Girl on the Moon
part 2: raining again
Yu Jimin (Karina) x m!reader
16K words [part 1]
Haewon has been standing beside your table for the better part of two minutes, pen hovering over her notepad, and you've spent that entire time explaining your love life to her instead of ordering anything.
"So that's the whole situation," you say, leaning back in your chair. "We haven't spoken in months. It's complicated. We weren't dating. We weren't exactly friends either, if I'm being honest about it. There was a thing, back in the fall. Sort of a fling, except that undersells it. A few days, just the two of us, and then we agreed to be friends, and then nothing. Silence. And now she's coming here, today, any minute, and I genuinely don't know how to play it. Do I keep it casual? Act cool? Or do I just put everything on the table and be direct? What do you think?”
Haewon stares at you, her pen tapping incessantly on the notepad. "Sir," she says, completely deadpan, "I'm just a barista.”
She's got a point.
You've been sitting here long enough to become part of the furniture, nursing a hangover instead of a cup of coffee. Haewon's already checked on you more than once, and judging by the look on her face, you've officially become the most annoying customer she's had all afternoon. She's short, her hair pulled back into a low ponytail, and her patience has clearly run out.
But she's not the only one having a bad day. As far as you're concerned, the coffee shop has somehow squeezed an entire sun inside four walls. It's probably just the hangover. The sky outside is dull and gray, the color of wet cement, yet every bit of light in here feels determined to split your skull open.
So you stay tucked away in the corner, dressed head to toe in black, one leg crossed beneath the tiny round table, sunglasses firmly planted on the bridge of your nose in a losing battle against the headache.
"I'm asking for your professional opinion..." You glance at her name tag. "Haewon.”
"My professional opinion is about coffee."
"You're in the service industry. You serve people. I'm a person. Serve me."
"You haven't ordered anything."
"I'm ordering advice."
"That's not on the menu either," Haewon fires back, then she shifts her weight to one foot and tucks the pen behind her ear. "Look, I don't know this girl. I don't know what kind of person she is. I don't know if she's the type who wants you to be upfront or the type who'll run if you come on too strong. I'm a barista. I make lattes. You either order a drink or you don't, those are the two options I can help you with."
"That's incredibly unhelpful."
"That's because you're asking the wrong person."
"Fine," you concede, waving a hand. "I'll wait for her to get here. It would be rude to start without her."
She rolls her eyes with enough force to threaten orbital escape, pivots on her heel, and disappears toward the counter, muttering something you're better off not hearing.
Alone again.
Your fingers begin tapping against the wooden tabletop. Index, middle, ring, pinky. Repeat. A pattern you can't seem to stop. The anxiety lives in your hands today, restless and electric, demanding an outlet you refuse to give it.
Four months had passed since you left the lake house. Four months since the two of you stood on your family's property, trapped by a storm and cut off from the rest of the world, sharing what felt like one of those impossibly cinematic moments people spend their whole lives chasing. Before you went your separate ways, you'd exchanged numbers and promised to get coffee someday.
It had seemed like such a simple commitment. Coffee. Two adults could manage coffee. Two adults who'd spent days peeling away each other's carefully built defenses, throwing mud across the shoreline and laughing until their stomachs hurt, then falling asleep in separate rooms while the rain battered the world outside.
For a while, everything unfolded exactly the way you'd hoped. You texted almost every day, never about anything particularly important. The kind of conversations that never seemed like work until, somehow, they did. Three days between messages became five. Five turned into ten. Eventually, there was nothing left but silence.
You didn't chase it. She's an idol, after all. Her life was finally beginning to resemble something normal again. SM released a statement about her recovery and her gradual return to activities, and every now and then you'd catch a clip of her smiling at an event, waving to cameras as though the worst had already passed. You convinced yourself that was enough. She looked happy. She looked healthy. Maybe you'd simply played your part in her story, and that chapter had ended exactly when it was supposed to.
The only problem with that explanation was that you never quite believed it.
Because no matter how much time passed, you never stopped thinking about her. Not for a single day. Not once in those four months.
And then last night happened. Three glasses of whiskey deep at your apartment, alone, staring stupidly at your phone. The drunk courage hit you all at once, and before you could talk yourself out of it, you typed: “So... is that coffee thing still happening, or were you just saying that to be nice?”
You hit send at 11:23 PM. For the next twenty minutes, you lay flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, utterly convinced you'd just made the most embarrassing mistake of your adult life. Every passing second without a reply only made the humiliation feel more inevitable.
Then your phone buzzed. Jimin had replied.
“It wasn't just talk. How about tomorrow? I know a place.”
As if nothing had happened. As if four months of nothing was simply a pause in a conversation, not an ending. She gave you an address. A time. And now you're here, dressed in black, wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day, asking a barista named Haewon how to act normal around a woman you cannot get out of your skull.
The door opens. Your stomach drops. But it's only a middle-aged man carrying an umbrella. False alarm. You sink back into your chair, let out a slow breath, and remind yourself that you're a grown man. A CEO. Someone who negotiates multi-million-dollar deals without breaking a sweat. This is just coffee.
Just coffee.
Two more minutes crawl by before the door swings open again. Your fingers, which have been drumming an anxious rhythm against the table, stop instantly. Your heart lurches as you look up.
This time, it's her.
She's wearing a knitted beanie pulled low over her forehead, her dark hair falling straight past her shoulders. An oversized cream-colored sweater hangs loosely over a pair of jeans, with a pair of white sneakers completing the outfit. It's as ordinary as it gets, yet she still manages to steal the air from your lungs. She looks exactly the way you remember her - exactly the way you haven't been able to stop remembering her.
Her eyes sweep across the coffee shop until they land on you. Almost instantly, her expression softens. She recognizes you, and for the briefest moment, you could swear she looks relieved.
Jimin walks over, pulls out the chair across from you, and sits down. After setting her bag beside her chair, she looks up and meets your eyes.
"Hi," she says, sounding warm despite her hesitation. Then her gaze shifts to your sunglasses. A small crease forms between her brows. "Did you become an idol too?" she asks with a quiet laugh, tapping the edge of her beanie. "Or is this some fashion trend I missed?"
"I'm hiding from the sun," you reply.
She turns to look out the window. The sky is a flat blanket of gray, thick with clouds that have been hanging overhead all morning.
"It's completely overcast," she says, glancing back at you. "I'm pretty sure it's going to rain."
"Well, it's the clearest overcast day I've ever seen," you say. "The UV index is off the charts.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. That slight pull that isn't quite a full smile but promises one if you keep going. You remember that expression. You spent three days at a lake house cataloging every version of it.
"You're ridiculous," she murmurs, leaning back in her chair a little more comfortably.
"And yet you still agreed to meet me."
A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth before she gives the smallest nod. A simple gesture, but it carries the weight of four months of silence and one impulsive text sent just before midnight. Somehow, despite everything, she's here. And so are you. Two people who left something unfinished in a house by the water, now sitting across from each other in a quiet coffee shop, pretending the distance between then and now can be bridged with a cup of coffee.
"So," Jimin begins, folding her hands on the table. She tilts her head slightly to one side. "How are things? With the company. Last time we talked you were still in full crisis mode."
You lean back, rubbing the back of your neck. "Okay, so. Short version: we didn't go under. Which, you know, great. The fund recovered about sixty percent of what we lost, and we restructured the portfolio to be less, uh, insane. Less of me throwing darts at a board and hoping for the best."
"That sounds positive," she offers.
"It is. In theory." You pull your sunglasses off and set them on the table. "The problem is that my father decided to use the whole situation as an excuse to reassert himself. He brought in two of his people to sit on my board. Advisory capacity, officially. But in practice they have veto power over any acquisition above a certain threshold, and they report directly to him."
Jimin nods slowly, processing. "So he bailed you out."
"He provided liquidity when no one else would, yeah. And the price for that was me giving up a significant chunk of operational independence. I still run the day to day, I still make decisions, but anything major has to go through his people first. It's my company with his fingerprints all over it."
"Oh," she says, straightening slightly. "But that's good, isn't it? Overall? You're still there. You're still in charge. Mostly."
"Yeah." You tap the edge of the table once. "The best good I could get, given the circumstances."
A small pause settles between you. Comfortable enough, but loaded with everything else that sits beneath the surface of this reunion. You shift the focus before the silence can grow teeth.
"What about you?" you ask. "I've seen stuff, obviously. The Inkigayo stage last month. The Marie Claire cover. But I know better than to take anything at face value with that industry."
Jimin lets out a quiet breath, her gaze dropping to her hands for a moment before she looks back up. "I think I'm doing okay," she says. "Actually... I think I'm doing well." She holds your gaze, a small, genuine smile touching her lips. "I'm definitely in a better place than I was the night you found me sitting on that bench after midnight, having an existential crisis.”
"Good," you say, and you mean it completely. "I'm happy for you. Sincerely."
She opens her mouth, seems about to respond, but then a shadow falls across the table and you both look up to find Haewon standing there with her notepad, eyebrows raised.
"So," the barista says, clicking her pen. "Are we actually ordering now? Or is this still a therapy session?"
"We're ordering," you confirm. "Two coff—"
But Haewon isn't listening anymore. Her attention has drifted to Jimin, and you watch the exact moment recognition dawn on her. Her eyes widen. The pen slips in her fingers, nearly clattering onto the table. "Wait..." she says, blinking rapidly. "No way. Are you... are you Karina?! From aespa?! Oh my God!”
You lean forward before Jimin can get a word out. "No," you say with a laugh. "Absolutely not. Seriously, think about it. Why would Karina from aespa be hanging out in some tiny neighborhood coffee shop? Look at her. She's just... a completely normal girl. Normal face. Normal clothes. Probably smells normal too." Jimin slowly turns to look at you, raising an eyebrow. "I think you've just been working too many shifts. Sleep deprivation does weird things to the brain. People start seeing celebrities where there aren't any." You nod sympathetically. "Honestly, this place should be reported. But don't worry, I know a great labor lawyer."
Jimin lets out a quiet laugh. "It's okay," she says. "He's being weird. It is me."
You whip your head toward her. "Oh, so we're just giving up on the whole secret identity thing now?"
She shrugs. "I mean... she already recognized me. What was I supposed to do? Look her in the eye and say she imagined it?”
"Yes. That's the entire point of a disguise."
Haewon ignores you entirely, clutching her notepad to her chest. "Can I... would it be okay if I took a selfie with you? I'm so sorry, I know you're just trying to have coffee, but I've been a fan since Black Mamba and I will never forgive myself if I don't ask."
"Of course," Jimin agrees, already shifting in her seat to angle toward the barista.
You watch in disbelief as Haewon scurries around the table, crouches beside Jimin, holds up her phone, and snaps three photos in rapid succession. Jimin smiles in each one. That practiced, perfect, camera-ready smile you've seen a thousand times in press photos. Professional even in a moment this casual.
"Hang on," you interject as Haewon straightens up, practically glowing. "Are you telling me that if I'd opened with, 'By the way, the girl I'm meeting is Karina,' you would've actually answered my question?"
"Obviously yes," Haewon replies without hesitation. "You should have led with that. That's critical information you withheld."
"Unbelievable…” you mutter.
"Anyway." She slips her phone into her apron pocket, smooths out her notepad, and somehow transforms back into a perfectly professional barista in the span of two seconds. "What can I get you two? And don't worry about it - it's on the house."
"I'll have an iced Americano," you say.
Jimin glances at the menu for all of half a second before smiling. "A vanilla latte. Hot, please."
Haewon scribbles both drinks down with a grin. "I'll be right back."
As soon as she's out of earshot, you look across the table at Jimin. "Remind me not to tip her. She refused to help me for ten minutes," you say. "Then she found out who you are and suddenly we're getting free coffee. That's textbook discrimination."
"I don't think that's what discrimination means."
"It is when it happens to me."
"So you're jealous of my free latte?"
"I'm jealous of your preferential treatment."
"You do realize you're getting a free coffee too, right?"
You nod solemnly. "That's how they silence the victim.”
A soft and unguarded laugh escapes Jimin before she can hold it back, her shoulders giving the slightest shake as she ducks her head for a second. It's the kind of laugh that always feels earned. You remember chasing it for three straight days at the lake house, throwing out terrible jokes and increasingly desperate bits just to hear it one more time.
"Anyway," you continue, folding your arms on the table. "I've been thinking. Maybe we could do something together. Today. After this."
She raises an eyebrow. "You're not going to take me to another lake house, are you?"
"No. Kidnapping idols to isolated locations in the mountains isn't really fashionable anymore. I checked. I was thinking we could just, dunno, spend the day out here. Walk around. Find something to do. No agenda. No storm trapping us anywhere."
"That's the best you could come up with?" she asks, and there's a teasing quality there, a gentle prod.
"Well, you know me. I'm not exactly a master planner. That's how my company almost collapsed and how I ended up dragging you to a lake house during what turned out to be the worst storm in five years. Spontaneity is my only skill, and it has a fifty percent success rate at best."
Before Jimin can answer, Haewon returns with the drinks. She carefully sets your iced Americano in front of you, then places the vanilla latte in front of Jimin. And then… she just stands there. You give her three seconds. Then five. Finally, you look up and say:
"So... are you waiting for one of us to autograph the cups, or...?"
"Oh, I was just making sure everything looked okay."
"It does. Thanks." She doesn't move. You tilt your head. "Don't you have coffee to make? Customers to help? A coffee shop to run?"
Haewon glances around the shop. There are maybe three other people inside. "Not really. It's kind of dead right now."
"Great. Then you can be dead over there."
Haewon finally seems to realize she's lingering. "Right. Sorry." She rubs the back of her neck with an embarrassed smile. "Enjoy your drinks."
She heads back behind the counter, and before she's even halfway to the espresso machine, you catch her pulling out her phone. Within seconds, she's tapping away at the screen, undoubtedly posting something along the lines of: just served karina from aespa at work and somehow managed not to pass out. i deserve employee of the month.
Jimin watches her for a moment before looking back at you. "You know," she says, wrapping both hands around her latte, "you don't have to be so mean to her. She seems sweet."
"I wasn't mean.'' Jimin gives you a look. "Well, she started it..." you mumble, taking a sip of your Americano.
