[literallyuyu]

heaven is in your stare…

…not gonna take you there

~JESS. twenty-year-old desi girl. currenty writing for ateez. links are below.

requests are CLOSED.

ME. RULES. MASTERLISTS.

[itsallaboutzayn]

🎸🖤

[kangsyeosang]

[thatfeelinwhenyou]

SAFE & SOUND — part 7 (finale)

Navigating one year post-apocalypse, when the dead began to walk and the living proved to be no better, you decide that trust is a luxury you can no longer afford. But after a run-in with a group of seven peculiar survivors, you learn that there are bigger problems than just the undead roaming the streets. You also start to wonder if there’s more to survival than simply staying alive.

word count: 27.6k

a/n: heavy trigger warning for depiction of gore, blood, killing, mutilation and death. mentions of self-exit. reader discretion is advised. lowkey want to kay emm ess!

MASTERLIST

Hope.

It has taken root. Not for you—definitely not for you. But for them. For these people who still have a chance, who still have something to fight for. Something to live for.

At the cost of your own life.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? That it’s only now—standing at the edge of oblivion, with death already sinking its teeth into your skin—that your heart decides to start beating.

Hope makes you weak. It opens you up, makes you vulnerable, carves out spaces in your chest where fear and regret can take hold. It makes you susceptible to loss. But not just the kind of loss that comes from losing someone you love—but the kind that lingers, that gnaws at the edges of your thoughts, that whispers about what could have been.

The kind of loss that reminds you who you’ll be leaving behind.

And worst of all—hope makes you stupid.

So stupid that you’d willingly run into a sea of rotting, undead corpses who cannot wait to take a chomp out of your very living flesh.

So stupid that even with a death sentence sinking into your wrist, poisoning your blood, you still care more about them. More about whether or not they’ll make it out of this alive. More about their futures—

Futures you won’t get to see.

Because you probably won’t even make it to sunrise at this rate.

The world is a beautiful phenomenon, an intricate masterpiece woven together by time, ruined and utterly defiled by the cruelty of mankind. And now, standing on the precipice of your own imminent demise, you can’t help but wonder—is this Mother Nature’s wrath finally catching up? 

Is this the earth retaliating, purging the infection that is humanity in the only way it knows how? Have the scales been tipping for too long, and now the universe is finally restoring balance in the only way it can? Is your suffering—your inevitable death—meant to balance the scales? Even when, frankly speaking, it was never solely your fault to begin with?

Maybe it’s the victim mentality clawing its way to the surface, the part of you that refuses to believe you deserve this, the part that screams this isn’t fair, this isn’t right, this isn’t how it was supposed to go. But deep down, you swear—no one else in this godforsaken world is being punished as cruelly as you.

And you can’t understand why.

What crime did you commit to warrant this?

Was it the way you looked down on the people at the community building? The way you condemned them for being selfish, for putting their own survival above others—only to turn around and do the exact same thing? Because when it came down to it, when it was your life on the line, you saved yourself too.

Or was it the countless survivors who passed through, desperate, pleading for help, only for you to turn them away? And then, hours later, when the night was at its quietest, when the wind carried sounds that had no business reaching your ears, you would hear them.

Screams.

Distant, broken, haunting. And you would wonder. Was that them? Did your ignorance, your apathy, your fear—did it cost them their lives?

Or would you be guilty of something far more selfish—something you never even realised until now?

Would you be guilty of constantly throwing yourself into harm’s way, time and time again, because it was always easier to bleed than to watch them bleed? Because as long as you were the one getting hurt, as long as you were the one getting bit, dying, fading away into nothing, then it meant they would still be here. Alive. Safe.

But what does that make of them? The ones you’re trying to protect.

Maybe you were never meant to be part of a group. Not because they wouldn’t have you, not because you couldn’t belong, but because you never truly let yourself belong. Because you never matched their pace. Because while they learned to adjust to you, to move with you, to shift their decisions around you—you never did the same for them.

Would that have been your sin?

Was that the moment the universe condemned you?

Maybe this bite isn’t just a punishment. Maybe it’s a verdict. 

And you, standing here amidst the corpses of the undead, bloodied and breathless—are already guilty.

But you know now that guilt isn’t an excuse to wallow in self-pity. Guilt isn’t some tragic, poetic concept meant to make you suffer in your final moments. It’s a burden, a weight pressing against your ribs, but it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t undo what’s already happened, doesn’t reverse the choices you made, doesn’t erase the blood on your hands, doesn’t stop the inevitable.

And it sure as hell won’t save you now.

It’s a shame, really. That it took this—this moment, this final breath, this unforgiving death sentence—for you to finally feel it. For you to finally want to live.

And not for yourself.

For them.

For Jay, who has already bled for you once, who would probably bleed for you again, even though you don’t deserve it.

For Sunoo, who has always held onto kindness, even in a world that has given him every reason to let it go, who still believes in laughter, in warmth, in something beyond just survival.

For Jake, who patches wounds and mends what’s broken, even when no one is there to do the same for him.

For Heeseung, who stands between order and chaos, who keeps them together when everything else is falling apart.

For Sunghoon, whose silence speaks louder than words, whose actions hold more meaning than empty reassurances.

For Ni-ki, who at such a young age, had to learn how to survive, how to fight, how to never show weakness—and yet, despite it all, still hasn’t lost his heart.

And for Jungwon, who carries the weight of everyone’s survival on his back, whose bones are breaking under it, whose shoulders have never known relief but still refuses to put it down. 

For Jungwon, who lets no one in but somehow, without even meaning to, lets you in. 

For Jungwon, who despite everything you’ve done, despite every reason you’ve given him to turn away, accepts you anyway. Who welcomes you into the most vulnerable parts of himself, the parts he doesn’t show anyone else, the parts that are too raw, too fragile, too much—but still, he lets you see them. Still, he lets you stay.

For Jungwon, who gently places his heart in your hands, trusting—praying—that you don’t squeeze it.

But you do. In fact, you don’t just squeeze it, you strangle it.

And the sheer thought of it—of what your death would do to him—sends a fresh wave of panic tearing through your already fraying mind.

You’ve seen it before, the way he carries the weight of every decision like a cross on his back, the way he internalises every loss, even when it isn’t his fault. You’ve seen the flicker of self-doubt in his eyes, the guilt of his past that eats away at him in the dead of night, the moments where you swear he looks at his own hands like they’re stained with something he can never wash off.

And now—you’re about to become another name etched into his grief. Another ghost he’ll never stop chasing.

The thought sends a sharp, unbearable pain ricocheting through your chest, burning, searing, suffocating you in a way even the impending infection couldn’t. Because this—this is worse than dying. Worse than the bite spreading its poison through your veins. Worse than knowing you’ll never make it out of here.

You are the thing that is going to break him.

It doesn’t matter how many times you tell yourself he’ll be fine without you, that he’s strong enough to keep going, that the others will take care of him when you’re gone. Because none of that is true. Not really. He’s strong, yes. He’s a survivor, yes. But strength doesn’t erase grief, and survival doesn’t mean living.

And just like that—just like Jay said—guilt and regret, tethered to hope, twists into something else entirely.

Redemption.

Not salvation. Not forgiveness. But a chance.

A chance to make up for the fact you’ll be leaving them behind.

Because if this is the end for you—if this is how it all plays out—then you’ll make damn sure it counts. If death is already creeping towards you, sinking its teeth into your flesh, then you’ll drag as many of those bastards down with you as you can.

You’ll be selfish, one last time. Even if it breaks him in the process.

Your breath steadies. The roaring in your ears dims. You’re not afraid anymore.

You lift your head, exhaling slowly, forcing your gaze away from the material that barely manages to conceal the ugly, jagged wound on your wrist, away from the reminder of what’s coming.

