigh riding, use of pet names baby) multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, biting and a bit of messiness, reader and Joshua really get into it and have it out in front of people, lots of deep convos, everything resolves happily I promise. A/N:This fic is for the amazing Lights Out Collab hosted by @studiosvt! A/N 2: I am so sorry this is so late I have moved across the country, had a bunch of things go wrong, and took a ton of L's today. This is not beta read AT ALL and there will be errors I am so so sorry.

MASTERLIST | ASK | LIGHTS OUT COLLAB | PART ONE

CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA | 2025 POST-QUALIFIYING 307.236 KM | 66 LAPS

The Catalan sun is a white-hot coin in a flat, cloudless sky. It's a good day for racing, the asphalt hot as a skillet with visible heatwaves. Despite it only being qualifying, the grandstands are filled, rows of red-and-yellow flags whipping and snapping. You can see them over the pitwall, screaming as cars fly by.

Sweat gathers at the small of your back, sticky and uncomfortable. You love Spain - love the smell of bougainvilleas and hibiscus - but it's sweltering in the garage where you're tucked away with no breath of wind.

You can taste the salt and hot rubber on every breath, the smell of grease and exhaust wafting in. The smell clings to the Mercedes polo like a second skin, and faintly, you think how nice it would be to shower right now.

A shower has to wait, though. Your eyes are fixed on the screen in front of you, helmet on your head with one ear pulled off so you can hear the roar of the engines and the distant metallic shriek of a socket gun.

The times on the TV flicker, each tenth of a second clawed back and lost back and forth. On your screen, Joshua is hunting pole position like a wolf that can smell blood while Seungcheol hunts Joshua.

Right now, Joshua holds the fastest time in Q3, flying around the curve of Turn 3. He's on his fastest and his last lap of the session, but Seungcheol's time is a heartbeat away trying to scrape past Joshua to claim pole.

You watch, fingers clutching your tablet as Joshua flies down the straight, something sparking. You can barely breathe, eyes focused on Joshua as he finishes his lap. He's the fastest of the day on the grid, but Seungcheol is flying as he nears Turn 10.

It happens in slow motion as the rear steps out and the car oversteers. Despite knowing he's chasing your brother, your heart squeezes as the tires lose grip and Seungcheol fishtails and goes wide.

Half the garage detonates as Joshua locks in for pole position while the other half deflates as Seungcheol loses his speed and destroys the lap. Both Ferrari cars fly past as he corrects himself and finishes out the last of his time, securing P5.

Someone shakes you on your shoulders as they go by. You give them a smile but it feels too tight as you peel the headset off, cutting off Joshua's exhilarated laugh. You're happy for Joshua - you are. But there's a sting at knowing how defeated Seungcheol is going to be, a tiny part of you winching at the mistake.

Mistake.

You both seem to be making a lot of those, recently. Some bigger than others. You try not to think about that night in Monaco, though. Thinking about it takes you down a dangerous path you don't know how to walk, and you'd prefer to just ignore it. Pretend it didn't happen.

So you do exactly that. You dodge Seungcheol - which, as busy as you are, is easy - and you keep your head down, burying yourself in work and going to lunch and dinner with your brother and keeping sponsors and media happy. It's the only thing saving you from the confused and frustrated looks the other Mercedes driver has been giving you across the paddock at every opportunity.

You begin the walk in the hot sun toward the press conference room in lockstep with Mercedes media team, head down looking over requests and questions. You hardly hear her as she speaks, your mind still stuck on the slipping end of a Mercedes car that doesn't belong to your brother. You know Seungcheol will be livid, and you're equal parts anxious and empathetic.

The press conference area is a zoo of cameras and buzz of voices. A handle from Mercedes is already with Joshua who sees you and grins bright as the Spanish sun. You grin back, shooting him a two finger salute before pointing to a distant corner you'll be standing and monitoring. He gives a wave back, heading toward a seat between Kim Mingyu and Lee Seokmin, P2 and P3 respectively.

You linger toward the edge of the media scrum, watching as the press conference kicks off in full. It's nice to see Joshua at the top again, all smiles and fluent Spanish, charming the crowd the way he always has.

Despite feeling like he's the number two driver, Joshua has always been better with the media than Seungcheol. There is a charming but clinical precision to the way Joshua presents himself, every answer measured, every microexpression practiced. You think of the mock interviews you used to give him when you were kids, mouth twitching. He was born for this, despite his challenges.

The back of your neck buzzes as someone steps into your orbit, the smell of oil and cedar hitting you. A shiver threatens to slither up your spine and you stiffen, knowing immediately who it is.

"Hi," he murmurs, warm breath ghosting the shell of your ear briefly.

You barely turn your head a fraction of an inch to look at him. He's still in his race suit, the top rolled to the waist and tied. His hair is damp under the team hat, exhaustion written all over his face. Your heart twinges, noting the dark circles, the frustration pinched in the corners of his mouth.

"You're supposed to be doing interviews," you murmur, turning back to face forward.

"I did mine. Avoiding me again?"

You swallow. "I've been-"

"Busy. Yeah. Heard that line before." He shifts and his arm grazes your elbow briefly as he leans against a pillar. You can feel the heat radiating from him, your heart racing. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hurt."

It feels like a knife to the ribs. You feel his words land, a physical thing. For a second, you don't know what to say. You stare as Joshua laughs at something a reporter says, bright and careless.

Your eyes flick around but no one is watching you. "This isn't the place for this conversation."

"Fine, let's go somewhere else."

"Cheol."

"I don't mean right now." He pushes off the pillar and leans forward, hand quick. You feel something slide into your pocket and jolt, but he's already moving away. "Room 2418. If you want to talk, come find me. If you don't I'll leave you alone. Promise."

Before you can react, Seungcheol is gone as quickly as he came. You turn to look at him but he's already gone, pressing through a sea of bodies watching the presser. You feel your stomach sink, the weight of the room key burning in your back pocket like a brand.

Breathing shakily, you look back at the stage where Joshua is listening to Mingyu answer something, his mouth permanently affixed in a grin. You're so happy for him - you are. Spain is a good track for him, and starting on pole gives him a great chance at winning tomorrow.

So why don't you feel as happy as you should?

The key card is heavy in your back pocket, burning through denim. You don't dare touch it, trying to ignore it. But every time you move - walking to the paddock, sitting down to take a video conference - you feel it there, a tiny piece of plastic that has no right to be so invasive.

You spend the rest of the afternoon on autopilot, barely able to think straight. You manage to get through media debrief in the hospitality suite while Joshua recaps his lap in soundbites. You even manage to get through a call and remind Joshua that he's due to mention a partner in tomorrow's pre-race interviews.

But as soon as the sky begins to turn indigo and the sun begins to bleed orange across the track, you know the clock is winding down. You feel every tenth of a second like a qualifying lap, the meter going down down down until you have to make a choice.

Joshua finds you outside of the motorhome. He's traded the race suit for a linen shirt with the sleeves rolled and jeans, hair still damp from a shower. He grins when he sees you, slinging his arm around your neck as he pulls you toward the cars.

"Dinner to celebrate. There's a place on the beach that apparently has amazing paella."

Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth. "Can't. I've got some calls to finish up. Time difference shit."

He squints at you. "You've been weird."

"I'm always weird."

"Yeah, well, the weirdness has increased. Is everything okay?"

"For sure. Just tired, the season is long."

"Hmm." He flicks your forehead and pushes you toward the open door of your car. "You're a bad liar. Don't stay up too long, yeah?"

He jogs toward another one of the cars, members of the team waiting for him. You give them a wave, feeling like a stone has dropped low in your stomach. You slip into your car to take you back to the hotel, feeling the press of the room key as you sit in the leather interior.

Outside, the world melts. You watch it with your forehead pressed to the cool glass of the window, villas and buildings stretching out on either side of the winding rows. Splashes of bougainvillea and hibiscus pour over walls and distant trellises, a world full of color you barely register on the drive.

It's dark by the time you're back in your own room. You stand there with the curtains open, the city glittering below. You don't turn on the lights as you begin to pace, phone in one hand, the other pressed over your pocket.

Cursing, you storm off to the bathroom to take the longest shower of your life. The water doesn't burn the desire out of you no matter how high you turn up the temperature. It doesn't wash away the way you feel even though your fingers and toes prune, begging to dry off.

Waterlogged and feeling no better, you blow dry your hair even though you're not going out. You do anything to distract yourself - iron clothes for the next day. Make some phone calls. Answer some emails. But you eventually run out of things to do and your jeans stare at you from the floor.

You know the room key is in there.

Monaco feels like a mistake. Or, it feels like it should be a mistake. The panic you'd felt when Joshua started calling you while you were still in bed with Seungcheol had been real, the guilt enough to make you panic while Seungcheol watched you with unreadable eyes and a guarded expression as you dressed.

But the feelings were just as real as the panic. You'd felt the sheer joy of getting to have him, the relief of touching him. It felt right to be with Seungcheol - righter than anything else in your life. But you know it's supposed to feel wrong.

Still. Still.

Seungcheol just wants to talk. You could do talking, maybe sort this out. Tell him that can never happen again, because no matter how right it felt, he wasn't made to be with you. Or you weren't made to be with him. You're not sure the semantics matter, but you know it'll never work, because you'll never be able to choose between him and family.

And they always want you to choose.

You're moving before your brain catches up. You snatch the key card from your jeans and slip it into the pocket of your shorts. The hallway is cold when you slip out, closing the door quietly. There's no one around to catch you - not that anyone would think it was weird that you were leaving your room anyway.

Your heart ricochettes against your ribs as you get onto the elevator and punch the 24th floor. As it ascends, you can't help but remember the last time you did this - the way he'd told you to tell him to stop, the way he kissed you and pressed you against the elevator wall.

A shiver ripples through you. You fight it off as the elevator opens and you move into the hall, pulse thrumming. The hallway is silent, carpet absorbing your steps as you near his door. 2418 is at the very end of the corridor, far from the elevators.

You stop in front of the door and stand there, key card in hand. You lift the card then lower it. Lift it again. Your hand is shaking when you finally tap it against the reader and the light goes green, the lock clicking softly. Swallowing thickly, you open the door and slide through the gap.

It's dim inside, the room lit only by a single bedside lamp. Seungcheol is in bed, leaning against the headboard with a book in his lap. Your pulse jumps when you see him. He's shirtless in sweatpants slung low on his hips, hair messy. He looks up at you in surprise and snaps the book shut.

"You came," he says, voice rough. The relief that floods his face is so raw you feel uneven. "Hi."

Carefully, you enter the room. You don't go over to the bed - it feels too dangerous. So you linger near the couch, watching him swing his legs off the bed as he sits up. He doesn't get up, his eyes clocking the distance you keep between you.

"That can't happen again," you murmur, wrapping your arms around your middle. It's cold in his room, the chill seeping in. "What happened in Monaco can't happen again."

He stiffens. "Okay. Tell me why."

"Because he's my brother. Because you're teammates. Because if anyone were ever to find out, it would be a mess in the media and fuck things up for you both again - for me."

"I don't care what the fucking media thinks-"

"I do!" Your voice cracks. "And it isn't just the media and Joshua. It's you."

His face shutters, expression becoming guarded. "What do you mean?"

"How long until you try to make me choose again? How long until you're asking me to pick between you and family?"

He sighs. "I already said I was wrong for that."

"What if it happens again? Or what if Joshua does it?" You sniff, feeling your throat tighten. "Do you know what it's like for the two of you to jockey me? To treat me like I'm one of your races and not a person?"

For a few moments, Seungcheol is quiet. He watches you with that steady expression of his and it makes you want to scream. Not in anger but in agony, because you can see the softening of his expression, see the way he does get it. The way what you're saying makes sense to him.

Seungcheol starts to stand and you take a step back. He holds his hands up in a white flag, trying not to scare you off. You eye him warily and he just stands, watching you with dark eyes.

"I know," he says softly. "I know. It isn't fair. Never was. You have spent your entire life dedicated to your brother and at times, me. All I'm asking is what you want. Because if you do want me, if any part of you wants this-" Seungcheol flicks his fingers between you. "- I will make it work. I'll go at your pace. I'll wait until you're ready. I will never make you choose again."

"Cheol."

"I'm serious. I cannot fathom pretending I don't love you anymore. I cannot stand the stilted conversations and being iced out. I cannot stand not getting to hear you tell me I'm braking too late or that my push pace was shit."

Love. He says the word so easily, like he has no idea that your heart catches on it and runs with it. You stare at him, opening mouthed, pulse hammering. He takes one slow step toward you, palms still raised like you're a spooked animal about to bolt.

"I'm done pretending," he says again, quieter this time. "I hate acting like I don't notice the way you look at me when you think I'm not watching. Done pretending I don't have the hoodie you stole from me in 2017 folded in my suitcase cause it still smells like you."

Your lungs stutter. He keeps walking toward you and you let him until his feet almost brush yours. The air between you smells like cedar and hotel soap, the air charged as you lift your eyes to meet his.

"I love you." The words land between you. "I love you and I will not make you choose me or your brother because I want you to choose yourself. I have loved you since we were sixteen and you fell asleep on my shoulder during flights. Since you let me fall asleep on yours at the Canadian Grand Prix."

Your eyes burn. You blink hair, but the tears come anyway. He softens when he sees them. "And I'm sorry that you're crying because I love you."

You make a wounded sound, that's stuck between a sob and a laugh. "You idiot. You can't just - say all of that and expect me not to cry."

"I know." He lifts a hand, slow enough that you could dodge if you wanted. You don't. His thumb brushes the tears away from your eyes. "I love you enough to want you to choose whatever you want. Even if it isn't me. But I need you to hear it, in case any part of you does want this-"

"Of course there is," you choke out. The confession immediately makes you feel lighter and you chase the feeling, needing to get the words out. "I've always wanted this. But I don't think that it works."

"Do you want to try?"

 The question hangs between you like a live wire, sparking and humming with possibility. Seungcheol stands so close that you can feel the warmth rolling off his bare chest, his thumb still gently brushing the last of your tears from your cheek. His eyes are steady, patient in a way that makes your chest ache. He’s not pushing. Not demanding. Not forcing you to choose. He's just asking.

You swallow hard, your heart a frantic drum against your ribs. You think of the docs in Miami, of Monaco, of the way his mouth felt against yours in the elevator. The terror of watching Joshua's car slam into the barrier while Seungcheol fought for the win - years of being the buffer, the manager, the sister, the peacekeeper - never just you.

You think about the little girl who used to chase two boys around karting tracks, handing them water bottles and yelling lap times from the sidelines. You think about who you are now, exhausted from carrying everyone else’s dreams, from managing schedules and emotions and rivalries that were never supposed to fracture the way they did. You think about all the nights you lay awake wondering what your life would look like if you stopped orbiting Joshua and Seungcheol and started chasing something yourself.

"I…" Your voice cracks, throat dry. You clear your throat and try again, steadier this time. "I do. I want to try. For me."

The relief that floods Seungcheol’s face is immediate and devastating. His shoulders drop, the tension bleeding out of him as though he’s been holding his breath for a year. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how the hell we’re going to figure this out. I don’t know how to do this without blowing everything up. But I want to try for once. I want to do something because I want it."

Seungcheol’s hand slides from your cheek to cup the side of your neck, his thumb stroking along your jaw. “We’ll go slow. Your pace. No pressure. No ultimatums. I swear it.”

You nod, even as fresh tears slip down your cheeks. He catches them with his lips this time, soft, reverent kisses pressed to the corners of your eyes, your temples, the bridge of your nose. When his mouth finally finds yours, it’s gentle. But the moment you lean into him, fingers curling into the warm skin of his waist, the kiss deepens.

Seungcheol tastes like toothpaste and hotel water and something undeniably him. You sigh into his mouth, letting him pull you closer until your bodies are flush. His free hand settles at the small of your back, guiding you as he walks backward toward the bed. When the backs of his knees hit the mattress, he sits down and tugs you with him so you’re straddling his lap.

“Still okay?” he whispers against your lips, giving you every chance to stop.

"Yes."

His hands roam slowly, mapping the curves of your waist and hips over the thin fabric of your shorts and t-shirt. You rock experimentally against him, feeling the hard line of his cock already straining against his sweatpants. The friction sends a spark of heat through you, and you do it again, deliberately this time.

Seungcheol groans low in his throat. “Fuck."

You smile into the next kiss, bolder now as your hands slide up his chest and over the firm planes of muscle until your fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. He tilts his head to deepen the kiss, tongue sliding against yours in a slow rhythm that mirrors the way you're grinding on his thigh.

He shifts you slightly, flexing his thigh beneath you and you gasp at the sudden pressure against your pussy. Even through the layers of fabric, the sensation is enough to make your head spin. Seungcheol notices immediately and grins, one of his large hands gripping your hip to encourage you to move more.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, voice rough with want. “Ride my thigh, baby."

Heat floods your face at the words, but you don’t stop. You roll your hips again, slower this time, savoring the drag of fabric against your clit. Seungcheol watches you with dark, hooded eyes, his free hand slipping beneath the hem of your t-shirt to trace warm circles over the bare skin of your lower back.

You're already wet, soaking through your panties as you roll your hips, lashes fluttering. The friction builds steadily and you whimper into his mouth. He swallows every sound you make, kissing you like he's trying to make up for lost time.

His other hand drifts lower, slipping beneath the waistband of your shorts. He doesn’t push them down though, instead pushing them just enough to the side to slide his fingers past the edge of your underwear. When his fingers brush against your cunt, you both moan, panting into each other's mouths when you break apart.

“So wet already,” he rasps. “All for me?”

You nod frantically, hips stuttering against his thigh. “Cheol."

“I’ve got you.”

Two thick fingers glide through your wet pussy before circling your swollen clit with perfect pressure. Your head falls forward, forehead pressing to his as you pant against his lips, shivering. It feels so good, heat blooming in your stomach as you chase the feeling, two of his fingers sliding slowly into your entrance. He keeps his strokes steady and slow, building you up without frantically rushing you.

Every stroke sends a wave of pleasure up your spine and you clutch at his shoulders, nails digging into the skin as you rock harder against his thigh. You feel your orgasm building low in your stomach, tight and inevitable.

Seungcheol kisses you again, messy and deep, swallowing your whimpers as he works you, his thumb circling your clit. You’re trembling now, thighs tightening around his as you chase the building pleasure.

"That's my girl," he whispers, lips brushing your ear. “So fucking pretty like this. Taking what you want. Let me feel you come.”

The words tip you over the edge and your orgasm crashes through you. Your hips jerk against his thigh as waves of pleasure roll over you, clenching around his fingers while he keeps moving them gently, drawing it out until you’re shaking and oversensitive. He presses soft kisses to your neck, your shoulder, anywhere he can reach while you come down.

You’re still panting, forehead pressed to his collarbone, when his alarm suddenly blares from the nightstand. The sharp, insistent tone slices through the hazy afterglow like a bucket of cold water. Seungcheol curses under his breath, reaching over blindly to silence it without letting you go.

“Shit. Sorry,” he mutters, voice hoarse. “That’s my stupid sleep reminder. Team physio has me on a strict schedule this weekend.”

You let out a breathless laugh, still boneless in his lap. “Of course you have an alarm for sleep.”

“Gotta keep the machine running.” His arms tighten around you, one hand still resting possessively on your hip. “Stay with me tonight?”

The question is soft, almost hesitant, like he’s bracing for you to pull away again. But the thought of leaving this room, of going back to your own cold bed and the swirling thoughts that always wait for you there, feels unbearable right now.

You nod against his chest. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

Seungcheol sighs in relief. He carefully maneuvers you both until you’re lying down, pulling the covers over you. You curl into his side instinctively, one leg draped over his, your cheek pressed to the steady thump of his heart. Seungcheol reaches over to switch off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. His fingers trace lazy patterns up and down your spine, soothing and grounding. You listen to the rhythm of his breathing, feeling the last remnants of tension drain from your body.

“I meant what I said,” he whispers eventually, lips brushing the top of your head. “We’ll figure it out. No rush. No choosing. Just us, however that looks."

"I know. I believe you.”

Seungcheol’s arms wrap more securely around you, pulling you impossibly closer. The steady rise and fall of his chest, the warmth of his skin, the familiar scent of him - it lulls you, your eyelids growing heavy as sleep pulls at you.

“Night, baby,” he murmurs.

You manage a quiet hum in response, fingers curling loosely into his side. For once, you’re not thinking about Joshua, or the team, or the media, or what tomorrow’s race will bring. You’re not calculating risks or managing expectations. You’re simply here in Seungcheol's arms, and you finally fall asleep peacefully.

-

CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA | 2025 RACE DAY 307.236 KM | 66 LAPS

The morning light filters through a gap in the heavy hotel curtains, warming your face as you frown, waking slowly. The second warmth you feel is coming from behind you, a solid body pressed to your back and heavy arms wrapped around you, one thigh slung over yours.

For one perfect, suspended moment, everything feels right. No paddock tension, no media scrutiny, no brotherly responsibilities clawing at the edges of your mind. Just the quiet weight of him, the faint scent of his skin and last night’s hotel soap.

Then reality crashes in.

Your eyes snap open fully. The digital clock on the nightstand reads 7:42 AM. Race day. Barcelona. You are late.

“Shit,” you whisper, heart instantly jackrabbiting.

You have a dozen things scheduled before the drivers even head to the garage - strategy briefings, sponsor check-ins, media coordination, Joshua’s pre-race routine. You were supposed to be up at 6:30 at the latest. You try to extricate yourself without waking Seungcheol, but the moment you shift, he tightens his hold instinctively, a low, sleepy rumble vibrating against your shoulders.

"Five more minutes," he croaks.

“We don’t have five minutes,” you hiss, half-laughing, half-panicking as you peel his arm off. “Cheol, I’m so late. I have to go.”

He cracks one eye open, taking in your disheveled state and the urgency on your face. Understanding dawns quickly. He sits up on one elbow, hair adorably mussed, the sheet pooling low around his hips. The sight is distractingly tempting, but you force yourself to focus.

He reaches for his phone on the nightstand, but you’re already scrambling out of bed, hunting for your bra and shorts. "Sorry, I should have set an alarm for you."

“No time. I need to get back to my room, shower, change." You look in the mirror and hiss. "My hair is a mess."

Seungcheol swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands, crossing the room in two strides to catch your wrist gently before you can bolt. “Hey. Breathe."

"You're right, sorry. But I really have to run. Joshua’s probably already wondering where I am.”

He nods, expression softening. He leans in and presses a quick, firm kiss to your forehead. “Text me when you can. And good luck today. Both of you."

You manage a small smile, squeeze his hand once, and then you’re slipping out the door with your shoes in hand, padding barefoot down the carpeted hallway. The elevator ride to your floor feels eternal, and by the time you burst into your own room, your phone is already exploding.

You snatch it off the charger. 14 missed calls. 27 new messages.

You hit Joshua’s name first as you simultaneously kick off last night’s clothes and turn the shower on full blast. The call connects on the second ring.

“Where the hell are you?” Joshua’s voice is sharp with worry. I’ve been calling for twenty minutes. You never sleep through alarms. Are you sick? Did something happen?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine," you insist, hopping on one foot while trying to wrangle a clean towel. “Overslept. Badly. I’m in my room now, jumping in the shower. I’ll be ready in fifteen, tops.”

“Fifteen? We’re supposed to leave for the circuit in twenty. The car’s waiting downstairs."