You regret it immediately. The coffee is genuinely awful. Watery and sour, with an aftertaste that suggests the beans have been sitting in storage since the last administration. You do your best to keep your face neutral, but apparently not well enough, because Jimin is watching you with a look of quiet amusement.
"You're not used to places like this, are you?" she asks.
"Look, the coffee is objectively bad," you tell her plainly. "Try it. You'll agree with me."
Jimin lifts her cup and takes a careful sip. She holds it in her mouth for a moment, swallows, and nods. "It's delicious.”
"What? It is not delicious!"
"It's really good, actually. I like it."
You take another sip, determined to reconsider your opinion. "Okay. Fine. It's not that bad. It has a... particular quality. An interesting aftertaste. Very unique."
"I know you hated it," Jimin says, amused. "You don't have to lie just because you want to agree with me.”
"I don't hate it. I'm appreciating its complexity."
“Sure. Whatever you say.” She smiles into her cup. You take another sip, and Jimin follows suit. Then she sets her cup down and looks at you a little differently, her expression turning more thoughtful as her attention settles fully on you.
"Can I ask you something?" she says.
"Anything."
"Seol Yoon-a," she says. "What happened there? Between you two. After everything."
You exhale slowly. You expected this question eventually. "When I got back from the lake house, I told her what happened. She and I had been on the rocks for a while already, you know that, but I think the lake house was the final confirmation for both of us that it wasn't going to work. So we ended it. For real, this time. No more back and forth."
Jimin nods, her eyes dropping to the table. "Looking back… I probably shouldn't have let myself get carried away that day. You and her were still technically—"
"We were already over," you cut in. "Technically, practically... in every way that mattered. We both knew it. You don't have to feel guilty about any of that." You turn the cup slowly between your hands. "You didn't break anything that wasn't already broken. And besides, she's with someone now. Some architect. She seems genuinely happy, which is good. She deserves that. I did nothing but hurt her from the beginning."
"Okay," Jimin says quietly. "Good for her, then.” She wraps both hands around her cup and looks at you again. "Can I ask you one more thing?"
"Go ahead."
"Why did you text me? Last night. After all this time."
"Honestly? I was drunk when I sent it. Three whiskeys in. Not exactly my most composed moment."
"I thought something was off with the typing," she admits, and the corner of her mouth quirks. "Some of the spelling was... creative."
"Yeah, well." You rub your jaw. "But I did want to come. I've wanted to text you for months. I just didn't have the nerve to actually do it. I kept telling myself you were busy, that you were getting your life back together, that the last thing you needed was me showing up in your notifications being, you know, Me."
"You would never bother me. I should be the one apologizing, really. I stopped responding and I didn't... I don't know. I was trying to get things back on track. Schedules started again, and everything kind of swallowed me up. But it wasn't because I didn't want to talk to you."
"I know," you say. "I get it. I didn't want to pressure you into anything."
She looks directly at you then, steady and open, and says, "I really wanted to see you again. I'm glad you texted. Even drunk."
You hold her gaze for a second longer than you probably should, and judging by the way the corner of her mouth lifts, she notices.
You look away before it becomes a whole thing. Then you lean back, pick up your terrible coffee, and raise it slightly in her direction.
"Anyway. We're here now. Let's enjoy it.”
Jimin looks at the cup, then at you, a laugh escaping her as she picks up her own. “To us?” she asks.
You clink your cups together. “To us.” And then you take a sip of your coffee.
Jimin sets her cup down and tilts her head at you. "Can I see your hand?"
"My hand?"
"The one you destroyed on that mirror," she clarifies, and gestures with her chin toward your right fist resting on the table.
Right. The scar. You'd almost forgotten about it, which is strange considering you spent weeks unable to close your fist without wincing. You extend your hand across the table, palm up, fingers uncurled. Jimin reaches forward and takes it lightly, turning it to examine the ridge of raised skin that cuts across your knuckles.
Her fingertip traces the line slowly. The contact is barely there, featherlight, and yet you feel it in your entire arm.
"It's almost imperceptible," she says, still looking down at your hand. "It healed really well."
"My mother always told me I have exceptional antibodies," you reply.
Jimin looks up at you, her finger still resting against your knuckle. "It's not exactly the antibodies that heal wounds."
"Show me your medical degree and then we'll talk."
She drops your hand and laughs, leaning back in her chair. "Some things really never change with you."
You flex your fingers under the table where she can't see, trying to shake the ghost of her touch from your skin. It doesn't work. "How much time do you have?" you ask. "Today, I mean. Before the idol machine swallows you back up."
Jimin considers this. "All day. And until noon tomorrow, actually. My schedule is clear."
"Until noon tomorrow," you repeat. "And would you rather spend that time with me, or doing something actually productive with your life?"
"I'd rather spend it with you," she answers simply.
The directness catches you off guard. You recover quickly, or at least you think you do. "Okay. Then we'd better make the most of every minute."
You both finish your coffee. Yours still tastes like death, but you drain the cup without complaint because complaining again would be admitting defeat. You push back from the table and reach for your sunglasses.
"Shall we?"
You stand, slide the glasses back onto your face, and wait while Jimin gathers her bag. She turns toward the counter on her way out.
"Thank you for the drinks," she tells Haewon. "That was really kind of you."
Haewon practically melts behind the register. "It was such a pleasure serving you. Please come back anytime! Seriously. Anytime. I'm here every day except Tuesdays."
"Noted," Jimin says warmly, and pushes through the door you're holding open.
The air outside is cool and damp, heavy with the promise of rain. Jimin adjusts her hat and falls into step beside you on the sidewalk.
"So where's your car?" she asks, scanning the curb.
"I actually came on foot."
"On foot?" She turns to look at you fully. "Why?"
"Well, that's kind of the point," you say. "Just wandering around. Going wherever. No real plan." You shove your hands into your pockets. "And I figured we could do something, you know..." You hesitate for half a second. "Romantic." Jimin's eyebrows shoot up. "No, not romantic romantic," you add quickly. "I just mean... something nice. Together. Like a date—" You wince. "Not a date. Fuck. Just... an experience.”
"Romantic and nice are completely different things," she points out.
"You're getting caught up in semantics. The point is—"
"They're not semantics. They're entirely separate concepts."
"The point," you press on, "is that I've never ridden a bus before. And I got one of those T-Money cards and I want to try it out. There's a cultural center somewhere nearby. With, you know, cultural things. Art, probably. Exhibitions. Whatever cultural centers have."
Jimin stops walking. "That's your romantic idea? Riding the bus?"
"You don't need to keep repeating it like that. With that tone."
"What tone?"
"That incredulous tone. That 'oh my god this man is hopeless' tone you're doing right now. Look, I should have known you'd be hard to please. Idol standards. Everything has to be first class, five star, exclusive—"
"I never said that—"
"I'm admitting something vulnerable here, okay? I was born into an absurd amount of wealth and I never had the opportunity to experience public transportation. It was always private cars. Always a driver waiting. Always tinted windows and leather seats... I don't like talking about it because it makes me emotional."
Jimin presses her lips together, clearly fighting a smile. "You're being ridiculous. Again.”
"I'm being honest. This is growth. And you're mocking me." You look around the street. "Now: where exactly does one catch a bus? Is it like a taxi situation? Do I stand on the curb and wave one down? Whistle?"
"Obviously not," she says, and she's fully smiling now. "You go to a bus stop."
"Right. A bus stop. And then from the bus stop I ride the bus to another place?"
"That's how it works, yes."
"That seems unnecessarily complicated."
"Welcome to how normal people live," Jimin replies, and points down the block toward the corner. "There's one right there."
You walk together to the stop. It's a covered shelter with a metal bench and a tall digital display panel mounted at one end. Several route numbers are listed vertically along the signboard, each color coded. Blue numbers for the main arterial routes that cut across the city in long straight lines. Green numbers for the shorter branch routes that feed into subway stations and neighborhood hubs. A few red numbers indicating express buses that run out toward Ilsan and Bundang.
The digital screen at the top cycles through real time arrival information. Route 7017, three minutes. Route 162, seven minutes. Route 7613, twelve minutes. Each entry updates every thirty seconds or so, counting down. You stare at it all with genuine fascination.
"So which one do we take?" you ask.
"Depends where you want to go. Each number is a different route. Different stops." Jimin steps closer to the posted map beneath the screen, a tangle of colored lines showing every stop along each route. "The cultural center, you said? That would probably be the 162. Gets off near Seodaemun."
"And when it arrives, I just get on? And put the card somewhere?"
"You tap it on the reader next to the driver when you board. And then you tap again when you get off. It charges based on distance."
"Tap on. Tap off. I can manage that."
"You say that now."
"I have an MBA. I think I can handle tapping a card."
Jimin doesn't say anything. She just looks at you. There's a quiet fondness in her eyes, patient and familiar in a way you've missed more than you realized. Four months is a long time to go without it. You stand together beneath the shelter, close enough that your shoulders almost brush. Above you, the digital display updates. Route 162. Five minutes.
You tilt your head back and glance up at the sky. Thick gray clouds hang low over the city, swollen and heavy, like they're about to burst.
"Okay, I think you were right," you say. "It's definitely going to rain."
Jimin follows your gaze. "Yeah. Looks like it."
A brief silence settles between you.
Then, almost to herself, she says, "It always seems to rain when we're together."
You turn to look at her. She's still staring up at the sky, her profile softened beneath the brim of her hat. “Is that a bad sign?” you ask.
She doesn’t answer right away.
She thinks about it for a moment. Then she lowers her gaze and meets yours. "No," she says. "I think it's just a coincidence."
"Yeah. Maybe,” you say, and neither of you looks back up at the sky.
The digital screen counts down. Route 162, one minute. You can see it already, turning the corner at the end of the block, a blue city bus lumbering toward the stop with its route number illuminated on the front display panel. As it approaches, slowing with a hiss of brakes, Jimin suddenly pats her pockets and her expression shifts.
"I don't have my T-money," she says, checking her bag. "Taking a bus today was not in my plans.”
"I'll pay for you," you say immediately. "I can do that, right? Pay for two people with one card?"
"Maybe. I think you tell the driver before you tap."
"Perfect. I've got it."
The bus pulls up and the front doors fold open with a pneumatic wheeze. You let Jimin board first, then step up after her. The driver is a middle aged man with reading glasses perched on his nose, barely glancing up from the road ahead.
"Two people," you announce, holding up your card and two fingers simultaneously.
The driver reaches over and presses a button on the fare machine without looking at you. The small screen on the reader changes to display a double fare amount. You tap your card against it. A short beep confirms the transaction, and the remaining balance flashes briefly on the screen. Done. You feel an absurd sense of accomplishment.
The bus lurches forward before you've fully committed to a direction, and you grab one of the overhead handles to steady yourself. Jimin is already halfway down the aisle, choosing a pair of empty seats near the middle. You follow and drop into the window seat she left for you. Or maybe she just took the aisle one first. Either way, you're here, shoulder to shoulder on a public bus for the first time in your entire existence.
Above the windows, a digital display scrolls through the upcoming stops in Korean and English. An automated announcement plays each time the bus approaches a station, naming the stop and reminding passengers to tap their cards when exiting through the rear doors.
Jimin settles her bag on her lap and turns to face you slightly. "So. Why were you drunk last night?"
"Just stressed," you say. "Long week. I had a few drinks and they turned into a few more."
"What happened?"
"Nothing specific. Just the general accumulation of everything." You shrug. "Board meeting ran late. One of my father's guys blocked an acquisition I'd been working on for three weeks. Standard frustration."
"Okay."
"It doesn't happen often, by the way. The drinking. I'm not an alcoholic. Well… not yet, at least. Give me another fiscal quarter."
She accepts this without pushing further, which you appreciate. Instead she shifts topics, looking around the bus interior with faint amusement. "So? What do you think? Your first public transit experience."
You consider the question seriously. "It's interesting. The communal aspect. Everyone just sitting here together, going different places, sharing the same vehicle. There's a certain efficiency to it that I can respect."
"High praise."
"Though I do think they could improve the service. Some snacks would be nice. Maybe a beverage cart. A small menu."
"It's a city bus, not a flight to Jeju."
"I'm just saying, the infrastructure is there. They have space." You stretch your legs as much as the seat in front of you allows. "But the company is pleasant. That makes up for the lack of refreshments."
Jimin's mouth curves slightly, and she looks down at her hands. "What other worldly experiences have you never had? What else is on the list?"
"Well," you begin, genuinely thinking about it. "I've never been to a supermarket. That's a big one. I imagine it's quite something. All those aisles. The variety. It must be exciting."
Jimin turns to stare at you. "How have you never been to a supermarket?”
"Never needed to. I pay someone. I don't even know who, honestly. There's some system in place and food just appears in my kitchen. It materializes on the shelves. I've never questioned it."
"The food you don't cook," she adds.
"Actually, I've been cooking. Occasionally. I'm getting better."
"What can you cook?"
"I made pizza last month. From scratch. Dough and everything."
"Was it good?"
"Well, I liked it. But I acknowledge my opinion might be biased since I spent four hours making it and was committed to enjoying the result regardless of the actual quality."
Jimin tilts her head. "I think I'd need to try it myself. Give you an unbiased verdict."
"I can cook for you whenever you want," you offer. "Seriously."
"Is that an invitation?" she asks, smiling.
“Maybe. Come over tonight. I’ll make you dinner.”
She lets out a short, surprised laugh. “I don't know whether to be excited or concerned about that.”
You bump your shoulder lightly against hers. "Hey, I've evolved. I'm almost positive you won't get food poisoning. Like... ninety percent sure."
"That's not reassuring."
"What's life without a little risk?" you say. "You've eaten street food before, haven't you? Same principle."
She shakes her head, though she's still smiling. "Fine. I'll trust you. But if I end up in the hospital, you're paying the bill."
"Obviously. I'll get you the nicest room they have. Private suite. Flowers every day."
"How generous."
"I'll even visit."
"Everyday?"
"Let's not get carried away."