Instead, you look straight ahead at the dead surrounding you, the bodies shifting, the hunger burning in their milky eyes.

And for the first and last time—

You meet them halfway.

The dead move in slow, unrelenting waves, their bodies pressing in, their hands grasping, their hunger festering in the air like a disease. The grotesque mask clings to your skin, the fabric around your wrist concealing the scent of fresh blood, giving you the illusion of time. 

But time is a luxury you no longer have.

You take a step forward, then another, forcing yourself deeper into the horde. The dead shift around you, their rotting bodies pressing in from all sides, brushing against your arms, your shoulders, dragging their fingers across the fabric of your clothes as they shuffle mindlessly forward. Some hesitate, their milky eyes lingering on you just a second too long, as if their instincts can sense that something isn’t quite right.

Your fingers tighten around the hilt of your knife as you force yourself to match their rhythm, your body moving in slow, jerky motions, mimicking the unnatural gait of the undead. 

The whispers have stopped. The unnatural echo of fragmented words that had bounced between the corpses earlier has faded into silence, but you know they’re still here. A’s people. They’re hiding, watching, waiting for their moment.

A flicker of movement catches your eye.

There. 

Through a small gap in the sea of bodies, a pair of eyes stare back at you. Clear. Alive. They’re looking right at you as if daring you to come closer. 

Your heart pounds against your ribs, but you don’t react. You don’t move toward them. You don’t acknowledge them. Instead, you turn your attention elsewhere and keep walking, feigning disinterest. You can see the hesitation in their stance, the slight confusion in the way their body tenses before they realise where you’re headed.

If A has spent all these months hunting Jay and the others down, tormenting them, orchestrating every step that led to this moment, then he’s not going to run. Not yet. Not before he gets what he wants.

And if that’s the case, he’s still here, still lingering somewhere in this mess, watching from the shadows, waiting for the people on the roof to get anxious and fuck up.

They know the others are up on the roof. They must know by now. After all the gunfire, the shouting, the chaos—it’d be impossible not to. You glance up briefly, careful not to be too obvious, and your stomach tightens at the thought of what Jungwon must be doing right now. Or what he must be thinking. If Jay and the others had any sense at all, they would’ve stopped him, restrained him if they had to. There’s no way he’d sit back and just let this happen.

But that’s not your concern right now. Your job is to make sure A doesn’t leave this place alive.

You’re going to cut off the only escape route they have.

Riding the momentum of the horde, you start to make your way toward the gates. The space between the metal bars is jam-packed with bodies, the undead pushing against each other in a mindless frenzy, pressing their weight against the barricade in an attempt to force their way through. On the other side, more of them do the same, caught in an endless cycle of pressing in and pulling back, neither side able to gain enough ground to break through.

Discreetly, you knock against the metal frames, pushing against the rusted material just enough to make noise. A dull, metallic clang rings out into the night, barely audible over the groans and snarls of the dead, but it’s enough. The zombies nearest to you twitch, their heads jerking toward the source of the sound before their bodies follow suit, shifting toward the gate, pressing against it with renewed aggression. The weight of them is unbearable, steel groaning beneath the pressure, the rusted hinges creaking as the force grows stronger.

It’s working.

Slowly but surely, the opening starts to close, inch by painstaking inch.

But then—it stops.

Your pulse spikes as the movement suddenly halts, the weight on the outside pressing back just as forcefully as those on the inside. Something’s jammed in the gap.

You push again, shifting your body weight against the frame, but it won’t budge. 

You need to clear whatever’s blocking it. But just as you’re about to move toward the centre to check, a gunshot rings out.

The gate slams shut.

The sudden sound ignites a frenzy among the horde, the undead jerking violently toward the direction of the gunfire, the noise acting like a spark in dry kindling. The air explodes with movement.

Your breath catches as you look up at the roof. Jay is standing firm, rifle still aimed toward your immediate vicinity. He caught onto your plan.

You push forward, stepping over limp, half-trampled bodies, forcing yourself to move despite the chaos that surges all around you. The horde is in a frenzy now, the echoes of the gunshot linger in the air, the pressure of the undead shifting like an unpredictable tide.

Your fingers close around the rusted chain dangling from the gate, the metal rough and uneven beneath your grip. The chain rattles as you yank it into place, looping it tightly, securing the padlock with trembling hands. The clang of metal against metal feels deafening despite the surrounding noise.

It’s done.

The lock clicks into place, the steel reinforced by layers of rust and time. This is it. The moment that seals your fate—and theirs.

The barricade stands firm, cutting off any chance of escape, caging them in alongside the very creatures they’ve controlled and used as weapons for months. There’s no getting out of this. Not for them. Not for you.

You suck in a sharp breath, willing your hands to stop shaking, forcing the thoughts from your mind before they have a chance to settle, before you can question what you’ve just done. Before you can regret it.

You take a step back, your pulse hammering in your ears. Your gaze flicks back up to the rooftop, scanning the figures above. Jay hasn’t moved. He’s still standing there, still watching. Even from this distance, you can see the tension straining his frame, the tight set of his shoulders, the way his fingers grip the rifle like it’s the only thing keeping him steady. He’s too far away for you to see his expression, but you don’t need to—you know what’s going through his mind. He knows what you’ve just done. And he knows that there is no coming back from this.

Your gaze flickers to Sunoo, Ni-ki, and Heeseung. They’re also scanning the horde, their postures stiff with adrenaline, eyes sharp and calculating as they search for movement that doesn’t belong, for A’s people still hidden among the dead. Now that the gates are closed, now that escape is impossible, there’s no reason for them to keep sneaking around. No reason to hide. You have the upper ground now

Except—

A cold chill slithers down your spine.

Where is Jungwon? 

He is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Jake nor Sunghoon.

Your stomach twists into knots, the unease creeping through you like a parasite burrowing deep beneath your skin. The air feels heavier now, thick with the scent of decay and something even worse—dread.

Where the fuck are they? Did Jungwon break free? Did Jake or Sunghoon try to stop him?  Is he already on his way down here, fighting his way through the chaos, trying to reach you?

And the answer to all your questions?

You don’t know.

And that uncertainty sits in your chest like a coiled viper, tightening, squeezing, threatening to suffocate you. Your hands clench at your sides, every nerve in your body screaming at you to do something. Because you may not know where he is, but you know him. You know exactly what kind of person he is. Jungwon isn’t the type to sit still, isn’t the type to accept defeat. Hell, he might be lost among the horde right now, trying to get to you.

A frustrated growl rumbles in your throat as you mentally curse Jungwon and his goddamn inability to sit still. To listen. To just let you do the job without having to worry about who else would get hurt in the process but yourself.

But the hypocrisy of your own thoughts settles in almost instantly, sharp and bitter like a knife twisting in your gut.

Because you did the exact same thing. You went after Ni-ki despite Jungwon telling you not to. You risked everything, ran straight into the horde, made your own reckless choices—and look where it got you.

You understand him. Because you are essentially two peas from the same pod.

Two stubborn fools, running towards death instead of away from it. Two people who can’t just sit back and watch while the ones they care about are out there, bleeding, fighting, dying.

You glance up, heart hammering, eyes scanning the people on the rooftop—Jay, Sunoo, Ni-ki, until your gaze lands on Heeseung. Confusion riddles your expression. He’s not just standing idly by, waiting for an opportunity; his sharp gaze is tracking something through the chaos below, scanning the horde with a precision that tells you he’s not just watching the dead.

He’s tracking someone.

And then you see it—the subtle, deliberate signals he’s making with his hands, quick flicks of his fingers, small movements meant to be understood only by those who know what to look for. Your mind pieces it together in an instant, the realisation slamming into you like a freight train.