"Well I need fifteen, Josh."

He pauses, and you can practically hear him narrowing his eyes the way he does when he knows you’re skating around something. “You sound out of breath. Were you running? Did you go for a run this morning without telling me?”

"No, I'm just rushing you idiot. Let me get ready!"

The shower is the fastest, most utilitarian one of your life and you leave your hair wet as you pull on a Mercedes polo, team issued pants, and comfortable sneakers. You grab a protein bar from the minibar on the way out, and you manage to get to the elevator with three minutes left to spare.

Your phone buzzes again as the elevator descends and when you look down, you can't help but smile.

Seungcheol: Hope you made it out okay. Love you.

Your heart does something terrifying as you re-read it. You're happy - genuinely, stupidly happy in a way that feels entirely dangerous. You feel out of sorts too, though, like your carefully constructed world has tilted overnight and you're still trying to find your footing.

You fire back a quick reply while speed-walking through the lobby, chewing your lip to hide the smile the entire time.

You: Made it ok. Love you too.

Joshua is already waiting near the entrance, arms crossed, looking every inch the polished driver in team gear with a cap pulled low. His eyes scan you the moment you appear, taking in your slightly flushed cheeks and the way you’re still catching your breath.

“You look like you sprinted here,” he says. “Seriously, what’s up? You’re never late. Not like this.”

Both of you head to the team car, the driver already waiting for you. You slide into the backseat, buckling up as the car pulls away from the hotel. Barcelona's streets are already buzzing with fans in team colors and flags waving from balconies.

“I told you, overslept," you insist. "Phone was on silent. Won’t happen again.”

He studies you for a long moment, the kind of big-brother scrutiny that used to make you confess to stealing his snacks as kids. “You sure that’s all? You’ve been kind of distracted since Miami if I'm going to be honest with you."

Your stomach twists. Just a lot on my plate. Sponsors, media requests, keeping the narrative straight between you two after that interview. The usual circus.” You force a smile and nudge his knee with yours. “Focus on the race, okay? Pole position. You’ve got this. I’ll handle everything else.”

“Fine. But we’re talking later. No dodging.”

The drive to Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is mercifully short, the car weaving through traffic as fans stream toward the gates. Support races are already underway or wrapping up, the air thrumming with anticipation for the main event. You feel that familiar sense of excitement for Joshua, nerves for the team, and now something new and fluttery when you think about Seungcheol.

By the time you reach the paddock, the Mercedes garage is a hive of controlled chaos with mechanics swarming the cars, engineers hunching over laptops and staff coordinating interview slots. The smell of hot rubber, fuel, and polished carbon fiber hits you and helps you slip seamlessly into manager mode.

Joshua heads off for a quick physio session and final driver briefing while you hover near the hospitality area, answering emails and fielding questions, but your mind keeps drifting. Every time you catch a glimpse of black team polos or hear a familiar low laugh, your pulse jumps.

Seungcheol is somewhere in the garage too, no doubt going through his own pre-race rituals, but you don't seek him out, knowing it's too risky in the daylight with everyone watching.

The morning blurs. Drivers’ parade, more media, team photos, final strategy notes. Joshua is focused, locked in, the way he gets before a race. You stick close, offering the usual encouragement, the two-finger salute that’s been your ritual since you were kids and he returns it with a grin that doesn’t quite hide his own underlying tension.

You feel happy and light in a way you haven't in months. Still, you feel like you're living two lives in one body: the competent, protective sister and manger, and the woman who spent last night in Seungcheol's lap, coming apart under his hands while he whispered that he loved you.

It's hard to reckon with, but you force yourself through lunch, picking at a salad and barely tasting it while Joshua reviews notes with his race engineer. Your phone buzzes again under the table.

Seungcheol: Saw you from across the paddock earlier. You look good in the team kit. Professional. Hot. Seungcheol: Thinking about how you sounded last night. Trying very hard not to think about it during briefing. Failing.

Heat floods your face. You type back quickly under the table.

You: Stop. I’m working. You’re going to get us both in trouble. Seungcheol: Worth it. Good luck kiss later? Quick one. Promise I’ll be careful.

Your stomach flips. You don’t reply immediately, but the promise lingers as the afternoon wears on with the usual race day cadence. The grandstands fill steadily in the distance, the Catalan sun high and merciless as it turns the asphalt into a shimmering heat haze.

Autopilot is your best friend as you navigate your duties and answer phone calls, and by the time you're in the garage and coming alive for the race, you're blinking like you've just woken up from a dream, unsure how you got here.

Joshua looks sharp and focused as you talk him through his notes, squeezing his shoulder, same routine as always. He nods and kisses you on the head before rolling his shoulders and heading over to talk to his engineer, keeping his limbs loose.

You feel a light tap on your elbow then, barely there. You turn slightly to see Seungcheol passing behind you, seemingly on his way to his room in the garage. His expression is neutral and professional, but when he looks at you, his eyes are dark. He tilts his head toward the hall that leads to the drive rooms before he turns and vanishes down them.

Your heart leaps. You wait a beat, then follow at a casual pace, pretending to check something on your tablet.

The hallway is quiet, dimmer, the roar of the circuit muffled. Seungcheol is waiting just around the corner, out of sight. The moment you step close enough, he gently pulls you further in, one hand on your waist, the other cupping the back of your neck.

“Hi,” he breathes, voice low and warm, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His hair is still slightly damp from whatever prep he just finished, and he smells like his cologne mixed with the garage. "Doing okay?"

"Hi," you whisper. "I think so. We shouldn't-"

“I know. Ten seconds."

Before you can overthink it, he leans in and kisses you. It's soft at first, then deeper, a searing reminder that he's serious about this - about you. His lips move against yours with quiet hunger, tongue just grazing yours before he pulls back, forehead resting briefly against yours.

"Be safe," you murmur. "Please."

"I promise." He steals one last soft peck, then steps back, putting professional distance between you again. His eyes linger, dark and full of too many things to name here. “See you after.”

He slips out first, rejoining the controlled chaos of the garage like nothing happened. You follow a moment later, heart racing, lips tingling and a stupid smile on your face as he jogs to the car and pulls on his balaclava before the helmet, hopping into the seat.

Arms crossed, you watch the formation lap unfold under the blazing sun, the two Mercedes cars gleaming as they roll out from the grid. Joshua starts on pole, the car flowing easily through sector one as the rest of the drivers form up behind him. Seungcheol cruises in P5, but you know even from there he's lethal. He's always driven better when he has something to prove.

You stand in your usual spot near the monitors, headset snug over one ear, tablet clutched tight. Wonwoo lingers nearby, but he says nothing, just as focused on the start of the race as you are, watching the red lights flicker down until it's lights out.

Joshua gets a perfect launch, maintaining the lead into Turn 1 while the field bunches up behind him. Seungcheol makes an aggressive move on the inside of the long run to the first corner, dispatching one of the Ferraris and slotting into P4 almost immediately. Your heart squeezes in victory, your hands tightening on your tablet as you watch them drive, the sound of radios crackling with their voices coming intermittently.

The first ten laps are relatively clean, Joshua defending easily while managing his tires with clinical precision. Behind him, Seungcheol is on the hunt, gaining inch by inch as he closes the gap on the cars ahead. By lap 15, he's already in P3, running an orange McLaren down brutally.

You can’t help stealing glances toward Seungcheol’s side of the garage whenever the cameras cut to his onboard. His focus is absolute, hands making minute corrections through the technical sector two. The car looks sharp today with better balance than yesterday, and you feel a spark of pride as he extracts everything he can out of the car.

Guilt is there too. You’re supposed to be wholly in Joshua’s corner and you are, but your heart has always been big enough for both of them, even when it hurts a little.

Mid-race pit stops begin. You watch with laser-like focus as Joshua boxes on Lap 22 for fresh mediums, rejoining just behind the McLaren as the undercut works in his favor. Seungcheol stays out a lap longer, pushing hard on older tires before diving in. When he rejoins, the gap has narrowed dramatically.

The tension thickens. You shift your weight from foot to foot, chewing the inside of your cheek. The sun beats down mercilessly, turning the garage into a sauna. Sweat trickles down your spine beneath your polo while you watch the monitors as Seungcheol begins a relentless chase.

Lap after lap, he closes in. By lap 35 the gap is under a second and the garage is both electric and nervous. A 1-2 win would be fantastic for Mercedes, but they've been here before when their drivers blew the lead and crashed into one another, sacrificing position for the win.

“Come on, Josh,” you mutter under your breath. “Hold him.”

But Seungcheol is on a mission and by Lap 42, he gets a strong run out of the final chicane and uses DRS down the main straight. Joshua defends the inside into Turn 1, but Seungcheol feints and switches late, forcing Joshua to cover. You hold your breath as they sweep into a complex turn, inches apart from one another at 300 km/h.

Joshua holds the lead out of the turn and you let out a breath, heart hammering. The team debates whether to ask for a position swap if the tires dictate it, but both drivers are pushing too hard for anyone to intervene lightly. You remember Suzuka. Singapore. The crashes. Your stomach knots tighter.

Seungcheol doesn’t let up. He tries again on lap 48, diving deeper into Turn 1, but Joshua slams the door shut as sparks fly from Seungcheol's front wing when he clips the curb on the exit. The crowd roars, watching the two Mercedes fight hard, but cleanly.

The final stint becomes a masterclass in driving. You watch as Seungcheol chews into the gap between him and Joshua, setting the fastest lap of the race thus far. Joshua’s engineer urges tire management while Seungcheol's pushes him to attack, both of them on entirely different strategies.

Turn 1 comes up again and the entire garage holds its breath as Seungcheol goes for the outside into the turn, forcing Joshua wide. They exit side-by-side again, but Joshua throws away tire strategy, climbing forward faster as he pushes the car to the absolute limit.

You grip your tablet so hard your knuckles ache, watching as they fight through the last lap, Seungcheol trying everything he can to claw past Joshua until the checkered flag is waving and you're letting out a shaky breath, light-headed from not breathing.

Joshua crosses the line first, a hard-fought victory that sends the Mercedes garage into an explosion of chaos. Mechanics cheer, high-fiving and clapping one another on the back while Seungcheol crosses just behind Joshua. It's a strong double podium for Mercedes, but you know Seungcheol will be frustrated.

The podium ceremony is electric, Spanish flash waving wildly in the grandstands as Joshua sprays champagne from the top step, grinning brightly. Seungcheol stands on the second step, hair damp with sweat and champagne, clapping politely. Then, to the visible surprise of everyone - including you - Seungcheol steps over during the celebrations and extends his hand to Joshua, pulling him into a firm, back-slapping hug.

The garage around you goes momentarily quiet before erupting in murmurs. You blink, stunned. It’s the most genuine public gesture of sportsmanship between them in over a year. Joshua looks momentarily thrown, patting Seungcheol’s back awkwardly before they separate. The cameras eat it up, and you can already imagine the headlines.

Post-race media and debriefs blur together in the usual whirlwind, Joshua fielding questions about the defense, tire management, and the intense battle with Seungcheol. Seungcheol is polite in his own press conference, praising the car and the team while admitting he gave it everything. The atmosphere in the Mercedes motorhome feels lighter than it has in months with points in the bag and double podium with no fights.

It's weird, but good,.

You’re still riding the high of Joshua’s win when he finds you in the hospitality suite later, freshly showered and changed into team polo and jeans. His hair is still damp, cheeks flushed from the podium champagne and the heat.

“Nice drive,” you tell him genuinely, pulling him into a quick hug. “You held him off like a champ. That battle in the middle stint was insane.”

“Yeah, it was.” Joshua’s smile is bright but there’s a thoughtful edge to it. He glances around, making sure no one is within earshot. “Did you see that on the podium? Him shaking my hand, clapping me on the back like we’re best friends again?”

You nod, keeping your expression neutral even as your pulse quickens. “I saw. Surprised everyone.”

“It was weird. Good weird? Maybe. But after everything, I don't know. Whatever. Don't make any plans tonight, okay? We're having dinner. I want to talk."

Your stomach drops a little. “Talk about what?”

“Everything. You’ve been off. The lateness this morning. The way you’ve been dodging questions."

"I'm fine."

He softens slightly, squeezing your shoulder. “You’re my sister first, manager second. I need to know what’s going on in your head. No blowing me off this time.”

You force a smile. “Okay. Dinner. Just us.”

He seems satisfied for now and heads off to do a quick sponsor appearance. You exhale shakily once he’s gone, pulling out your phone to see there’s already a text waiting.

Seungcheol: Everyone thought it was weird that I hugged him huh Seungcheol: I was feeling nostalgic. It was fun. Seungcheol: Plans later?

You bite your lip, thumbs hovering.

You: That was a hell of a drive. Very proud of you both. Dinner with Josh tonight.. he wants to talk. Will update you later. Seungcheol: Okay. Call me after. Let me know what you need from me. Love you.

The words burn as you stare at your phone, repeating them in your mind over and over again. Love you. Love you. Love you.

-

CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA | 2025 POST RACE 307.236 KM | 66 LAPS

The restaurant Joshua chooses sits tucked away in a quiet corner of Barcelona’s Eixample district, far from the noisy tourist crowds and the lingering post-race energy near the circuit. Ca L’Enric is unassuming from the outside with terracotta walls and a simple wooden door, but inside is full of soft golden light and dark wooden panels and shelves of aged wine.

You and Joshua sit at a corner table beside a tall window that opens onto a small private courtyard garden strung with delicate fairy lights. The evening air drifting in is still warm from the day’s heat, carrying faint hints of salt from the distant sea. Joshua orders a bottle of good local red without glancing at the wine list, intimately familiar with Spain and the list of wines here.

With win in hand, both of you lift your glasses, smiling as you tap them together with a shallow clink.

"To the win," Joshua says. "And to not crashing into my teammate."

You snort, sipping the wine. "Today was incredible. That's the kind of race dad would have been yelling the entire time."

The mention of your father settles over the table, heavy and solid. Joshua’s eyes soften, and he nods, leaning back in the chair as he blows out a heavy sigh.

"Yeah, he would have loved today." He chews on his lip. "He always said Barcelona was one of the best races on the calendar. Remember how he used to stand in the garage with that old clipboard and timed sectors by hand?"

The memory of your father - tall and steady with a presence that could command a room - rises sharp and vidi. He had poured everything into both boys’ dreams through karting and Formula 2. Losing him left a hole nothing has ever fully filled. You've tried - god you've tried - but you're not him. You don't know how to be, and you're not sure that you want to be.

“He would have been shouting strategy over the radio even if they told him not to,” you reply, voice thick. “Then he’d drag us all out for late-night calçots or whatever was in season and lecture us about tire management over dessert.”

“Exactly. He’d probably tell me I left a little too much room on the outside in Turn 4, though.”

The conversation flows naturally from there into the race itself, Joshua recounting everything in perfect detail. You listen intently, offering small strategic mentions you noted during his drive. He takes them in stride like he always has, not shying away from your recommendations or strategy. For a while, it feels easy. Familiar. Just the two of you breaking down the day the way you always have.

"Speaking of the race," Joshua says as the server brings over crispy tender grilled octopus sprinkled with paprika and olive olive, "That thing on the podium with Cheol was weird right?"

You keep your face carefully neutral, focusing on drizzling oil over a slice of warm bread. "Weird how? Surprising, I get. Media loved it though. Fans too."

"Sure. But it felt off. We haven’t had a civil moment like that in over a year. Not since Singapore really went to shit.” He pauses, chewing thoughtfully. “I keep replaying the crashes. Suzuka last year. Singapore the year before. Every time we get close, it gets worse, you know? He drove hard again today and I guess I kept waiting for him to crash into me."

You set your fork down, choosing your words with care. The old habit of playing buffer kicks in automatically, even as your own heart pulls in conflicting directions. “He’s always driven like that, Josh. Aggressive. All-in. It’s what makes him good. Today was no different, you were just the better driver."

Joshua’s gaze sharpens. “Since when are you playing devil’s advocate for him?"

"I'm not playing devil's advocate. I'm reminding you that you used to feed off each other on and off the track. Would it be so terrible to get back to that?"

"I'm sorry, are you saying it would be nice if we were friends again?"

The question lands like a precise jab to the ribs and heat creeps up your neck. Internally, your stomach twists at the memory of waking up wrapped in Seungcheol’s arms this morning, the taste of his desperate kiss in the hallway.

“We used to be friends," you point out. "All three of us. It would be nice if some of that could come back. Not exactly the same as it was, obviously. But less hostile maybe. The team suffers when you two are constantly at each other’s throats. And honestly? It’s exhausting watching you both tear into each other when I know how much you used to mean to one another.”

“We’ll never be friends again. Not like before. He made that clear when he told you to choose in the middle of the garage after he put me in the wall."

"Josh-"

"No." He leans on the table, eyes flashing. "You don't come back from that. In fact, hearing you say this is even crazier. What changed?"

His question hits hard. The quiet, stolen joy you have been carrying since last night dims under the weight of cold reality. Joshua’s certainty that there is no path back, no possibility of reconciliation makes the secret you're keeping even worse. You swallow against the sudden tightness in your throat.

"Nothing," you lie. "I'm just tired of all the anger, I guess. It's been years of this. I thought today might be a small step to healing. That's all."

The mains arrive at that moment and you're so relieved you could get on your knees and thank the server. The food smells incredible, but the growing tension has stolen most of your appetite. You push pieces around your plate while Joshua continues, his voice lower but no less intense.

“Talk to me. Really talk," he urges. "You’ve been weird for weeks. Oversleeping this morning, disappearing after quali yesterday, dodging my questions. And now this sudden softness toward Cheol? I know you better than anyone. What’s going on with you?”

The question opens a floodgate you have not fully prepared for. You take a slow sip of wine, letting the rich, earthy notes steady you. You don't know what to do. All you know is you can't tell him about Seungcheol - won't tell him about Seungcheol. Not yet. Not after hearing the finality in Joshua's assessment of their relationship.

“I’ve spent a lot of time being your manager,” you say finally, your voice quiet. “Since Dad passed, I stepped into that role completely. Making sure you have everything you need, fighting for your seat, handling sponsors, media, and all the drama between you and Seungcheol. I don’t regret it, Josh. Not for a second. You’re my brother. But.."

"But what?"

"Sometimes I wonder if there's anything else out there for me. I never really had the chance to try. Everything has always revolved around the next race, the next season, keeping the dream alive for both of you."

Joshua sets his fork down slowly. His brow furrows, a mix of surprise and defensiveness crossing his face. For a while, he's silent, staring at you from across the table, brows pinched, eyes dark. You don't eat - don't know how to, under that gaze.

Finally, he says, "You make it sound like I forced you into this or like I've been holding you hostage. Is that how you feel?"

"No, Josh. That isn't what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I was so young when it started, and then Dad got sick, and suddenly I was managing schedules and contracts while barely figuring out my own life. I don’t regret supporting you. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But I’ve never had real space to figure out what I want outside of all this. Does that make sense?"

"Not really, no."

You sigh in frustration. "What part is confusing?"

"The part where you want out."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. You stepped into Dad’s shoes because you wanted to. Because you’re good at it. Now you’re making it sound like I’ve been selfish for letting you.”

“That’s not fair,” you whisper fiercely, eyes stinging. “I’m not blaming you. I’m just… being honest for once. About how I feel. About how heavy it all is sometimes. You asked me what's wrong. I'm telling you."

A heavy silence falls over the table as your lamb gets cold. The server passes by a single time, sensing the tension before he pivots and darts away. Outside in the courtyard, the fairy lights sway gently in the evening breeze, casting dancing shadows across the stone path.

“I don’t want you to feel trapped," Joshua says eventually. "But this is all I've ever known too. Hearing you talk like this is scary."

"I'm sorry."

The rest of the meal passes in strained silence. You both pick at your food, the earlier warmth of shared memories replaced by a heavy, uncomfortable tension that lingers in the air long after the plates are cleared. When the check comes, neither of you fights over it the way you usually do. The walk back to the waiting car is quiet, the Barcelona night suddenly feeling cooler than it should.

By the time you reach the hotel, the happiness you felt this morning has dimmed. Joshua throws a wave goodnight, clipped and tired as he heads off, leaving you feeling stranded at sea.

You head to your room alone, the door clicking heavily behind you. You lean against it for a moment, eyes closed, letting the cool wood press into your back. The silence inside the room is almost suffocating after the heavy conversation at dinner. Your chest feels tight, your stomach still twisted from the argument with Joshua. You wonder if you should have told him about Seungcheol, if you should've just put it all out on the table.

No. Joshua doesn't do good with change. At least not all at once. He can barely chew on the idea of you being unsure if this career is what you should be doing long term, much less the idea that you're in a relationship - sort of - with Seungcheol.

You kick off your shoes and drop your bag on the chair by the desk. The room is dimly lit by a single lamp you left on earlier, Barcelona's city lights glowing faintly through the half-drawn curtains. You cross to the bed and sit on the edge, phone heavy in your hand. Your thumb hovers over Seungcheol’s contact for several long seconds before you finally tap it and bring the phone to your ear.

He answers on the third ring, his voice low and warm. "Hi, baby."

The simple endearment makes your eyes sting. You swallow hard, trying to keep your voice steady. “Hi. Are you alone?”

“Yeah. Just got back to my room a few minutes ago.” There’s a rustle of fabric on his end, like he’s settling back against the pillows. “How was dinner with Josh?”

"Not great."

Seungcheol is quiet for a beat, reading the tone in your voice immediately. “Talk to me. What happened?”

“We started off fine,” you say softly. “Talking about the race and dad and stuff. He brought up the podium with you today and said it felt weird."

I figured it might. I wasn’t trying to make a big statement. I just felt like it was old times, I guess, I don't know. It was a good fight."

“I know that,” you whisper. “But he didn’t see it that way. He started talking about Singapore again. Suzuka. All of the crashes. I suggested that maybe progress is good and how I miss you guys being close and he did not like that."

"Didn't like it how?"

"Didn't like that suddenly it felt like I was going easy on you and thought it was weird I was trying to recommend being friends again."

Seungcheol stays silent for a moment. You can almost picture him running a hand through his hair, jaw clenched the way it does when he’s processing something difficult. You hear him shift on the other end, blowing out a sigh.

“What did you tell him?” he asks eventually.

“I said we used to be friends and that it would be nice if some of that could come back, even if it's not the same. He shut it down hard, Cheol. Said you two will never be friends again after what happened in Singapore and after you… you know."

“Fuck,” he mutters. “I really fucked that night up, didn’t I?”

You don’t answer right away. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes as you stare at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol says. “I hate that you’re stuck in the middle again. That’s the last thing I want.”

"He's just stubborn. I think he hides behind the anger because the hurt is so bad. After that, the conversation kind of spiraled. He asked about me oversleeping and how distracted I've been and I was honest about struggling as his manager."

"What did he say?"

“He thought I was saying I regret supporting him. That I want out. We ended up arguing about it."

Seungcheol is quiet for a long moment. You can hear him breathing, steady but heavy. Then, "Do you want me to come over?"

"No," you murmur. "Everything just feels really out of balance right now. Hearing your voice is nice, though."

“You know I meant what I said last night, right?" The softness of his voice makes your throat tighten. "About not making you choose. About wanting you to figure out what you want. If you need space from the manager role, from constantly putting everyone else first I'll support that. If you need space from me, if you don't want to do this, I'll support that too."