She laughs, and the conversation settles into a comfortable quiet as the bus rolls through the next intersection. The digital display above the doors updates: three stops remaining until Seodaemun. Jimin glances up at it, quietly keeping track of the progress. Outside the window, Seoul slides past in its usual gray sprawl, storefronts, pedestrians, and traffic piling up at every red light.
"That's us next," she says after a few minutes, pointing to the display as it announces the upcoming stop.
"How do I tell it to stop?"
"Press the button." She indicates a red strip running along the handrail above the windows. "Before the stop. It signals the driver."
You reach up and press it. A chime sounds through the bus, and a small "stop requested" notification appears on the front display. The bus begins to slow. You follow Jimin toward the rear doors, tapping your card on the reader mounted by the exit. Two beeps. One for each of you. The doors open, and you step down onto the sidewalk.
You look around. It's a busy commercial street, shops and restaurants lining both sides, a few trees planted along the curb with their leaves going yellow at the edges. Autumn settling in slowly.
"Okay," you say. "Cultural center. Which direction?"
Jimin checks her phone briefly. "Should be that way. Two blocks."
You walk together, weaving between other pedestrians, until the two blocks pass and there's nothing that looks particularly cultural. You spot a woman walking a small dog and intercept her. "Excuse me, is there a cultural center around here? Seodaemun area?"
The woman points past your shoulder toward a building set back from the road. Modern architecture, glass facade, a banner hanging out front with exhibition information. "That's it there, but I think they close early on weekdays. Five o'clock."
You check your phone. 5:47.
"Thank you," you tell her, and she continues on with her dog.
Jimin is already looking at you with an expression you can only describe as deeply unsurprised.
"This," she begins, "is exactly what happens when you decide to go somewhere without planning anything in advance. You check hours. You look things up. You confirm that your destination is actually accessible before you—"
You place one finger against her lips.
"Shhh." She falls silent, her eyes widening slightly over the top of your finger. “I knew this was going to happen,” you say calmly. “I knew the cultural center would be closed. That was never the real destination. It was a decoy.”
“You didn’t know anything,” she mumbles against your finger.
You remove your finger and point across the street. Tucked between a laundromat and a fried chicken restaurant, there's a narrow storefront with a hand painted sign. Records stacked in the window. A warm amber glow from inside. A vinyl shop.
"That," you declare, "is where we're actually going. Much cooler than a cultural center."
Jimin follows your finger and spots the store. Then she looks back at you. "You had absolutely no idea that store existed."
"I kind of knew about it."
"You didn't."
"I've driven past this street before. I'm observant. I notice things."
"You're lying."
"You can't see my eyes behind these sunglasses, so you can't prove anything."
"I can't see them, but I know they're lying. You have tells."
"I don't have tells."
"You do. Your jaw gets tight when you're making something up."
You consciously relax your jaw. "Okay. Fine. I had no idea. But who cares? It's a find. A discovery. This is the entire philosophy of not planning anything. The world puts something in your path exactly when you need it."
"You're romanticizing the fact that you're disorganized."
"And it's working," you insist. "Ladies first."
Jimin shakes her head, giving you that soft, resigned smile she gets when you've finally argued her into submission. She adjusts her hat, looks both ways, and crosses the street. You follow a couple of steps behind, watching her move with her shoulders relaxed and her pace easy, as if they have nowhere else to be and nothing waiting for them.
The bell above the door jingles as you step inside. The record store opens up into a warm, cluttered space, all wooden shelving and dim yellow lighting, walls covered in faded concert posters and album art that spans decades. A turntable behind the counter is playing something old and crackling, some soul record from another era. A handful of customers browse the aisles, flipping through crates of vinyl with the reverent slowness of people who take this seriously.
Jimin pulls her hat a little lower and looks around the store with genuine interest. "So? What do you want to look at first? Rock? Jazz?" She glances at you. "Or are you going to pretend you know anything about music?"
"Give me a second." You scan the room. "Uh, quick question. What are the odds someone recognizes you in here?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. Depends. Why?"
You point toward the K-pop section. A large promotional poster for aespa hangs above a rack of albums. Jimin is front and center, caught mid-pose, her perfectly styled and airbrushed face looking out across the store.
The second she sees the poster, she turns away. "Okay," she says. "Point taken."
"Go browse."
"Excuse me?"
"Look at the records. I'll take care of something real quick."
"Take care of what?"
"Just go. Give me two minutes." She gives you a suspicious look, but eventually wanders off toward the far aisle without arguing. You watch her start flipping through a crate of city pop reissues before turning toward the counter.
The store attendant is sitting on a stool behind it, completely absorbed in her phone. Short hair tucked behind her ears, loose flannel shirt, the unmistakable expression of someone who would rather be anywhere else. Her thumbs move rapidly across the screen. Candy Crush, apparently.
You clear your throat and offer your most polished, boardroom-ready smile. "Hi there. Sorry to interrupt. I'm—"
"What do you want," she cuts in, not looking up.
"I wanted to introduce myself properly. What's your name?"
Without lifting her eyes from the game, she taps the plastic name tag pinned crookedly to her chest.
"Bae," you read aloud. "Great. Bae. So, listen, I've got a bit of a funny situation here."
"Dude, get to the point," she mutters, thumb swiping. "I'm busy."
You glance at her phone. “Right. Busy trying to beat your high score, huh?”
"You are testing the very limited amount of patience I have."
“Okay, okay. So... here's the deal.” You lean against the counter, trying to sound casual. “I need a favor. I need you to clear the store for, like, thirty minutes. Just get everyone out. Think you can do that?”
That finally gets her attention. Bae looks up from her phone, one eyebrow raised, then follows your subtle gesture toward Jimin, who's still browsing through the records with her back to you. “Me and her,” you explain, lowering your voice. “We just need a little privacy. You know? Some alone time. It's kind of... a delicate situation.”
Bae just stares at you for a moment.
Then her expression softens, and a slow, warm smile spreads across her face. “Sure,” she says sweetly. “Yeah, I can totally do that. Thirty minutes, right?”
Hope sparks in your chest. “Seriously? You'd do that for me?”
The smile disappears.
“Fuck no, dude. Are you out of your fucking mind? Who the hell do you think you are?”
You flinch. “Okay, okay, damn. It's just thirty minutes. The store's not gonna go bankrupt because it's closed for half an hour. Come on. Do the math.”
“I don't have time for this shit,” Bae says, setting her phone down. “What, you think this is some indie romance movie? You're gonna have your cute little moment in the middle of my record store, surrounded by vinyl, with the sunlight hitting just right? Get real. It's not happening.”
“I can't believe how rude you're being right now.” You sound genuinely offended. “Look, just because someone broke your heart once doesn't mean you have to become this bitter, anti-love person who goes around ruining other people's chances at having a beautiful, romantic moment—”
“Oh my god.” Bae pinches the bridge of her nose. “You are such a fucking weirdo. Seriously. Get out of my store before I call the cops on your creepy, sunglasses-inside-wearing ass.”
You hold up both hands. “Look, let me rephrase. What would it actually take? Like, what do you need to shut the place down for half an hour?”
Bae lets out a short laugh. “Oh, buddy. You'd need some serious cash for that.” She looks you up and down, taking in the all-black outfit, the sunglasses indoors, the whole deal. “And, uh... yeah. You look broke as hell. Sorry, man. Can't help you.”
“What if I paid for everything?” you say. “Every record in the store. I wouldn't even take them. I'd just pay you the full retail value of your entire inventory. Right now. Would that do it?”
Bae pauses. Considers. “Honestly? Yeah. That'd do it. Too bad you're not, like, Scrooge McDuck or some shit, huh, bro?” She waves you off and starts sliding off her stool. “Now scoot. I got actual customers to deal with.”
You step in front of her. “Wait! Hold on. Look at this.” You pull out your phone, open the browser, and type your name into the search bar. The results load. You tap the Wikipedia entry and turn the screen toward her.
Your name. Your face. Your family. The company. And the net worth figure journalists love throwing around.
Bae's eyes move across the screen. She reads. Then she slowly looks up at you. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” you say. “Turns out I have a little bit of money.”
Bae looks back at the screen.
“Holy actual shit.”
"So. How about you kindly dismiss all these customers and step outside for thirty minutes? And while you're out there, you can start thinking about what you'd like to do with the easiest money you've ever earned in your life."
The transformation is immediate and total. Bae straightens up, tucks her phone away, and beams at you with the radiant warmth of a saint.
"Say no more, sir. Please. Make yourself completely at home. Enjoy this beautiful, precious moment with your lovely girlfriend. The whole store is yours." She's already moving down the aisle, clapping her hands to get everyone's attention. "Alright, folks, sorry, we're closing up early! Store's shutting down for a bit. Take your stuff to the register or come back tomorrow, let's go, let's move, thank you!"
Customers grumble but begin filing toward the exit. Jimin, confused, sets down the record she was holding and starts drifting toward the door with everyone else.
"No, no, not you, honey," Bae calls, guiding her back with a hand. "You stay. You enjoy the store. Take your time."
Once the last customer is out, Bae passes close by you and leans in to murmur near your ear: "Hey. No sex in my store, got it?" She pauses, reconsiders. "You know what? Fuck it. Fine. You can have sex. Just try not to bust on the floor, yeah? These are hardwood. I gotta clean that."
"Nobody is going to have sex in here," you assure her firmly.
She shrugs. "Suit yourself, dude. Your loss." She heads for the door, then turns back with one finger raised. "Thirty minutes. Not thirty-one. I'm counting."
She practically skips out onto the sidewalk, thrilled, and flips the hanging sign in the window so it reads CLOSED before disappearing from view.
Jimin walks over, arms crossed, looking thoroughly confused. “Okay. What just happened? Where did everyone go?”
You spread your arms, gesturing at the now-empty shop, and say, “Looks like we’ve got the whole place to ourselves. For the next thirty minutes, anyway.”
Her eyes narrow. “What did you do?”
“Nothing dramatic. I just convinced the owner to let us have the place to ourselves for a little while. No crowds. No one bothering us.”
“Why would you do that?” She looks around at the empty aisles, her expression tightening. “There were people here. Actual customers.” A small, frustrated breath escapes her. “They were just having a normal day. They came in to browse, buy something, whatever. And now they’ve been asked to leave because you wanted the place to yourself for half an hour? You can’t just do that to people.”
“Technically, there still are customers here,” you point out. “Us. We’re customers. Very exclusive ones, by the way.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“The owner agreed to it.”
“You bribed her.”
“Bribe is such an ugly word. I offered her fair compensation for the inconvenience.”
“That's still a bribe.”
“Okay, but she accepted it willingly. Enthusiastically, even.”
"Don't do that again."
You frown. "Do what?"
"Don't use money to fix everything. Don't use it to get your way. And don't use it to impress me."
You hesitate. "I wasn't trying to impress you."
"Maybe not on purpose." Her voice softens. "But that's what it felt like."
"Come on, Jimin, it's just money," you insist. "I happen to have more of it than most people, but—"
"Stop it! You know exactly what I mean."
And you do. The joke dies before it makes it out. She isn’t playing around. There’s no teasing edge to her voice, no hint that she’s waiting for you to say something clever enough to make her laugh. She’s genuinely upset, watching you with that steady, unimpressed look.
And suddenly, you see what you’ve done. The thing that would have come across as generous - or charming, or impressive - to almost anyone else in your life has landed here as something else entirely. Jimin has spent years surrounded by excess. Sponsored trips. Luxury hotels. Free things. People making problems disappear with a phone call and a credit card. Money has always been everywhere around her, flowing so freely that it eventually became meaningless.
You'd assumed it would work the same way with her. That a grand gesture, if it was big enough, would be impressive.
But money doesn't impress Jimin. Not really. And when you use it to make the world bend around you, she doesn't see generosity.
She sees distance. She sees someone trying to buy their way into being liked.
"Okay," you say, and this time there's no joke behind it. "You're right. I'm sorry. I won't do that again. I promise.” She studies you a moment longer, then nods, satisfied that you actually mean it. "But," you add, glancing around the store, "since we do have the place to ourselves now, we might as well look around, don't you think?"
Jimin sighs, but the corner of her mouth softens. "Fine. Okay. Show me what you actually like to listen to."
"Good instinct," you say, heading toward the nearest crate. "The best way to figure out whether someone's worth the investment is by their taste in music. Everyone knows that."
You drift toward the far wall where the crates are organized by decade, running your fingers along the plastic dividers. Jimin follows a step behind, watching you with quiet curiosity. "So," she prompts, leaning her hip against the edge of the shelf. "What are we looking for?"
"Okay, so, full disclosure," you begin, pulling out a record at random and glancing at the cover before sliding it back. "Being a CEO means my entire life revolves around work. I don't have time to keep up with new releases, discover what's trending, any of that. The last time I actively sought out new music was probably university."
"So what do you listen to?"
"Whatever I grew up hearing. My parents had the stereo going constantly when I was a kid. My mom loved soul, my dad was into classic rock. So I basically inherited their entire catalogue." You move further down the row, scanning spines. "Seventies, eighties, nineties. R&B, mostly. After 7. Prince. Michael Jackson. Stevie Wonder. D’Angelo. Luther Vandross. That whole era."
Jimin nods slowly, filing this information. "I wouldn't have guessed that about you."
"What did you think I listened to? EDM? Tech house?"
"Honestly? I assumed you had some pretentious jazz phase you never grew out of."
"I do appreciate jazz. But I'm not pretentious about it."
"Mm. Debatable."
You pull a record from the crate and hold it up. The cover is instantly recognizable: SWV, all three of them posing together in that unmistakable '90s R&B style. “This one,” you say, tapping the cover. “I love SWV. They're so, so good.”
Jimin leans in to take a look, her eyebrows lifting. “I like them too.”
“Really?!”
“‘Rain’ is on my Spotify playlist.”
“It is?”
“The one linked to the aespa profile. It's public. Anyone can see it.”
“I had no idea.”
Jimin tilts her head. “I thought you were a fan.”
You shrug and slide the record back into place. “I'm a normal fan. Casual fan. I don't go digging through my favorite idol's playlists to see what she listens to in her free time. That's serial-killer behavior.” Jimin gives you a look, her lower lip pushing out in exaggerated offense. “Okay, okay, in your case—” you add quickly. “I actually do want to know what you're into. What you listen to, what you watch, all that stuff. But I'd rather hear it from you than find it buried in some algorithm-generated playlist. This is better, right? Finding out in person.”