He’s signalling toward you.

And just like that, everything clicks into place.

They’re trying to get to you—all of them.

Not just Jungwon, but Heeseung, Jake, Sunghoon, Jay, Sunoo, Ni-ki—every single one of them. They’re searching for you, closing in, inch by inch, and you realise they’re doing everything they can to keep from calling your name, from alerting the enemy to where you are, from giving away your position before they can reach you.

But why? Why the hell are they doing this?

The thought hits you harder than the reality of your own bite, knocking the air from your lungs, leaving behind a hollow, aching sensation that spreads through your chest like an open wound. You’re a gone case. You’re already as good as dead, already counting down the moments before the infection takes hold, already feeling the weight of what’s coming next press against your spine like an executioner’s blade.

They let you go.

So why? Why are they fighting so hard to bring you back when there’s nothing left to save?

Your breath trembles as you force yourself to process it, to make sense of the irrationality, the sheer stupidity of it all, but the more you think about it, the more the answer eludes you. 

You can barely wrap your head around the fact that they haven’t given up on you yet, that instead of making peace with your decision, instead of accepting the inevitable, they are still fighting for you, still risking everything for you, still choosing you, despite everything.

And something about that—something about their unwavering, reckless refusal to let you go—makes your stomach turn with something far more suffocating than fear. They are coming for you. They will not stop. They will not let you die here, no matter how much you try to convince yourself that this is how it ends.

The realisation hits like a punch to the gut. You stagger forward a step, your fingers twitching uselessly at your sides. You have to find Jungwon. You have to—but what then? Beg him to stop? Hold him back and tell him that if he keeps going, if he keeps chasing after you, he’ll end up just like you?

Your breath stutters, caught between panic and guilt, between the raw, sinking knowledge that you can’t stop him. Not now. Not when he’s already made up his mind. Not when he’s already running straight towards his own destruction.

Your nails dig into your palms, jaw locking as a new, dangerous thought settles deep in your bones.

This is wrong. It isn’t supposed to be this way.

Jungwon is supposed to be safe. He’s supposed to be up there on the rooftop, watching over the rest of them, ensuring their survival—not running blindly into the jaws of death just to get to you.

But that’s the thing about Jungwon, isn’t it? He doesn’t know how to stop. Doesn’t know how to give up. Doesn’t know how to let go. And that’s what makes this so much worse.

Because he will find you. He will chase you down, no matter the cost, no matter the risk, no matter how many people he has to fight through just to get to you. And when he does—it will kill him. And the rest will follow him into his grave.

You squeeze your eyes shut, nails biting into your palms so hard you think they might draw blood.

This is the only way.

If you can’t stop him—then you have to make sure he never finds you. Because if he does, he won’t stop. He won’t turn back. And you’ll have to watch him die because of you.

A cold, shuddering breath escapes you as you take a step backward—one step away from them. One step towards the only future where they get to live.

Because if there’s one thing you can do for Jungwon—one final thing—it’s this.

You can disappear before he gets the chance to break himself for you.

You don’t spare them a glance, don’t hesitate, don’t falter as your body moves on instinct, your mind shutting out every voice screaming at you to stop. The moment you spot one of A’s people, standing just a little too stiff, moving just a little too deliberately among the dead, you lunge, gripping them by the neck in one swift, brutal motion and dragging them down to the ground.

The impact is sickening, a sharp, guttural gasp ripping from their throat, but you don’t stop to acknowledge it, don’t even think about it—because the moment their body collides with the dirt, the reaction is immediate.

The dead turn.

And before you know it, before they even have the chance to cry out, the horde descends.

The first one tears into their arm, the second sinks its rotting teeth into their stomach, and then it’s over, the screams—raw, agonised, inhuman—ripping through the night, calling the rest of the undead to devour what’s left.

Gunshots ring out from the rooftop, sharp bursts of sound cutting through the air, but they’re hesitant, cautious, deliberate. They’re trying to clear the dead, trying to keep you from getting buried beneath the writhing mass of bodies, but they can’t tell which one is you.

They can’t risk it. They can’t risk mistaking you for one of them.

The thought doesn’t even faze you. Not when you’re standing there, surrounded by the towering bodies of the dead, the heat of their decayed flesh pressing in around you, their mouths dripping with fresh blood as they tear into A’s people like animals, completely oblivious to the fact that you’re standing right in the middle of it all.

The scent of death, of mutilation, of torn flesh and spilt guts floods your senses, but you remain still, your breaths shallow, your pulse steady, as you watch.

You don’t flinch at the wet, crunching sound of bones snapping.

You don’t recoil at the way flesh is peeled back, skin stripped away from muscle, muscle torn straight from the bone.

You don’t even blink as what was once a person is reduced to nothing but scraps of meat, scraps that the dead no longer have any use for.

You just wait.

Wait until the screaming stops.

Wait until the feeding slows.

Wait until the dead begin to lose interest, until they start to disperse, until they move on in search of fresher, more desperate prey.

And then, when the moment is right, when their bloated, rotting stomachs are full and their vacant eyes are no longer scanning for movement, you move with them, slipping back into their midst, letting yourself become a shadow among the damned.

Your feet shuffle in tandem with a group of them drifting toward the convenience store, your body moving with disjointed, unnatural steps, mimicking their vacant, lifeless motions, your presence masked by the stench of decay and blood coating your skin.

The rooftop is still alive with movement, still pulsing with the frantic energy of the fight, and you know—you know—they’re searching.

They’re looking for you.

But they won’t find you.

Not when you’re already slipping through the reinforced glass doors of the convenience store, disappearing into the darkness—out of their sight. Out of their reach.

Inside, the air is thick with decay, the scent of dried sweat and old blood clinging to the walls like an ugly reminder of what this place has become. A graveyard. A battlefield. A dying memory of safety that was never meant to last.

A few stragglers shuffle aimlessly through the wreckage, their movements slow, detached, unsettlingly human, and for a brief moment, you wonder if they’re actually dead at all. They must have pushed through during the chaos earlier, drawn in by the screams, the gunfire, the relentless noise coming from the rooftop. 

Now, they roam the space where you and the others once slept, their feet tangling in the sleeping bags carelessly abandoned on the floor, their rotting hands brushing against the last remnants of the lives you were trying to build here.

Something inside you twists, sharp and bitter. You don’t know why, but it annoys you.

Maybe because, in some small, irrational way, it feels like a violation—like they’re treading on something that was yours, that was theirs, that was meant to mean something.

It doesn’t matter now.

Nothing matters except finding A.

Your plan to pick them off one by one is no longer viable. Not with the added risk of Jungwon and the others searching for you. You can’t afford to be seen, can’t afford to let them pull you back into the fight when this isn’t their battle anymore.

There can’t be many of A’s people left by now, but the ones that remain… they’re the worst kind.

The ones who have stripped themselves of everything, who have embraced the rot, the ruin, the slow descent into madness. The ones who have walked with the dead for so long that they no longer fear them, who have become something in-between, not quite living, not quite gone.

You could pick them off one by one, but that would take forever. Too long. At that rate, hunger and exhaustion will get to you first. And after that… 

Well, you’ll be just another piece of the horde yourself.

You exhale slowly, forcing yourself to think, to focus. If you could just find A, just see him ripped to pieces in the flesh, just have that confirmation, that reassurance, that he is dead—

Then you could end this yourself.

You could use yourself as bait, lead the horde away, let them chase after you until there’s nothing left but rotting bodies and silence. It’s not foolproof, not a guaranteed way out for the others, but at least this way—when the horde finally clears, when the dust settles, when the echoes of dying screams fade into nothing—

A’s people will be forced to look at what remains.