It makes you cry. You hear him make a sound on the other end of the phone, like hearing you cry breaks something in him. He murmurs your name softly, the ache in his voice evident as you sniff into the phone, wiping your eyes.

"Sorry, you're just," you sniff again. "Stop being nice."

"You want me to stop being nice?"

"Yes!"

He hums. "I'll think about it. What do you need, baby?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm just scared. But I don't want to do the space thing with you. I really don't. I know that."

"Okay. Then we'll just figure it out a little at a time, okay?"

"Okay."

After a while, the conversation drifts into softer territory. He teases you gently about how fast you ran out of his room this morning. You laugh despite everything, telling him he’s lucky you didn’t trip in the hallway. He promises to set an alarm the next time, and the promise of next time warms you.

Eventually, Seungcheol’s voice grows softer. “You should try to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s another long day of travel."

“Okay.”

“I love you. We’ll figure this out. Whatever it takes.”

“I love you too,” you whisper back.

You stay on the phone a little longer, listening to each other breathe until your eyes grow heavy. When you finally hang up, the room feels a little less empty.

-

SMALL CHAPEL OUTSIDE LOS ANGELES | LATE 2021

Rain falls steadily outside, each droplet clinging to the trees and the sea of black umbrellas heading into the chapel. It's not the dramatic downpour of Suzuka or Miami, but it feels heavier. The air smells of wet earth, damp stone, and the faint sweetness of the white lilies arranged in heavy clusters around the altar.

Inside the chapel is warm but somber. Soft, grey light filters through the stained-glass windows, casting muted colors across the polished wooden pews. Candles flicker on tall stands, their flames trembling slightly with every quiet movement. The scent of melting wax mingles with the heavy perfume of flowers and it feels suffocating.

You sit in the front pew, shoulder pressed tightly against Joshua’s. Your black dress feels too formal, too stiff against your skin, and your hand is twisting fiercely with your brothers, knuckles aching with how hard he squeezes your hand. He hasn't let go since you've arrived. Neither of you speaks much - words feel inadequate. You've already said your piece to begin the funeral, and now it's just the murmured words of the pastor and old friends of your father.

Joshua’s eyes are red-rimmed but dry for the moment, his jaw locked in that familiar way he gets when he is trying desperately to hold himself together. He wears a simple black suit, the tie slightly crooked because he wouldn't let you fix it earlier. You lean your head against his shoulder, breathing in the faint scent of his cologne mixed with the rain that clung to his coat. He has always been your constant. Even as kids, when your father dragged him karting, Joshua was the one who made sure you had snacks, who let you ride on his back when you got tired, who kept you entertained on long trips.

Your father’s casket rests at the front, closed and draped with a simple white cloth and a single wreath of green leaves and white roses. Photos of him line the altar. You can barely look at them, honestly, but you remember each one in clear detail: him smiling proudly in the pit lane with young Joshua and Seungcheol in their karting suits, him with an arm around your shoulders at your high school graduation, him laughing in the garage with grease on his cheek and that clipboard always in hand.

Your father was the steady heartbeat of your world, a man who taught Joshua how to brake late and trust his instincts, who taught you how to read telemetry and st and tall in rooms full of powerful men. A man who believed so fiercely in you and his boys that he dedicated his life to you.

A quiet sob escapes you. Joshua immediately turns, wrapping his free arm around your shoulders and pulling you closer. "I've got you."

Seungcheol takes your other hand and rests it on his thigh. He arrived quietly and slid into the pew without a word, but the moment he sat down, his presence became an anchor. His broad frame is tense beneath his black suit jacket, dark hair neatly combed though a few strands have fallen forward.

The three of you sit together like you once did years ago in hotel rooms and airport terminals, a unit knit by grief. For a brief second, it feels like the old days, when the three of you were inseparable and your father was the steady heartbeat keeping you all together.

When it is time for eulogies, Joshua stands first. He reluctantly releases your hand, but Seungcheol’s hand stays wrapped around your fingers, grounding you while your brother walks to the front. Joshua’s voice is steady at the beginning, but it wavers as he speaks about the man who taught him everything.

“He gave us everything,” Joshua says, eyes flickering to you and Seungcheol. “And he never asked for anything back except that we chase our dreams with everything we have.”

When Joshua returns to the pew, his legs seem unsteady. You rise immediately and pull him into a tight hug so he can bury his face in your shoulder. Seungcheol stands and grips the both of you, pulling you both into his chest, arms holding you as close as possible with the same steady grip you've always known.

After the service, as people begin to file out into the rain, the three of you linger near the entrance. Joshua keeps one arm around your shoulders while Seungcheol stays close on your other side, his hand resting lightly at the small of your back as you step outside.

The drizzle has eased into a fine mist as the three of you form a small protective bubble from the world with your umbrellas.

"You're the only family I have left," Joshua says, looking at you and then to Seungcheol. "Both of you. It's us until the end, okay?"

Both of you nod and Joshua takes a deep breath, like the confirmation is what he needed to hear. As the rain continues to fall softly, you remain between your brother and Seungcheol, the three of you united in grief and whatever comes next.

-

SILVERSTONE CIRCUIT | 2025 POST-QUALIFYING 306.19KM | 52 LAPS

A grey sky hangs low over Silverstone, a shifting canvas of dark purples and gray that threaten rain. The air is heavy with the scent of damp grass and hot rubber as you cross the wet pavement and enter the hospitality suite on autopilot, tablet clutched in one hand. The suite is bustling with people and staff, the air conditioning too cold against your rain-damp skin. Outside the windows, the paddock is alive with movement as Mercedes prepares for its home race.

The past few weeks have been a delicate balancing act. Since Barcelona, you and Seungcheol have barely had any real time together. Stolen moments are all you can manage, quick brushes of hand in hallways, stolen kisses in a media room that's empty, a single sweaty night at the hotel in Austria. Each meeting leaves you buzzing with warmth, but the fear of what you're doing always lingers.

It also makes things more complicated. The more energy you pour into trying to ensure you have brief moments with Seungcheol, the more the cracks start to appear in everything else you do, especially with Joshua.

The list doesn't make you proud. A forgotten sponsor call, a missed minor media scheduling adjustment in Hungary, a late show to a briefing because you were trying to get dressed in a hotel room after a morning shower with Seungcheol that went far too long.

Joshua has noticed. The easy rhythm you once shared has gone strained and brittle, each conversation and meeting with your brother stiff and tense in the way only siblings who are fighting can fully understand.

Today's qualifying didn't help. Joshua had finished qualifying with a solid P4, but it isn't good enough for the home race and it certainly isn't good enough for him. His post-qualifying interview had been uncharacteristically sharp and clipped, and he'd snapped at a reporter who pressed him about team dynamics with Seungcheol.

You spot him the moment you step deeper into the hospitality suite, standing near the back, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he stares out at the circuit with a stormy expression. His hair is still damp from the quick shower after quali, and the lines around his mouth are drawn tight.

You approach carefully, eyeing him warily. "Josh."

He turns, and the look he gives you is equal parts exhaustion and frustration. “There you are. Finally.”

The tone stings. You set your tablet down on a nearby table. “I was handling the media fallout from the interview. It wasn’t great, but we can spin it. You were just being honest about the pressure.”

“Honest?” Joshua lets out a short, bitter laugh. “I sounded like an asshole. And you weren’t even there to pull me out of it in time. That’s your job, right?”

"I'm not your PR team nor am I your baby sitter. You know how to handle media. Don't take it out on me. I was dealing with other things."

“That’s the problem lately,” he says, voice rising slightly. A few heads turn in your direction before politely looking away. “You’re never where I need you to be. You forgot the sponsor briefing in France. You were late to a call yesterday. If you're going to hate being my manager, fine, hate it. But don't fucking suck at it."

"I don't hate being your manager, you ass," you snap back. "I'm doing my best here. The season is long. Everyone is tired. I'm juggling a lot. I told you. Don't throw it back in my fucking face."

"Well it's hard to tell if you just don't give a shit anymore. Is this about what we talked about in Barcelona? About you feeling lost? Because if you’re pulling away, at least be honest with me.”

His words cut deep, reopening the wound from that tense dinner. You open your mouth to respond when a familiar voice cuts through the tension from behind you. “Easy, Josh.”

Seungcheol appears at the edge of the conversation, still in his team polo, hair slightly tousled. He must have come straight from his own media duties. His presence is instinctive, and it sends a jolt through you. He steps closer, positioning himself slightly between you and your brother without fully blocking either of you.

"You guys are arguing in front of literally everyone," Seungcheol says. "You don't need to raise your voice at your sister."

Joshua’s expression hardens instantly. "Stay out of this, Choi. This doesn't remotely concern you."

“I’m not the one raising my voice at her after she’s been running herself ragged for you all weekend. She’s not your punching bag.”

“Funny coming from you,” Joshua fires back, stepping forward. “The guy who’s been making her life hell for over a year. Now you want to play knight in shining armor? Give me a break.”

Engineers and staff exchange uneasy glances, pretending to focus on their laptops while clearly listening. You stand frozen between them, heart pounding. It's like everything is happening in slow motion again, the same arguments, you between them.

“Enough!”

Elias König’s sharp voice cuts through the room like a knife. The team principal strides over from the other side of the suite, his polished demeanor cracking with visible irritation. He places a firm hand on each driver’s shoulder, physically separating them.

“My office. Both of you. Now,” Elias orders, voice cold and authoritative. “We do not do this in front of the team. Not today.”

Joshua glares at Seungcheol one last time before storming off. Seungcheol hesitates, his eyes finding yours for a split second, filled with apology, before he follows. Elias shoots you a concerned look.

"I know," you sigh, running a hand over your face. "I don't know what to do with them."

"You are doing the best you can." He turns. "My turn to do the best I can."

You remain rooted to the spot, fists clenched at your sides, fury bubbling hot in your veins. Livid does not even begin to cover it. At Joshua for lashing out. At Seungcheol for intervening when you didn't ask him to. At yourself for letting the cracks widen in the first place.

The ride back to the hotel is agonizingly lonely. You sit in the back of a team car by yourself, the English countryside blurring past the tinted windows under the darkening sky while you scroll on your phone, wincing. It's just like old times, snippets of the tension between Mercedees being leaked and blasted online.

Sources say Mercedes garage tension is boiling over again. Looks like podium love from Spain didn't last long.

Old wounds reopening at Silverstone? Home race is bringing the drama for Mercedees.

You scroll through them with trembling fingers, each stupid comment and post feeling like another crack in a fragile world you're trying to hold together. The secret moments with Seungcheol have come at a cost. You are giving pieces of yourself to him, and the pieces you once gave so freely to Joshua are slipping through your fingers.

Tears prick at your eyes as the car pulls up to the hotel. The weight of your father’s absence feels heavier tonight, the memory of sitting between Joshua and Seungcheol at the funeral flashing unbidden in your mind. Back then, things hadn't been easy but they hadn't felt like this.

You just don't know what to do.

-

SILVERSTONE CIRCUIT | 2025 RACE DAY 306.19KM | 52 LAPS

Strong wind snaps across the Northamptonshire countryside, carrying the sharp scent of fresh-cut grass and damp asphalt. The grandstands are packed with fans with Mercedes flags and chanting, uncaring that the sky promises cold rain.

You stand in the garage, headset clamped over one ear, tablet clutched in both hands like a lifeline. Your stomach has been in knots since last night’s blow-up in the hospitality suite. Joshua has barely spoken to you this morning, the pre-race ritual completely absent. He moved through his preparations with a cold, focused intensity that left little room for you, though you'd tried to approach. He'd simply brushed you off and you let him. Race day is more important than getting what you have to say off your chest.

The distance hurts more than you expected.

Seungcheol, on the other hand, has been sending you careful, soft glances whenever he thinks no one is watching. A quick brush of his fingers against yours when he passed you earlier, a soft nod of encouragement when you look at him, at a loss of what to do.

The formation lap begins. The two silver Mercedes cars roll out with Joshua starting from P4, Seungcheol from P3 after a strong qualifying recovery. The crowd roars as the field lines up on the grid. You watch the monitors with your heart in your throat.

Then its lights out.

Seungcheol gets a strong start, diving aggressively into Turn 1, capitalizing on hesitation from Red Bull in front of him. Joshua holds position cleanly but is already fighting for space in the tight midfield pack. From the very first lap, it is clear Seungcheol is on point today, working the leaders as he chases them down.

Lap after lap, Seungcheol climbs, the crowd screaming as the silver arrow slices through the wind. By lap 12 he is in the lead. The radio crackles with his engineer’s calm praise, but you can hear the barely-contained elation in Seungcheol’s voice when he responds.

“Car feels incredible today," Seungcheol notes. "Let's go for it."

Joshua’s race, by contrast, begins to unravel. He struggles with balance in the high-speed sections, losing time on corner exits. A slow pit stop on lap 18 drops him further back, and by lap 31, disaster strikes. Joshua’s rear tires lose grip on a patch of wind-blown grass and he spins on a quick right hand turn, the Mercedes snapping sideways before slamming into the barrier with a crunch.

You suck in a gasp, but Joshua is already reporting that he's okay before you can let it back out. The car is done, though, and your heart sinks as you watch him climb out on the monitors, helmet on, shoulders rigid with anger. He storms back toward the garage on foot, refusing the ride. You want to go to him immediately, but you stay grounded to your spot.

Joshua says nothing to you when you enter the garage. You start to walk toward him but he shoulders past, going down the hall with his helmet still on before he slams the door of his room. You swallow, unsure if you should follow him. Wonwoo shoots you a soft look and shakes his head, a rare moment of pity from Seungcheol's manager.

Meanwhile, Seungcheol is in command of the race. He defends the lead masterfully, managing his tires with clinical precision while still pushing when needed. When he crosses the finish line in P1, it's no surprise. The garage erupts in cheers, mechanics clapping each other on the back, jumping and shouting as the race comes to an end.

The team starts to empty out, heading to the podium to celebrate. You stand there, unsure of your place without Joshua. It's Wonwoo who taps you on the elbow and beckons you, shrugging his shoulders as if to say what else are you going to do? You give him a small, grateful smile and walk with him, the silence for once not charged with annoyance.

Seungcheol’s car slows on the in-lap, weaving slightly as he celebrates, fist pumping out the cockpit. When he finally pulls into parc fermé, he practically launches himself out of the car to run to the team as they swarm him over the barriers, cheering. He jumps into the sea of black shirts, screaming with pure, unfiltered joy, hugging every mechanic he can reach.

You smile, crossing your arms over your chest as they let him go to head up for the podium ceremony. You don't expect it when Seungcheol pivots, ripping off his helmet to tuck it under his head and job right toward you. For a split second, the world disappears. The elation of his face, raw, bright and uncontrollable, overrides everything else as you grin at him.

Before you can react, before you can even process what is happening, Seungcheol cups your face with both hands and kisses you. His lips are warm, tasting of salt from the sweat, and for a single, blissful section, you forget where you are and let him kiss you, your hand going to his race suit briefly.

Then reality crashes in.

Seungcheol pulls back suddenly, eyes wide with shock as he realizes what he has just done in front of the entire garage, the cameras, the world. His hands drop from your face like he has been burned.

"Shit," he sweats. "Fuck oh shit fuck, I wasn't thinking. I'm so sorry."

The world turns to the chaos of cameras flashing, phones snapping photos and reporters buzzing. Among the noise, you stand frozen, heart hammering so loudly you can barely hear anything else. our lips still tingle from the kiss. Seungcheol looks at you with raw panic and regret.

"I'm sorry," he says again, the terror real.

"It's okay," you whisper, though it's really not. "Podium. Now."

He nods, giving you a final look before he turns and jogs toward the podium. You barely have time to process before you are walking back into the main garage on shaky legs, hand covering your mouth as you try to process the weight of what just happened. Seungcheol hadn't even thought about what he was doing, so happy that he'd just instinctively done it.

You can't blame him. But you feel the storm in the garage before you even turn the corner, the crackling energy of your brother planted in the middle of the garage waiting for you when you walk in, still in a daze. The moment he sees you, his expression twists into something raw.

“What the fuck was that?” he demands, voice loud enough that several mechanics find somewhere else to be.

"Josh-"

"After everything? There is no fucking way."

"Let me explain!"

"There is nothing to explain. He takes everything from me! Sponsors, fans, attention, wins. My sister. That's why you've been a fucking disaster, oh my god."

The garage descends into complete chaos. People pretend to work but are clearly listening. You feel heat flood your face, a mix of embarrassment, guilt, and rising anger.

“He didn’t take me,” you snap back, voice shaking but growing louder. “I chose this. I chose him. Because for once in my life I wanted something that was mine. Not yours, not the team’s, not Dad’s dream. Mine."

"Oh for fuck's sake."

"Why can't you get that?"

“Because he always wins!” Joshua shouts. “He wins on track, he wins the crowd, he wins the narrative, he wins you. Do you have any idea how it feels?"

"Yes!" You screech. "Because I never win! I give up everything all the time to benefit everyone else and I'm losing all of the time! So yes, I know how it fucking feels, Josh. I was mad too. I was upset with him too. But I'm tired of hating someone who was - is - family to us."

"He is not our family. I am your family."

“You hide your hurt with hate!” you scream, tears spilling over. “Every time something goes wrong, you turn it into anger at him instead of dealing with it. You push everyone away, including me. I have spent my entire life choosing you, protecting you, managing your career, and the one time I choose something for myself, you act like I’ve betrayed you!”

The argument escalates into pure screaming. Joshua is red in the face, years of pain and anger pouring out of him. Gone is the collected, perfect racer everyone knows. Gone is the polished golden boy of Mercedes, replaced with the angry, hurt driver who has done nothing but shove his feelings down down down.

Seungcheol walks in, still flushed from the podium, champagne soaked and glowing with victory. You and Joshua pause, looking at Seungcheol as he freezes. His face falls when he sees the look on your face and he swallows, straightening his shoulders.

"Josh-"

"You couldn't help yourself, could you?" Joshua asks, shaking his head. "Had to take one more thing from me. That's all you do, Choi. You take and you don't care what it fucking costs anyone else."

Seungcheol steps forward, hands raised. “Josh, I didn’t mean for it to happen like that. I was caught up in the moment-"

“You’ve been caught up in trying to steal my sister for months. Congratulations. You finally got what you wanted.”

The two men start shouting at each other, old wounds reopening in real time, both of them yelling over each other as you begin to scream at Joshua for overriding your feelings. It's a childish display - you know it is. But you're tired of bottling up how you feel for the sake of everyone else and it pours out of you, the exact mirror to Joshua.

“ENOUGH!”

Elias König’s voice booms through the garage like thunder, making you all flinch as he storms in. Everyone freezes - even the other mechanics from other garages who have been watching the spiral in Mercedes garage.

“All of you," Elias orders, pointing a finger at the three of you. "Out of my garage right now. I don’t care where you go, but you will leave this space immediately. Sleep on it. We will deal with this tomorrow when cooler heads prevail. This is not how we conduct ourselves at Mercedes.”

Mechanics and engineers scatter quickly. Joshua glares at both of you one last time, jaw clenched so tight it looks painful. "Fuck this."

Without another word, he storms out of the garage alone, shoulders rigid, refusing to look back at you. The sound of his footsteps echoes harshly before disappearing into the paddock noise. You stand there, chest heaving, heart hammering. Seungcheol hesitates only for a second before moving toward you. He gently takes your arm, his touch careful but insistent.

“Come on,” he says softly.

You don’t resist. You let him guide you out of the garage, his hand steady on your lower back as you both slip through a side exit away from the worst of the cameras. The British evening air feels cold against your face, the distant roar of the crowd still celebrating Seungcheol’s home win echoing faintly, but all you can hear is the sound of your brother’s broken voice accusing you of betrayal.

Seungcheol leads you toward one of the team cars waiting in a quieter area. He opens the door for you and slides in after, telling the driver to head straight to the hotel. Once the doors are closed and the car begins moving, the full weight of what just happened crashes over you.

"I'm so sorry," he says, turning toward you. “I wasn’t thinking. The win, the adrenaline… I saw you and everything else disappeared. I never meant to put you in that position.”

You squeeze his hand tightly. I know. But Joshua is devastated. He thinks you’re taking everything from him. Sponsors, fans, wins, me. It's… I didn't know he felt that way."

"I didn't either. I hate that this is hurting him."

You lean your head against his shoulder as the car winds through the Silverstone countryside. The guilt, the love, the anger, and the exhaustion swirl together until you feel raw and hollow.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” you whisper. “He stormed out without me. He wouldn’t even look at me.”

Seungcheol presses a gentle kiss to the top of your head, his arm wrapping around you. "It's time I talked to your brother. For now, just weather the storm, alright?"

"Yeah," you murmur hollowly. "I guess."

- KARTING TRACK SOMEWHERE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE | 2017

The late afternoon sun hangs low over the karting circuit, painting the asphalt in warm gold and long shadows while the distant buzz of karts still practicing on the main track mixes with the sound of crickets starting their evening chorus. This is one of the smaller, regional tracks the three of you frequent. It's nothing glamorous, but it's a simple layout with tight hairpins and a long back straight to make good practice.

It's a warm summer evening, and right now, you and your brother are in the middle of a full-blowing screaming match behind the awning of the sleeper van your dad rented for the weekend.

“I told you to lift earlier in Turn 6!” you shout, arms crossed tightly over your chest. Your cheeks are flushed with anger and the exertion of running back and forth all day. “You went in way too hot again and spun it! That’s the third time today!”

Joshua throws his helmet down on the folding chair with a loud clatter, his racing suit half unzipped, hair sweaty and sticking up in a bunch of different directions. “Maybe if you actually timed the sectors right instead of daydreaming, I wouldn't spin out!"

“I wasn’t daydreaming!” you snap back. “I was dealing with the stupid timing app that kept glitching because you spilled an energy drink on the tablet yesterday!”

“That was an accident!”

“Everything's been an accident with you lately!”

The fight has been building all afternoon. Joshua has been off his game, pushing too hard and making sloppy mistakes, refusing to listen to feedback from both you and your dad. You have been exhausted from trying to keep up with both boys’ schedules, schoolwork, and helping your dad with logistics. The smaller frustrations have snowballed into something bigger, the way they always do when the two of you are tired and stressed.

Seungcheol leans against the side of the van a few meters away, arms loosely crossed, watching the two of you with a familiar mix of amusement and concern. His own karting suit is still zipped to the top, helmet tucked under his arm. Even at seventeen, he already carries that quiet confidence that makes people listen when he speaks.

Joshua gestures sharply at you. “You’re supposed to be on my side, not acting like Dad’s second-in-command all the time!”

“I am on your side!” you yell back. “That’s why I’m telling you what you’re doing wrong! If I just clapped and said oh yeah great job Josh every time you spun it, you’d never get any better!”

“You always think you know best!”

“Because sometimes I do!”

The words hang in the air and Joshua's Joshua’s face twists with hurt and anger. For a moment, it looks like he might say something even meaner, but instead he just turns away, shoulders tight, breathing hard.

You feel the sting of tears behind your eyes but refuse to let them fall. This is how you and Joshua fight, loud and honest and sometimes, brutally direct. You've been doing it since you were little - he pushes, you push back harder.

Seungcheol pushes off the trailer and walks over, sighing. He stops between the two of you, not quite in the middle, but close enough that both of you have to acknowledge him.