“Nice save.”
“Thanks. Anyway, congratulations. You just earned some serious points with me. Being an SWV fan is basically a requirement if you want me to keep paying attention to you.”
She laughs brightly, then bumps her shoulder against yours, saying, “Wow. That's all I've ever wanted, your undivided attention. I'm so honored.”
"You should be.”
Shaking her head, she falls into step beside you as the two of you continue down the aisle, your fingertips gliding absently over rows of plastic record sleeves. The amber light in the store catches the dust floating in the air, and with no other customers, no background chatter, the space feels impossibly private. The turntable behind the counter is still spinning, though whatever was playing earlier has ended and now the needle just hisses softly in the run-out groove.
Your hand stops on a familiar cover. “Oh, no way...” You pull the record free and turn it toward her. “Now this is what I’m talking about.”
Jimin looks at the cover. Brownstone. Still Climbing. “I’ve heard of them,” she says. “But I don’t think I’ve ever actually listened to anything by them.”
“They’re a trio,” you explain. “Just three women, but somehow they sound like an entire choir. The harmonies are insane. It’s this huge, layered sound that really shouldn’t be possible with only three people.”
You turn the album over, scanning the track listing on the back.
“Still Climbing is great from start to finish, but my favorite is ‘Kiss and Tell.’ That song is perfect.”
“‘Kiss and Tell…’” Jimin repeats, trying the words out. “Hmm, I like the way it sounds.”
You nod. “Great title. Even better song. You should listen to it later. Actually listen to it, though. Don’t put it on in the background while you scroll through your phone and then tell me you liked it.”
Jimin rolls her eyes, but the faintest hint of amusement gives her away. “I promise I’ll give it my full attention.”
"Good. And if you ever use that title for an aespa song, or a solo, or whatever," you add, pointing at her, "don't forget to credit me for my collaborative consultation."
"I'll put you in the liner notes," she assures you solemnly. "Creative advisor."
You slide the Brownstone album back onto the shelf, and the two of you keep wandering through the aisles, pulling records almost at random. Every few minutes, one of you holds up an album with an enthusiastic, "Have you ever listened to this?" and the other either lights up or shakes their head. You spend the next several minutes playfully defending your own taste in music; yours rooted in R&B, soul, jazz, and classic rock, hers drifting toward polished pop and the unmistakable sound of the early 2000s. She insists you need to stop pretending catchy pop songs are beneath you. You insist she can't keep living without properly listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, Marvin Gaye, or Fleetwood Mac. Neither of you actually convinces the other, but that's hardly the point.
Every answer leads to another question, another recommendation, another story about when she first heard a song or why a certain album still reminds her of a particular moment in her life. You find yourself listening more than talking, hanging on every word without even realizing it. Somewhere along the way, browsing records stops being the activity. It becomes an excuse to learn who she is, one album at a time. Then your fingers brush against something that makes you pause. You slowly pull it free from the shelf. Foreigner 4. The cover is faded, the plastic sleeve warped with age, and you find yourself staring at it for a long moment.
"My dad's favorite band," you say quietly, your thumb brushing over the worn edge of the record sleeve. "These songs were always playing when I was growing up." A faint smile crosses your face. "They remind me of a time when life felt... simple. Back when I was genuinely happy.”
Jimin steps closer, looking at the album in your hands. "Do you have a favorite?"
"Yeah." You flip the record over and scan the track listing until you find it. You tap the title with your index finger. "Girl on the Moon."
"Girl on the Moon," she echoes softly.
"I've always loved this song," you say quietly, your thumb tracing the worn edge of the record sleeve. "Even when I was a kid, there was something about it that stuck with me." A small smile tugs at your lips before fading again. "I listened to it a few weeks ago... and all I could think about was you."
Jimin doesn't answer right away. The silence stretches between you, gentle rather than awkward, as the first raindrops begin to whisper against the shop's front windows. The world outside blurs into streaks of gray, but neither of you notices. Neither of you looks away.
"Why?" she asks at last.
You carefully slide the record back into its sleeve before resting it on the nearest crate. "Do you remember that cave?" you ask.
She nods almost immediately. "The one where we hid from the rain."
"Yeah."
A quiet smile crosses her face. "I remember."
"I told you something in there. About the first time I ever saw you. Sitting alone on that bench by the river."
"I remember that, too."
You rub the back of your neck, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "I told you that you seemed... distant. Like you were somewhere nobody else could reach. But even then, there was something about you. Even when you looked completely lost, you still... stood out. I couldn't stop looking at you." Jimin stays perfectly still. "And after we left the lake house… I kept thinking about you. At some point, I realized that whatever I'd felt the first night... it hadn't gone away. If anything, it had only grown stronger."
Jimin studies your face in silence before asking, "Realized what?"
"That it was never just curiosity. It wasn't just concern, either." You pause, searching for words that somehow still feel too small for what you're trying to say. "Every time I looked at you, I felt the same thing."
"What thing?" she whispers.
For once, you don't reach for a joke. There's no sarcastic remark to soften the moment, no clever line to hide behind. Just the truth, standing between the two of you as the rain drums softly against the windows.
"I think..." You smile, a little embarrassed by how simple it sounds. "I think I found the girl I'd been dreaming about... before I even knew her name.”
Jimin doesn't move, and whatever flickers across her face is impossible to name. It isn't surprise, and it isn't disbelief. It's quieter than either of those, carrying the weight of someone recognizing a truth they'd been circling for a long time. After a moment, she closes the distance between you. Without breaking eye contact, she reaches up and gently slides your sunglasses from your face. She folds them with absent care and sets them beside the Foreigner 4 record resting on the crate before looking back at you. Your eyes meet without anything left between them. Then her hand rises to your cheek.
Her thumb brushes gently beneath your cheekbone. She lingers there for a moment before asking, so softly her voice nearly disappears beneath the rain against the windows, "This is love, isn't it?"
You swallow, your hand rising to wrap around her wrist, holding it there against your face.
"I think it is. And I think that's why we were strangers who never became friends. We skipped that part. From the moment I met you, it was always something else. At least... that's the only way I've ever been able to make sense of it."
For a heartbeat, she simply looks at you.
Then she rises onto her toes, tilts her head, and closes the distance between you.
Her lips meet yours with a tenderness that leaves no room for doubt. You kiss her back instinctively, your hands settling at her waist over the soft knit of her sweater, drawing her a little closer. She smiles into the kiss for the briefest instant, and you catch the faint taste of vanilla beneath the coffee she'd insisted was "delicious." Her fingers slip from your cheek into your hair as she lets out a slow breath against your lips.
Outside, the rain grows heavier, filling the quiet record store with its steady rhythm. It drums against the windows, the awning above the entrance, the empty street beyond the glass.
You pull back just enough to speak, your forehead still touching hers. "Do you think it's a bad sign?" you murmur. "The rain."
Jimin opens her eyes, and they're so close you can see your own reflection in them. "Why would it be?"
"You know... rain in movies. It usually means something complicated."
A quiet laugh slips from her lips, warm and effortless, the kind that reaches her eyes before it ever becomes a sound.
"The happiest I've been in a long time happened in the middle of a storm," she says. "I was walking beside a man wearing the most ridiculous raincoat I'd ever seen."
You smile. She smiles back.
Then you kiss her again. This one is slower, lingering, neither of you in any hurry to let the other go. Your hands rest at her waist, feeling the soft knit of her sweater beneath your fingers, while hers remain tangled in your hair. For a little while, the rest of the world quietly slips away. There's only the warmth of her body against yours, the steady rhythm of her breathing, and the rain whispering against the shop windows, turning the city outside into a watercolor of gray skies and amber lights.
When you finally pull away, it's only enough to look at her. Her lips are flushed from the kiss. Her beanie has slipped slightly to one side, knocked crooked somewhere along the way, and she hasn't made the slightest effort to fix it. She's still holding onto you, as if letting go hasn't occurred to her.
"Can I ask you something?" you say. She nods. "Do you... feel the same way?" You hadn't meant to sound so vulnerable, but the hope in your voice is impossible to hide.
Jimin lowers her gaze, a shy smile flickering across her face before she looks back up at you. "I've never fallen in love before," she says quietly. "Not really."
"Never?"
"I've had crushes. I've liked people. I've even convinced myself once or twice that it was love." A small laugh escapes her. "Looking back, I don't think it was. But this..." Her fingers absentmindedly smooth the fabric of your shirt. "I didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't tell if I was falling for you, or if I was just lonely after everything that happened. I kept thinking maybe I was confusing gratitude with something bigger. That maybe you finding me on that bench had gotten tangled up with my emotions… So I kept trying to reason my way out of it."
"And?"
She looks at you like the answer should be obvious. "...I'm standing in a record store, kissing the guy I was trying to forget." A grin spreads across your face. "So I'm guessing it didn't work." She lets out a quiet laugh and gives the tiniest shake of her head. "Not even a little.”
You brush a strand of hair back from her face. "You know what you'd be risking. Right? If this becomes something real. If people find out. Your career, your image, everything the company has invested in you—"
"I know," she interrupts gently. "I know exactly what I'd be risking. I've thought about it constantly. Every time I remembered your face I thought about it."
"Then I need you to hear me say this," you tell her, your hand coming up to cup her jaw. "I would never pressure you into that. Not once. If you needed to keep this quiet, if you needed to wait, if you needed us to disappear behind closed doors for the next three years, I would do it. Whatever this becomes, it moves at your pace. Not mine, not the industry's, not anyone else's."
"I don't want to hide."
"Jimin—"
"Listen to me." Her fingers curl tighter in the fabric of your shirt. "My entire career, I've felt like I wasn't the one steering. I woke up one day and I was Karina, and I couldn't tell you when that switch happened. Every choice I've made, or thought I made, was actually filtered through what I assumed everyone else needed from me. My members. My company. My fans. My parents. The girl on the poster in the corner of this store, she was built by committee. And I've been performing her ever since."
"I know."
"But today," she says, never looking away from you, "I get to make a choice that's actually mine. Not one made for me. Not one I talked myself into because it seemed easier or safer. Just... mine. And I'm choosing you. I'm choosing you today, and I want to choose you tomorrow, too. And the day after that, and every day that comes after if you'll let me. You're the person I want beside me."
Every clever reply abandons you. No joke comes to mind. No sarcasm rises to soften the weight of the moment. You can only stand there, looking at her as the rain hums against the windows.
After a long silence, you smile. "Do you remember what you told me in that cave?" you ask quietly. "You said you didn't know what you wanted anymore. You said you couldn't even figure out where to start looking."
"I remember."
You reach up and gently tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I think you found your answer."
She searches your face for a moment before the corners of her mouth lift into the smallest smile. "I think I did." She rises onto her toes and kisses you again. You can feel her smiling against your lips before she pulls back just enough to whisper, "You helped me find it.”
The bell above the door jingles with enough force to make you both flinch apart. "Okay, lovebirds!" a familiar voice calls from the entrance. "Time's up. I've been standing outside for thirty minutes getting absolutely destroyed by this stupid rain. I look like I lost a fight with a swimming pool. Now... where's my money?" Bae stomps into the record store, shaking rainwater from her flannel before yanking a hand through her soaked hair.
You pull back from Jimin slowly, keeping one hand on her waist. "You know," you say, looking over at Bae, "you could've pretended to be a decent human being and given us another thirty seconds."
"I could've," Bae replies, peeling her soaked flannel away from her arm. "But then I'd have to live with myself." She gives the two of you a quick once-over. "So? Did you kiss?"
You and Jimin glance at each other.
"Maybe." you reply.
"Nice." She nods approvingly. "Did you have sex?"
"No," you and Jimin answer at the exact same time.
"Huh." Bae shrugs. "Whatever works for you two. Personally, I don't really get the whole 'confess your feelings first' thing, but hey, everyone's got their kinks."
"That's not a kink."
"It kind of is."
"It absolutely isn't."
Bae is already wandering toward the counter, waving a dismissive hand over her shoulder. "Sure, romance boy. Keep telling yourself that." She looks back with a grin. "Now cough up my money.”
Before following, you reach over to the crate of records beside you, pick up your sunglasses, and hook them onto the collar of your shirt. Then you turn back to Jimin, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
"Wait here for me," you say. "I'll be right back.”
She nods, still slightly dazed, and drifts toward one of the crates while you follow Bae to the register. She's practically vibrating behind the counter now, pulling out a calculator, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she starts totaling up her inventory value in the system.
"Give me one sec, one sec," she mutters, punching numbers. "Okay. Okay. So. If we're going full retail on every unit, plus the imported stuff which is marked up because of shipping, plus the vintage collection in the back room which I definitely underpriced when I bought it but whatever, that's a me problem..."
She scribbles the final number on a Post-it note and slides it across the counter face down, like she's embarrassed by it. You flip it over. Glance at it. "That work for you?" she asks, her leg bouncing against the floor. "I can negotiate. I'm flexible. Extremely flexible! I have no spine whatsoever when it comes to money."
"It's fine," you say, pulling out your phone. You open the banking app and tap the transfer tab. "Account number?"
Bae rattles it off so fast you have to ask her to repeat it. She does, slower this time, watching your screen with the intensity of someone witnessing a miracle in progress. You punch in the amount, confirm the recipient name that pops up on screen, and hold your phone up for the Face ID verification. The little lock icon spins for a moment. Then the confirmation screen appears. Transfer complete.
Bae's phone buzzes in her back pocket. She pulls it out, glances at the notification... and goes completely still. Then she grabs the edge of the counter with both hands like the floor just tilted sideways.
She keeps staring at the screen.
"Oh my god. You're kidding." She refreshes the app. “What the hell.” Another refresh. "That's... that's actually my balance now.”
"Try to keep it together," you advise, pocketing your phone. "And Bae, one more thing: don't forget to report that to the NTS."
She looks up from her phone with an expression of pure, unbothered contempt for the suggestion. "Listen. The NTS does not need to know every single thing that happens in my personal life. That's between me, my bank account, and God.”