They will have to face the wreckage, face the reality of their failure, the shredded, half-eaten corpses of their own, scattered across the ground like discarded meat, their flesh torn and gnawed on until they’re unrecognisable, until they’re nothing but a pile of chewed-up bones and empty, hollowed-out carcasses.

They will have to see it, smell it, feel it seeping into the very ground beneath them.

And maybe then—maybe just for a second—they will understand.

They will understand what real fear looks like, understand what it means to lose, to be powerless, to have everything they built, everything they thought made them invincible, ripped from their hands in an instant.

A warning carved into flesh, spelled out in blood and bones, a message left behind for those who survive—

Never underestimate their opponent. Never think that just because they control the dead, just because they use them like weapons, like shields, like disposable soldiers, that they are untouchable. That they are above the laws of survival, above the cycle of death and destruction that has consumed this world.

And if they value their miserable fucking life, if they have even an ounce of self-preservation left in that rotting mind of theirs, they’ll know never to come back.

Just then, as if the heavens themselves have recognised your sacrifice and decided, in a rare stroke of mercy, to grant you one last favour, the door to the backroom swings open with a slow, deliberate creak, and a figure steps out.

A.

Your breath stills in your throat.

Of course. Of fucking course.

What the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you consider this sooner? Why didn’t it occur to you that he’d be hiding out in the backroom—the only soundproof room in the entire building, the one filled to the brim with supplies, weapons, resources? The one place where he could sit comfortably, untouched by the chaos outside, while his people bled and burned for his cause?

The anger comes first—hot, sharp, searing through your veins like wildfire—but it’s quickly swallowed by something colder, something heavier, something that grips at your ribs and refuses to let go.

Just beyond the open door, a zombie shuffles past the threshold, its milky, vacant eyes flicking lazily in A’s direction. Its jaw hangs slack, rotting fingers twitching at its sides. For a brief, agonising second, it looks right at him—through him—and then…it turns away. 

Your stomach twists.

Is this what Lieutenant Kim meant? Is this what it looks like to let go of yourself completely? Has he truly sunk so deep into the abyss, into whatever depravity he’s clawed his way into, that he isn’t even human to them anymore?

Because you see him. His posture is too straight. His movements are too smooth, too calculated, too alive—and yet, to them, to the dead, to the creatures that exist to tear apart anything warm and breathing and whole—he is already one of them.

Your fingers twitch at your sides, a single, involuntary movement—a minuscule crack in your otherwise controlled façade.

And he sees it.

A’s eyes snap to yours, sharp, cutting—watchful, calculating. As if he’s been expecting you. As if he knew you’d come for him eventually. And in that split second, as your gazes lock, everything else fades into irrelevance—the distant scuffle of the undead inside the store, the faint hum of wind rattling through shattered windows, even the dull ache of the bite festering beneath the cloth on your wrist.

Nothing exists except you and him.

And rage.

Not just any rage, not something small and fleeting, but white-hot, all-consuming fury, a fire burning through your exhaustion, through your impending death, through every single rational, calculated thought screaming at you to stop. It smoulders deep in your bones, in your gut, in every part of you that refuses to die quietly.

Because he’s the reason for all of this. For the horde. For the attack. For the pain. For the fact that you won’t make it out of here alive.

And the only thing keeping you on your feet now is the fact that you can still take him down with you.

You catch the flicker of recognition in his eyes, the way his posture shifts, muscles tightening just slightly, a nearly imperceptible change in stance—but you see it. He knows.

He knows exactly who you are.

He knows you’re not one of his people.

And most importantly—he knows exactly why you’re here.

The two of you stand on opposite ends of the store, separated only by the handful of stragglers that drift mindlessly between you, their sluggish footsteps scraping against the convenience store tiles, their vacant eyes locked on nothing at all. Their presence is nothing more than shadows in your periphery, a fleeting distraction at best.

Because neither of you is paying them any mind. 

All you see is A.

And the big red target painted on his fucking forehead.

He can’t run. Not with his busted ankle, not with the way his weight favours one leg, his body angled ever so slightly, betraying the injury that makes him vulnerable.

But you? You have nothing to lose

You start forward, feet moving before you can think, body surging toward him with nothing but determination and a blade gripped tight in your hand, a blade that will sink into his flesh, will find his throat, his gut, his ribs, wherever it needs to go to make sure he never walks away from this.

Because he can pretend all he wants. He can stand still, unmoving, playing the part of the dead, but at the end of the day, he is still breathing, still alive, still a man with flesh and blood and fragile bones just waiting to be broken. Even he cannot deny that.

His lips twitch, a small, almost imperceptible movement, his eyes never once leaving yours, never once shifting to the knife in your hand. And for a fleeting second, you swear you see something flicker behind his cold, unreadable stare.

Amusement.

You falter for only a second—because what kind of sick bastard smiles when they know they’re about to die?

But then, as you close the distance, as you near him, as you see that confidence solidify instead of waver, you realise. 

You realise exactly why he’s not afraid. Why he hasn’t run. Why he hasn’t even lifted a weapon.

Because behind him—just barely visible in the fragments of light filtering through the windows—is Jake.

Jake, hands held up behind his head, knees pressed against the floor.

Jake, bruised, but clean from a single drop of blood.

Jake, with one of A’s people standing behind him, pressing the barrel of a gun to his head.

And just like that—the fire inside you dies. Replaced by a cold, suffocating dread.

You catch Jake’s gaze, and at first, you see relief. The briefest flicker of hope, of recognition,  a split second where his shoulders sag just slightly, where his eyes light up with the knowledge that he is no longer alone. But then—his eyes shift downward to the cloth wrapped tightly around your wrist.

And in an instant, that relief shatters, crumbling away like brittle ash caught in the wind, fragile and fleeting, gone before it ever had the chance to settle. In its place, something else takes root—something desperate, something urgent, something so raw, so visceral, so utterly unlike the Jake you know that it makes your breath catch in your throat.

His entire body locks up, his muscles coiled so tight it looks painful, the shallow rise and fall of his chest quickening, his hands clench into fists so hard his knuckles must be turning white.

His eyes burn into yours, wide, frantic, pleading—pleading in a way that digs into your ribs, twists deep inside your gut, something you can’t quite place, something you don’t fully understand.

And it’s strange, isn’t it? That even with a gun pressed to his temple, even in a precarious situation where one wrong move could send a bullet straight through his skull, he’s not thinking about himself.

His panic, his urgency, isn’t for his own survival.

It’s for you.

For a second—just a second—you hesitate, your mind whirling, trying to grasp what he’s trying to tell you, what you’re missing.

But there’s no time to dwell on it. No time to think, no time to question, no time to search for meaning in the way his entire being is screaming at you to understand.

Instead, you turn your attention back to A, who remains completely unmoved, completely at ease, as if he has all the time in the world, as if he has already won.

He’s waiting.

Daring you to make the first move.

You don’t even realise you’ve started taking bigger, louder breaths until the zombie nearest to you stirs, its rotting head snapping in your direction. A low, guttural groan rumbles deep in its throat, and you feel it before you see it, the way the air shifts as it lunges, arms outstretched, grasping for you.

Your body moves purely on instinct, swerving just as its decomposed hands are inches away from closing around your arm, the stench of rot thick in the air, the feel of decayed fingers barely grazing your arm. You move quick, twisting sharply as your blade buries itself into the side of its temple, the force of the impact jarring up your arm.

The body slumps lifelessly against you. Carefully, you lower the corpse onto the floor, moving slowly, deliberately, making sure the thud isn’t loud enough to draw more attention, isn’t enough to stir the other stragglers roaming idly around the store.

You straighten up, closing the already minimal space between you and him, your breath steady despite the inferno of rage burning in your chest. Your voice is low, controlled, barely above a whisper, but it carries enough weight to cut through the stagnant air between you.