“Alright,” he says calmly, voice low and steady. “Both of you, take a breath.”

Joshua glares at him. “Stay out of it, Cheol.”

“I’m not staying out of it,” Seungcheol replies evenly. “You two are fighting like this is the last race of the championship and someone cheated. It’s just practice. On a random Tuesday.”

“He’s not listening to me,” you mutter, wiping at your eyes angrily.

“And she’s acting like I’m an idiot who can’t drive,” Joshua shoots back.

Seungcheol sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. He hates stepping between the two of you, but he's always been good at it, this being a buffer between siblings when fights get too heated. He's a natural leader, and he's good at diffusing the tension.

He turns to Joshua first. “You went in too hot. She’s right about that. But she could’ve told you without sounding like she was scolding a little kid.” Then he looks at you. “And you’re doing too much. You’re trying to be the timer, the strategist, the manager, and the sister all at once. He’s not going to hear you when you’re this wound up.”

Both of you stay silent, breathing heavily, glaring at the ground. Seungcheol steps closer to Joshua and places a hand on his shoulder, squeezing once. Joshua melts a little, the fight going out of him as he nods at his best friend.

"You know what you're doing, Josh," Seungcheol murmurs. "But you’re also stubborn as hell. Sometimes you need to listen when she tells you something. She's trying to help."

When he turns to you, its hard not to pout. Seungcheol's gaze softens, doing something to your stomach that feels like butterflies when he smirks, shaking his head. "You're allowed to be tired, but we're a time. It's not just you versus the world. Josh is on your team too."

The tension in your shoulders slowly loosens. Seungcheol has always had this effect, grounding both of you without taking sides. Joshua kicks at a pebble on the ground, still sulking but no longer vibrating with anger.

Finally, he looks at you. "I hate when it feels like you're disappointed in me."

“I’m not disappointed,” you say quietly, voice thick. “I’m scared you’re going to hurt yourself pushing like that. And I hate watching you spin when I know you can do better.”

The anger drains from his face, replaced by exhaustion and something vulnerable. He steps forward and pulls you into a rough hug, arms wrapping tightly around your shoulders. You hug him back just as hard, burying your face in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles into your hair. “I know I’ve been an ass today.”

“You have,” you mutter, but there’s no heat left in it. “But I’m sorry too. I was being mean instead of helpful.”

After a long moment, Joshua pulls back but keeps his hands on your shoulders. His eyes are serious now, the kind of serious he only gets when it’s just the two of you.

“I know I rely on you too much,” he says quietly. “You do so much for me. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only person truly in my corner. Like no matter what happens on track, you’ve always got my back. So when you're on the opposite side, it feels terrifying."

"I'm always in your corner, even when we're disagreeing. Even when you’re being stubborn and I’m being bossy. That doesn’t change. I’m your sister first. Always. I might get frustrated, I might push you because I want you to be better, but I will never not be on your side.”

Joshua’s eyes glisten. He nods once, swallowing hard, then pulls you into another tight hug. Seungcheol steps closer and ruffles both of your heads affectionately, breaking the heavy moment with his usual easy warmth.

“See? That wasn’t so hard,” he teases lightly. “Now can we please go get some chips from the corner store before your dad comes over here and yells at us for fighting?"

You roll your eyes, but the familiar banter feels like coming home. The three of you start walking toward the corner store together, you in the middle, Joshua on your right, Seungcheol on your left, shoulders bumping, voices already rising in playful arguments about lap times and who owes who snacks.

Like that, the fight is over. Easy and simple, the three of you against the world.

-

OXFORD, ENGLAND | 2025 TWO DAYS AFTER SILVERSTONE

The rain has been falling steadily since yesterday, a soft, persistent drizzle that turns the world outside your window into muted greens and grays. Your apartment in Oxford is quiet except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional distant sound of traffic on the wet streets below. It's a nice place, a two-story apartment with tall windows overlooking a quiet residential street lined with bicycles and overflowing window boxes. You like the calm here during the season, but sometimes you miss the ocean spray of Los Angeles, a place that feels light years away.

Today, the calm feels suffocating. You haven't spoken to Joshua in two days. Not since the screaming match in the Mercedes garage at Silverstone. Not since he stormed out alone while you left with Seungcheol. The silence between you is heavier than any argument you have ever had, and you don't know how to bridge the gap. You'd called him a single time yesterday, but he hadn't picked up. You were almost glad, cause you weren't sure what to say.

Headlines and social media clips have exploded since Seungcheol’s impulsive kiss after his home win. You try to avoid the headlines, but they're impossible to miss. Mercedes Teammates' Sister Caught in the Middle. Secret Romance or Public Breakdown at Silverstone?

Your name is everywhere, photos of the kiss circulating alongside old images of you and Joshua together, and worse, old clips of you and Seungcheol, every interaction you've had since you were teens under scrutiny. You've spent hours fielding damage-control calls from the Mercedes PR team, trying to keep sponsors calm while your personal life implodes in public, all while enduring the silence from your brother.

Seungcheol's absence is just as bad, though he's far from silent. The team has kept both drivers under tight media control and separate schedules since the incident, but he's been your lifeline through texts and late-night phone calls, dropping you sweet messages that make you smile through the distress. You cling to those messages like a raft in rough water, but they cannot fix the growing chasm between you and your brother.

The glass of wine in front of you is empty. It did nothing to dull the stress, but it doesn't matter. You have insane amounts of work to get through while you sit on the floor at your coffee table. Meeting agendas, sponsor contracts, media schedules, and damage-control notes are spread out in messy piles around you. You've been trying to work and stay productive as a distraction, but it's been borderline impossible.

Your phone buzzes with another notification. You ignore it and instead, open your email, hoping for something routine to distract you. To your surprise, something does as you click the email open, scanning it.

Subject: Opportunity - Executive Role at Apex Management Ms. Hong, I hope this email finds you well, despite the understandably turbulent few days in the paddock. My name is Elena Moreau, and I'm the founding partner of Apex Management, a new venture launching later this year. We are building a specialized management company dedicated exclusively to motorsport athletes with a focus in Formula 1, Formula 2, IndyCar, and emerging talent across other smaller, local series. After following your work closely over the past several years, we believe you would be an exceptional fit for a senior leadership role within our organization. Specifically, we are looking for someone to serve as Head of Manager Development and Portfolio Strategy. In this position, you would: - Design and lead training programs for new driver managers, teaching best practices in media relations, sponsor management, crisis handling, and long-term career planning. - Oversee a portfolio of high-profile drivers, providing strategic guidance at the highest level. - Help shape the overall direction of the company, creating systems that genuinely support drivers beyond race weekends - addressing mental health, personal branding, financial planning, and work-life balance. - Your hands-on experience managing a top-tier Formula 1 driver through complex team dynamics, intense media scrutiny, and high-stakes sponsorship environments makes you uniquely qualified. We are particularly impressed by how you have balanced fierce advocacy with genuine care, which I believe are qualities that are rare in this industry. - We understand the current timing is sensitive. This is not a formal offer yet, but we would love to discuss the role in more detail at your earliest convenience. The position would allow significant flexibility, including the possibility of continuing select private client work if desired. Please let me know if you are open to a confidential conversation. We are very excited about the possibility of bringing your expertise to Apex and helping us continue to overtake the competition. Best regards, Elena Moreau Founding Partner Apex Driver Management

You read the email twice, heart beating faster with each pass. It's an incredible opportunity you don't expect, the kind of role that would let you step out of the shadow of being Joshua's Manager-Sister and into something that is entirely your own. You could train others, build systems, shape how the next generation of drivers are supported. You could finally use every hard-earned skill you have developed, not for just one person, but at a larger scale.

For a few quiet moments, you let yourself imagine it. The freedom. The challenge. The chance to build something meaningful instead of constantly putting out fires.

Then the guilt crashes in.

How could you even consider leaving Joshua right now? After Silverstone? After everything that has happened? After your father trusted you to take care of him? You rub your temples, staring at the email until the words start to blur. A sharp knock on the front door jolts you out of your thoughts just as you think you're going to throw up.

Your heart leaps into your throat as you clambour to your feet. You're not expecting anyone, and you wonder if its. Mrs. Kindkaid again asking if you've seen her cat Pumpkin, which you have not. It isn't your fault Pumpkin likes to escape Mrs. Kinkaid's stuffy apartment and-

It's Joshua.

He stands in front of the door, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark hoodie, shoulders slightly hunched against the rain. You unlock the door without thinking, yanking the door open to get him in and out of the cold rain, not wanting him to catch a cold before Hungary.

"Get in," you order. "You cannot get sick right now."

He sighs, stepping out of the rain and into the warmth of your apartment. He shakes the rain from his hoodie, lowering the hood to reveal damp hair. Joshua looks at you for a long moment, eyes searching yours, and the silent stretches for a moment.

"Can we talk?" He asks finally. "I'm not here to fight."

You nod and he strides into the living room, familiar with the space. Though you only live here during season, Joshua has been here plenty of times, often preferring to crash here after a meal made by you to staying at his own apartment.

Joshua stands in the middle of your living room, eyes scanning the mess of papers and your open laptop before finally settling on you. His expression is tired, eyes rimmed with exhaustion, but there is no anger left in them.

“I’m sorry I ignored your call,” he says quietly, voice rough. “I needed time to think. Everything happened so fast at Silverstone, and I didn't know how to handle it."

You nod slowly, pushing off the door. “I’ve been going out of my mind. Two days of silence from you is hard."

He winces. “I know. I’m sorry.”

You gesture toward the couch. “Do you want to sit?”

He sits on one end of the couch while you take the floor again, knees pulled up to your chest, the familiar position somehow comforting. For a long moment, you both just breathe.

“I didn’t mean to scream at you like that,” Joshua starts, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Seeing him kiss you in front of everyone felt like the last piece of control I had was ripped away. Like he was taking you from me too."

“I know it looked bad. But Cheol didn’t plan that. He was high on adrenaline after the win. He saw me and… yeah. He apologized. It was just… poor timing, I guess. I wanted to talk to you first."

Joshua nods slowly, staring at his hands. “I believe you. But it still stung. Because for years now, it’s felt like he’s always winning. And I keep losing pieces of what used to be mine. What used to be ours.”

The raw honesty in his voice cracks something open inside you. Tears prick at your eyes as memories flood in, all the late nights in hotel rooms when you were kids, the three of you dreaming about Formula 1, your father’s proud smile watching both boys on the podium together.

"I'm not something he's taking, though. I'm a person. I chose him. Not to hurt you, but because for the first time in my life, I let myself want something that was just for me.”

I know that now. I’ve been thinking about what you said in Barcelona about feeling lost." He looks up, eyes watery. "About how you’ve spent your whole life being my manager, my protector, my sister. Carrying everything after Dad died. I’ve been so focused on my own pain, on the rivalry with Cheol, that I stopped seeing how much you were carrying. How much you’ve given up for me.”

You'd do it again in a heartbeat. Everytime you've chosen him, every race, every crisis. Joshua is your brother, a constant in your life that you'll never turn away from. He's the only family you have left beside Seungcheol, and the thought of him thinking you regret your choices or that you resent him eats you alive.

You reach out and place your hand over his. “I don’t regret it."

"Thank god."

"It's hard, but it isn't awful. It's just… heavy. Seungcheol sees me for me. Not a sibling, not a manger, not a rival. Just me."

Joshua nods. "I think I get that now."

"You know I'll always be in your corner, right?" You ask, a tear spilling. "Even when we disagree. Even when I’m angry. Even when I’m choosing something for myself. That doesn’t change. You’re my brother. You’re my family. Nothing and no one can take that away.”

Joshua’s shoulders tremble. He pulls you up from the floor and onto the couch beside him, wrapping his arms around you in a tight hug. You bury your face in his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne mixed with rain.

"I know," he sighs. "I know. I was mad and I'm an idiot and I know."

You stay like that for a long time, the rain continuing its steady rhythm against the windows. Eventually, Joshua pulls back just enough to look at you. There is something hesitant in his expression now.

"What?" You ask.

"Seungcheol came to talk to me."

You blink, surprised. “He did?”

Joshua nods. “He showed up at my hotel room that night. I almost slammed the door in his face, but he wouldn’t leave. He said we needed to talk."

Your heart stutters. “What did he say?”

“He apologized. Properly. Not just for the kiss, but for everything. Singapore. The crashes. The way he handled things. He told me he’s been in love with you for years, that he tried to ignore it because he didn’t want to ruin our friendship or the team dynamic, but he couldn’t anymore.” Joshua lets out a shaky breath. “He said he knows he’s hurt me, and he knows he’s taken things from me on track, but that he never wanted to take you. He just couldn’t keep pretending he didn’t love you.”

"Oh."

Joshua laughs. "Oh, she says. Our best friend of over a decade confesses his love for her to me, and all she has to say is oh."

You slap him on the arm and he laughs, holding up his hands to defend himself. You let your hands drop in your lap, wondering how long Joshua made Seungcheol stand outside of his hotel room door. Seungcheol hadn't even mentioned he was talking to Joshua, which is something you'll be sure to pinch him for later.

“I’m not totally innocent in all of this,” Joshua admits. “I’ve been carrying so much anger toward him that I stopped seeing clearly. I pushed him away first in some ways. I let the rivalry consume everything. And you were right, I’ve been hiding my hurt behind hate instead of dealing with it.”

"Sometimes I'm right."

He snorts. "Yeah, I've heard that before. I think above all I missed my best friend. I miss the guy I used to kart with. The one who stayed up all night with me dreaming about Formula 1. I don’t know if it’ll ever be the same again, but I want to try."

You feel a wave of relief so strong it makes you dizzy. “Really?"

"Yeah. Even if he's annoying."

"Can't argue with you there." He sighs, giving you a look. "What now?"

"As your brother, I want the best for you. And after listening to Cheol talk about how much he loves you, I realized that the best for you might actually be him. I’ve known he was in love with you since we were kids. I told myself he would never do anything about it, and I didn’t want to upset the dynamic between the three of us. But I see now how it was eating away at him."

You let out a shaky laugh through your tears. “You’ve known this whole time?”

“Yeah,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry I made it harder for you.”

“I’m sorry too,” you whisper. “For not being honest with you sooner. For letting the secrets build up.”

You lean forward and pull him into another hug, staying wrapped like that for a long moment before you glance at your laptop and you see the email open from Elene Moreau. You hesitate for a second, indecision flicking through you, then you decide to take the leap.

"I want to show you something," you sniff, leaning to grab the computer. "got an email today. From a company starting a new management firm specifically for motorsport drivers. They want me for a senior role. Training new managers, overseeing big portfolios, shaping how drivers are supported beyond the track.”

"No shit? Show me."

You do, elated that he meets it with genuine excitement, immediately flooding you with questions you don't know how to answer. It makes you laugh, both of you sliding to the floor to start looking up the company and what they do. It's impressive, for a start up, and though its something new and foreign, you feel a familiar excitement ignite inside of you, the promise of something that could maybe be yours.

"You should reach out to her," Joshua says eventually.

“Really?"

“Really.” He smiles, small but genuine. “You deserve to have something that’s yours. And if it means you’re not managing me full-time anymore, we'll figure it out. You've carried me long enough."

Joshua pulls you into one final, tight hug. For the first time in days, the weight on your chest feels a little lighter, and Joshua feels less like a client and more like your brother.

"Thank you," you murmur into his shoulder.

"Of course. You're my sister. I want the world for you."

-

CIRCUIT DE SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS | 2025 NIGHT BEFORE THE RACE 308.052 KM | 44 LAPS

Cool air kisses the back of your neck, the earth scent of pine and rain heavy in the Belgian countryside. The air is misty just outside the private restaurant tucked away in a converted stone farmhouse, the exposed wooden beams and soft lighting make it feel warm despite the weather. Team Mercedes fills the space with loud laughter and cheering, shadows dancing in the low lights, a fire crackling in a stone hearth near the end of the table.

Seungcheol pours your wine from your right, leaning around you to listen to what Joshua is saying, brows raised. The rest of the team marvels, pleasantly surprised at the ease with which the three of you have decided to operate tonight.

"Car felt good," Joshua says. "Is that new wing of yours helping?"

“Yeah, it does. Feels more planted on the exit. Your car was fast today. Think it'll do good on wet pavement if it rains tomorrow?"

"Yeah I think so."

You watch the exchange with quiet hope blooming in your chest. It's stilted and careful, but it's real talking with no shouting and no tense accusations. Just two teammates acknowledging each other’s driving on one of the most demanding circuits in the world. The sight makes something tight in your chest finally begin to loosen.

Seungcheol’s hand finds yours under the table, his fingers lacing through yours, thumb stroking slow circles against your skin. He doesn’t hide it. When Elias glances over, Seungcheol doesn’t pull away. Instead, he lifts your joined hands and presses a soft kiss to the back of yours, right there in front of the team. Your cheeks warm, but the quiet smiles and knowing looks from a few senior engineers feel surprisingly kind rather than something bad.

Joshua notices but doesn’t comment. Instead, he raises his glass slightly toward both of you. "To a clean race tomorrow."

Seungcheol clinks his glass against Joshua’s without hesitation. “To a clean race.”

The dinner continues with lighter conversation, stories from past races, jokes about the notorious weather, and even a few shared memories from karting days that make both men laugh. It is not perfect an awkward pause or two blooming between the two as they re-learn one another. But it feels nice.

By the time dessert arrives, everyone is loose with wine, Seungcheol's arm resting across the back of your chair, his fingers occasionally playing with the ends of your hair. Joshua watches the casual affection with a complicated expression, but there is no anger in it anymore. Only quiet acceptance mixed with lingering melancholy.

When the team begins to disperse, Seungcheol leans close to your ear. "Come back with me tonight? I've missed you."

You nod, heart fluttering. “Yes.”

The ride back to the hotel is quiet, the card winding through the misty Ardennes roads, headlights cutting through the light fog. Seungcheol keeps his hand on your thigh, thumb tracing gentle patterns through your dress, and though the touch is simple, it sends warmth curling low in your belly.

Joshua wishes you both a good night, giving Seungcheol a single, narrow-eyed glance that says be nice to my sister before he vanishes up the elevator. Seungcheol smiles, pleased at this - pleased that it can be so easy now. You are too, feeling lighter than you have in months.

Once inside his hotel suite, the door barely clicks shut before Seungcheol pulls you into his arms. He kisses you slowly, his tongue lazy and hungry all at once, pouring weeks of stolen moments and restrained longing into every brush of his lips. His hands slide down your back, pulling you flush against him.

“I’ve been thinking about this for days,” he whispers against your mouth. “Just you and me. No cameras. No screaming.”

You melt into him, fingers threading through his hair. “Me too.”

He walks you backward toward the bedroom, kissing you the entire way. He peels away your layers of clothing as he goes, the drag of his fingers on your sensitive skin maddening, sending a shiver up your spine. When you reach the bed, he lays you down carefully, his body covering yours as he kisses down your neck, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses across your skin.

You push gently at his shoulders until he rolls onto his back and he looks up at you with dark, hungry eyes, letting you straddle him with a wicked grin. You kiss your way across his chest, your teeth scraping skin, listening to him moan lightly when your tongue darts out to sooth the sting of your teeth. His skin is salty beneath your tongue, muscles jumping as you kiss down his stomach, singing to the floor between his thighs.

"You don't-"

The words die in his mouth when you palm him through his pants, squeezing his firm cock while your other hand unzips his pants. He helps you pull them off, his thick thighs twitched as you lean forward eagerly to drag your tongue up the underside of his shaft.

"Fuck, baby," he groans, hand going to the back of your head, not pushing but holding on, like he's trying to ground himself.

You take him into your mouth slowly, savoring the heavy weight of him on your tongue. You work him with long, deliberate strokes, licking, sucking and hollowing your cheeks as you take him deeper. Your lips stretch around him, the pinch at the corner of your mouth a sign that you're stretched to the limit, drool leaking from the corner of your lips as you work him.

“Fuck, baby. You eel so good,” he rasps, voice wrecked. “So perfect for me.”

You hum around him, the vibration making his thighs tense. You take your time, drawing it out until his breathing is ragged and his hand tightens gently in your hair. Eventually, he tugs you up gently, eyes blazing.

"Kiss me," he whispers, pulling you on top of him.

You do, tongues tangling as he sits up and shuffles you into his lap, his slick cock pressing against your heat. You groan, rolling your hips, feeling him slide against you, cockhead bumping your clit with each pass. He makes a wrecked sound before reaching between you, guiding the head of his cock to catch on your entrance, hesitating only a second before he presses in and you both gasp into each other's mouth.

Once he’s fully seated, he wraps his arms around you, holding you close in his lap. He rocks up into you with slow, deep rolls of his hips, grinding against that perfect spot inside you with every movement while you cling to his shoulders, forehead pressed to his.

“I love you,” he murmurs against your lips. “So much.”

“I love you too,” you whisper back, rolling your hips to meet his slow thrusts.

He's deep, each stroke of his cock making you see stars, dizzy as you roll your hips into him, chests pressed together. His hands roam your back, your waist, your thighs, grounding you as you suck in a sharp breath, the pleasure nearly overwhelming.

Seungcheol shifts you both without warning, turning you on your side until he's behind you and one of his arms wraps around your waist while the other slides under your neck. He presses in again, the slide wet and hot, making you arch back into him, lashes fluttering. His thrusts remain slow while he presses wet kisses along your shoulder and the back of your neck.

“You feel incredible,” he groans, voice low in your ear. "So fucking warm and tight."

You moan softly, pushing back against him, lost in the steady rhythm. His hand slides down to circle your clit with perfect pressure, drawing out your pleasure until you’re trembling in his arms. When you finally come, it's with the sound of his name in your mouth as you clench around him, squeezing hard. It makes him follow you shortly after, his hips stuttering before he buries himself to the hilt and spills inside you.

You stay like that for a long time afterward, trying to catch your breath, the room spinning. The room is quiet except for your shared, slowing breaths and the distant sound of rain beginning to fall on the Belgian countryside, the maddening thoughts and spiralling finally coming to an end.

"I finally feel happy," Seungcheol murmurs, voice sleepy. "You make me happy."

"You make me happy too."

Seungcheol presses a kiss to the back of your neck before drifting to sleep with you in his arms.

-

Subject: Re: Opportunity - Executive Role at Apex Management Mrs. Moreau, Thank you for reaching out and for your kind words. I apologize for the delayed response, my current driver certainly keeps me on my toes, as he has since we were kids. I was genuinely surprised and flattered to receive your email. The vision you describe for Apex Driver Management is exciting and much needed in our industry. The opportunity to help shape manager training, oversee driver portfolios, and build better support systems for athletes resonates deeply with me. After years of hands-on experience managing a top-level driver through the unique pressures of Formula 1, I believe I could bring valuable perspective to this role. I would very much like to schedule a confidential conversation to discuss the position in more detail. My schedule is quite full with the current race weekend, but I am available for a call early next week if that works for you. Thank you again for thinking of me. I look forward to speaking soon. Here is to overtaking the competition.