"Okay then. Suit yourself." You walk back over to Jimin, who has apparently been half watching this transaction with mild amusement.
She lifts an eyebrow at you. "Everything settled?"
"Everything settled. So, where are we going next?"
"That was your plan," she reminds you. "I'm just along for the ride."
"Okay. I've been thinking. Supermarket."
"Supermarket?"
"Yes. We're going to a supermarket. My first supermarket experience, remember? And I want to buy ingredients so I can make you that pizza tonight. Prove myself. Redeem my honor. Show you I've evolved beyond the man who couldn't make toast at the lake house."
Jimin laughs. "That's actually a good plan."
"See? I have those occasionally. Rare, but they occur."
She hooks her arm through yours as you head toward the door. Outside, the rain hasn't let up. If anything, it's coming down harder now, drumming against the awning and pooling along the curb where the drains can't keep up. You stop just short of the entrance and look at the small rack of umbrellas leaning near the door, ones the shop probably keeps around for customers or lost inventory.
You call over your shoulder. "Bae! Do you mind if we borrow a couple of these?"
From the back of the store, Bae yells back at full volume without hesitation. "Grab every single fucking umbrella in that stack, dude, they're yours, take the whole rack, take the awning, take the goddamn building, I don't care!"
"Thank you," you call back politely.
You select two. One with a wooden handle and a soft grey canopy that looks like it belongs to an old man's collection, and hand it to Jimin. The other is plain black. You push open the door and let her step out first under the shelter of the awning. She opens her umbrella with a soft flare, and you open yours a moment later.
Rain drums steadily against the awning overhead. The street beyond is nearly empty, with only the occasional car rolling past, its headlights smearing ribbons of gold across the rain-soaked pavement. Every reflection lingers a little longer in the water, stretching and shimmering before fading into the next. The whole city feels quieter somehow, as if the rain has wrapped it in a blanket, softening every sound and blurring the sharp edges of the world.
You glance over at Jimin beneath the oversized umbrella. Her beanie is pulled low over her forehead, and tiny dark patches stain the shoulders of her cream-colored sweater where the rain caught her before she had time to open it. She notices you looking and tips her head ever so slightly.
"What?"
You smile to yourself. "This feels familiar."
A small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "Yeah," she says softly. Her eyes drift to the rain for a moment, following the water streaming down the shop windows before returning to yours. "It really does.”
The city turns blue as evening descends. You walk side by side, unhurried, umbrellas tilted toward each other so the edges almost overlap. Your free hand swings at your side. Hers does too. Neither of you reaches for the other yet, but the distance between your knuckles is very small.
Shops are closing around you. Metal shutters rolling down, neon signs switching off, the last few pedestrians hurrying past with their collars pulled up and their faces turned away from the wet. Seoul retreats into itself on evenings like this, drawing inward, and the streets empty until the only sound left is the rain and the occasional hiss of tires on pavement.
You spot the supermarket half a block ahead. A large chain store, brightly lit, its automatic doors sliding open and shut as customers filter in and out. The fluorescent glow from inside spills across the wet sidewalk.
"There," you say, gesturing with your chin. "My first supermarket."
"Try to contain your excitement," Jimin replies, smiling.
Inside, you both shake the rain from your umbrellas and leave them in the stand by the entrance. Cool, conditioned air washes over you the moment the automatic doors slide shut, carrying that unmistakable supermarket smell of fresh bread, produce, and industrial floor cleaner. After the muted gray of the afternoon outside, the bright fluorescent lights are almost blinding. The place seems to go on forever, aisle after aisle disappearing into the distance, shelves packed from floor to ceiling with every product imaginable. Fresh produce sits off to your left, the bakery to your right, and rows of refrigerated cases stretch along the back wall.
You reach for the nearest shopping cart and give it a tug. It doesn't budge. You frown and pull harder. Still nothing.
"This one's broken."
Jimin steps up beside you, wraps a hand around the handle, and pulls. The cart glides free without the slightest resistance.
She looks at you. You look back at her.
"Well, yeah," you say. "Of course it works now. I'd already loosened it for you.”
"Maybe I'm just stronger than you.”
You shrug. "Huh, good thing I have a thing for girls with lumberjack arms.”
Jimin stares at you for half a second before laughing. "Okay, funny guy, I'll guide you," she says, taking the lead, walking ahead of the cart while you follow. "First we need flour. Strong bread flour, not regular. The dough won't work otherwise."
"There are different kinds of flour?"
"Many different kinds."
"I just thought flour was flour."
"Welcome to cooking," she says, scanning the shelves and selecting a bag without hesitation. She drops it into the cart.
You push forward, trailing her through the baking aisle. Yeast. Olive oil. Sugar. Salt. She names each item and locates it with the efficiency of someone who has done this a thousand times. You watch her reach for things on high shelves, read the backs of packages, compare prices. Ordinary gestures. Nothing remarkable about any of them. And yet.
"This is kind of amazing, isn't it?" you say, pausing in the middle of the aisle.
Jimin turns. "Grocery shopping?"
"Yeah, but not just shopping. Doing it with someone." You push the cart forward slowly. "Going through these stupid aisles picking out food together. I think I might have discovered the meaning of life and it's incredibly mundane." She raises both eyebrows. "I'm serious. Ordinary things. Boring, everyday things. But doing them alongside someone you actually want to be with. That changes everything." You lean on the cart handle. "Maybe I should quit the CEO position. Get a normal job. Live a normal life. Do normal people things."
Jimin laughs, surprised out of her. "Okay, sure. What kind of job would you get?"
"I don't know. I could teach. Be a professor somewhere."
"You have zero patience for students."
"Fair point. What about, I could be a chef? Open a restaurant."
"You can barely make pizza."
Eu deixaria mais natural e com uma provocação mais afiada:
"A barista? I could do that."
"Eight hours a day, six days a week? You'd make it through, what, ten customers before taking off your apron and walking out?”
"You're being so unsupportive right now," you tell her, pushing the cart past the canned goods. "I'm trying to reinvent myself and you're crushing every option."
"I think you should keep being a CEO," Jimin concludes, selecting a can of San Marzano tomatoes. "You're good at it when you're not sabotaging yourself."
"See, I was expecting a little more encouragement from my new girlfriend," you say.
Jimin stops mid-step and turns to look at you, one eyebrow slowly arching. "Girlfriend?”
Heat rushes up the back of your neck. "I mean. From you. Whatever we are now. Whatever the correct terminology is for our current—"
"No, no," she cuts in, and there's a quiet delight in her expression that she doesn't even try to hide. "I'm just kidding. Girlfriend is fine."
You stare at her. "Yeah?"
"I think I could get used to you calling me that." She drops the tomatoes into the cart and keeps walking before you can see too much of her face. It doesn't help. Her cheeks are already turning pink.
"Wow… I'm really happy right now," you announce, pushing the cart after her. "I think I might actually enjoy grocery shopping."
Jimin glances back at you, amused. "Really? Just because of the shopping?"
"Of course. What else could it be? It's not like the most beautiful girl I've ever met just agreed to be my girlfriend or anything. Obviously, it's the grocery shopping. Look at all these Doritos flavors. They come up with a new one every day."
She shakes her head and turns back around, but you can see the smile she's trying - and failing - not to let get too big.
"Okay, then. Let's keep shopping." She pushes the cart forward, her voice quieter when she adds, "I like seeing you happy.”
You continue through the aisles. Jimin handles most of the actual decision-making because every time you try to contribute, something goes wrong. You pick up a jar of concentrated tomato paste and announce you've found the pizza sauce. Jimin takes it from your hand and puts it back, explaining that tomato paste and pizza sauce are entirely different things with different consistencies and flavor profiles, and that using paste would result in something barely edible. You pick up oregano when she asks for basil. You grab pre-shredded cheddar when she specifically said fresh mozzarella.
Eventually she bans you from selecting anything and assigns you the sole role of pushing the cart and looking pretty, which you accept with minimal protest. At checkout, the total comes to something laughably small compared to what you spent at Bae's record store, and you tap your card without comment. Then you grab all four bags before Jimin can reach for even one.
"I can carry some," she offers.
You tighten your grip on the bags and give her a solemn look. "Absolutely not. I'm a gentleman."
She looks at the four bags hanging from your hands. "You're carrying all of them?"
"Yes. Now stand back and let me be a man.” She shakes her head but lets you have it. You carry everything, bags cutting into your fingers, the weight pulling at your arms, and you don't complain once because some stubborn part of you refuses to let her carry a single thing tonight.
The bus back to your neighborhood is quiet. Only a handful of passengers, most of them absorbed in their phones or dozing against the windows. You sit together near the back, the grocery bags piled on the empty seat across the aisle. The rain continues outside, streaking down the bus windows in long rivulets that catch the passing city lights and scatter them into fragments of orange and white and red.
Jimin sits close to you. Her knee touches yours. The bus rumbles beneath you, gentle and constant. "So," you say softly. "What did you think of today?"
She considers. "It was pretty normal."
"I know. Next time, I'll plan something better. Something more exciting than taking public transit and buying groceries."
"No, that's not what I mean." Jimin looks out the window, watching the rain blur the city into streaks of light. "I really enjoyed today. All of it. I don't think you could have planned anything better."
You turn toward her. "You didn't?"
She shakes her head. "No. It was perfect."
You study her profile in the dim interior of the bus as the city passes outside. Streetlights move across her face in slow intervals, illuminating her for a moment before leaving her in shadow again. She looks tired, but not in a way that makes you worry. It's the kind of exhaustion that comes after a day spent feeling more than you're used to feeling, when happiness has finally begun to settle into the body and left you with nothing but the pleasant weight of it.
"It reminded me of a song," you say.
Jimin turns to you. "Yeah? Sing it for me."
"I'm not singing on a bus."
"There's barely anyone here."
"Still no."She gives you a look, then shifts closer until her shoulder brushes yours. A moment later, she rests her head against you, unhurried and entirely at ease. Her hair carries the faint smell of rain, with something sweet beneath it.
"Please," she murmurs. "Just for me. Quietly."
You glance around the bus. An elderly man is asleep near the front, while a university student sits a few rows ahead with earbuds in. No one is paying attention. No one in the world cares what happens in the back of this bus on a rainy Friday evening.
So you give in.
You lower your head slightly toward hers and hum the opening bars, so quietly the melody almost disappears beneath the rain against the windows. Then the words follow, just a murmur, "Just a perfect day," you sing, low and a little rough, "drink sangria in the park... and then later, when it gets dark, we go home." You pause, adjusting to the key, finding it. "Just a perfect day. Feed animals in the zoo. Then later, a movie too, and then home.” Jimin's hand finds yours on the seat between you. Her fingers slip between yours. "Oh, it's such a perfect day... I'm glad I spent it with you..."
She squeezes your hand and exhales slowly against your shoulder.
"That's beautiful," Jimin murmurs. "Whose is it?"
"Lou Reed. He was one of my mother's favorite artists." You look down at the grocery bags at your feet, at the basil peeking out. "She used to play it on Sunday mornings. I never understood the lyrics when I was little. I just knew she always went quiet when it came on. I'm going to memorize the whole thing. All the lyrics. And one day I'll sing it to you properly. All the way through. Standing up, even. Maybe with a guitar I can't play."
"I'm going to like that a lot," she says. Then, quieter, she adds, "You're going to make me fall in love with you a second time."
"That's the thing," you tell her. "I fall in love with you every time I see you.”
She looks at you. "Every time?"
"Every single time." You smile. "So you'd better get used to it.”
She doesn't say anything. She just tightens her grip on your hand, her fingers settling more firmly between yours until there's no space left between them. You stay like that for the rest of the ride, side by side in the back of a city bus, heading home through the rain and holding on to each other with the quiet certainty of people who have finally found something they were afraid they might never find - and are even more afraid of losing.
The rest of the journey passes in an easy silence. Jimin's head remains on your shoulder, her breathing slow and steady, her fingers loosely intertwined with yours. Outside the window, Seoul slips past in a blur of rain-slicked streets and smeared neon, the city glowing in the dark. You watch it go by without really taking any of it in, your mind drifting somewhere peaceful and distant; a rare feeling, and one you don't want to disturb.
You think about Yoon-a. Not with guilt or longing, but with a kind of clarity that only comes from distance. She never would have done this with you. A bus ride through the rain, grocery bags at your feet, no reservation at some overpriced restaurant, no event to attend. If you'd suggested spending a Friday evening riding public transit and shopping for pizza ingredients, she would have looked at you as though you'd lost your mind entirely. And maybe she wouldn't have been wrong. Maybe with her, it would have been wrong. Because what makes this feel right isn't the activity. It's the person beside you. The way Jimin fits into the ordinary spaces of your life without needing them to be anything more than what they are.
You glance down at her. Her eyes are closed. Her lips slightly parted. The exhaustion of the day settling into her body.
You squeeze her hand gently. "Hey."
She stirs. A slow blink, then a yawn she tries to cover with the back of her free hand.
"Sleepy?" you ask.
"Just a little," she murmurs, straightening up from your shoulder and rubbing one eye beneath her hat.
"My pizza will fix that. It's very energizing. You might not sleep at all tonight."
"I can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing."
"You'll find out."
You both exit at the stop, tapping your card on the way out. The rain has softened to a fine mist now, barely enough to feel against your skin. You carry all four grocery bags in one hand, your closed umbrella tucked under the opposite arm, and Jimin walks beside you with her hands in the pockets of her sweater.
The walk takes about fifteen minutes. Through the quieter side streets of Cheongdam-dong, past closed boutiques and gated residences, the neighborhood growing progressively more still as you move away from the main road. Eventually you reach the building. Twenty stories of dark glass and clean architectural lines, set back from the street behind a manicured courtyard. A doorman in a grey uniform nods as you enter, holding the lobby door.
Inside, the elevator is private. Keyed access only. You press your thumb to the biometric reader and the doors slide closed, carrying you directly to the top floor.