"What do you want?"

A’s smirk only deepens, his amusement evident in the slight tilt of his head, the lazy glint in his eyes as if he’s enjoying a private joke only he understands. His gaze flickers—just briefly—to your wrist, to the cloth wrapped tightly around it, to the mark of death you can’t erase.

He leans in slightly, just enough that you can practically feel his breath against your skin, cold, calculated. “Some people aren’t meant to walk with the dead.”

His voice is almost mocking, a quiet, knowing whisper that sends a shiver down your spine—not out of fear, but out of sheer hatred, out of the overwhelming urge to wipe that smirk off his face permanently. Your jaw clenches. Every muscle in your body is coiled tight, fingers curling into fists so hard they shake.

But he isn’t done.

He’s watching you, watching the way your body responds, the way your shoulders tense, the way your pulse ticks at your throat like a countdown.

"You know what I want." His voice is softer now, coaxing, as if he’s talking to a wounded animal that he already knows has nowhere left to run. “Bring them all here. Then, I’ll do you a favour and kill you first so you won’t have to see the rest of them die.”

A muscle twitches in your jaw.

Your nails dig into your palms, the sharp sting grounding you, reminding you to stay focused, to stay in control, to not let him get inside your head. But he’s poking the bear, prodding, testing your limits, waiting to see if you’ll snap, if you’ll give him exactly what he wants.

But you won’t.

You tilt your head slightly, eyes locking onto his, gaze unwavering. And then, you smile—a slow, sharp, deliberate thing that doesn’t reach your eyes.

"You’re lucky I wasn’t with them the first time you came around," you taunt, voice like razor wire slipping between your teeth. "If I was, you wouldn’t be here today."

It’s small, almost imperceptible, but it’s there—the slightest tightening of his jaw, the faintest shift in his smirk. But just as quickly, it’s gone, replaced with something colder, sharper, something that tells you he isn’t nearly as amused as he pretends to be.

He leans back ever so slightly, tilting his chin upward, watching you through lidded eyes, his expression unreadable but for the lazy smirk that lingers at the corner of his mouth. There’s something infuriating about the way he looks at you—like he’s already won, like this is just another game to him and you’re nothing more than a predictable piece moving exactly where he expects you to.

And then, with the same air of condescension, his voice drips with mock sympathy.

“Bold words,” he murmurs, gaze dropping to your wrist again, his smirk curling cruelly. “For someone who’s decaying from the inside out.”

You scoff, a sharp sound that escapes before you can stop it, too raw, too bitter. The sound catches the attention of a nearby zombie, its head snapping toward you with an unsettling quickness. Your pulse spikes, breath halting as you brace yourself, waiting—watching as its cloudy, lifeless eyes bore into you, as its decayed jaw slackens just slightly, the hunger instinctually drawing it closer.

But then—just as quickly—it loses interest. It turns away, wandering aimlessly once more, the absence of immediate movement or sound enough for it to forget you exist.

Still, the close call is a warning, a reminder of the tightrope you’re walking. One wrong move, one misstep, and this entire situation implodes.

Your grip tightens around the handle of your knife, fingers twitching at your sides, restless, itching to do something—anything. It would be so easy to lunge at him, to close the gap and drive the blade right into his throat before he has a chance to react. So easy. But that flicker of impulse is immediately stamped down by the harsh reality pressing into you from all sides.

Jake is still here. Alive, but restrained. One wrong move from you and A wouldn’t hesitate. He wouldn’t need to. He’d give the signal and Jake would be dead before you could even reach him.

And then there’s the other problem.

If Jake is here, tied up and weaponless, then where the hell are Jungwon and Sunghoon?

Your mind races, scanning every darkened corner, every shifting silhouette. But there’s no sign of them. No indication that they’re nearby. That realisation twists deep in your gut. Why is Jake alone? Where are they? What the hell happened?

You don’t have an answer. And that uncertainty sits like a loaded gun in your chest.

Your fingers twitch at your sides, restless, searching, fidgeting with a tension that has nowhere to go. Every instinct in your body is screaming at you to act, to move, to do something, but you’re trapped in this silent battle of wills, locked in a standstill with no clear path forward. Your mind races through every possibility, every potential way out of this mess, every scenario where you and Jake walk away from this moment alive and victorious. But the answers aren’t coming fast enough, and the air in the convenience store feels heavier, thicker, pressing down on you like a slow suffocation.

And then—you feel it.

The cold, unyielding press of metal against your lower back.

Your breath catches in your throat, a sharp inhale freezing mid-motion as the weight of realisation crashes down on you all at once.

A loaded gun.

For a second, you almost don’t recognise it, almost don’t remember that it’s even there, tucked securely into your belt, hidden beneath the layers of fabric and blood. It had been an afterthought, an object tucked away with no real intention of use, something you’d taken before everything spiralled, not because you had a plan for it, but because you needed a safety net. Something—anything—to hold onto in case everything went wrong.

You never learned how to shoot. Not properly, at least. You were never given the chance. Growing up, the idea of wielding a firearm had been as distant to you as a foreign concept, something seen only in movies, something you assumed you’d never have to understand, let alone master. You don’t expect to see guns out in the open for sale in the bustling streets of Seoul. And even after the world fell apart, even after survival became a daily battle against death itself, it’s rare to come across one.

And frankly, you never saw the point. A gun without proper aim is nothing but a loud, clumsy liability, something that could just as easily get you killed as it could save you. So why carry one? Why even bother when you’ve survived this long without one?

There is one bullet in the chamber.

Not for A.

Not for his people.

For you.

It had been your contingency plan, your last resort, the one unshakable guarantee that no matter how bad things got, no matter how horrifying or painful or inescapable the situation became, you wouldn’t suffer. If the horde overwhelmed you, if there was no way out, if you were backed into a corner with no escape, you wouldn’t let yourself be torn apart piece by piece, wouldn’t let yourself become something less than human. You wouldn’t give the world the satisfaction of watching you die in agony.

You’ve seen them clawing at the dirt, crying out, calling for help that never came. You’ve heard the guttural, gurgling sounds of people choking on their own blood, felt the sickening dread of knowing that it could have just as easily been you.

And if you were ever put in a position where the only certainty left was how you would die—you’d make that choice yourself.

And thus, the opportunity presents itself. 

A isn’t armed. You noticed it earlier, a small detail that didn’t quite sink in at first—how his movements were too relaxed, how his hands never once reached for a weapon, how his entire demeanour was soaked in unwavering, untouchable confidence. He never needed a weapon. He never wanted one. Not when he had other people to do the dirty work for him. Not when he truly believed no one could touch him.

That’s how arrogant he is. How assured he is in his control over the situation.

And that’s his mistake.

Because it means the only real threat here is the gun trained on Jake’s skull, the one held in steady, unwavering hands by one of A’s people. That’s the real obstacle. That’s what’s keeping you locked in place. That’s the only thing standing between you and the end of this.

All you have to do is take them out first.

The thought slams into you like a jolt of electricity, sending adrenaline surging through your body. If you can eliminate the shooter before they have time to react, before they have time to pull the trigger—then Jake is safe. 

And A is nothing

Your eyes flicker toward Jake, searching for any indication that there’s more waiting in the shadows, another gun trained on you that you haven’t noticed yet. You can’t afford to make a mistake.

Jake meets your gaze, and without hesitation, he blinks once.

One blink. No other threats. One blink. He’s ready.

A watches you, his lips curling slightly, like he can already see through you, like he knows you’re scheming, planning, biding your time. He tilts his head, voice dipping into something almost casual, like you aren’t standing here, seconds away from tearing him apart.