[sailorsoons]

Overtake | Part II (c.sc)

PAIRING: Mercedes!Driver Seungcheol x f. reader Summary: Seungcheol and your brother Joshua battle over everything - pole positions, championships, the title of Mercedes’ best driver. The one thing they were never supposed to fight over was you.  WC: 19,882 GENRE: Exes to Lovers, Best Friends to Lovers, Brother’s BFF AU: Smut, Angst RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. WARNINGS: Lost of tension and angst, reader sacrifices what she wants constantly for Joshua (her brother) and feels like she is responsible for him, mentions of a parent’s death, petty drama, non-linear storytelling, Joshua and Seungcheol are both unfair and stupid in a lot of parts of this, explicit language, feelings of betrayal/sneaking around, sexually explicit content including oral (m. receiving), vaginal fingering, thigh riding, use of pet names baby) multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, biting and a bit of messiness, reader and Joshua really get into it and have it out in front of people, lots of deep convos, everything resolves happily I promise. A/N:This fic is for the amazing Lights Out Collab hosted by @studiosvt! A/N 2: I am so sorry this is so late I have moved across the country, had a bunch of things go wrong, and took a ton of L's today. This is not beta read AT ALL and there will be errors I am so so sorry.

MASTERLIST | ASK | LIGHTS OUT COLLAB | PART ONE

CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA | 2025 POST-QUALIFIYING 307.236 KM | 66 LAPS

The Catalan sun is a white-hot coin in a flat, cloudless sky. It's a good day for racing, the asphalt hot as a skillet with visible heatwaves. Despite it only being qualifying, the grandstands are filled, rows of red-and-yellow flags whipping and snapping. You can see them over the pitwall, screaming as cars fly by.

Sweat gathers at the small of your back, sticky and uncomfortable. You love Spain - love the smell of bougainvilleas and hibiscus - but it's sweltering in the garage where you're tucked away with no breath of wind.

You can taste the salt and hot rubber on every breath, the smell of grease and exhaust wafting in. The smell clings to the Mercedes polo like a second skin, and faintly, you think how nice it would be to shower right now.

A shower has to wait, though. Your eyes are fixed on the screen in front of you, helmet on your head with one ear pulled off so you can hear the roar of the engines and the distant metallic shriek of a socket gun.

The times on the TV flicker, each tenth of a second clawed back and lost back and forth. On your screen, Joshua is hunting pole position like a wolf that can smell blood while Seungcheol hunts Joshua.

Right now, Joshua holds the fastest time in Q3, flying around the curve of Turn 3. He's on his fastest and his last lap of the session, but Seungcheol's time is a heartbeat away trying to scrape past Joshua to claim pole.

You watch, fingers clutching your tablet as Joshua flies down the straight, something sparking. You can barely breathe, eyes focused on Joshua as he finishes his lap. He's the fastest of the day on the grid, but Seungcheol is flying as he nears Turn 10.

It happens in slow motion as the rear steps out and the car oversteers. Despite knowing he's chasing your brother, your heart squeezes as the tires lose grip and Seungcheol fishtails and goes wide.

Half the garage detonates as Joshua locks in for pole position while the other half deflates as Seungcheol loses his speed and destroys the lap. Both Ferrari cars fly past as he corrects himself and finishes out the last of his time, securing P5.

Someone shakes you on your shoulders as they go by. You give them a smile but it feels too tight as you peel the headset off, cutting off Joshua's exhilarated laugh. You're happy for Joshua - you are. But there's a sting at knowing how defeated Seungcheol is going to be, a tiny part of you winching at the mistake.

Mistake.

You both seem to be making a lot of those, recently. Some bigger than others. You try not to think about that night in Monaco, though. Thinking about it takes you down a dangerous path you don't know how to walk, and you'd prefer to just ignore it. Pretend it didn't happen.

So you do exactly that. You dodge Seungcheol - which, as busy as you are, is easy - and you keep your head down, burying yourself in work and going to lunch and dinner with your brother and keeping sponsors and media happy. It's the only thing saving you from the confused and frustrated looks the other Mercedes driver has been giving you across the paddock at every opportunity.

You begin the walk in the hot sun toward the press conference room in lockstep with Mercedes media team, head down looking over requests and questions. You hardly hear her as she speaks, your mind still stuck on the slipping end of a Mercedes car that doesn't belong to your brother. You know Seungcheol will be livid, and you're equal parts anxious and empathetic.

The press conference area is a zoo of cameras and buzz of voices. A handle from Mercedes is already with Joshua who sees you and grins bright as the Spanish sun. You grin back, shooting him a two finger salute before pointing to a distant corner you'll be standing and monitoring. He gives a wave back, heading toward a seat between Kim Mingyu and Lee Seokmin, P2 and P3 respectively.

You linger toward the edge of the media scrum, watching as the press conference kicks off in full. It's nice to see Joshua at the top again, all smiles and fluent Spanish, charming the crowd the way he always has.

Despite feeling like he's the number two driver, Joshua has always been better with the media than Seungcheol. There is a charming but clinical precision to the way Joshua presents himself, every answer measured, every microexpression practiced. You think of the mock interviews you used to give him when you were kids, mouth twitching. He was born for this, despite his challenges.

The back of your neck buzzes as someone steps into your orbit, the smell of oil and cedar hitting you. A shiver threatens to slither up your spine and you stiffen, knowing immediately who it is.

"Hi," he murmurs, warm breath ghosting the shell of your ear briefly.

You barely turn your head a fraction of an inch to look at him. He's still in his race suit, the top rolled to the waist and tied. His hair is damp under the team hat, exhaustion written all over his face. Your heart twinges, noting the dark circles, the frustration pinched in the corners of his mouth.

"You're supposed to be doing interviews," you murmur, turning back to face forward.

"I did mine. Avoiding me again?"

You swallow. "I've been-"

"Busy. Yeah. Heard that line before." He shifts and his arm grazes your elbow briefly as he leans against a pillar. You can feel the heat radiating from him, your heart racing. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hurt."

It feels like a knife to the ribs. You feel his words land, a physical thing. For a second, you don't know what to say. You stare as Joshua laughs at something a reporter says, bright and careless.

Your eyes flick around but no one is watching you. "This isn't the place for this conversation."

"Fine, let's go somewhere else."

"Cheol."

"I don't mean right now." He pushes off the pillar and leans forward, hand quick. You feel something slide into your pocket and jolt, but he's already moving away. "Room 2418. If you want to talk, come find me. If you don't I'll leave you alone. Promise."

Before you can react, Seungcheol is gone as quickly as he came. You turn to look at him but he's already gone, pressing through a sea of bodies watching the presser. You feel your stomach sink, the weight of the room key burning in your back pocket like a brand.

Breathing shakily, you look back at the stage where Joshua is listening to Mingyu answer something, his mouth permanently affixed in a grin. You're so happy for him - you are. Spain is a good track for him, and starting on pole gives him a great chance at winning tomorrow.

So why don't you feel as happy as you should?

The key card is heavy in your back pocket, burning through denim. You don't dare touch it, trying to ignore it. But every time you move - walking to the paddock, sitting down to take a video conference - you feel it there, a tiny piece of plastic that has no right to be so invasive.

You spend the rest of the afternoon on autopilot, barely able to think straight. You manage to get through media debrief in the hospitality suite while Joshua recaps his lap in soundbites. You even manage to get through a call and remind Joshua that he's due to mention a partner in tomorrow's pre-race interviews.

But as soon as the sky begins to turn indigo and the sun begins to bleed orange across the track, you know the clock is winding down. You feel every tenth of a second like a qualifying lap, the meter going down down down until you have to make a choice.

Joshua finds you outside of the motorhome. He's traded the race suit for a linen shirt with the sleeves rolled and jeans, hair still damp from a shower. He grins when he sees you, slinging his arm around your neck as he pulls you toward the cars.

"Dinner to celebrate. There's a place on the beach that apparently has amazing paella."

Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth. "Can't. I've got some calls to finish up. Time difference shit."

He squints at you. "You've been weird."

"I'm always weird."

"Yeah, well, the weirdness has increased. Is everything okay?"

"For sure. Just tired, the season is long."

"Hmm." He flicks your forehead and pushes you toward the open door of your car. "You're a bad liar. Don't stay up too long, yeah?"

He jogs toward another one of the cars, members of the team waiting for him. You give them a wave, feeling like a stone has dropped low in your stomach. You slip into your car to take you back to the hotel, feeling the press of the room key as you sit in the leather interior.

Outside, the world melts. You watch it with your forehead pressed to the cool glass of the window, villas and buildings stretching out on either side of the winding rows. Splashes of bougainvillea and hibiscus pour over walls and distant trellises, a world full of color you barely register on the drive.

It's dark by the time you're back in your own room. You stand there with the curtains open, the city glittering below. You don't turn on the lights as you begin to pace, phone in one hand, the other pressed over your pocket.

Cursing, you storm off to the bathroom to take the longest shower of your life. The water doesn't burn the desire out of you no matter how high you turn up the temperature. It doesn't wash away the way you feel even though your fingers and toes prune, begging to dry off.

Waterlogged and feeling no better, you blow dry your hair even though you're not going out. You do anything to distract yourself - iron clothes for the next day. Make some phone calls. Answer some emails. But you eventually run out of things to do and your jeans stare at you from the floor.

You know the room key is in there.

Monaco feels like a mistake. Or, it feels like it should be a mistake. The panic you'd felt when Joshua started calling you while you were still in bed with Seungcheol had been real, the guilt enough to make you panic while Seungcheol watched you with unreadable eyes and a guarded expression as you dressed.

But the feelings were just as real as the panic. You'd felt the sheer joy of getting to have him, the relief of touching him. It felt right to be with Seungcheol - righter than anything else in your life. But you know it's supposed to feel wrong.

Still. Still.

Seungcheol just wants to talk. You could do talking, maybe sort this out. Tell him that can never happen again, because no matter how right it felt, he wasn't made to be with you. Or you weren't made to be with him. You're not sure the semantics matter, but you know it'll never work, because you'll never be able to choose between him and family.

And they always want you to choose.

You're moving before your brain catches up. You snatch the key card from your jeans and slip it into the pocket of your shorts. The hallway is cold when you slip out, closing the door quietly. There's no one around to catch you - not that anyone would think it was weird that you were leaving your room anyway.

Your heart ricochettes against your ribs as you get onto the elevator and punch the 24th floor. As it ascends, you can't help but remember the last time you did this - the way he'd told you to tell him to stop, the way he kissed you and pressed you against the elevator wall.

A shiver ripples through you. You fight it off as the elevator opens and you move into the hall, pulse thrumming. The hallway is silent, carpet absorbing your steps as you near his door. 2418 is at the very end of the corridor, far from the elevators.

You stop in front of the door and stand there, key card in hand. You lift the card then lower it. Lift it again. Your hand is shaking when you finally tap it against the reader and the light goes green, the lock clicking softly. Swallowing thickly, you open the door and slide through the gap.

It's dim inside, the room lit only by a single bedside lamp. Seungcheol is in bed, leaning against the headboard with a book in his lap. Your pulse jumps when you see him. He's shirtless in sweatpants slung low on his hips, hair messy. He looks up at you in surprise and snaps the book shut.

"You came," he says, voice rough. The relief that floods his face is so raw you feel uneven. "Hi."

Carefully, you enter the room. You don't go over to the bed - it feels too dangerous. So you linger near the couch, watching him swing his legs off the bed as he sits up. He doesn't get up, his eyes clocking the distance you keep between you.

"That can't happen again," you murmur, wrapping your arms around your middle. It's cold in his room, the chill seeping in. "What happened in Monaco can't happen again."

He stiffens. "Okay. Tell me why."

"Because he's my brother. Because you're teammates. Because if anyone were ever to find out, it would be a mess in the media and fuck things up for you both again - for me."

"I don't care what the fucking media thinks-"

"I do!" Your voice cracks. "And it isn't just the media and Joshua. It's you."

His face shutters, expression becoming guarded. "What do you mean?"

"How long until you try to make me choose again? How long until you're asking me to pick between you and family?"

He sighs. "I already said I was wrong for that."

"What if it happens again? Or what if Joshua does it?" You sniff, feeling your throat tighten. "Do you know what it's like for the two of you to jockey me? To treat me like I'm one of your races and not a person?"

For a few moments, Seungcheol is quiet. He watches you with that steady expression of his and it makes you want to scream. Not in anger but in agony, because you can see the softening of his expression, see the way he does get it. The way what you're saying makes sense to him.

Seungcheol starts to stand and you take a step back. He holds his hands up in a white flag, trying not to scare you off. You eye him warily and he just stands, watching you with dark eyes.

"I know," he says softly. "I know. It isn't fair. Never was. You have spent your entire life dedicated to your brother and at times, me. All I'm asking is what you want. Because if you do want me, if any part of you wants this-" Seungcheol flicks his fingers between you. "- I will make it work. I'll go at your pace. I'll wait until you're ready. I will never make you choose again."

"Cheol."

"I'm serious. I cannot fathom pretending I don't love you anymore. I cannot stand the stilted conversations and being iced out. I cannot stand not getting to hear you tell me I'm braking too late or that my push pace was shit."

Love. He says the word so easily, like he has no idea that your heart catches on it and runs with it. You stare at him, opening mouthed, pulse hammering. He takes one slow step toward you, palms still raised like you're a spooked animal about to bolt.

"I'm done pretending," he says again, quieter this time. "I hate acting like I don't notice the way you look at me when you think I'm not watching. Done pretending I don't have the hoodie you stole from me in 2017 folded in my suitcase cause it still smells like you."

Your lungs stutter. He keeps walking toward you and you let him until his feet almost brush yours. The air between you smells like cedar and hotel soap, the air charged as you lift your eyes to meet his.

"I love you." The words land between you. "I love you and I will not make you choose me or your brother because I want you to choose yourself. I have loved you since we were sixteen and you fell asleep on my shoulder during flights. Since you let me fall asleep on yours at the Canadian Grand Prix."

Your eyes burn. You blink hair, but the tears come anyway. He softens when he sees them. "And I'm sorry that you're crying because I love you."

You make a wounded sound, that's stuck between a sob and a laugh. "You idiot. You can't just - say all of that and expect me not to cry."

"I know." He lifts a hand, slow enough that you could dodge if you wanted. You don't. His thumb brushes the tears away from your eyes. "I love you enough to want you to choose whatever you want. Even if it isn't me. But I need you to hear it, in case any part of you does want this-"

"Of course there is," you choke out. The confession immediately makes you feel lighter and you chase the feeling, needing to get the words out. "I've always wanted this. But I don't think that it works."

"Do you want to try?"

 The question hangs between you like a live wire, sparking and humming with possibility. Seungcheol stands so close that you can feel the warmth rolling off his bare chest, his thumb still gently brushing the last of your tears from your cheek. His eyes are steady, patient in a way that makes your chest ache. He’s not pushing. Not demanding. Not forcing you to choose. He's just asking.

You swallow hard, your heart a frantic drum against your ribs. You think of the docs in Miami, of Monaco, of the way his mouth felt against yours in the elevator. The terror of watching Joshua's car slam into the barrier while Seungcheol fought for the win - years of being the buffer, the manager, the sister, the peacekeeper - never just you.

You think about the little girl who used to chase two boys around karting tracks, handing them water bottles and yelling lap times from the sidelines. You think about who you are now, exhausted from carrying everyone else’s dreams, from managing schedules and emotions and rivalries that were never supposed to fracture the way they did. You think about all the nights you lay awake wondering what your life would look like if you stopped orbiting Joshua and Seungcheol and started chasing something yourself.

"I…" Your voice cracks, throat dry. You clear your throat and try again, steadier this time. "I do. I want to try. For me."

The relief that floods Seungcheol’s face is immediate and devastating. His shoulders drop, the tension bleeding out of him as though he’s been holding his breath for a year. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how the hell we’re going to figure this out. I don’t know how to do this without blowing everything up. But I want to try for once. I want to do something because I want it."

Seungcheol’s hand slides from your cheek to cup the side of your neck, his thumb stroking along your jaw. “We’ll go slow. Your pace. No pressure. No ultimatums. I swear it.”

You nod, even as fresh tears slip down your cheeks. He catches them with his lips this time, soft, reverent kisses pressed to the corners of your eyes, your temples, the bridge of your nose. When his mouth finally finds yours, it’s gentle. But the moment you lean into him, fingers curling into the warm skin of his waist, the kiss deepens.

Seungcheol tastes like toothpaste and hotel water and something undeniably him. You sigh into his mouth, letting him pull you closer until your bodies are flush. His free hand settles at the small of your back, guiding you as he walks backward toward the bed. When the backs of his knees hit the mattress, he sits down and tugs you with him so you’re straddling his lap.

“Still okay?” he whispers against your lips, giving you every chance to stop.

"Yes."

His hands roam slowly, mapping the curves of your waist and hips over the thin fabric of your shorts and t-shirt. You rock experimentally against him, feeling the hard line of his cock already straining against his sweatpants. The friction sends a spark of heat through you, and you do it again, deliberately this time.

Seungcheol groans low in his throat. “Fuck."

You smile into the next kiss, bolder now as your hands slide up his chest and over the firm planes of muscle until your fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. He tilts his head to deepen the kiss, tongue sliding against yours in a slow rhythm that mirrors the way you're grinding on his thigh.

He shifts you slightly, flexing his thigh beneath you and you gasp at the sudden pressure against your pussy. Even through the layers of fabric, the sensation is enough to make your head spin. Seungcheol notices immediately and grins, one of his large hands gripping your hip to encourage you to move more.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, voice rough with want. “Ride my thigh, baby."

Heat floods your face at the words, but you don’t stop. You roll your hips again, slower this time, savoring the drag of fabric against your clit. Seungcheol watches you with dark, hooded eyes, his free hand slipping beneath the hem of your t-shirt to trace warm circles over the bare skin of your lower back.

You're already wet, soaking through your panties as you roll your hips, lashes fluttering. The friction builds steadily and you whimper into his mouth. He swallows every sound you make, kissing you like he's trying to make up for lost time.

His other hand drifts lower, slipping beneath the waistband of your shorts. He doesn’t push them down though, instead pushing them just enough to the side to slide his fingers past the edge of your underwear. When his fingers brush against your cunt, you both moan, panting into each other's mouths when you break apart.

“So wet already,” he rasps. “All for me?”

You nod frantically, hips stuttering against his thigh. “Cheol."

“I’ve got you.”

Two thick fingers glide through your wet pussy before circling your swollen clit with perfect pressure. Your head falls forward, forehead pressing to his as you pant against his lips, shivering. It feels so good, heat blooming in your stomach as you chase the feeling, two of his fingers sliding slowly into your entrance. He keeps his strokes steady and slow, building you up without frantically rushing you.

Every stroke sends a wave of pleasure up your spine and you clutch at his shoulders, nails digging into the skin as you rock harder against his thigh. You feel your orgasm building low in your stomach, tight and inevitable.

Seungcheol kisses you again, messy and deep, swallowing your whimpers as he works you, his thumb circling your clit. You’re trembling now, thighs tightening around his as you chase the building pleasure.

"That's my girl," he whispers, lips brushing your ear. “So fucking pretty like this. Taking what you want. Let me feel you come.”

The words tip you over the edge and your orgasm crashes through you. Your hips jerk against his thigh as waves of pleasure roll over you, clenching around his fingers while he keeps moving them gently, drawing it out until you’re shaking and oversensitive. He presses soft kisses to your neck, your shoulder, anywhere he can reach while you come down.

You’re still panting, forehead pressed to his collarbone, when his alarm suddenly blares from the nightstand. The sharp, insistent tone slices through the hazy afterglow like a bucket of cold water. Seungcheol curses under his breath, reaching over blindly to silence it without letting you go.

“Shit. Sorry,” he mutters, voice hoarse. “That’s my stupid sleep reminder. Team physio has me on a strict schedule this weekend.”

You let out a breathless laugh, still boneless in his lap. “Of course you have an alarm for sleep.”

“Gotta keep the machine running.” His arms tighten around you, one hand still resting possessively on your hip. “Stay with me tonight?”

The question is soft, almost hesitant, like he’s bracing for you to pull away again. But the thought of leaving this room, of going back to your own cold bed and the swirling thoughts that always wait for you there, feels unbearable right now.

You nod against his chest. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

Seungcheol sighs in relief. He carefully maneuvers you both until you’re lying down, pulling the covers over you. You curl into his side instinctively, one leg draped over his, your cheek pressed to the steady thump of his heart. Seungcheol reaches over to switch off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. His fingers trace lazy patterns up and down your spine, soothing and grounding. You listen to the rhythm of his breathing, feeling the last remnants of tension drain from your body.

“I meant what I said,” he whispers eventually, lips brushing the top of your head. “We’ll figure it out. No rush. No choosing. Just us, however that looks."

"I know. I believe you.”

Seungcheol’s arms wrap more securely around you, pulling you impossibly closer. The steady rise and fall of his chest, the warmth of his skin, the familiar scent of him - it lulls you, your eyelids growing heavy as sleep pulls at you.

“Night, baby,” he murmurs.

You manage a quiet hum in response, fingers curling loosely into his side. For once, you’re not thinking about Joshua, or the team, or the media, or what tomorrow’s race will bring. You’re not calculating risks or managing expectations. You’re simply here in Seungcheol's arms, and you finally fall asleep peacefully.

-

CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA | 2025 RACE DAY 307.236 KM | 66 LAPS

The morning light filters through a gap in the heavy hotel curtains, warming your face as you frown, waking slowly. The second warmth you feel is coming from behind you, a solid body pressed to your back and heavy arms wrapped around you, one thigh slung over yours.

For one perfect, suspended moment, everything feels right. No paddock tension, no media scrutiny, no brotherly responsibilities clawing at the edges of your mind. Just the quiet weight of him, the faint scent of his skin and last night’s hotel soap.

Then reality crashes in.

Your eyes snap open fully. The digital clock on the nightstand reads 7:42 AM. Race day. Barcelona. You are late.

“Shit,” you whisper, heart instantly jackrabbiting.

You have a dozen things scheduled before the drivers even head to the garage - strategy briefings, sponsor check-ins, media coordination, Joshua’s pre-race routine. You were supposed to be up at 6:30 at the latest. You try to extricate yourself without waking Seungcheol, but the moment you shift, he tightens his hold instinctively, a low, sleepy rumble vibrating against your shoulders.

"Five more minutes," he croaks.

“We don’t have five minutes,” you hiss, half-laughing, half-panicking as you peel his arm off. “Cheol, I’m so late. I have to go.”

He cracks one eye open, taking in your disheveled state and the urgency on your face. Understanding dawns quickly. He sits up on one elbow, hair adorably mussed, the sheet pooling low around his hips. The sight is distractingly tempting, but you force yourself to focus.

He reaches for his phone on the nightstand, but you’re already scrambling out of bed, hunting for your bra and shorts. "Sorry, I should have set an alarm for you."

“No time. I need to get back to my room, shower, change." You look in the mirror and hiss. "My hair is a mess."

Seungcheol swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands, crossing the room in two strides to catch your wrist gently before you can bolt. “Hey. Breathe."

"You're right, sorry. But I really have to run. Joshua’s probably already wondering where I am.”

He nods, expression softening. He leans in and presses a quick, firm kiss to your forehead. “Text me when you can. And good luck today. Both of you."

You manage a small smile, squeeze his hand once, and then you’re slipping out the door with your shoes in hand, padding barefoot down the carpeted hallway. The elevator ride to your floor feels eternal, and by the time you burst into your own room, your phone is already exploding.

You snatch it off the charger. 14 missed calls. 27 new messages.

You hit Joshua’s name first as you simultaneously kick off last night’s clothes and turn the shower on full blast. The call connects on the second ring.