The penthouse opens immediately from the elevator foyer. You step inside and the space unfolds around you. Six-meter ceilings in the main living area, floor-to-ceiling windows running the entire length of the south wall, framing the Han River below and the city beyond it in a panorama of wet light. The furniture is minimal and modern, dark tones against pale floors, everything precisely placed. Rain runs down the massive windows in thin streams, fragmenting the view into thousands of tiny shifting pieces.
"Home sweet home," you announce, carrying the bags to the kitchen island. You begin unpacking, separating items efficiently. Flour, yeast, and olive oil on the counter. Mozzarella, basil, and prosciutto into the refrigerator. Tomatoes beside the stove.
Behind you, Jimin moves slowly through the living room, taking everything in. Her fingers trail along the back of the sofa before she stops in front of the windows, gazing out at the river.
By the time you've finished putting everything away, she's still there, her back to you, the city reflected in the dark glass and in her eyes.
"So," you say, walking over. "Would you like the full tour? There's a lot to see. The gym is through that door, there's a study upstairs, and the master bathroom has this—"
Jimin turns. You barely have time to register the movement before she's kissing you.
The rest of the sentence disappears against her mouth. For half a second, you're too surprised to do anything but stand there. Then her hands catch the front of your shirt and fist in the fabric, pulling you toward her as she starts backing you up. You stumble, completely caught off guard, and the backs of your legs hit the sofa.
You drop onto the cushions. Jimin follows without breaking the kiss.
She climbs onto your lap, settling her knees on either side of your hips as her hands remain twisted in your shirt. There's nothing hesitant about the way she kisses you now. It's warm, insistent, and hungry enough to leave you struggling to remember what you were saying in the first place.
When she finally pulls back, you're left staring up at her, breathless. "So," you manage, "you don't want to see the penthouse?"
"No." She looks down at you, still gripping your shirt. "I've been in penthouses before. I don't care about the penthouse.”
"Okay. What about the pizza? That was kind of the whole reason we went to the supermarket in the first place—"
"I don't care about the pizza either."
She reaches up and pulls off her beanie, tossing it onto the sofa. Her hair, flattened from being tucked beneath it all day, springs loose around her face and spills over her shoulders. A few strands cling stubbornly to her cheeks before she brushes them away, and the sight of her like this catches you so completely off guard that your throat goes tight.
"You," she says, shifting more firmly into your lap, "are dinner tonight."
You laugh, though it comes out a little unsteady. The nerves and excitement are mixing together in a way that makes it difficult to pretend you're completely in control of yourself. "Okay. Wow." Jimin watches you, amused. "I think I need to put my glasses back on. There's a lot to take in right now, and I'm not sure my naked eyes can handle it.”
Jimin leans down and kisses you again, and you can feel her smile against your lips.
"Do you have any idea," she says between kisses, her mouth moving from your lips to the corner of your jaw, "how difficult today was for me? Walking around with you for hours. You being adorable and charming and handsome the entire time. And I couldn't touch you. I couldn't kiss you in public."
"I'll try to be less irresistible next time," you offer, your hands finding her hips, steadying her against you. "I'll wear something ugly. Maybe a bucket hat."
"Shut up," she murmurs, kissing your neck.
"If it helps," you say, and your breath catches when her teeth graze below your ear, "it was incredibly difficult for me too. I wanted to get on my knees in the middle of that coffee shop and beg you to be mine the second you walked through the door."
She pulls back to look at you. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are very dark and very focused. "Good. Then we're both pathetic."
"Symptoms of love," you reply, reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. "Cruel disease. No known cure."
"I like being sick with you," she says, and kisses you again.
This time it's slower. Her tongue slides against yours and you feel it through your entire body. Your hands move from her hips to her waist, then higher, fingertips finding the hem of her sweater. You pause there. Asking without asking. She doesn't pull away, doesn't stiffen, and so you gather the fabric in your hands and draw it upward. She lifts her arms to let you pull it over her head.
Her skin underneath is pale and smooth, faintly flushed across her collarbones and chest. Her breasts are full and round, held in a simple white bra with thin straps, nothing elaborate, nothing performative. Just her body in front of you, offered without pretense.
"You're staring," she observes.
"They're right there," you say, your gaze tracing the curve of her cleavage, the way her chest rises and falls with each breath. "Directly in my line of sight. I'm physically incapable of looking anywhere else."
"Good." Jimin shifts off your lap, and for a moment you think she's pulling away. But then she's lowering herself to the floor, kneeling between your parted legs, her hair falling forward over her bare shoulders. She settles there, looking up at you, and her hands come to rest on your thighs. They slide upward, slowly, until her fingers reach your belt.
"Okay," she says, and her thumbs trace along the waistband of your pants. "I have something for you."
Your stomach tightens. You watch her hands, then her face, then her hands again. She's looking at you steadily, her lips slightly swollen, her eyes holding yours with an intensity that makes your pulse hammer against the inside of your wrists.
"Can I?" she asks.
"Do the honors," you tell her.
Her fingers work at the button of your pants with a steady confidence that makes your stomach clench. She pops it open, pulls down the zipper, and tugs the fabric over your hips. You lift slightly off the couch to help her, and she drags everything down to your thighs in one smooth motion. Your cock strains against the thin fabric of your underwear, visibly hard, the outline of it pressing against the cotton.
Jimin pauses. Looks up at you from between your legs, her dark hair falling forward over her bare shoulders.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Yeah," you manage. Your hands are gripping the couch cushion on either side of you. "There's just a lot happening at once. Sensory overload."
"Do you not want to?"
You let out a short, breathless laugh. "There is no universe in existence where I don't want this. Not a single timeline. Not one."
That mischievous smile returns. The one you saw briefly in the record store when she teased you, except now it carries an entirely different weight. She hooks her fingers into the waistband of your underwear and pulls down slowly. Your cock springs free, thick and flushed, curving slightly upward against your stomach.
Jimin wraps her hand around you. Her fingers are cool against the heat of your skin, and you feel your thighs tense at the contact. She holds you there for a moment, not moving, just feeling the weight of you in her palm.
"I thought about the first time for so many nights," she says, looking at your cock in her hand, her thumb tracing along the underside. "After the lake house. When I was alone in my apartment trying to pretend everything was fine. I kept coming back to it. The way you felt. The way you sounded."
"Jimin—"
"I could never forget it," she continues, her grip tightening just slightly. "Even when I told myself I should."
She leans forward and lets a long string of spit fall from her lips onto the head of your cock. It lands warm and thick, trailing down your shaft, and she follows it with her fist, spreading the slickness along your entire length. The wet sound it makes when she strokes fills the quiet of the penthouse. She spits again, lower this time, letting the saliva coat you thoroughly until her hand glides without any friction, her palm slick and tight around you.
"Do you know what I'm going to do?" she asks, looking up at you through her lashes. Her hand keeps moving, slow strokes that send heat pooling in your lower stomach.
"If I had to guess," you say, and your throat feels tight, "I'd say you're about to give me the best titjob of my life."
"That's exactly right," she confirms, and releases your cock just long enough to straighten up on her knees.
She doesn't remove the bra. Instead, she positions herself higher between your legs, leans forward, and takes your cock in one hand, guiding it between the swell of her breasts. The white fabric of the bra presses her tits together, creating a tight channel, and when she settles your shaft between them the pressure is immediate and constant. The bra does most of the work, holding her breasts snug around you, the soft skin warm and yielding against both sides of your cock.
Then she moves. Jimin rolls her body upward, dragging her chest along your length, and the sensation makes your head drop back against the couch. The underside of your cock slides against the smooth skin between her breasts, the head pushing up through the top of her cleavage before she drops back down and repeats the motion. Up and down, slow and controlled, her tits wrapped tight around you.
"Fuck," you breathe, staring down at the sight of it. Your cock disappearing between her breasts, reappearing at the top glistening with spit, then sliding back down into that warm pressure. The white bra framing everything, her pale skin flushed pink across her chest.
Jimin spits again, letting it drip down her chin and onto her cleavage. It runs between her tits and coats your shaft, making the slide wetter, smoother. The friction drops away and now she's gliding on you, her breasts slippery and hot, and every time she pushes up the head of your cock pokes through the top of her cleavage, flushed and swollen.
"Is this good?" she asks, and she's watching your face, reading every reaction.
"You have no idea," you tell her, barely recognizing the strained quality of your own speech. "You have absolutely no idea what you look like right now."
"Tell me."
"Fucking perfect," you say. "Your tits around my cock. The way you're looking at me right now. I'm trying to burn this into my memory permanently."
She moves faster. Her rhythm finding something steady and purposeful, her whole upper body rocking as she works your cock between her breasts. The saliva makes everything obscene, glistening across her skin, smeared along the inside curves of her tits where they press against your shaft. You can see the wet streaks catching the ambient light from the windows, the rain-glow of the city painting her skin in soft silvers and blues.
"You're so hard," she murmurs, and there's genuine pleasure in her expression, a satisfaction at what she's doing to you. "I can feel you throbbing between my tits. Do you like being squeezed like this?"
"I like everything you do," you admit, and one of your hands moves to her hair, brushing it back from her face so you can see her properly. "Every single thing. But this is going to ruin me for anyone else."
"Good," she says simply, and presses her breasts tighter together with her hands, adding to the compression the bra already provides. Your cock is buried in her now, surrounded on all sides by soft, slick flesh, and when she picks up the pace your hips twitch involuntarily, pushing up to meet her movements.
"Stay still," she orders, pressing one hand flat against your hip. "Let me do this."
"Yes ma'am."
She laughs softly, her rhythm never breaking. "You're much more obedient than I expected."
"You've got my cock between your tits. I'd agree to basically anything right now."
"I'll remember that."
"Please don't."
She leans forward slightly, changing the angle, and now when she pushes up your cock drags along the full length of her cleavage, the head catching briefly on the upper edge of her bra before slipping through. The fabric is damp now, darkened with spit, and the contrast between the soft cotton and her bare skin creates a texture that makes your toes curl against the floor.
"You're leaking," she observes, looking down at where the tip of your cock emerges from her chest. A bead of precum glistens at the slit, mixing with the saliva already coating you. "I barely started and you're already dripping for me."
"That's your fault," you manage. "Completely your fault."
"Good. I want to make a mess of you."
She works you for another minute, then slows to a stop with your cock still nestled between her breasts. She looks up at you, holding your gaze, and reaches behind her back. You hear the small click of the clasp, and then the bra loosens. She shrugs the straps off her shoulders and lets it fall away.
Her breasts are bare now, no longer held in place by the bra. They settle naturally against her chest, full and heavy, shifting with their own soft weight whenever she moves. Her nipples are hard, small, and pink, the skin around them slightly puckered from arousal. They look even fuller than you remember, rounder than the bra had suggested, and the sight of them leaves you staring for a moment longer than you mean to.
"There you go," she says, straightening her shoulders. "All yours."
You don't have anything clever to say. You just look at her, kneeling between your legs, topless, hair spilling over her bare shoulders, her skin shining with the remnants of her own spit, and you think distantly that if the world ended right now you wouldn't have a single complaint about how your life turned out.
Jimin takes your cock in her hand again, strokes it twice to spread the wetness, and then lifts her breasts with both hands, guiding them around your shaft. Without the bra, the sensation changes completely. Softer. Fuller. Her bare tits envelope you, the warm skin pressing flush against you from all sides, and she has to hold them together manually now, her fingers sinking into the pliant flesh as she squeezes them around your length.
"Better?" she asks.
"Infinitely better," you breathe, watching her bare breasts swallow your cock, the head pushing through the top of her cleavage each time she moves.
She picks up the pace. Her hands press her bare breasts together tighter around your shaft, fingers sinking into the soft flesh, and her whole upper body rocks with a steady rhythm that sends waves of heat rolling up through your stomach. A thin sheen of sweat begins to form across her chest, collecting in the hollow of her throat, glistening along the inner curves of her tits where the skin is pressed together around you.
"Look at me," she says.
You do. Your eyes drop from the ceiling back down to her face and she holds your gaze without breaking it, her pupils blown wide, her lips parted slightly. She smiles. Just a hint. Just the corner of her mouth pulling up, like she can read exactly how good this feels written all over your face and it satisfies something deep in her.
"You remember the lake house?" she asks, still moving, still working you between her breasts with that relentless rhythm. "When you put your mouth on me."
"I remember," you murmur.
"Your tongue," she continues, squeezing her tits tighter, "and then your fingers inside me. I came so hard I thought I was going to black out. You remember that?"
"Every second of it."
"I think about it all the time." She pushes up, your cock sliding through the slick channel of her cleavage, the head emerging flushed and wet before she drops back down. "When I'm alone at night. When I can't sleep. I think about your fingers curling inside me and your mouth sucking my clit and the way you looked at me while you were doing it. Like I was the only thing in the world that mattered."
"You were," you tell her, and your hand finds her hair again, threading through it. "You are."
"I wanted to return that," she says. "I wanted to make you feel the way you made me feel. I've been thinking about it for four months. What I'd do to you if I ever got you alone again."
"And this is what you came up with?"
"This is just the beginning." She grins, and it's wicked, genuinely wicked, and your cock throbs between her tits in response. She feels it. "There it is. You liked hearing that."
"Everything you say right now is doing something to me."
"Then I'm going to keep talking until you can't think about anything else.”
She increases her speed. Her breasts bounce slightly with each movement, the weight of them shifting as she rocks forward and back. Sweat trickles down between them, mixing with the saliva already coating you, making everything wetter, hotter, more frictionless. Your cock glides through her cleavage like it was made for this, the head pushing through the top of her tits each time, glistening and swollen.
Jimin doesn't look away from you. Those dark eyes fixed on yours, reading every twitch, every sharp inhale, every time your jaw clenches. And she smiles each time she catches you slipping, each time your composure cracks a little more.
"You're getting close," she observes.
"Yeah," you admit. Your thighs are tight, your stomach is coiled, and every nerve in your body is funneling toward the point where her breasts squeeze around your shaft. "You keep looking at me like that and I'm going to lose it."
"That's what I want. I'm going to make you cum all over my tits." She says it plainly, like something already decided. "I want to feel it. I want to see it on my skin."
"Jimin—"
"Give it to me," she says, pressing her breasts together until the pressure is almost too much, her pace relentless now, her whole body committed to the movement. "I've been thinking about this for months. Cum on my breasts. I want you to make a mess of me."