“You met them a little over a week ago,” he murmurs, his gaze sharp and assessing. “You shouldn’t be tied down to their fate.”

You exhale slowly, carefully shifting your weight, your fingers inching toward the gun, deliberate, unhurried. Keep him talking. Keep him distracted.

“I’ll decide my own fate,” you mutter, eyes locked onto his. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”

A chuckles, the sound quiet but mocking, like he’s already won. Like this is nothing more than a game to him. His gaze flickers briefly to your bandaged wrist, then back to your face.

“Little advice for you, kid.” He takes a slow step forward, but you don’t flinch. You keep your stance firm, your hand still moving, creeping over the fabric of your shirt, closer to the gun. “Getting tied to people gets you killed. But I mean, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Your fingers brush over the cool metal, curling around the grip.

You offer him a slow, humourless smile, tilting your head just slightly.

“Well,” you murmur, pressing your fingers to the safety.

Click.

“Some of us aren’t total monsters.”

And then, before he can react—before he can move—

You pull the trigger.

The explosion of sound is deafening. The recoil snaps through your arm, a jarring force you weren’t prepared for, and the bullet veers off course. It doesn’t land where you aimed—it buries itself into the shooter’s shoulder instead of their head.

Fuck.

The man staggers back with a choked grunt, his grip on Jake momentarily loosening as pain jolts through his body.

Jake reacts in an instant. He lunges, slamming his full weight into the injured man, the two of them crashing to the ground in a tangled heap of limbs, knocking over supplies and sending debris scattering.

The gun clatters, skidding across the floor.

You barely register the chaos behind you, because the moment the shot rings out, A moves.

Before you can raise your weapon again, before you can so much as take a breath, he’s already on you. He’s fast. Faster than you anticipated. Faster than you.

His hands slam into your shoulders, knocking you backward, the force nearly sending you sprawling. You fight back, snarling, twisting in his grip, but he’s stronger. Too strong. You can’t break free.

The dead outside have heard the gunshot and they are coming.

You feel them before you see them. The groans rising like a tide, the slow shuffle of feet gaining momentum, the weight of their rotting hunger pressing into the air, suffocating and thick.

You twist in A’s grip, your movements frantic, desperate, every muscle in your body straining as you try to break free. But his hold is unyielding, his fingers digging into your arms like iron clamps, his strength overpowering yours with terrifying ease. You can feel it—the walls closing in, the suffocating weight of bodies pressing toward you from all directions, the sharp sting of panic threatening to steal your breath.

“Jake, hurry!” Your voice is sharp, nearly cracking under the sheer force of your desperation. 

But Jake is not a fighter. He’s struggling, barely holding his own as he wrestles with A’s man, managing to keep him from reclaiming the gun but only just. His opponent is heavier, stronger, and the blood gushing from the fresh bullet wound has only made him more reckless, more desperate.

The dead are nearly here.

The scent of blood is thick in the air, drawing them in like moths to a flame. You can feel the heat of their decaying bodies pressing closer, their guttural moans blending into a single, endless drone, the sound of hunger, of death.

If you can’t get out of this, if there’s no escape, then you have to make sure A doesn’t either. You have to make sure that no matter what happens, no matter who gets out of this alive, he doesn’t. No chance to slip back into the horde. No chance to hide among the dead. No chance to run.

You tighten your grip around the handle of your knife and thrash wildly, your strikes reckless, driven by pure instinct. You don’t care if you cut yourself in the process, don’t care if the blade grazes your own skin, drawing shallow, stinging lines of crimson. All that matters is that it lands. That it finds him.

A jerks back suddenly, his entire body flinching, and you see it—the change in his face, the split second of realisation, of pain. Then your eyes drop to the large, red gash on the side of his neck.

You should’ve cut deeper. You should’ve slashed his throat clean through—ended him right then and there. But it doesn’t matter now. Blood is already seeping from the gash in his neck, slow and steady. It’s enough. It’s already too late.

Both of you are exposed.

A’s eyes dart wildly around, searching for an exit, but there’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. The dead are closing in from every side, their rotting hands reaching, clawing, desperate to feed. And if A’s man still had any instinct for self-preservation left, he’d leave Jake and slam the door shut behind him, locking both you and A out with the monsters.

"Let go!" A snarls, his voice rough with panic as he struggles to pry you off him, his hands pulling at your arms, trying to shove you away. But you don’t budge. You won’t. You tighten your grip, interlocking your fingers around his waist, locking yourself to him like a shackle, and you’re not letting go.

Not until he’s dead.

And just as you think this is it—just as you feel the first flicker of real, visceral fear rise up in your chest, just as the cold, sharp edges of inevitability sink their claws into you, just as the thought creeps into your mind that maybe you really should’ve saved that last bullet for yourself—

Gunfire.

The air explodes with the sound of gunshots, sharp and relentless, each blast cutting through the night like a violent crack of thunder. The dead closest to you drop instantly, their bodies collapsing one by one, skulls shattering as bullets find their mark.

A’s grip on you falters.

And then, they rush in. Descending upon the chaos with deadly precision, their movements quick, cutting through the horde with ruthless efficiency. The tide turns in an instant.

Sunghoon is the first to reach Jake, his blade flashing as he knocks A’s man off balance, wrenching him away before he can reach for the gun again. Together, he and Jake overpower him, slamming him down against the floor.

Meanwhile, Sunoo and Heeseung step between you and A, weapons raised, forming an impenetrable barrier between you and the man who ruined everything. Their eyes burn with unspoken intent, with the quiet, simmering rage of those who have had enough.

Jungwon, Jay, and Ni-ki hold the line, their gunfire keeping the dead at bay, preventing them from pressing in too close.

“Move!” Heeseung barks. “Inside! Now!”

No one hesitates.

You scramble, breath ragged, every muscle in your body screaming in protest, heart slamming in your chest as you follow the others through the narrow threshold. The door to the back is right there—safety is right there—

And then—

BANG.

BANG.

You turn just in time to see A crumple to the floor, both of his ankles torn through with bullet wounds, both of his legs rendered completely useless.

Jay stands over him, gun still aimed, his breathing heavy, his face cold, empty. He doesn’t say anything. Just watches as A writhes in pain, as he bleeds, as he realises.

Realises that he won’t be running. That he won’t be escaping. That he will be left behind.

And yet—even now, even with blood pooling beneath him, even with the moans of the dead growing closer, even with death right in front of him—A doesn’t beg. He doesn’t plead for his life. He doesn’t ask for mercy.

Because A would rather die than put down his fucking ego.

Jay scoffs, the corner of his mouth twitching in disgust, and then he spits on him before turning his back, walking away, leaving him to his fate.

Jungwon is the last one through the door, covering the retreat, making sure everyone is inside before he slams the door shut behind him.

And then—

Silence.

Except for the sound of the dead finally reaching their meal.

After that, the dead collide against the barricade almost instantly. Fists pound against the door, muffled groans spilling through the matter.  the suffocating chorus of hunger and decay filling the space. The sound is deafening, the sheer force of their weight against the door sending vibrations through the walls, amplified by the echoes bouncing off it.

Heeseung, Sunoo, and Jungwon move fast, dragging a heavy metal shelf in front of the door. It’s not much, but it’ll hold—for now. The dead lose interest when the noise dies down, but that could take hours. And hours are something you don’t exactly have.

Ni-ki moves toward the nearest lantern, striking a match and casting the room in dim, flickering light.

And that’s when you see them. The faces of the people you thought you’d never see again.

“You just signed all of our death warrants, you bitch—” The gunshot splits through the air like a whipcrack, the force of it reverberating in your chest, leaving a high-pitched ringing in your ears.

“Dude, a little warning wouldn’t hurt.” Sunghoon winces, hands flying to the sides of his head.  Your gaze darts toward the source of the shot, chest heaving. 