“Where the hell are you?” Joshua’s voice is sharp with worry. I’ve been calling for twenty minutes. You never sleep through alarms. Are you sick? Did something happen?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine," you insist, hopping on one foot while trying to wrangle a clean towel. “Overslept. Badly. I’m in my room now, jumping in the shower. I’ll be ready in fifteen, tops.”

“Fifteen? We’re supposed to leave for the circuit in twenty. The car’s waiting downstairs."

"Well I need fifteen, Josh."

He pauses, and you can practically hear him narrowing his eyes the way he does when he knows you’re skating around something. “You sound out of breath. Were you running? Did you go for a run this morning without telling me?”

"No, I'm just rushing you idiot. Let me get ready!"

The shower is the fastest, most utilitarian one of your life and you leave your hair wet as you pull on a Mercedes polo, team issued pants, and comfortable sneakers. You grab a protein bar from the minibar on the way out, and you manage to get to the elevator with three minutes left to spare.

Your phone buzzes again as the elevator descends and when you look down, you can't help but smile.

Seungcheol: Hope you made it out okay. Love you.

Your heart does something terrifying as you re-read it. You're happy - genuinely, stupidly happy in a way that feels entirely dangerous. You feel out of sorts too, though, like your carefully constructed world has tilted overnight and you're still trying to find your footing.

You fire back a quick reply while speed-walking through the lobby, chewing your lip to hide the smile the entire time.

You: Made it ok. Love you too.

Joshua is already waiting near the entrance, arms crossed, looking every inch the polished driver in team gear with a cap pulled low. His eyes scan you the moment you appear, taking in your slightly flushed cheeks and the way you’re still catching your breath.

“You look like you sprinted here,” he says. “Seriously, what’s up? You’re never late. Not like this.”

Both of you head to the team car, the driver already waiting for you. You slide into the backseat, buckling up as the car pulls away from the hotel. Barcelona's streets are already buzzing with fans in team colors and flags waving from balconies.

“I told you, overslept," you insist. "Phone was on silent. Won’t happen again.”

He studies you for a long moment, the kind of big-brother scrutiny that used to make you confess to stealing his snacks as kids. “You sure that’s all? You’ve been kind of distracted since Miami if I'm going to be honest with you."

Your stomach twists. Just a lot on my plate. Sponsors, media requests, keeping the narrative straight between you two after that interview. The usual circus.” You force a smile and nudge his knee with yours. “Focus on the race, okay? Pole position. You’ve got this. I’ll handle everything else.”

“Fine. But we’re talking later. No dodging.”

The drive to Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is mercifully short, the car weaving through traffic as fans stream toward the gates. Support races are already underway or wrapping up, the air thrumming with anticipation for the main event. You feel that familiar sense of excitement for Joshua, nerves for the team, and now something new and fluttery when you think about Seungcheol.

By the time you reach the paddock, the Mercedes garage is a hive of controlled chaos with mechanics swarming the cars, engineers hunching over laptops and staff coordinating interview slots. The smell of hot rubber, fuel, and polished carbon fiber hits you and helps you slip seamlessly into manager mode.

Joshua heads off for a quick physio session and final driver briefing while you hover near the hospitality area, answering emails and fielding questions, but your mind keeps drifting. Every time you catch a glimpse of black team polos or hear a familiar low laugh, your pulse jumps.

Seungcheol is somewhere in the garage too, no doubt going through his own pre-race rituals, but you don't seek him out, knowing it's too risky in the daylight with everyone watching.

The morning blurs. Drivers’ parade, more media, team photos, final strategy notes. Joshua is focused, locked in, the way he gets before a race. You stick close, offering the usual encouragement, the two-finger salute that’s been your ritual since you were kids and he returns it with a grin that doesn’t quite hide his own underlying tension.

You feel happy and light in a way you haven't in months. Still, you feel like you're living two lives in one body: the competent, protective sister and manger, and the woman who spent last night in Seungcheol's lap, coming apart under his hands while he whispered that he loved you.

It's hard to reckon with, but you force yourself through lunch, picking at a salad and barely tasting it while Joshua reviews notes with his race engineer. Your phone buzzes again under the table.

Seungcheol: Saw you from across the paddock earlier. You look good in the team kit. Professional. Hot. Seungcheol: Thinking about how you sounded last night. Trying very hard not to think about it during briefing. Failing.

Heat floods your face. You type back quickly under the table.

You: Stop. I’m working. You’re going to get us both in trouble. Seungcheol: Worth it. Good luck kiss later? Quick one. Promise I’ll be careful.

Your stomach flips. You don’t reply immediately, but the promise lingers as the afternoon wears on with the usual race day cadence. The grandstands fill steadily in the distance, the Catalan sun high and merciless as it turns the asphalt into a shimmering heat haze.

Autopilot is your best friend as you navigate your duties and answer phone calls, and by the time you're in the garage and coming alive for the race, you're blinking like you've just woken up from a dream, unsure how you got here.

Joshua looks sharp and focused as you talk him through his notes, squeezing his shoulder, same routine as always. He nods and kisses you on the head before rolling his shoulders and heading over to talk to his engineer, keeping his limbs loose.

You feel a light tap on your elbow then, barely there. You turn slightly to see Seungcheol passing behind you, seemingly on his way to his room in the garage. His expression is neutral and professional, but when he looks at you, his eyes are dark. He tilts his head toward the hall that leads to the drive rooms before he turns and vanishes down them.

Your heart leaps. You wait a beat, then follow at a casual pace, pretending to check something on your tablet.

The hallway is quiet, dimmer, the roar of the circuit muffled. Seungcheol is waiting just around the corner, out of sight. The moment you step close enough, he gently pulls you further in, one hand on your waist, the other cupping the back of your neck.

“Hi,” he breathes, voice low and warm, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His hair is still slightly damp from whatever prep he just finished, and he smells like his cologne mixed with the garage. "Doing okay?"

"Hi," you whisper. "I think so. We shouldn't-"

“I know. Ten seconds."

Before you can overthink it, he leans in and kisses you. It's soft at first, then deeper, a searing reminder that he's serious about this - about you. His lips move against yours with quiet hunger, tongue just grazing yours before he pulls back, forehead resting briefly against yours.

"Be safe," you murmur. "Please."

"I promise." He steals one last soft peck, then steps back, putting professional distance between you again. His eyes linger, dark and full of too many things to name here. “See you after.”

He slips out first, rejoining the controlled chaos of the garage like nothing happened. You follow a moment later, heart racing, lips tingling and a stupid smile on your face as he jogs to the car and pulls on his balaclava before the helmet, hopping into the seat.

Arms crossed, you watch the formation lap unfold under the blazing sun, the two Mercedes cars gleaming as they roll out from the grid. Joshua starts on pole, the car flowing easily through sector one as the rest of the drivers form up behind him. Seungcheol cruises in P5, but you know even from there he's lethal. He's always driven better when he has something to prove.

You stand in your usual spot near the monitors, headset snug over one ear, tablet clutched tight. Wonwoo lingers nearby, but he says nothing, just as focused on the start of the race as you are, watching the red lights flicker down until it's lights out.

Joshua gets a perfect launch, maintaining the lead into Turn 1 while the field bunches up behind him. Seungcheol makes an aggressive move on the inside of the long run to the first corner, dispatching one of the Ferraris and slotting into P4 almost immediately. Your heart squeezes in victory, your hands tightening on your tablet as you watch them drive, the sound of radios crackling with their voices coming intermittently.

The first ten laps are relatively clean, Joshua defending easily while managing his tires with clinical precision. Behind him, Seungcheol is on the hunt, gaining inch by inch as he closes the gap on the cars ahead. By lap 15, he's already in P3, running an orange McLaren down brutally.

You can’t help stealing glances toward Seungcheol’s side of the garage whenever the cameras cut to his onboard. His focus is absolute, hands making minute corrections through the technical sector two. The car looks sharp today with better balance than yesterday, and you feel a spark of pride as he extracts everything he can out of the car.

Guilt is there too. You’re supposed to be wholly in Joshua’s corner and you are, but your heart has always been big enough for both of them, even when it hurts a little.

Mid-race pit stops begin. You watch with laser-like focus as Joshua boxes on Lap 22 for fresh mediums, rejoining just behind the McLaren as the undercut works in his favor. Seungcheol stays out a lap longer, pushing hard on older tires before diving in. When he rejoins, the gap has narrowed dramatically.

The tension thickens. You shift your weight from foot to foot, chewing the inside of your cheek. The sun beats down mercilessly, turning the garage into a sauna. Sweat trickles down your spine beneath your polo while you watch the monitors as Seungcheol begins a relentless chase.

Lap after lap, he closes in. By lap 35 the gap is under a second and the garage is both electric and nervous. A 1-2 win would be fantastic for Mercedes, but they've been here before when their drivers blew the lead and crashed into one another, sacrificing position for the win.

“Come on, Josh,” you mutter under your breath. “Hold him.”

But Seungcheol is on a mission and by Lap 42, he gets a strong run out of the final chicane and uses DRS down the main straight. Joshua defends the inside into Turn 1, but Seungcheol feints and switches late, forcing Joshua to cover. You hold your breath as they sweep into a complex turn, inches apart from one another at 300 km/h.

Joshua holds the lead out of the turn and you let out a breath, heart hammering. The team debates whether to ask for a position swap if the tires dictate it, but both drivers are pushing too hard for anyone to intervene lightly. You remember Suzuka. Singapore. The crashes. Your stomach knots tighter.

Seungcheol doesn’t let up. He tries again on lap 48, diving deeper into Turn 1, but Joshua slams the door shut as sparks fly from Seungcheol's front wing when he clips the curb on the exit. The crowd roars, watching the two Mercedes fight hard, but cleanly.

The final stint becomes a masterclass in driving. You watch as Seungcheol chews into the gap between him and Joshua, setting the fastest lap of the race thus far. Joshua’s engineer urges tire management while Seungcheol's pushes him to attack, both of them on entirely different strategies.

Turn 1 comes up again and the entire garage holds its breath as Seungcheol goes for the outside into the turn, forcing Joshua wide. They exit side-by-side again, but Joshua throws away tire strategy, climbing forward faster as he pushes the car to the absolute limit.

You grip your tablet so hard your knuckles ache, watching as they fight through the last lap, Seungcheol trying everything he can to claw past Joshua until the checkered flag is waving and you're letting out a shaky breath, light-headed from not breathing.

Joshua crosses the line first, a hard-fought victory that sends the Mercedes garage into an explosion of chaos. Mechanics cheer, high-fiving and clapping one another on the back while Seungcheol crosses just behind Joshua. It's a strong double podium for Mercedes, but you know Seungcheol will be frustrated.

The podium ceremony is electric, Spanish flash waving wildly in the grandstands as Joshua sprays champagne from the top step, grinning brightly. Seungcheol stands on the second step, hair damp with sweat and champagne, clapping politely. Then, to the visible surprise of everyone - including you - Seungcheol steps over during the celebrations and extends his hand to Joshua, pulling him into a firm, back-slapping hug.

The garage around you goes momentarily quiet before erupting in murmurs. You blink, stunned. It’s the most genuine public gesture of sportsmanship between them in over a year. Joshua looks momentarily thrown, patting Seungcheol’s back awkwardly before they separate. The cameras eat it up, and you can already imagine the headlines.

Post-race media and debriefs blur together in the usual whirlwind, Joshua fielding questions about the defense, tire management, and the intense battle with Seungcheol. Seungcheol is polite in his own press conference, praising the car and the team while admitting he gave it everything. The atmosphere in the Mercedes motorhome feels lighter than it has in months with points in the bag and double podium with no fights.

It's weird, but good,.

You’re still riding the high of Joshua’s win when he finds you in the hospitality suite later, freshly showered and changed into team polo and jeans. His hair is still damp, cheeks flushed from the podium champagne and the heat.

“Nice drive,” you tell him genuinely, pulling him into a quick hug. “You held him off like a champ. That battle in the middle stint was insane.”

“Yeah, it was.” Joshua’s smile is bright but there’s a thoughtful edge to it. He glances around, making sure no one is within earshot. “Did you see that on the podium? Him shaking my hand, clapping me on the back like we’re best friends again?”

You nod, keeping your expression neutral even as your pulse quickens. “I saw. Surprised everyone.”

“It was weird. Good weird? Maybe. But after everything, I don't know. Whatever. Don't make any plans tonight, okay? We're having dinner. I want to talk."

Your stomach drops a little. “Talk about what?”

“Everything. You’ve been off. The lateness this morning. The way you’ve been dodging questions."

"I'm fine."

He softens slightly, squeezing your shoulder. “You’re my sister first, manager second. I need to know what’s going on in your head. No blowing me off this time.”

You force a smile. “Okay. Dinner. Just us.”

He seems satisfied for now and heads off to do a quick sponsor appearance. You exhale shakily once he’s gone, pulling out your phone to see there’s already a text waiting.

Seungcheol: Everyone thought it was weird that I hugged him huh Seungcheol: I was feeling nostalgic. It was fun. Seungcheol: Plans later?

You bite your lip, thumbs hovering.

You: That was a hell of a drive. Very proud of you both. Dinner with Josh tonight.. he wants to talk. Will update you later. Seungcheol: Okay. Call me after. Let me know what you need from me. Love you.

The words burn as you stare at your phone, repeating them in your mind over and over again. Love you. Love you. Love you.

-

CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA | 2025 POST RACE 307.236 KM | 66 LAPS

The restaurant Joshua chooses sits tucked away in a quiet corner of Barcelona’s Eixample district, far from the noisy tourist crowds and the lingering post-race energy near the circuit. Ca L’Enric is unassuming from the outside with terracotta walls and a simple wooden door, but inside is full of soft golden light and dark wooden panels and shelves of aged wine.

You and Joshua sit at a corner table beside a tall window that opens onto a small private courtyard garden strung with delicate fairy lights. The evening air drifting in is still warm from the day’s heat, carrying faint hints of salt from the distant sea. Joshua orders a bottle of good local red without glancing at the wine list, intimately familiar with Spain and the list of wines here.

With win in hand, both of you lift your glasses, smiling as you tap them together with a shallow clink.

"To the win," Joshua says. "And to not crashing into my teammate."

You snort, sipping the wine. "Today was incredible. That's the kind of race dad would have been yelling the entire time."

The mention of your father settles over the table, heavy and solid. Joshua’s eyes soften, and he nods, leaning back in the chair as he blows out a heavy sigh.

"Yeah, he would have loved today." He chews on his lip. "He always said Barcelona was one of the best races on the calendar. Remember how he used to stand in the garage with that old clipboard and timed sectors by hand?"

The memory of your father - tall and steady with a presence that could command a room - rises sharp and vidi. He had poured everything into both boys’ dreams through karting and Formula 2. Losing him left a hole nothing has ever fully filled. You've tried - god you've tried - but you're not him. You don't know how to be, and you're not sure that you want to be.

“He would have been shouting strategy over the radio even if they told him not to,” you reply, voice thick. “Then he’d drag us all out for late-night calçots or whatever was in season and lecture us about tire management over dessert.”

“Exactly. He’d probably tell me I left a little too much room on the outside in Turn 4, though.”

The conversation flows naturally from there into the race itself, Joshua recounting everything in perfect detail. You listen intently, offering small strategic mentions you noted during his drive. He takes them in stride like he always has, not shying away from your recommendations or strategy. For a while, it feels easy. Familiar. Just the two of you breaking down the day the way you always have.

"Speaking of the race," Joshua says as the server brings over crispy tender grilled octopus sprinkled with paprika and olive olive, "That thing on the podium with Cheol was weird right?"

You keep your face carefully neutral, focusing on drizzling oil over a slice of warm bread. "Weird how? Surprising, I get. Media loved it though. Fans too."

"Sure. But it felt off. We haven’t had a civil moment like that in over a year. Not since Singapore really went to shit.” He pauses, chewing thoughtfully. “I keep replaying the crashes. Suzuka last year. Singapore the year before. Every time we get close, it gets worse, you know? He drove hard again today and I guess I kept waiting for him to crash into me."

You set your fork down, choosing your words with care. The old habit of playing buffer kicks in automatically, even as your own heart pulls in conflicting directions. “He’s always driven like that, Josh. Aggressive. All-in. It’s what makes him good. Today was no different, you were just the better driver."

Joshua’s gaze sharpens. “Since when are you playing devil’s advocate for him?"

"I'm not playing devil's advocate. I'm reminding you that you used to feed off each other on and off the track. Would it be so terrible to get back to that?"

"I'm sorry, are you saying it would be nice if we were friends again?"

The question lands like a precise jab to the ribs and heat creeps up your neck. Internally, your stomach twists at the memory of waking up wrapped in Seungcheol’s arms this morning, the taste of his desperate kiss in the hallway.

“We used to be friends," you point out. "All three of us. It would be nice if some of that could come back. Not exactly the same as it was, obviously. But less hostile maybe. The team suffers when you two are constantly at each other’s throats. And honestly? It’s exhausting watching you both tear into each other when I know how much you used to mean to one another.”

“We’ll never be friends again. Not like before. He made that clear when he told you to choose in the middle of the garage after he put me in the wall."

"Josh-"

"No." He leans on the table, eyes flashing. "You don't come back from that. In fact, hearing you say this is even crazier. What changed?"

His question hits hard. The quiet, stolen joy you have been carrying since last night dims under the weight of cold reality. Joshua’s certainty that there is no path back, no possibility of reconciliation makes the secret you're keeping even worse. You swallow against the sudden tightness in your throat.

"Nothing," you lie. "I'm just tired of all the anger, I guess. It's been years of this. I thought today might be a small step to healing. That's all."

The mains arrive at that moment and you're so relieved you could get on your knees and thank the server. The food smells incredible, but the growing tension has stolen most of your appetite. You push pieces around your plate while Joshua continues, his voice lower but no less intense.

“Talk to me. Really talk," he urges. "You’ve been weird for weeks. Oversleeping this morning, disappearing after quali yesterday, dodging my questions. And now this sudden softness toward Cheol? I know you better than anyone. What’s going on with you?”

The question opens a floodgate you have not fully prepared for. You take a slow sip of wine, letting the rich, earthy notes steady you. You don't know what to do. All you know is you can't tell him about Seungcheol - won't tell him about Seungcheol. Not yet. Not after hearing the finality in Joshua's assessment of their relationship.

“I’ve spent a lot of time being your manager,” you say finally, your voice quiet. “Since Dad passed, I stepped into that role completely. Making sure you have everything you need, fighting for your seat, handling sponsors, media, and all the drama between you and Seungcheol. I don’t regret it, Josh. Not for a second. You’re my brother. But.."

"But what?"

"Sometimes I wonder if there's anything else out there for me. I never really had the chance to try. Everything has always revolved around the next race, the next season, keeping the dream alive for both of you."

Joshua sets his fork down slowly. His brow furrows, a mix of surprise and defensiveness crossing his face. For a while, he's silent, staring at you from across the table, brows pinched, eyes dark. You don't eat - don't know how to, under that gaze.

Finally, he says, "You make it sound like I forced you into this or like I've been holding you hostage. Is that how you feel?"

"No, Josh. That isn't what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I was so young when it started, and then Dad got sick, and suddenly I was managing schedules and contracts while barely figuring out my own life. I don’t regret supporting you. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But I’ve never had real space to figure out what I want outside of all this. Does that make sense?"

"Not really, no."

You sigh in frustration. "What part is confusing?"

"The part where you want out."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. You stepped into Dad’s shoes because you wanted to. Because you’re good at it. Now you’re making it sound like I’ve been selfish for letting you.”

“That’s not fair,” you whisper fiercely, eyes stinging. “I’m not blaming you. I’m just… being honest for once. About how I feel. About how heavy it all is sometimes. You asked me what's wrong. I'm telling you."

A heavy silence falls over the table as your lamb gets cold. The server passes by a single time, sensing the tension before he pivots and darts away. Outside in the courtyard, the fairy lights sway gently in the evening breeze, casting dancing shadows across the stone path.

“I don’t want you to feel trapped," Joshua says eventually. "But this is all I've ever known too. Hearing you talk like this is scary."

"I'm sorry."

The rest of the meal passes in strained silence. You both pick at your food, the earlier warmth of shared memories replaced by a heavy, uncomfortable tension that lingers in the air long after the plates are cleared. When the check comes, neither of you fights over it the way you usually do. The walk back to the waiting car is quiet, the Barcelona night suddenly feeling cooler than it should.

By the time you reach the hotel, the happiness you felt this morning has dimmed. Joshua throws a wave goodnight, clipped and tired as he heads off, leaving you feeling stranded at sea.

You head to your room alone, the door clicking heavily behind you. You lean against it for a moment, eyes closed, letting the cool wood press into your back. The silence inside the room is almost suffocating after the heavy conversation at dinner. Your chest feels tight, your stomach still twisted from the argument with Joshua. You wonder if you should have told him about Seungcheol, if you should've just put it all out on the table.

No. Joshua doesn't do good with change. At least not all at once. He can barely chew on the idea of you being unsure if this career is what you should be doing long term, much less the idea that you're in a relationship - sort of - with Seungcheol.

You kick off your shoes and drop your bag on the chair by the desk. The room is dimly lit by a single lamp you left on earlier, Barcelona's city lights glowing faintly through the half-drawn curtains. You cross to the bed and sit on the edge, phone heavy in your hand. Your thumb hovers over Seungcheol’s contact for several long seconds before you finally tap it and bring the phone to your ear.

He answers on the third ring, his voice low and warm. "Hi, baby."

The simple endearment makes your eyes sting. You swallow hard, trying to keep your voice steady. “Hi. Are you alone?”

“Yeah. Just got back to my room a few minutes ago.” There’s a rustle of fabric on his end, like he’s settling back against the pillows. “How was dinner with Josh?”

"Not great."

Seungcheol is quiet for a beat, reading the tone in your voice immediately. “Talk to me. What happened?”

“We started off fine,” you say softly. “Talking about the race and dad and stuff. He brought up the podium with you today and said it felt weird."

I figured it might. I wasn’t trying to make a big statement. I just felt like it was old times, I guess, I don't know. It was a good fight."

“I know that,” you whisper. “But he didn’t see it that way. He started talking about Singapore again. Suzuka. All of the crashes. I suggested that maybe progress is good and how I miss you guys being close and he did not like that."

"Didn't like it how?"

"Didn't like that suddenly it felt like I was going easy on you and thought it was weird I was trying to recommend being friends again."

Seungcheol stays silent for a moment. You can almost picture him running a hand through his hair, jaw clenched the way it does when he’s processing something difficult. You hear him shift on the other end, blowing out a sigh.

“What did you tell him?” he asks eventually.

“I said we used to be friends and that it would be nice if some of that could come back, even if it's not the same. He shut it down hard, Cheol. Said you two will never be friends again after what happened in Singapore and after you… you know."

“Fuck,” he mutters. “I really fucked that night up, didn’t I?”

You don’t answer right away. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes as you stare at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol says. “I hate that you’re stuck in the middle again. That’s the last thing I want.”

"He's just stubborn. I think he hides behind the anger because the hurt is so bad. After that, the conversation kind of spiraled. He asked about me oversleeping and how distracted I've been and I was honest about struggling as his manager."

"What did he say?"

“He thought I was saying I regret supporting him. That I want out. We ended up arguing about it."

Seungcheol is quiet for a long moment. You can hear him breathing, steady but heavy. Then, "Do you want me to come over?"