Your hips push up involuntarily, fighting the urge to fuck up into her cleavage, and she lets you, accommodating the movement, maintaining that tight channel around you even as your thrusts become erratic and uncontrolled.
"Come on," she coaxes, looking up at you with that knowing half-smile. "Let go. I can feel how close you are. You're throbbing between my tits. Give me what I want."
"Keep talking," you manage, barely.
"I want your cum all over me," she says, squeezing harder, moving faster. "I want to feel it hot on my skin. I want to watch it drip down my tits. Cum for me, babe. Right now. Let me have it."
That's what breaks you. The orgasm tears through you from the base of your spine outward, and you groan through clenched teeth as the first thick rope of cum shoots up through her cleavage and lands across the top of her left breast. She doesn't stop. Her hands keep pressing, keep milking, pulling each wave out of you as you pulse between her tits. More spills over her skin, white and hot, pooling in the valley between her breasts, dripping down the inner curves where her flesh is pressed together. She strokes you through all of it, squeezing rhythmically, coaxing every last drop from your cock until you're shuddering and oversensitive and gripping the couch cushion hard enough to ache.
"There you go," she murmurs, still holding you between her breasts, still moving gently, slowly now. "All of it. Give me every drop."
You twitch one final time, a last weak pulse of cum leaking from the tip and sliding down your shaft into her cleavage. Your chest is heaving. Your entire body feels wrung out, every muscle trembling with the aftershock.
Jimin finally releases you. She leans back on her heels and looks down at herself. Her breasts are covered. Thick streaks of cum across both tits, pooled in the center of her chest, dripping slowly down toward her stomach. She lifts one hand and spreads it with her fingertips, rubbing your cum into her skin in slow circles, coating her nipples with it until they glisten.
"You made a mess," she says, looking up at you with something between satisfaction and hunger.
"You asked for it."
"I did," she agrees. "And I'd ask for it again."
Your cock hasn't softened. It stands between you, still hard, still flushed, wet with spit and cum. Jimin notices. Her eyes flick down and then back up to your face, and something shifts in her expression. Something hungrier. More urgent.
She stands. Her hands go to the waistband of her pants and she unbuttons them without ceremony, pushing them down over her hips along with her underwear in one motion. She steps out of them, kicking them aside, and she's naked in front of you. Completely. Every inch of her exposed, her body lean and soft in all the right places, her thighs pressing together slightly, the dark strip between her legs barely visible.
You reach for the zipper of your jacket first, shrugging it off your shoulders and tossing it aside. Then you grab the hem of your long-sleeved shirt and pull it up over your head. The fabric catches briefly, and for a moment, the world goes dark.
When your vision clears, Jimin is already there - already moving, already climbing back onto you. She settles on your lap, skin against skin now, nothing between you. Her breasts press against your bare chest, still slick with your cum, and the warmth of her is everywhere. Her mouth finds yours immediately, kissing you deep and slow, her tongue sliding against yours while her hips settle against you. You feel the wet heat of her against the underside of your cock, her pussy pressed flush along your shaft without taking you in, and when she shifts her hips slightly the slickness of her arousal smears against you and you both exhale into each other's mouths.
"I need you," she breathes against your lips.
Her hand reaches between your bodies. Her fingers wrap around your cock, angling it downward, and you feel the head press against the entrance of her pussy. Hot and wet and yielding. She holds you there, right at the edge, not yet pushing down, her forehead touching yours, her breath mixing with yours in the narrow space between your mouths.
"I need you too," you tell her, and your hands settle on her hips.
Jimin holds your cock at her entrance for one more breath, her fingers gripping the base. Then she sinks down. So slow you feel every fraction of it. The head of your cock pressing past her opening, the tight heat of her yielding around you inch by inch, swallowing you deeper until her thighs are flush against yours and you're buried completely inside her. She lets out a long exhale through parted lips, her eyes falling closed, her free hand bracing against your chest.
She sits there on your lap, full of you, and you can feel her adjusting. The way her walls grip and release, grip and release, her body accommodating your size. Her fingers spread across your sternum, pressing lightly.
"Stay still," she murmurs, eyes still closed. "Let me feel you." You obey. Your hands rest on her waist, thumbs tracing small circles against her hip bones, and you watch her face. The concentration there. The way her brow furrows slightly, then smooths as the tension melts away. "You're bigger than I remembered," she says, and opens her eyes to look down at you. Something raw and honest in her expression.
"Is it okay?"
"It's perfect." She shifts her weight forward slightly, testing. "You fill me up completely."
Then she moves. A slow roll of her hips, barely lifting off you, just grinding forward and back with your cock buried deep inside her. The motion is unhurried, almost lazy, and the sensation spreads through your lower body like something molten. She finds a rhythm quickly. Rocking on you, her hips tracing a slow circle, the wet heat of her clenching around your shaft with each forward press.
Jimin's body above you is almost too much to process. The length of her torso, lean and pale, her stomach flexing with each undulation. Her breasts swaying slightly with the movement, heavy and still streaked with the drying remnants of your cum. The faint sheen of sweat beginning at her collarbones. The way her dark hair falls around her face and over her shoulders.
"I missed this," she says, picking up the pace just slightly, rising higher on her knees before sinking back down. "Being like this with you. Having you inside me."
"I missed it too," you respond, and your grip on her waist tightens. Not guiding her, not controlling her movement, just holding. Feeling the flex of her muscles beneath the skin as she rides you. "Feeling you. Your warmth. The sounds you make."
"It only took one time," she continues, her breath growing shorter as she finds a deeper angle, dropping her hips down harder on the downstroke. "One time and I knew. I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop thinking about your cock. About how you felt inside me that night."
"Jimin—"
"I tried to get over it." She leans forward, changing the angle, and her breasts press against your chest as she rolls her hips. Her mouth hovers near your ear. "I tried to tell myself it was just physical. Just bodies. Just the adrenaline of being alone together in that house during a storm. But it wasn't."
"It wasn't," you agree, and your hands slide from her waist down to her ass, palming both cheeks, feeling the muscles tense and release as she works herself on you.
She straightens up again, sitting tall on your lap, and increases her pace. Rising until just the tip of your cock remains inside her, then dropping back down, taking you to the hilt. Each time she bottoms out her thighs press against yours and a small, involuntary sound escapes her throat. Her hands move to your shoulders, gripping for leverage, and she uses the hold to ride you harder.
"You feel so good," she says, almost accusatory. "Every time I sink down on you it's like the first time. That stretch. The way you reach so deep inside me."
You squeeze her breasts. Your palms cover them fully, fingers pressing into the soft flesh, the remnants of your cum making them slippery. Her nipples are hard against your palms and she arches into your touch, pushing her chest forward.
"Touch me like that," she tells you. "Squeeze them harder. They're still covered in you. I can feel it."
You obey. Kneading her tits firmly, watching the way the flesh spills between your fingers, the white streaks of dried cum cracking and smearing as you work them. She rides you faster in response, her rhythm growing more urgent, her hips snapping down against you with increasing force.
"Four months," she breathes, and her nails dig into your shoulders. "Four months I spent lying in bed thinking about the way you fucked me at the lake house. The way you put my legs over your shoulders and pushed so deep I thought I could feel you in my stomach."
"I thought about you too." Your hands return to her hips, gripping the bone. "Every night. Your pussy around me. How tight you were. How wet you got when I touched you."
"I'm so wet right now," she confirms, and you can hear it. The slick sound of her sliding up and down your shaft, her arousal coating you, making everything frictionless and obscene. "Can you feel how wet I am for you? That's what you do to me. Just being inside me makes me drip."
"I can feel everything," you tell her. "Every time you clench around me. Every time you squeeze."
Jimin smiles down at you. That same knowing smile from before, the one that says she can see exactly what she's doing to you and enjoys it. She plants both palms flat on your chest and uses the leverage to fuck you with purpose, her ass lifting and dropping in a steady, driving rhythm. Her breasts bounce with each impact, heavy and beautiful, and you can't decide whether to watch them or watch her face so your eyes travel between both, greedy and overwhelmed.
"Tell me how my pussy feels," she demands, breathless now, her composure starting to fray at the edges. "Tell me what it's like being inside me."
"Tight," you say immediately. "Hot. So wet I can barely think straight. Every time you come down on me it's like you're trying to pull me deeper. Your body wants me as badly as you do."
"My body is obsessed with you," she admits, her pace faltering for a moment before she catches herself and resumes. "My brain spent four months trying to be rational and my body was screaming for you the entire time."
You sit up slightly, closing the distance between your chests, and capture her mouth in a kiss. She moans into it, never stopping her hips, riding you through the kiss with a desperation that's building toward something inevitable. Her arms wrap around your neck and she clings to you, her forehead pressing against yours when the kiss breaks.
"I'm yours," she whispers against your mouth. "This body is yours. My pussy is yours. Everything."
Her rhythm is becoming erratic now. Less controlled, more frantic, her hips stuttering as she chases something building inside her. You can feel it in the way her walls tighten around you, fluttering, gripping harder with each downstroke. Her thighs are trembling against yours.
"Are you close?" you ask, holding her face in your hands, making her look at you.
"Yes," she gasps, grinding down hard on your lap. "Almost there. I'm so close. Don't stop touching me."
You kiss her mouth. Her jaw. The side of her neck, tasting salt and sweat. Her collarbone. Everything you can reach, pressing your lips to every inch of skin available to you while she shakes apart above you.
"I'm going to make you cum," you tell her against her throat. "Right now."
You wrap both arms around her waist and lift. She gasps, clinging to you, her legs wrapping around your hips as you pivot and lay her down on the sofa beneath you. Her back hits the cushion, her dark hair fanning out around her head, and you settle above her. Between her thighs. Your cock still buried inside her, the angle changed now, deeper from this position.
You plant one knee against the cushion for leverage, one foot on the floor, and look down at her. Flushed. Breathless. Her breasts splayed and glistening. Her eyes locked on yours with an urgency that borders on pleading.
"Don't make me wait," she says.
You pull your hips back and push into her. Deep and full, burying yourself to the hilt in one slow, complete stroke. Jimin's back arches off the cushion, her fingers gripping the edge of the sofa above her head, and her mouth falls open in a silent exhale. You hold there for a moment, pressed flush against her, feeling the tight clench of her pussy around your cock. Then you pull back and thrust again. Harder this time.
A rhythm builds from the start. Steady and purposeful, each stroke driving deep inside her, your hips snapping forward with a force that moves her body on the cushion. Her breasts bounce with every impact, heavy and slick, still painted with the evidence of your earlier orgasm. The sight of them moving, shaking each time you fuck into her, is enough to make your grip on her thighs tighten until the skin blanches white under your fingers.
"Yeah," Jimin breathes, looking up at you with those dark, blown-out eyes. "Fuck me, babe. Fuck your girlfriend."
That word. Girlfriend. It hits somewhere deep in your chest and travels straight down to your cock, and your next thrust is rougher, more urgent. Something possessive ignites in you, something greedy and overwhelming, and you lean over her, planting one hand beside her head while the other grips her hip, pulling her into each stroke.
"Say that again," you tell her.
"Your girlfriend," she repeats, her breath hitching as you bottom out inside her. "I'm your girlfriend and you're fucking me on your couch and I don't want you to stop."
"I'm not stopping," you promise, picking up the pace. "Not until you're shaking."
Her legs wrap around your waist, heels pressing into the small of your back, pulling you deeper on every downstroke. You can feel the wet heat of her everywhere, her arousal coating your shaft, smearing against your pelvis each time your bodies meet. The sound of it fills the room, slick and rhythmic, underscored by the soft creak of the sofa beneath you.
"You feel incredible," you tell her, watching her face twist with pleasure as you hit a spot inside her that makes her nails drag down your forearm. "Your pussy is so tight around me. Every time I push in, you grip me like you never want me to leave."
"I don't," she gasps. "I never want you to pull out. I want to feel you this deep all the time."
You fuck her harder. Your hips find a punishing pace, driving into her with the full weight of your body, and her breasts shake with every thrust, the flesh rippling. She reaches up and grabs the back of your neck, pulling your face down to hers, and kisses you wet and desperate between broken moans.
"You're so deep," she pants against your mouth. "I can feel you in my stomach. Every single inch of you stretching me open."
"Take all of it," you respond, grinding your hips in a circle when you bottom out, making her squirm beneath you. "Every inch is yours. This cock belongs to you now."
"It better," she says, and even breathless and flushed and falling apart, there's something commanding in her tone. Something that reminds you she's not just receiving this. She's claiming it.
Your hand moves between your bodies. Your thumb finds her clit, swollen and slick, and you press against it in small, tight circles without breaking your rhythm. The effect is immediate. Jimin's entire body jerks, her thighs clamping tight around you, her back bowing off the cushion.
"Oh fuck," she chokes out. "Right there. Don't move your hand."
You keep the pressure steady, rubbing her clit while you fuck her, and watch her composure dissolve completely. Her head falls back, exposing the long line of her throat. Her hands grip the cushion above her so hard her knuckles go white. Her stomach muscles clench and release in rapid succession, and her pussy tightens around you in pulses that make your jaw clench.
"You're falling apart," you observe, rubbing faster. "I can feel it. Your whole body is shaking for me."
"Because you're ruining me," she manages, her hips bucking up to meet yours. "Your cock and your fingers at the same time, I can't think, I can't—"
"Don't think. Just feel it."
Her moans grow louder. Less controlled. Raw sounds that fill the penthouse and bounce off the floor-to-ceiling windows, mixing with the sound of the rain still falling outside. Her pussy is gripping you so tight now that each thrust requires effort, pushing through the resistance of her walls clenching around your shaft.
"You're going to make me cum," she tells you, and there's something almost helpless about it. "I'm so close. Your dick is so deep and your thumb on my clit and I can't hold it. You're going to make me cum so hard."
"Then cum on my dick," you tell her. "Let me feel it. I want to feel your pussy squeeze me when you lose it. Cum for me, Jimin."