A’s man slumps lifelessly against the wall, blood seeping from the hole in his forehead, his body sliding to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. For a moment, you had forgotten about his presence.

You shift your gaze to Jungwon standing above him with his gun still raised, smoke curling from the barrel, his face unreadable, eerily blank, like he didn’t just pull the trigger.

Jungwon exhales sharply, pushing his weapon back into his belt before turning to Jake, his tone clipped, demanding, frustration bleeding through the words. “Jake. What the hell happened?”

He doesn’t look at you. Not once. But you feel it—the weight of his awareness, the way his presence feels suffocating, like he’s fighting every urge in his body to acknowledge you.

Jake runs a hand down his face, shaking his head, muttering under his breath before looking up. “I was prepping for the procedure, and he jumped me. God, these freaks are everywhere.”

Procedure?

Your eyes flicker downward, only now registering the assortment of supplies spread out across a tattered t-shirt on the floor. A whole bottle of antiseptic. Some painkillers and a shit ton of gauze. But it’s the saw that makes your stomach twist, the metal edge reflecting back at you.

Your stomach lurches.

“What the hell is going on?” You rip the mask off your head, the stale scent of rotting flesh still clinging to your skin, to your clothes, making you want to peel yourself apart just to feel clean again. The weight of the air shifts, thickening like a storm cloud about to break as every gaze in the room lands on you.

It’s Jake who speaks first, voice heavy with something you don’t want to name.

“We’re taking it off.”

Your breath catches. The words take a second to register. “What?”

Jake doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t waver. He just stares at you, deadpan, like he didn’t just say the most absurd thing imaginable.

“We’re amputating your arm.”

You’re not stupid. You know exactly what they’re suggesting. You’re not oblivious to the ‘Zombie Apocalypse Movie Logic 101’ that claims amputating an infected limb can stop the spread. It’s the golden rule in every survival horror scenario—get bit, cut it off fast enough, and you live.

But that’s the movies. That’s the neat, sanitised version of survival. The one where things make sense, where there are rules to follow and a clear cause-and-effect.

This? This is real. This is your arm. Your flesh and bone and veins and muscle, all still attached to you, still functioning, still yours. And in just a few minutes, they want to rip it from you. To cut it off like it’s nothing more than dead weight.

Your stomach churns, nausea curling at the edges of your ribs, pressing against your lungs.

Heeseung nods, stepping in. “We don’t have a choice. If we don’t—”

“We don’t even know if it’ll work,” you cut in, voice sharp, the panic rising in your chest. “That’s just—movie logic. ‘Cut the limb and you won’t turn.’ But this isn’t a movie, Heeseung.”

Jake shakes his head. “Lieutenant Kim said it would work.”

Your pulse spikes. “And you’re just taking her word for it?”

“She was bit.”

You freeze.

“She came into the treatment facility with her stump that day,” Jake says, his gaze never leaving yours. “Because of a zombie bite. I didn’t know it then, but that’s what happened. She was bit, they cut it off, and she survived.”

You stare at him, your mind racing.

“She told you this? Just gave up that information out of the kindness of her heart?” You scoff, but there’s no humour behind it. “With what intentions?”

Jake’s jaw clenches, his fingers twitching slightly against his thigh, like he’s holding something back. “She said she’d tell us how to keep you alive if we let her go.”

Your breath stutters, your pulse hammering against your ribs, slamming against your skull. Your arm. Your fucking arm.

“Lieutenant Kim survived,” he presses. “She’s living proof that it works.”

“She’s also a manipulative liar,” you snap back, the words sharp, defensive, because you need them to understand. “She told you that to get inside your head. She knew I’d been bitten, and she knew you’d do anything to—”

“To save you.”

You turn to Jungwon instinctively, expecting to see determination in his face, that unwavering resolve, that look he always carries—the one that says he knows exactly what to do, that he has a plan, that everything will work out because he will make it work.

But it’s not there.

“She knew we’d do anything to save you,” he repeats, softer this time, but just as certain. His eyes bore into yours, dark and unyielding, like he’s trying to force you to understand something. Something you already know, but can’t let yourself believe.

"Even if it did work,” you swallow thickly, forcing the words out through the lump in your throat, “It’s been—what, close to an hour since it happened? Wouldn’t it be too late for that?"

Jungwon doesn’t answer immediately. He just looks at you, like he’s seeing through every single excuse you’re trying to build, every wall you’re scrambling to put up. And when he finally speaks, his voice is so quiet, so wrecked, that it nearly breaks you.

"Please, Y/N." His lips part like there’s more he wants to say, like there’s a thousand different ways he’s trying to beg you to let them do this.

It’s not that you don’t believe them. In fact, you want to. Hell, if there’s even the slightest chance that this could save you, shouldn’t you be grasping at it with both hands? Shouldn’t you be clinging to it like a lifeline, like a drowning person reaching for the surface, desperate to breathe? The opportunity to live is being presented to you so clearly, placed right in front of you on a silver fucking platter, and all you have to do is take it. Just say yes. Just let them do this, let them save you.

You don’t have to die.

You can stay. You can keep going. You can keep living with them. You can wake up tomorrow with a future still ahead of you, with people still beside you, with hands that still reach out for you, that hold you.

But it sounds too good to be true. And frankly?

You’re fucking terrified.

Because losing an arm in the apocalypse isn’t just an injury—it’s a compromise, a cost you carry long after the blood has dried and the pain has dulled. It’s not just about surviving the amputation, gritting your teeth through the unbearable agony, or hoping the infection doesn’t creep past the point of no return. It’s what follows. The dull throb of vulnerability that will never quite fade. The countless things you won’t be able to do anymore, the tasks that used to be second nature suddenly becoming battles of their own. The way you’ll be slower, more dependent. The fear that you’ll no longer be an asset, but a burden.

And for someone like you, who’s only ever known survival as a solitary act—who’s always been prepared to run, to fight, to make the hard call alone—that sheer helplessness is the worst fate of all.

Otherwise put, it’s another death sentence all on its own.

But then, a sobering realisation creeps in, subtle and quiet at first, like the distant onset of dawn after a long, harrowing night.

That line of thinking, that desperate need to prove yourself—to do everything alone—that’s exactly what got you bitten in the first place. 

You went after Ni-ki because you couldn’t sit still. Because you couldn’t trust someone else to save him. Because some part of you believed it had to be you. That it always had to be you.

You were wrong.

And now, looking around at their faces—worn, bloodied, exhausted, but here—you finally understand something that’s eluded you until now: you were never alone to begin with. You never had to be. You were so afraid of becoming a burden that you never stopped to realise they wanted you here. That they would’ve carried you if your legs gave out. That if you lost one arm, you still had the arms of seven others, ready to catch you if you fell, ready to fight beside you, to lift you back up, to remind you that survival isn’t about strength—it’s about togetherness.

So what if you’re missing an arm?

You’re not missing them.

And with that thought—terrifying and hopeful all at once—you realise you’re not afraid to try. Not anymore.

There’s hope. And this time, you’re not pushing it away.

You take a breath. You let it out. You force your voice to steady itself when you finally say, “Okay. Do it.”

The moment the words leave your lips, the tension in the room shifts. You hold Jungwon’s gaze, refusing to look away, watching the way his body visibly relaxes, the way his shoulders sag with something close to relief.

But before you can even dwell on it, Jake’s hand is grabbing yours, his fingers wrapping around yours with a steady, grounding pressure. “Which brings me to the part after we cut it off,” he says, and there’s something in his tone that makes your stomach twist.