"No," you murmur. "Everything just feels really out of balance right now. Hearing your voice is nice, though."

“You know I meant what I said last night, right?" The softness of his voice makes your throat tighten. "About not making you choose. About wanting you to figure out what you want. If you need space from the manager role, from constantly putting everyone else first I'll support that. If you need space from me, if you don't want to do this, I'll support that too."

It makes you cry. You hear him make a sound on the other end of the phone, like hearing you cry breaks something in him. He murmurs your name softly, the ache in his voice evident as you sniff into the phone, wiping your eyes.

"Sorry, you're just," you sniff again. "Stop being nice."

"You want me to stop being nice?"

"Yes!"

He hums. "I'll think about it. What do you need, baby?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm just scared. But I don't want to do the space thing with you. I really don't. I know that."

"Okay. Then we'll just figure it out a little at a time, okay?"

"Okay."

After a while, the conversation drifts into softer territory. He teases you gently about how fast you ran out of his room this morning. You laugh despite everything, telling him he’s lucky you didn’t trip in the hallway. He promises to set an alarm the next time, and the promise of next time warms you.

Eventually, Seungcheol’s voice grows softer. “You should try to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s another long day of travel."

“Okay.”

“I love you. We’ll figure this out. Whatever it takes.”

“I love you too,” you whisper back.

You stay on the phone a little longer, listening to each other breathe until your eyes grow heavy. When you finally hang up, the room feels a little less empty.

-

SMALL CHAPEL OUTSIDE LOS ANGELES | LATE 2021

Rain falls steadily outside, each droplet clinging to the trees and the sea of black umbrellas heading into the chapel. It's not the dramatic downpour of Suzuka or Miami, but it feels heavier. The air smells of wet earth, damp stone, and the faint sweetness of the white lilies arranged in heavy clusters around the altar.

Inside the chapel is warm but somber. Soft, grey light filters through the stained-glass windows, casting muted colors across the polished wooden pews. Candles flicker on tall stands, their flames trembling slightly with every quiet movement. The scent of melting wax mingles with the heavy perfume of flowers and it feels suffocating.

You sit in the front pew, shoulder pressed tightly against Joshua’s. Your black dress feels too formal, too stiff against your skin, and your hand is twisting fiercely with your brothers, knuckles aching with how hard he squeezes your hand. He hasn't let go since you've arrived. Neither of you speaks much - words feel inadequate. You've already said your piece to begin the funeral, and now it's just the murmured words of the pastor and old friends of your father.

Joshua’s eyes are red-rimmed but dry for the moment, his jaw locked in that familiar way he gets when he is trying desperately to hold himself together. He wears a simple black suit, the tie slightly crooked because he wouldn't let you fix it earlier. You lean your head against his shoulder, breathing in the faint scent of his cologne mixed with the rain that clung to his coat. He has always been your constant. Even as kids, when your father dragged him karting, Joshua was the one who made sure you had snacks, who let you ride on his back when you got tired, who kept you entertained on long trips.

Your father’s casket rests at the front, closed and draped with a simple white cloth and a single wreath of green leaves and white roses. Photos of him line the altar. You can barely look at them, honestly, but you remember each one in clear detail: him smiling proudly in the pit lane with young Joshua and Seungcheol in their karting suits, him with an arm around your shoulders at your high school graduation, him laughing in the garage with grease on his cheek and that clipboard always in hand.

Your father was the steady heartbeat of your world, a man who taught Joshua how to brake late and trust his instincts, who taught you how to read telemetry and st and tall in rooms full of powerful men. A man who believed so fiercely in you and his boys that he dedicated his life to you.

A quiet sob escapes you. Joshua immediately turns, wrapping his free arm around your shoulders and pulling you closer. "I've got you."

Seungcheol takes your other hand and rests it on his thigh. He arrived quietly and slid into the pew without a word, but the moment he sat down, his presence became an anchor. His broad frame is tense beneath his black suit jacket, dark hair neatly combed though a few strands have fallen forward.

The three of you sit together like you once did years ago in hotel rooms and airport terminals, a unit knit by grief. For a brief second, it feels like the old days, when the three of you were inseparable and your father was the steady heartbeat keeping you all together.

When it is time for eulogies, Joshua stands first. He reluctantly releases your hand, but Seungcheol’s hand stays wrapped around your fingers, grounding you while your brother walks to the front. Joshua’s voice is steady at the beginning, but it wavers as he speaks about the man who taught him everything.

“He gave us everything,” Joshua says, eyes flickering to you and Seungcheol. “And he never asked for anything back except that we chase our dreams with everything we have.”

When Joshua returns to the pew, his legs seem unsteady. You rise immediately and pull him into a tight hug so he can bury his face in your shoulder. Seungcheol stands and grips the both of you, pulling you both into his chest, arms holding you as close as possible with the same steady grip you've always known.

After the service, as people begin to file out into the rain, the three of you linger near the entrance. Joshua keeps one arm around your shoulders while Seungcheol stays close on your other side, his hand resting lightly at the small of your back as you step outside.

The drizzle has eased into a fine mist as the three of you form a small protective bubble from the world with your umbrellas.

"You're the only family I have left," Joshua says, looking at you and then to Seungcheol. "Both of you. It's us until the end, okay?"

Both of you nod and Joshua takes a deep breath, like the confirmation is what he needed to hear. As the rain continues to fall softly, you remain between your brother and Seungcheol, the three of you united in grief and whatever comes next.

-

SILVERSTONE CIRCUIT | 2025 POST-QUALIFYING 306.19KM | 52 LAPS

A grey sky hangs low over Silverstone, a shifting canvas of dark purples and gray that threaten rain. The air is heavy with the scent of damp grass and hot rubber as you cross the wet pavement and enter the hospitality suite on autopilot, tablet clutched in one hand. The suite is bustling with people and staff, the air conditioning too cold against your rain-damp skin. Outside the windows, the paddock is alive with movement as Mercedes prepares for its home race.

The past few weeks have been a delicate balancing act. Since Barcelona, you and Seungcheol have barely had any real time together. Stolen moments are all you can manage, quick brushes of hand in hallways, stolen kisses in a media room that's empty, a single sweaty night at the hotel in Austria. Each meeting leaves you buzzing with warmth, but the fear of what you're doing always lingers.

It also makes things more complicated. The more energy you pour into trying to ensure you have brief moments with Seungcheol, the more the cracks start to appear in everything else you do, especially with Joshua.

The list doesn't make you proud. A forgotten sponsor call, a missed minor media scheduling adjustment in Hungary, a late show to a briefing because you were trying to get dressed in a hotel room after a morning shower with Seungcheol that went far too long.

Joshua has noticed. The easy rhythm you once shared has gone strained and brittle, each conversation and meeting with your brother stiff and tense in the way only siblings who are fighting can fully understand.

Today's qualifying didn't help. Joshua had finished qualifying with a solid P4, but it isn't good enough for the home race and it certainly isn't good enough for him. His post-qualifying interview had been uncharacteristically sharp and clipped, and he'd snapped at a reporter who pressed him about team dynamics with Seungcheol.

You spot him the moment you step deeper into the hospitality suite, standing near the back, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he stares out at the circuit with a stormy expression. His hair is still damp from the quick shower after quali, and the lines around his mouth are drawn tight.

You approach carefully, eyeing him warily. "Josh."

He turns, and the look he gives you is equal parts exhaustion and frustration. “There you are. Finally.”

The tone stings. You set your tablet down on a nearby table. “I was handling the media fallout from the interview. It wasn’t great, but we can spin it. You were just being honest about the pressure.”

“Honest?” Joshua lets out a short, bitter laugh. “I sounded like an asshole. And you weren’t even there to pull me out of it in time. That’s your job, right?”

"I'm not your PR team nor am I your baby sitter. You know how to handle media. Don't take it out on me. I was dealing with other things."

“That’s the problem lately,” he says, voice rising slightly. A few heads turn in your direction before politely looking away. “You’re never where I need you to be. You forgot the sponsor briefing in France. You were late to a call yesterday. If you're going to hate being my manager, fine, hate it. But don't fucking suck at it."

"I don't hate being your manager, you ass," you snap back. "I'm doing my best here. The season is long. Everyone is tired. I'm juggling a lot. I told you. Don't throw it back in my fucking face."

"Well it's hard to tell if you just don't give a shit anymore. Is this about what we talked about in Barcelona? About you feeling lost? Because if you’re pulling away, at least be honest with me.”

His words cut deep, reopening the wound from that tense dinner. You open your mouth to respond when a familiar voice cuts through the tension from behind you. “Easy, Josh.”

Seungcheol appears at the edge of the conversation, still in his team polo, hair slightly tousled. He must have come straight from his own media duties. His presence is instinctive, and it sends a jolt through you. He steps closer, positioning himself slightly between you and your brother without fully blocking either of you.

"You guys are arguing in front of literally everyone," Seungcheol says. "You don't need to raise your voice at your sister."

Joshua’s expression hardens instantly. "Stay out of this, Choi. This doesn't remotely concern you."

“I’m not the one raising my voice at her after she’s been running herself ragged for you all weekend. She’s not your punching bag.”

“Funny coming from you,” Joshua fires back, stepping forward. “The guy who’s been making her life hell for over a year. Now you want to play knight in shining armor? Give me a break.”

Engineers and staff exchange uneasy glances, pretending to focus on their laptops while clearly listening. You stand frozen between them, heart pounding. It's like everything is happening in slow motion again, the same arguments, you between them.

“Enough!”

Elias König’s sharp voice cuts through the room like a knife. The team principal strides over from the other side of the suite, his polished demeanor cracking with visible irritation. He places a firm hand on each driver’s shoulder, physically separating them.

“My office. Both of you. Now,” Elias orders, voice cold and authoritative. “We do not do this in front of the team. Not today.”

Joshua glares at Seungcheol one last time before storming off. Seungcheol hesitates, his eyes finding yours for a split second, filled with apology, before he follows. Elias shoots you a concerned look.

"I know," you sigh, running a hand over your face. "I don't know what to do with them."

"You are doing the best you can." He turns. "My turn to do the best I can."

You remain rooted to the spot, fists clenched at your sides, fury bubbling hot in your veins. Livid does not even begin to cover it. At Joshua for lashing out. At Seungcheol for intervening when you didn't ask him to. At yourself for letting the cracks widen in the first place.

The ride back to the hotel is agonizingly lonely. You sit in the back of a team car by yourself, the English countryside blurring past the tinted windows under the darkening sky while you scroll on your phone, wincing. It's just like old times, snippets of the tension between Mercedees being leaked and blasted online.

Sources say Mercedes garage tension is boiling over again. Looks like podium love from Spain didn't last long.

Old wounds reopening at Silverstone? Home race is bringing the drama for Mercedees.

You scroll through them with trembling fingers, each stupid comment and post feeling like another crack in a fragile world you're trying to hold together. The secret moments with Seungcheol have come at a cost. You are giving pieces of yourself to him, and the pieces you once gave so freely to Joshua are slipping through your fingers.

Tears prick at your eyes as the car pulls up to the hotel. The weight of your father’s absence feels heavier tonight, the memory of sitting between Joshua and Seungcheol at the funeral flashing unbidden in your mind. Back then, things hadn't been easy but they hadn't felt like this.

You just don't know what to do.

-

SILVERSTONE CIRCUIT | 2025 RACE DAY 306.19KM | 52 LAPS

Strong wind snaps across the Northamptonshire countryside, carrying the sharp scent of fresh-cut grass and damp asphalt. The grandstands are packed with fans with Mercedes flags and chanting, uncaring that the sky promises cold rain.

You stand in the garage, headset clamped over one ear, tablet clutched in both hands like a lifeline. Your stomach has been in knots since last night’s blow-up in the hospitality suite. Joshua has barely spoken to you this morning, the pre-race ritual completely absent. He moved through his preparations with a cold, focused intensity that left little room for you, though you'd tried to approach. He'd simply brushed you off and you let him. Race day is more important than getting what you have to say off your chest.

The distance hurts more than you expected.

Seungcheol, on the other hand, has been sending you careful, soft glances whenever he thinks no one is watching. A quick brush of his fingers against yours when he passed you earlier, a soft nod of encouragement when you look at him, at a loss of what to do.

The formation lap begins. The two silver Mercedes cars roll out with Joshua starting from P4, Seungcheol from P3 after a strong qualifying recovery. The crowd roars as the field lines up on the grid. You watch the monitors with your heart in your throat.

Then its lights out.

Seungcheol gets a strong start, diving aggressively into Turn 1, capitalizing on hesitation from Red Bull in front of him. Joshua holds position cleanly but is already fighting for space in the tight midfield pack. From the very first lap, it is clear Seungcheol is on point today, working the leaders as he chases them down.

Lap after lap, Seungcheol climbs, the crowd screaming as the silver arrow slices through the wind. By lap 12 he is in the lead. The radio crackles with his engineer’s calm praise, but you can hear the barely-contained elation in Seungcheol’s voice when he responds.

“Car feels incredible today," Seungcheol notes. "Let's go for it."

Joshua’s race, by contrast, begins to unravel. He struggles with balance in the high-speed sections, losing time on corner exits. A slow pit stop on lap 18 drops him further back, and by lap 31, disaster strikes. Joshua’s rear tires lose grip on a patch of wind-blown grass and he spins on a quick right hand turn, the Mercedes snapping sideways before slamming into the barrier with a crunch.

You suck in a gasp, but Joshua is already reporting that he's okay before you can let it back out. The car is done, though, and your heart sinks as you watch him climb out on the monitors, helmet on, shoulders rigid with anger. He storms back toward the garage on foot, refusing the ride. You want to go to him immediately, but you stay grounded to your spot.

Joshua says nothing to you when you enter the garage. You start to walk toward him but he shoulders past, going down the hall with his helmet still on before he slams the door of his room. You swallow, unsure if you should follow him. Wonwoo shoots you a soft look and shakes his head, a rare moment of pity from Seungcheol's manager.

Meanwhile, Seungcheol is in command of the race. He defends the lead masterfully, managing his tires with clinical precision while still pushing when needed. When he crosses the finish line in P1, it's no surprise. The garage erupts in cheers, mechanics clapping each other on the back, jumping and shouting as the race comes to an end.

The team starts to empty out, heading to the podium to celebrate. You stand there, unsure of your place without Joshua. It's Wonwoo who taps you on the elbow and beckons you, shrugging his shoulders as if to say what else are you going to do? You give him a small, grateful smile and walk with him, the silence for once not charged with annoyance.

Seungcheol’s car slows on the in-lap, weaving slightly as he celebrates, fist pumping out the cockpit. When he finally pulls into parc fermé, he practically launches himself out of the car to run to the team as they swarm him over the barriers, cheering. He jumps into the sea of black shirts, screaming with pure, unfiltered joy, hugging every mechanic he can reach.

You smile, crossing your arms over your chest as they let him go to head up for the podium ceremony. You don't expect it when Seungcheol pivots, ripping off his helmet to tuck it under his head and job right toward you. For a split second, the world disappears. The elation of his face, raw, bright and uncontrollable, overrides everything else as you grin at him.

Before you can react, before you can even process what is happening, Seungcheol cups your face with both hands and kisses you. His lips are warm, tasting of salt from the sweat, and for a single, blissful section, you forget where you are and let him kiss you, your hand going to his race suit briefly.

Then reality crashes in.

Seungcheol pulls back suddenly, eyes wide with shock as he realizes what he has just done in front of the entire garage, the cameras, the world. His hands drop from your face like he has been burned.

"Shit," he sweats. "Fuck oh shit fuck, I wasn't thinking. I'm so sorry."

The world turns to the chaos of cameras flashing, phones snapping photos and reporters buzzing. Among the noise, you stand frozen, heart hammering so loudly you can barely hear anything else. our lips still tingle from the kiss. Seungcheol looks at you with raw panic and regret.

"I'm sorry," he says again, the terror real.

"It's okay," you whisper, though it's really not. "Podium. Now."

He nods, giving you a final look before he turns and jogs toward the podium. You barely have time to process before you are walking back into the main garage on shaky legs, hand covering your mouth as you try to process the weight of what just happened. Seungcheol hadn't even thought about what he was doing, so happy that he'd just instinctively done it.

You can't blame him. But you feel the storm in the garage before you even turn the corner, the crackling energy of your brother planted in the middle of the garage waiting for you when you walk in, still in a daze. The moment he sees you, his expression twists into something raw.

“What the fuck was that?” he demands, voice loud enough that several mechanics find somewhere else to be.

"Josh-"

"After everything? There is no fucking way."

"Let me explain!"

"There is nothing to explain. He takes everything from me! Sponsors, fans, attention, wins. My sister. That's why you've been a fucking disaster, oh my god."

The garage descends into complete chaos. People pretend to work but are clearly listening. You feel heat flood your face, a mix of embarrassment, guilt, and rising anger.

“He didn’t take me,” you snap back, voice shaking but growing louder. “I chose this. I chose him. Because for once in my life I wanted something that was mine. Not yours, not the team’s, not Dad’s dream. Mine."

"Oh for fuck's sake."

"Why can't you get that?"

“Because he always wins!” Joshua shouts. “He wins on track, he wins the crowd, he wins the narrative, he wins you. Do you have any idea how it feels?"

"Yes!" You screech. "Because I never win! I give up everything all the time to benefit everyone else and I'm losing all of the time! So yes, I know how it fucking feels, Josh. I was mad too. I was upset with him too. But I'm tired of hating someone who was - is - family to us."

"He is not our family. I am your family."

“You hide your hurt with hate!” you scream, tears spilling over. “Every time something goes wrong, you turn it into anger at him instead of dealing with it. You push everyone away, including me. I have spent my entire life choosing you, protecting you, managing your career, and the one time I choose something for myself, you act like I’ve betrayed you!”

The argument escalates into pure screaming. Joshua is red in the face, years of pain and anger pouring out of him. Gone is the collected, perfect racer everyone knows. Gone is the polished golden boy of Mercedes, replaced with the angry, hurt driver who has done nothing but shove his feelings down down down.

Seungcheol walks in, still flushed from the podium, champagne soaked and glowing with victory. You and Joshua pause, looking at Seungcheol as he freezes. His face falls when he sees the look on your face and he swallows, straightening his shoulders.

"Josh-"

"You couldn't help yourself, could you?" Joshua asks, shaking his head. "Had to take one more thing from me. That's all you do, Choi. You take and you don't care what it fucking costs anyone else."

Seungcheol steps forward, hands raised. “Josh, I didn’t mean for it to happen like that. I was caught up in the moment-"

“You’ve been caught up in trying to steal my sister for months. Congratulations. You finally got what you wanted.”

The two men start shouting at each other, old wounds reopening in real time, both of them yelling over each other as you begin to scream at Joshua for overriding your feelings. It's a childish display - you know it is. But you're tired of bottling up how you feel for the sake of everyone else and it pours out of you, the exact mirror to Joshua.

“ENOUGH!”

Elias König’s voice booms through the garage like thunder, making you all flinch as he storms in. Everyone freezes - even the other mechanics from other garages who have been watching the spiral in Mercedes garage.

“All of you," Elias orders, pointing a finger at the three of you. "Out of my garage right now. I don’t care where you go, but you will leave this space immediately. Sleep on it. We will deal with this tomorrow when cooler heads prevail. This is not how we conduct ourselves at Mercedes.”

Mechanics and engineers scatter quickly. Joshua glares at both of you one last time, jaw clenched so tight it looks painful. "Fuck this."

Without another word, he storms out of the garage alone, shoulders rigid, refusing to look back at you. The sound of his footsteps echoes harshly before disappearing into the paddock noise. You stand there, chest heaving, heart hammering. Seungcheol hesitates only for a second before moving toward you. He gently takes your arm, his touch careful but insistent.

“Come on,” he says softly.

You don’t resist. You let him guide you out of the garage, his hand steady on your lower back as you both slip through a side exit away from the worst of the cameras. The British evening air feels cold against your face, the distant roar of the crowd still celebrating Seungcheol’s home win echoing faintly, but all you can hear is the sound of your brother’s broken voice accusing you of betrayal.

Seungcheol leads you toward one of the team cars waiting in a quieter area. He opens the door for you and slides in after, telling the driver to head straight to the hotel. Once the doors are closed and the car begins moving, the full weight of what just happened crashes over you.

"I'm so sorry," he says, turning toward you. “I wasn’t thinking. The win, the adrenaline… I saw you and everything else disappeared. I never meant to put you in that position.”

You squeeze his hand tightly. I know. But Joshua is devastated. He thinks you’re taking everything from him. Sponsors, fans, wins, me. It's… I didn't know he felt that way."

"I didn't either. I hate that this is hurting him."

You lean your head against his shoulder as the car winds through the Silverstone countryside. The guilt, the love, the anger, and the exhaustion swirl together until you feel raw and hollow.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” you whisper. “He stormed out without me. He wouldn’t even look at me.”

Seungcheol presses a gentle kiss to the top of your head, his arm wrapping around you. "It's time I talked to your brother. For now, just weather the storm, alright?"

"Yeah," you murmur hollowly. "I guess."

- KARTING TRACK SOMEWHERE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE | 2017

The late afternoon sun hangs low over the karting circuit, painting the asphalt in warm gold and long shadows while the distant buzz of karts still practicing on the main track mixes with the sound of crickets starting their evening chorus. This is one of the smaller, regional tracks the three of you frequent. It's nothing glamorous, but it's a simple layout with tight hairpins and a long back straight to make good practice.

It's a warm summer evening, and right now, you and your brother are in the middle of a full-blowing screaming match behind the awning of the sleeper van your dad rented for the weekend.

“I told you to lift earlier in Turn 6!” you shout, arms crossed tightly over your chest. Your cheeks are flushed with anger and the exertion of running back and forth all day. “You went in way too hot again and spun it! That’s the third time today!”

Joshua throws his helmet down on the folding chair with a loud clatter, his racing suit half unzipped, hair sweaty and sticking up in a bunch of different directions. “Maybe if you actually timed the sectors right instead of daydreaming, I wouldn't spin out!"

“I wasn’t daydreaming!” you snap back. “I was dealing with the stupid timing app that kept glitching because you spilled an energy drink on the tablet yesterday!”

“That was an accident!”

“Everything's been an accident with you lately!”

The fight has been building all afternoon. Joshua has been off his game, pushing too hard and making sloppy mistakes, refusing to listen to feedback from both you and your dad. You have been exhausted from trying to keep up with both boys’ schedules, schoolwork, and helping your dad with logistics. The smaller frustrations have snowballed into something bigger, the way they always do when the two of you are tired and stressed.

Seungcheol leans against the side of the van a few meters away, arms loosely crossed, watching the two of you with a familiar mix of amusement and concern. His own karting suit is still zipped to the top, helmet tucked under his arm. Even at seventeen, he already carries that quiet confidence that makes people listen when he speaks.

Joshua gestures sharply at you. “You’re supposed to be on my side, not acting like Dad’s second-in-command all the time!”

“I am on your side!” you yell back. “That’s why I’m telling you what you’re doing wrong! If I just clapped and said oh yeah great job Josh every time you spun it, you’d never get any better!”

“You always think you know best!”

“Because sometimes I do!”

The words hang in the air and Joshua's Joshua’s face twists with hurt and anger. For a moment, it looks like he might say something even meaner, but instead he just turns away, shoulders tight, breathing hard.