You give her the final thrusts. Deep, relentless strokes that push all the way inside her and stay there, grinding against her cervix while your thumb works her clit without mercy. One. Two. Three more and then you bury yourself to the hilt and hold, pressed as deep as her body will allow.
Jimin shatters. Her eyes roll back, her mouth opening in a soundless cry that finally breaks into a long, shuddering moan. Her pussy clamps down on your cock in rhythmic waves, squeezing and releasing, milking you while her entire body trembles beneath you. Her thighs lock around your waist so tight you couldn't pull away if you wanted to.
You fuck her slowly through it. Shallow, gentle strokes that draw out each aftershock, making her twitch and gasp with every movement. Her orgasm seems to last forever, rolling through her in diminishing waves until she's boneless and panting on the cushion beneath you, her grip finally loosening, her legs sliding off your waist.
"Oh my god," she whispers, covering her face with both hands. "Oh my god…"
You lean down and kiss her forehead. Her cheek. The corner of her jaw. She's trembling still, small involuntary shivers running through her limbs.
"You're beautiful when you cum," you murmur against her skin. "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
She laughs weakly, still hiding behind her hands. "I think you broke something inside me."
You stay inside her for another moment, feeling the last flutters of her orgasm around your cock. Then you ease back slightly, and the urgency in your own body reasserts itself. You're close. The tightness in your stomach has been building since she started clenching around you.
"I'm close," you admit. "Where do you want me?"
Jimin drops her hands from her face. Her eyes find yours, still hazy with the aftermath but sharpening with intent. "My mouth," she says. "Pull out and give it to me."
You withdraw from her slowly, your cock sliding free slick and hard and aching. Jimin is already moving before you can stand, rolling off the couch and dropping to her knees on the floor between your legs. You rise from the sofa and stand in front of her, and she looks up at you from below, her hair mussed and tangled, her body flushed and glistening, her lips parting as she reaches for you.
Her mouth closes around the head of your cock and the warmth of it makes your knees buckle slightly. She takes you deeper, her tongue pressing flat against the underside of your shaft, and sucks with a slow, firm pressure that pulls a groan from somewhere deep in your chest.
She pulls off briefly, her hand stroking you, and looks up. "You taste good," she says, licking her lips. "Your cock tastes so good."
"That's because it tastes like you," you tell her.
Something soft crosses her face. Amused and pleased and genuinely touched all at once. She shakes her head slightly. "Don't be romantic while I have your dick in my mouth," she says. "That's not fair. You can't make me feel things in my chest while I'm trying to make you cum."
"I can do both, actually. I'm multifaceted."
"Shut up," she says, and takes you back into her mouth.
She sucks you with purpose now. Her cheeks hollow around your shaft, her tongue swirling over the sensitive head each time she pulls back, her hand working the base in tandem with her lips. The wet suction of her mouth, hot and tight, combined with the visual of her on her knees looking up at you through her lashes is more than you can take.
Your hand moves to her hair. Not pushing, not guiding, just resting there. Feeling the silk of it between your fingers while she bobs her head on your cock. She takes you deeper with each pass, her throat relaxing to accommodate you, and the sound she makes when you hit the back of her mouth is devastating.
"I'm going to cum," you warn her, your thighs tensing. "Jimin, I'm—"
She doesn't pull off. She sucks harder. Her hand tightens around the base of your cock and her mouth works you with renewed intensity, her head moving faster, cheeks hollowed, tongue pressing and stroking with every pass. She moans around you and the vibration of it against your shaft is what finishes you.
You cum in her mouth. The orgasm rips through you and you grip her hair involuntarily as the first pulse hits the back of her throat. Your cock throbs between her lips, emptying into her, and even though you already came once tonight there's so much. Thick ropes flooding her mouth, and she takes all of it without flinching. You can see her throat working. Swallowing. Taking each wave as it comes while her hand strokes you through it, milking your shaft from base to tip, coaxing everything out of you.
Your knees threaten to give. You brace one hand on the back of the couch and try to stay standing while she drains you completely, her lips sealed tight around your cock, not letting a single drop escape.
When the last pulse fades and you're left shaking and oversensitive, she finally pulls off slowly. A thin string of saliva connects her lower lip to the head of your cock before it breaks. She's still holding you in her hand, her fingers wrapped gently around your shaft.
She opens her mouth. Sticks out her tongue. Clean. Empty. She swallowed everything.
"Not a single drop wasted," she says, looking up at you with a smug little smile, clearly pleased with herself.
Then she leans forward and presses a soft, closed-mouth kiss to the tip of your cock - gentle and almost reverent.
You extend your hand down to her. She takes it and you pull her to her feet, her body rising in front of you until you're face to face. Naked. Flushed. Both of you breathing hard and covered in a thin layer of sweat. You reach up and tuck a strand of dark hair behind her ear, smoothing it away from her face.
Jimin tilts her head slightly, a lazy smile forming. "Looks like we burned through our stamina pretty quickly, huh?"
"Don't even joke," you say, shaking your head. "I genuinely don't know what to do with myself right now. I think my brain stopped working."
"Maybe a shower," she suggests. "And then the pizza. Those seem like logical next steps."
"Right. Shower. Pizza. Normal activities. I can handle that." You place your hand on her lower back, her skin warm and damp beneath your palm, and guide her toward the hallway. "Maybe now I can actually give you the tour. The bathroom is this way. Just try not to ambush me with surprise kisses in the meantime."
Jimin glances over her shoulder at you as she walks ahead, that quiet mischief in her expression that you're beginning to recognize as specifically and uniquely dangerous. "I can't guarantee anything," she says.
—
The shower took longer than it probably needed to, mostly because every time you reached for a towel, Jimin found some reason to pull you back under the water. The pizza, despite your modest expectations, turned out genuinely good. The crust was crisp around the edges, the cheese properly melted, and the basil had been distributed with what you considered professional-level restraint. Jimin ate three slices before finally admitting that you might actually know what you were doing.
You pretended not to be ridiculously pleased by that.
Now she sits on your kitchen counter, legs crossed, wearing nothing but one of your shirts. The fabric hangs past her thighs, the sleeves swallowed her hands entirely until she rolled them up. Her hair is still damp, darker than usual, falling loose around her face. Steam rises from the mug you just handed her.
She lifts it to her nose and breathes in the aroma. Then she looks at you over the rim.
"Wow. First pizza, now tea. You're really making progress today."
"Told you I'm practically a chef now," you reply, leaning against the counter beside her with your own mug. "And for the record, if you stay for lunch tomorrow, I can cook you anything you want. Anything. Just name it."
Jimin takes a slow sip. "Take it easy. You managed one pizza. That doesn't mean you can suddenly make any dish in existence."
"Of course I can. Every dish is fundamentally the same process. The ingredients change, the preparation method changes, the cooking time changes. But the core principle is identical. Heat, timing, seasoning. Once you understand the system, the specifics are trivial."
Jimin narrows her eyes. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Trying to bait me."
You give her an innocent look. "Why would I do that?"
"Because you want me to start arguing about cooking theory so we can sit here debating it until midnight."
"Is it working?"
She gives you a look. "No."
"Seems like it is.”
Jimin smiles into her tea and takes another sip. For a while, neither of you speaks. The rain continues outside, softer now than before, a steady hush against the windows. The kitchen is dim, lit only by the under-cabinet lights and the grey glow of the city filtering through the glass.
You turn your mug slowly in your hands. Then you set it down on the counter.
"So," you begin. "Maybe we should think about how things are going to work from now on. You and me. The practical side of it."
Jimin lowers her mug slightly. "Are you worried?"
"I'm worried about you."
"You don't need to worry about me," she says, calm and even. "I know how to take care of myself."
"I know that. I do. But that's not what I mean." You turn to face her, leaning your hip against the counter. "I don't want your life to become more complicated because of me. You just got back on your feet. Your group is active again, your schedule is filling up, the company is watching everything you do. And now there's me in the middle of it. I just think maybe you should talk to the others first, before we—"
"I'll talk to them," she cuts in, firm but gentle. "Minjeong, Ning, Aeri. I'll sit them down and tell them myself. But I already know how they'll react. They'll support me. They've seen me at my worst, they carried me through it. They'll be happy I found something that makes me want to stay standing."
You nod slowly. "Okay."
"And listen to me." She sets her mug down beside her on the counter and turns her whole body toward you. "I don't want to be weak again. I don't want to be afraid of living my own life. What's the point of everything I went through if I come out the other side just as scared as before? I don't want to end up on that bench again at two in the morning, feeling that I'm not enough, not knowing who I am or what I'm supposed to want. I did that already. I'm not going back."
"Jimin—"
"And I don't want to run off to your lake house again either," she continues. "I was happy there. Genuinely happy, maybe the happiest I'd been in years. But you and I both know what that place was. A temporary refuge. A borrowed life. We played house for three days while the world waited outside, and it was beautiful, and it wasn't real." She reaches out and takes your hand. "I want to feel here what I felt there. In this city. In my real life. Being me. Karina on the stage, Jimin in this kitchen, both of them at the same time. I want to live the life I actually want to live. And that life is being an idol and being your girl. Both. Together." She squeezes your hand. "I don't think I'm asking for too much. Am I?"
You look at her. Sitting on your counter in your shirt, damp hair, bare legs, her eyes steady and unflinching. The girl from the bench, except she isn't anymore. That girl was disappearing. This one has decided to exist.
"No," you answer. "Of course not. You have every right to want to be happy. You have every right to want everything."
"Then we don't need to be afraid," she says. "Either of us."
You step between her knees and wrap your arms around her, and she folds into you immediately, her arms circling your back, her cheek pressing against your chest. You rest your chin on the top of her head. Her hair smells of your shampoo, and there's something about that small domestic detail that nearly undoes you completely.
"I'm not saying it's going to be easy," she murmurs against your shirt. "There will be days when the schedule is brutal and we won't see each other for weeks. There will be rumors. There will be pressure from every direction. I know all of that."
"I know."
"But I also know it will be worth it." She pulls back just enough to look up at you. "That night. On the bench. After you left." Her gaze drifts somewhere past your shoulder, back across four months and a river and a version of herself she barely survived. "I sat there for a long time after you walked away. And I remember thinking, maybe today wasn't so bad after all. I met a kind stranger. He shared his chips with me. He listened to me complain about things he couldn't possibly understand, and he didn't try to fix any of it. He just stayed." She swallows. "I went back to my bed that night, and for the first time in months, I didn't fall asleep thinking about my problems. I fell asleep wondering who that person was. What his name might be. Whether he'd actually meant it when he said I could visit his office."
"And you wanted to visit me?"
"I did." She smiles faintly. "I kept your blazer for two weeks, trying to come up with a reason to see you again that wouldn't sound completely insane. Returning it was the best excuse I had."
"For the record, it was an excellent excuse. Completely believable. Nobody would ever suspect ulterior motives.”
"Shut up," she says, laughing wetly, and that's when you see it. A single tear sliding down her right cheek, catching the dim light.
You lift your hand and gently wipe it away with your thumb. Then you lean in and kiss her.
The kiss is soft and unhurried. Her hands come up to rest against your chest, and when you pull back her eyes are shining but she's smiling.
"You're absolutely right," you tell her. "About all of it. So here's how we're going to do this. One day at a time. Tomorrow's problems are tomorrow's problems. We'll deal with them when they arrive, together, and not a minute before."
"And today?"
"Today there weren't any problems at all," you say. "Today we drank terrible coffee and rode a bus and wandered around a record store... Okay, technically I bribed the owner to empty the entire place so we could have one ridiculously romantic moment all to ourselves. And yeah, I know, you didn't approve."
"I really didn't."
"I've reflected on my actions."
"Oh?"
"I've concluded that I should never do it again."
"Good."
"But..." You can't help smiling. "You have to admit it was a beautiful moment."
She tries to stay serious for all of two seconds before a reluctant smile appears. "...It was."
"I knew it." You brush your thumb lightly along her cheek. "Then we bought groceries in the rain. I sang Lou Reed to you in public. And then you came home with me." Your smile softens as you hold her gaze. "We had a perfect day together. The first of many.”
Jimin's smile grows a little wider, though it trembles just enough to betray the tears gathering in her eyes. She gives a small, certain nod, never once breaking eye contact.
"Yeah," she says softly. "The first of many.”
You pull her back into your arms and hold her there. She hooks her chin over your shoulder, her fingers curling into the fabric at the small of your back, and neither of you moves to let go. The tea sits untouched on the counter beside her, steam thinning to nothing. You don't reach for it. She doesn't either.
Outside, the rain keeps falling against the kitchen windows. Steady and unhurried, tracing long lines down the glass that catch the dim light and scatter it across the countertop. You've noticed it before. All of it. The nights it found the two of you.
It rained after the bench. After you walked away from her that first night and lay in your own bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to stop thinking about the woman you'd found sitting alone by the river. It rained at the lake house, the storm that trapped you both inside until the walls came down and you stopped pretending you didn't need each other. It rained today too, from the moment you stepped out of that record store until you finally walked through your front door together.
For months you carried this strange feeling that it meant something. Something ominous. Like the universe kept casting the same grey sky over every chapter of your lives together, and you couldn't tell if it was a blessing or a warning.
You don't feel that anymore.
The rain was never trying to tell you anything. It was just there. The same way she was just there, on that bench, past midnight, when you needed someone and didn't know it yet. It kept showing up because that's what it does. And so did she.
Jimin exhales slowly against your neck. You feel her body settle against yours, the last bit of tension leaving her shoulders, her weight leaning more fully into you. You tighten your arms around her. Not urgently. Just enough that she knows you're not going anywhere.
Tomorrow will come. Her schedule, your boardroom, the conversations she needs to have, the world that hasn't paused for either of you. It will be there in the morning, waiting, exactly as complicated and relentless as you left it.
But that's tomorrow.
Tonight belongs to the two of you.
There's only the steady rhythm of her breathing, the rain tapping softly against the windows, and the quiet that settles so easily between you now. Two people who met on the worst night of both their lives, who stumbled through grief and uncertainty until, somehow, they found their way here.
In a kitchen that smells faintly of basil and tea, wrapped in each other's arms on a rainy Friday night, with nowhere else to be, nothing left to prove, and no one else either of you would rather be with.