You feel the sting of tears behind your eyes but refuse to let them fall. This is how you and Joshua fight, loud and honest and sometimes, brutally direct. You've been doing it since you were little - he pushes, you push back harder.

Seungcheol pushes off the trailer and walks over, sighing. He stops between the two of you, not quite in the middle, but close enough that both of you have to acknowledge him.

“Alright,” he says calmly, voice low and steady. “Both of you, take a breath.”

Joshua glares at him. “Stay out of it, Cheol.”

“I’m not staying out of it,” Seungcheol replies evenly. “You two are fighting like this is the last race of the championship and someone cheated. It’s just practice. On a random Tuesday.”

“He’s not listening to me,” you mutter, wiping at your eyes angrily.

“And she’s acting like I’m an idiot who can’t drive,” Joshua shoots back.

Seungcheol sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. He hates stepping between the two of you, but he's always been good at it, this being a buffer between siblings when fights get too heated. He's a natural leader, and he's good at diffusing the tension.

He turns to Joshua first. “You went in too hot. She’s right about that. But she could’ve told you without sounding like she was scolding a little kid.” Then he looks at you. “And you’re doing too much. You’re trying to be the timer, the strategist, the manager, and the sister all at once. He’s not going to hear you when you’re this wound up.”

Both of you stay silent, breathing heavily, glaring at the ground. Seungcheol steps closer to Joshua and places a hand on his shoulder, squeezing once. Joshua melts a little, the fight going out of him as he nods at his best friend.

"You know what you're doing, Josh," Seungcheol murmurs. "But you’re also stubborn as hell. Sometimes you need to listen when she tells you something. She's trying to help."

When he turns to you, its hard not to pout. Seungcheol's gaze softens, doing something to your stomach that feels like butterflies when he smirks, shaking his head. "You're allowed to be tired, but we're a time. It's not just you versus the world. Josh is on your team too."

The tension in your shoulders slowly loosens. Seungcheol has always had this effect, grounding both of you without taking sides. Joshua kicks at a pebble on the ground, still sulking but no longer vibrating with anger.

Finally, he looks at you. "I hate when it feels like you're disappointed in me."

“I’m not disappointed,” you say quietly, voice thick. “I’m scared you’re going to hurt yourself pushing like that. And I hate watching you spin when I know you can do better.”

The anger drains from his face, replaced by exhaustion and something vulnerable. He steps forward and pulls you into a rough hug, arms wrapping tightly around your shoulders. You hug him back just as hard, burying your face in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles into your hair. “I know I’ve been an ass today.”

“You have,” you mutter, but there’s no heat left in it. “But I’m sorry too. I was being mean instead of helpful.”

After a long moment, Joshua pulls back but keeps his hands on your shoulders. His eyes are serious now, the kind of serious he only gets when it’s just the two of you.

“I know I rely on you too much,” he says quietly. “You do so much for me. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only person truly in my corner. Like no matter what happens on track, you’ve always got my back. So when you're on the opposite side, it feels terrifying."

"I'm always in your corner, even when we're disagreeing. Even when you’re being stubborn and I’m being bossy. That doesn’t change. I’m your sister first. Always. I might get frustrated, I might push you because I want you to be better, but I will never not be on your side.”

Joshua’s eyes glisten. He nods once, swallowing hard, then pulls you into another tight hug. Seungcheol steps closer and ruffles both of your heads affectionately, breaking the heavy moment with his usual easy warmth.

“See? That wasn’t so hard,” he teases lightly. “Now can we please go get some chips from the corner store before your dad comes over here and yells at us for fighting?"

You roll your eyes, but the familiar banter feels like coming home. The three of you start walking toward the corner store together, you in the middle, Joshua on your right, Seungcheol on your left, shoulders bumping, voices already rising in playful arguments about lap times and who owes who snacks.

Like that, the fight is over. Easy and simple, the three of you against the world.

-

OXFORD, ENGLAND | 2025 TWO DAYS AFTER SILVERSTONE

The rain has been falling steadily since yesterday, a soft, persistent drizzle that turns the world outside your window into muted greens and grays. Your apartment in Oxford is quiet except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional distant sound of traffic on the wet streets below. It's a nice place, a two-story apartment with tall windows overlooking a quiet residential street lined with bicycles and overflowing window boxes. You like the calm here during the season, but sometimes you miss the ocean spray of Los Angeles, a place that feels light years away.

Today, the calm feels suffocating. You haven't spoken to Joshua in two days. Not since the screaming match in the Mercedes garage at Silverstone. Not since he stormed out alone while you left with Seungcheol. The silence between you is heavier than any argument you have ever had, and you don't know how to bridge the gap. You'd called him a single time yesterday, but he hadn't picked up. You were almost glad, cause you weren't sure what to say.

Headlines and social media clips have exploded since Seungcheol’s impulsive kiss after his home win. You try to avoid the headlines, but they're impossible to miss. Mercedes Teammates' Sister Caught in the Middle. Secret Romance or Public Breakdown at Silverstone?

Your name is everywhere, photos of the kiss circulating alongside old images of you and Joshua together, and worse, old clips of you and Seungcheol, every interaction you've had since you were teens under scrutiny. You've spent hours fielding damage-control calls from the Mercedes PR team, trying to keep sponsors calm while your personal life implodes in public, all while enduring the silence from your brother.

Seungcheol's absence is just as bad, though he's far from silent. The team has kept both drivers under tight media control and separate schedules since the incident, but he's been your lifeline through texts and late-night phone calls, dropping you sweet messages that make you smile through the distress. You cling to those messages like a raft in rough water, but they cannot fix the growing chasm between you and your brother.

The glass of wine in front of you is empty. It did nothing to dull the stress, but it doesn't matter. You have insane amounts of work to get through while you sit on the floor at your coffee table. Meeting agendas, sponsor contracts, media schedules, and damage-control notes are spread out in messy piles around you. You've been trying to work and stay productive as a distraction, but it's been borderline impossible.

Your phone buzzes with another notification. You ignore it and instead, open your email, hoping for something routine to distract you. To your surprise, something does as you click the email open, scanning it.

Subject: Opportunity - Executive Role at Apex Management Ms. Hong, I hope this email finds you well, despite the understandably turbulent few days in the paddock. My name is Elena Moreau, and I'm the founding partner of Apex Management, a new venture launching later this year. We are building a specialized management company dedicated exclusively to motorsport athletes with a focus in Formula 1, Formula 2, IndyCar, and emerging talent across other smaller, local series. After following your work closely over the past several years, we believe you would be an exceptional fit for a senior leadership role within our organization. Specifically, we are looking for someone to serve as Head of Manager Development and Portfolio Strategy. In this position, you would: - Design and lead training programs for new driver managers, teaching best practices in media relations, sponsor management, crisis handling, and long-term career planning. - Oversee a portfolio of high-profile drivers, providing strategic guidance at the highest level. - Help shape the overall direction of the company, creating systems that genuinely support drivers beyond race weekends - addressing mental health, personal branding, financial planning, and work-life balance. - Your hands-on experience managing a top-tier Formula 1 driver through complex team dynamics, intense media scrutiny, and high-stakes sponsorship environments makes you uniquely qualified. We are particularly impressed by how you have balanced fierce advocacy with genuine care, which I believe are qualities that are rare in this industry. - We understand the current timing is sensitive. This is not a formal offer yet, but we would love to discuss the role in more detail at your earliest convenience. The position would allow significant flexibility, including the possibility of continuing select private client work if desired. Please let me know if you are open to a confidential conversation. We are very excited about the possibility of bringing your expertise to Apex and helping us continue to overtake the competition. Best regards, Elena Moreau Founding Partner Apex Driver Management

You read the email twice, heart beating faster with each pass. It's an incredible opportunity you don't expect, the kind of role that would let you step out of the shadow of being Joshua's Manager-Sister and into something that is entirely your own. You could train others, build systems, shape how the next generation of drivers are supported. You could finally use every hard-earned skill you have developed, not for just one person, but at a larger scale.

For a few quiet moments, you let yourself imagine it. The freedom. The challenge. The chance to build something meaningful instead of constantly putting out fires.

Then the guilt crashes in.

How could you even consider leaving Joshua right now? After Silverstone? After everything that has happened? After your father trusted you to take care of him? You rub your temples, staring at the email until the words start to blur. A sharp knock on the front door jolts you out of your thoughts just as you think you're going to throw up.

Your heart leaps into your throat as you clambour to your feet. You're not expecting anyone, and you wonder if its. Mrs. Kindkaid again asking if you've seen her cat Pumpkin, which you have not. It isn't your fault Pumpkin likes to escape Mrs. Kinkaid's stuffy apartment and-

It's Joshua.

He stands in front of the door, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark hoodie, shoulders slightly hunched against the rain. You unlock the door without thinking, yanking the door open to get him in and out of the cold rain, not wanting him to catch a cold before Hungary.

"Get in," you order. "You cannot get sick right now."

He sighs, stepping out of the rain and into the warmth of your apartment. He shakes the rain from his hoodie, lowering the hood to reveal damp hair. Joshua looks at you for a long moment, eyes searching yours, and the silent stretches for a moment.

"Can we talk?" He asks finally. "I'm not here to fight."

You nod and he strides into the living room, familiar with the space. Though you only live here during season, Joshua has been here plenty of times, often preferring to crash here after a meal made by you to staying at his own apartment.

Joshua stands in the middle of your living room, eyes scanning the mess of papers and your open laptop before finally settling on you. His expression is tired, eyes rimmed with exhaustion, but there is no anger left in them.

“I’m sorry I ignored your call,” he says quietly, voice rough. “I needed time to think. Everything happened so fast at Silverstone, and I didn't know how to handle it."

You nod slowly, pushing off the door. “I’ve been going out of my mind. Two days of silence from you is hard."

He winces. “I know. I’m sorry.”

You gesture toward the couch. “Do you want to sit?”

He sits on one end of the couch while you take the floor again, knees pulled up to your chest, the familiar position somehow comforting. For a long moment, you both just breathe.

“I didn’t mean to scream at you like that,” Joshua starts, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Seeing him kiss you in front of everyone felt like the last piece of control I had was ripped away. Like he was taking you from me too."

“I know it looked bad. But Cheol didn’t plan that. He was high on adrenaline after the win. He saw me and… yeah. He apologized. It was just… poor timing, I guess. I wanted to talk to you first."

Joshua nods slowly, staring at his hands. “I believe you. But it still stung. Because for years now, it’s felt like he’s always winning. And I keep losing pieces of what used to be mine. What used to be ours.”

The raw honesty in his voice cracks something open inside you. Tears prick at your eyes as memories flood in, all the late nights in hotel rooms when you were kids, the three of you dreaming about Formula 1, your father’s proud smile watching both boys on the podium together.

"I'm not something he's taking, though. I'm a person. I chose him. Not to hurt you, but because for the first time in my life, I let myself want something that was just for me.”

I know that now. I’ve been thinking about what you said in Barcelona about feeling lost." He looks up, eyes watery. "About how you’ve spent your whole life being my manager, my protector, my sister. Carrying everything after Dad died. I’ve been so focused on my own pain, on the rivalry with Cheol, that I stopped seeing how much you were carrying. How much you’ve given up for me.”

You'd do it again in a heartbeat. Everytime you've chosen him, every race, every crisis. Joshua is your brother, a constant in your life that you'll never turn away from. He's the only family you have left beside Seungcheol, and the thought of him thinking you regret your choices or that you resent him eats you alive.

You reach out and place your hand over his. “I don’t regret it."

"Thank god."

"It's hard, but it isn't awful. It's just… heavy. Seungcheol sees me for me. Not a sibling, not a manger, not a rival. Just me."

Joshua nods. "I think I get that now."

"You know I'll always be in your corner, right?" You ask, a tear spilling. "Even when we disagree. Even when I’m angry. Even when I’m choosing something for myself. That doesn’t change. You’re my brother. You’re my family. Nothing and no one can take that away.”

Joshua’s shoulders tremble. He pulls you up from the floor and onto the couch beside him, wrapping his arms around you in a tight hug. You bury your face in his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne mixed with rain.

"I know," he sighs. "I know. I was mad and I'm an idiot and I know."

You stay like that for a long time, the rain continuing its steady rhythm against the windows. Eventually, Joshua pulls back just enough to look at you. There is something hesitant in his expression now.

"What?" You ask.

"Seungcheol came to talk to me."

You blink, surprised. “He did?”

Joshua nods. “He showed up at my hotel room that night. I almost slammed the door in his face, but he wouldn’t leave. He said we needed to talk."

Your heart stutters. “What did he say?”

“He apologized. Properly. Not just for the kiss, but for everything. Singapore. The crashes. The way he handled things. He told me he’s been in love with you for years, that he tried to ignore it because he didn’t want to ruin our friendship or the team dynamic, but he couldn’t anymore.” Joshua lets out a shaky breath. “He said he knows he’s hurt me, and he knows he’s taken things from me on track, but that he never wanted to take you. He just couldn’t keep pretending he didn’t love you.”

"Oh."

Joshua laughs. "Oh, she says. Our best friend of over a decade confesses his love for her to me, and all she has to say is oh."

You slap him on the arm and he laughs, holding up his hands to defend himself. You let your hands drop in your lap, wondering how long Joshua made Seungcheol stand outside of his hotel room door. Seungcheol hadn't even mentioned he was talking to Joshua, which is something you'll be sure to pinch him for later.

“I’m not totally innocent in all of this,” Joshua admits. “I’ve been carrying so much anger toward him that I stopped seeing clearly. I pushed him away first in some ways. I let the rivalry consume everything. And you were right, I’ve been hiding my hurt behind hate instead of dealing with it.”

"Sometimes I'm right."

He snorts. "Yeah, I've heard that before. I think above all I missed my best friend. I miss the guy I used to kart with. The one who stayed up all night with me dreaming about Formula 1. I don’t know if it’ll ever be the same again, but I want to try."

You feel a wave of relief so strong it makes you dizzy. “Really?"

"Yeah. Even if he's annoying."

"Can't argue with you there." He sighs, giving you a look. "What now?"

"As your brother, I want the best for you. And after listening to Cheol talk about how much he loves you, I realized that the best for you might actually be him. I’ve known he was in love with you since we were kids. I told myself he would never do anything about it, and I didn’t want to upset the dynamic between the three of us. But I see now how it was eating away at him."

You let out a shaky laugh through your tears. “You’ve known this whole time?”

“Yeah,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry I made it harder for you.”

“I’m sorry too,” you whisper. “For not being honest with you sooner. For letting the secrets build up.”

You lean forward and pull him into another hug, staying wrapped like that for a long moment before you glance at your laptop and you see the email open from Elene Moreau. You hesitate for a second, indecision flicking through you, then you decide to take the leap.

"I want to show you something," you sniff, leaning to grab the computer. "got an email today. From a company starting a new management firm specifically for motorsport drivers. They want me for a senior role. Training new managers, overseeing big portfolios, shaping how drivers are supported beyond the track.”

"No shit? Show me."

You do, elated that he meets it with genuine excitement, immediately flooding you with questions you don't know how to answer. It makes you laugh, both of you sliding to the floor to start looking up the company and what they do. It's impressive, for a start up, and though its something new and foreign, you feel a familiar excitement ignite inside of you, the promise of something that could maybe be yours.

"You should reach out to her," Joshua says eventually.

“Really?"

“Really.” He smiles, small but genuine. “You deserve to have something that’s yours. And if it means you’re not managing me full-time anymore, we'll figure it out. You've carried me long enough."

Joshua pulls you into one final, tight hug. For the first time in days, the weight on your chest feels a little lighter, and Joshua feels less like a client and more like your brother.

"Thank you," you murmur into his shoulder.

"Of course. You're my sister. I want the world for you."

-

CIRCUIT DE SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS | 2025 NIGHT BEFORE THE RACE 308.052 KM | 44 LAPS

Cool air kisses the back of your neck, the earth scent of pine and rain heavy in the Belgian countryside. The air is misty just outside the private restaurant tucked away in a converted stone farmhouse, the exposed wooden beams and soft lighting make it feel warm despite the weather. Team Mercedes fills the space with loud laughter and cheering, shadows dancing in the low lights, a fire crackling in a stone hearth near the end of the table.

Seungcheol pours your wine from your right, leaning around you to listen to what Joshua is saying, brows raised. The rest of the team marvels, pleasantly surprised at the ease with which the three of you have decided to operate tonight.

"Car felt good," Joshua says. "Is that new wing of yours helping?"

“Yeah, it does. Feels more planted on the exit. Your car was fast today. Think it'll do good on wet pavement if it rains tomorrow?"

"Yeah I think so."

You watch the exchange with quiet hope blooming in your chest. It's stilted and careful, but it's real talking with no shouting and no tense accusations. Just two teammates acknowledging each other’s driving on one of the most demanding circuits in the world. The sight makes something tight in your chest finally begin to loosen.

Seungcheol’s hand finds yours under the table, his fingers lacing through yours, thumb stroking slow circles against your skin. He doesn’t hide it. When Elias glances over, Seungcheol doesn’t pull away. Instead, he lifts your joined hands and presses a soft kiss to the back of yours, right there in front of the team. Your cheeks warm, but the quiet smiles and knowing looks from a few senior engineers feel surprisingly kind rather than something bad.

Joshua notices but doesn’t comment. Instead, he raises his glass slightly toward both of you. "To a clean race tomorrow."

Seungcheol clinks his glass against Joshua’s without hesitation. “To a clean race.”

The dinner continues with lighter conversation, stories from past races, jokes about the notorious weather, and even a few shared memories from karting days that make both men laugh. It is not perfect an awkward pause or two blooming between the two as they re-learn one another. But it feels nice.

By the time dessert arrives, everyone is loose with wine, Seungcheol's arm resting across the back of your chair, his fingers occasionally playing with the ends of your hair. Joshua watches the casual affection with a complicated expression, but there is no anger in it anymore. Only quiet acceptance mixed with lingering melancholy.

When the team begins to disperse, Seungcheol leans close to your ear. "Come back with me tonight? I've missed you."

You nod, heart fluttering. “Yes.”

The ride back to the hotel is quiet, the card winding through the misty Ardennes roads, headlights cutting through the light fog. Seungcheol keeps his hand on your thigh, thumb tracing gentle patterns through your dress, and though the touch is simple, it sends warmth curling low in your belly.

Joshua wishes you both a good night, giving Seungcheol a single, narrow-eyed glance that says be nice to my sister before he vanishes up the elevator. Seungcheol smiles, pleased at this - pleased that it can be so easy now. You are too, feeling lighter than you have in months.

Once inside his hotel suite, the door barely clicks shut before Seungcheol pulls you into his arms. He kisses you slowly, his tongue lazy and hungry all at once, pouring weeks of stolen moments and restrained longing into every brush of his lips. His hands slide down your back, pulling you flush against him.

“I’ve been thinking about this for days,” he whispers against your mouth. “Just you and me. No cameras. No screaming.”

You melt into him, fingers threading through his hair. “Me too.”

He walks you backward toward the bedroom, kissing you the entire way. He peels away your layers of clothing as he goes, the drag of his fingers on your sensitive skin maddening, sending a shiver up your spine. When you reach the bed, he lays you down carefully, his body covering yours as he kisses down your neck, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses across your skin.

You push gently at his shoulders until he rolls onto his back and he looks up at you with dark, hungry eyes, letting you straddle him with a wicked grin. You kiss your way across his chest, your teeth scraping skin, listening to him moan lightly when your tongue darts out to sooth the sting of your teeth. His skin is salty beneath your tongue, muscles jumping as you kiss down his stomach, singing to the floor between his thighs.

"You don't-"

The words die in his mouth when you palm him through his pants, squeezing his firm cock while your other hand unzips his pants. He helps you pull them off, his thick thighs twitched as you lean forward eagerly to drag your tongue up the underside of his shaft.

"Fuck, baby," he groans, hand going to the back of your head, not pushing but holding on, like he's trying to ground himself.

You take him into your mouth slowly, savoring the heavy weight of him on your tongue. You work him with long, deliberate strokes, licking, sucking and hollowing your cheeks as you take him deeper. Your lips stretch around him, the pinch at the corner of your mouth a sign that you're stretched to the limit, drool leaking from the corner of your lips as you work him.

“Fuck, baby. You eel so good,” he rasps, voice wrecked. “So perfect for me.”

You hum around him, the vibration making his thighs tense. You take your time, drawing it out until his breathing is ragged and his hand tightens gently in your hair. Eventually, he tugs you up gently, eyes blazing.

"Kiss me," he whispers, pulling you on top of him.

You do, tongues tangling as he sits up and shuffles you into his lap, his slick cock pressing against your heat. You groan, rolling your hips, feeling him slide against you, cockhead bumping your clit with each pass. He makes a wrecked sound before reaching between you, guiding the head of his cock to catch on your entrance, hesitating only a second before he presses in and you both gasp into each other's mouth.

Once he’s fully seated, he wraps his arms around you, holding you close in his lap. He rocks up into you with slow, deep rolls of his hips, grinding against that perfect spot inside you with every movement while you cling to his shoulders, forehead pressed to his.

“I love you,” he murmurs against your lips. “So much.”

“I love you too,” you whisper back, rolling your hips to meet his slow thrusts.

He's deep, each stroke of his cock making you see stars, dizzy as you roll your hips into him, chests pressed together. His hands roam your back, your waist, your thighs, grounding you as you suck in a sharp breath, the pleasure nearly overwhelming.

Seungcheol shifts you both without warning, turning you on your side until he's behind you and one of his arms wraps around your waist while the other slides under your neck. He presses in again, the slide wet and hot, making you arch back into him, lashes fluttering. His thrusts remain slow while he presses wet kisses along your shoulder and the back of your neck.

“You feel incredible,” he groans, voice low in your ear. "So fucking warm and tight."

You moan softly, pushing back against him, lost in the steady rhythm. His hand slides down to circle your clit with perfect pressure, drawing out your pleasure until you’re trembling in his arms. When you finally come, it's with the sound of his name in your mouth as you clench around him, squeezing hard. It makes him follow you shortly after, his hips stuttering before he buries himself to the hilt and spills inside you.

You stay like that for a long time afterward, trying to catch your breath, the room spinning. The room is quiet except for your shared, slowing breaths and the distant sound of rain beginning to fall on the Belgian countryside, the maddening thoughts and spiralling finally coming to an end.

"I finally feel happy," Seungcheol murmurs, voice sleepy. "You make me happy."

"You make me happy too."

Seungcheol presses a kiss to the back of your neck before drifting to sleep with you in his arms.

-

Subject: Re: Opportunity - Executive Role at Apex Management Mrs. Moreau, Thank you for reaching out and for your kind words. I apologize for the delayed response, my current driver certainly keeps me on my toes, as he has since we were kids. I was genuinely surprised and flattered to receive your email. The vision you describe for Apex Driver Management is exciting and much needed in our industry. The opportunity to help shape manager training, oversee driver portfolios, and build better support systems for athletes resonates deeply with me. After years of hands-on experience managing a top-level driver through the unique pressures of Formula 1, I believe I could bring valuable perspective to this role. I would very much like to schedule a confidential conversation to discuss the position in more detail. My schedule is quite full with the current race weekend, but I am available for a call early next week if that works for you. Thank you again for thinking of me. I look forward to speaking soon. Here is to overtaking the competition.