He hesitates for just a second—just long enough for the weight of his words to sink in—before squeezing your hand, his grip firm, unwavering, serious. “Look, I’m no expert,” he admits, his voice quieter now, but no less intense. “I don’t know the first thing about amputation. But what I do know is that we can’t afford to waste time trying to control the bleeding.” His jaw tightens. “You’ll bleed out before we even get the chance.”

Your pulse pounds in your ears. You know he’s right..

But still, the words land like a punch to the gut, knocking the air from your lungs, making everything feel too real all at once.

“What are you suggesting?” you ask, and even though your voice is steady, even though you manage to keep yourself from shaking, there’s no mistaking the apprehension laced between the syllables.

Jake doesn’t hesitate this time.

“We cauterise,” he says, and the moment the word leaves his mouth, a cold chill slithers down your spine. “We burn the tissue to seal off the blood vessels.”

Burn.

Burn.

The room goes deathly quiet.

You don’t move.

No one does.

The words settle in the air like smoke, heavy and suffocating, curling around your ribs, pressing into your lungs, sinking into the marrow of your bones.

You should have expected this. You did expect this.

But that doesn’t make it any easier to hear.

The image is already forming in your mind—the glowing red metal, the searing pain, the smell of burning flesh—your flesh. You can practically hear the hiss of skin melting away, the crackling of heat against raw, open muscle.

“You had the cloth tied tightly around your wrist. It’s not much, but it probably helped slow the circulation in your arm,” Jake says as he works, his voice steady but urgent. “But just to be safe, we’ll go higher up. Okay?” 

Jake’s hands move quickly now, faster than your thoughts can catch up. He tightens the belt high around your arms—farther up than where the bite is, closer to your bicep—just above the elbow, his knuckles pale from how hard he’s pulling, and you can already feel the tension building, the dull ache beginning to throb beneath your skin as the circulation cuts off, but it’s nothing compared to what’s coming, and everyone in the room knows it.

There’s a kind of silence that falls over the group—heavy, suspended in the air, the kind of quiet that only comes before something irreversible, something violent and sacred and necessary all at once—and you try to focus on their faces instead of the saw in Jake’s hand, on Jungwon’s eyes instead of the blowtorch Sunghoon is igniting in the corner, the hiss of flame catching and the low, anxious murmurs of the group as they brace themselves, not just physically but emotionally, for what this means.

You look down at your arm, really look at it—at the dirt under your fingernails, the faint scab from your tussle with A earlier, the way the bite has already begun to discolour the skin around it, bruised and swollen and festering. You’ve been bracing yourself for pain, for panic, for survival instincts to kick in and take over. But you didn’t expect... grief. And you realise how strange it is to mourn a part of yourself while it’s still attached, still warm, still undeniably yours.

Jungwon must’ve noticed the shift in your expression, the way your shoulders slumped and your eyes lingered a second too long on your soon-to-be missing limb, because he’s suddenly there beside you, silent and steady. He lowers himself to the ground with you, his presence anchoring, warm in the cold haze of panic tightening around your chest. His hand finds yours—tentative at first, then firmer, threading his fingers through yours with a kind of quiet desperation.

When you look at him, he’s already watching you, a faint smile curling at his lips. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes—those dark, storm-worn eyes—but he’s trying. He’s trying so hard to be strong for you. For the both of you.

And in that moment, you’re taken back to the rooftop, to the quiet under the stars and the weight of goodbye pressing on your shoulders like a second skin. To the kiss that felt more like a farewell than anything else. You’d kissed him thinking it would be the last time. Thinking that when you turned away, you’d never see him again.

Except now, he’s here.

He’s here, holding your hand like it’s the only thing tethering him to this reality. Like you’re the most precious thing in this godforsaken, broken world. 

You can’t help but wonder—just for a second—how nice it would’ve been to meet Jungwon under different circumstances. In a world where survival didn’t come at the cost of your body, your sanity, your soul. Where the air didn’t reek of rot and the weight on his shoulders wasn’t made of lives and impossible decisions.

You imagine meeting him as just… people. Two strangers on a campus somewhere, maybe sitting across from each other in a crowded cafe, or bumping into each other at a library, both reaching for the same book. Maybe you’d catch him staring first, his eyes kind and curious instead of shadowed and burdened. Maybe he’d laugh more. Maybe you would, too.

Would it still have been the same? Would the connection have still been as profound, as undeniable, if it wasn’t born from shared trauma, sleepless nights, and the kind of loyalty forged only in fire and blood?

You wonder if he would’ve still looked at you like this—with that mix of fear and hope and something far too deep to name. If you weren’t on the verge of dying, and he wasn’t on the verge of shattering over the thought of losing you… would you still find your way to each other?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But in this cruel, twisted world, you did. And that has to mean something.

Jake’s voice breaks through your haze, quiet but firm. “Y/N,” he says, and when your eyes finally meet his, you’re startled by the fear swimming in them. Not for himself. For you. “Ready?”

It’s not a question you’ve ever been asked before—not like this. Not with everything hanging in the balance. He’s not asking if you’re sure. You’re past that point. He’s asking if you’re ready to survive.

Your lips part, and for a second, nothing comes out. You want to tell him no. That you’re scared. That this is insane. 

Your mouth is dry. “Do it before I change my mind,” you whisper, and the words barely escape your lips, but Jake hears them. He meets your eyes and nods.

Jungwon’s grip tightens on your free hand, and you squeeze his back like a lifeline. You don’t dare look at him. You don’t want the last memory before the pain to be the look of fear in anyone else’s eyes—especially not his. So you stare straight ahead, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the darkened ceiling, trying to focus on the feeling of his thumb brushing small, grounding circles against your knuckles.

You count the breaths—one, two, three—trying to slow your racing heart, trying to keep from shaking. The air feels suffocating, thick with tension and antiseptic, the faint metallic tang of blood already lingering before it’s even spilled.

And then the saw comes down.

The first cut isn’t clean. It never is. You feel everything—every jagged grind of metal against bone, every shred of sinew snapping apart, every nerve ending lighting up like wildfire. Your back arches involuntarily, and a choked scream tears from your throat before you can bite it back. Your vision blurs at the edges. You taste copper. You hear someone—maybe yourself—whimpering through clenched teeth. 

Jungwon’s face twists with every sound you make, like he’s taking on the pain himself, like he’d trade places with you in a heartbeat if he could.

Heeseung is holding your shoulder down now, murmuring something like “You’re okay, you’re okay, just a little more,” over and over again, but the words barely register past the blinding, searing pain clawing up your spine, blooming behind your eyes, threatening to black out your vision.

Jake’s hands are steady, but his jaw is clenched tight, his entire body trembling with effort and urgency as he pushes through. He’s breathing hard, sweat dripping from his brow as he works, and finally—finally—the saw breaks through the last layer of bone and your arm is no longer yours.

A ragged, guttural sound escapes you as your body collapses back against the floor, half-conscious, half-gone.

But it’s not over.

The smell hits you first—burning flesh, acrid and thick, clinging to the back of your throat like smoke. Then the heat follows, sharp and blinding. Sunghoon doesn’t speak as he presses the flat, glowing-red piece of metal—heated over the blowtorch until it shimmered with angry orange—against the raw stump of your arm. The pain that follows is worse than anything you’ve ever known.

You don’t even get the chance to brace yourself. 

Your body arches violently, back lifting off the floor as the searing pain explodes through you. The sound that tears out of you is guttural, inhuman, a cry that fractures the air like glass shattering. You’re vaguely aware of hands holding you down—Jungwon’s voice calling your name, Jake’s arms pinning your torso, Sunoo’s weight across your legs—but all you can feel is the heat, the sting, the way your skin sizzles under the metal, as nerves are seared shut, as blood vessels are cauterised in a last-ditch attempt to keep you alive.

Somewhere beyond the white-hot agony, you feel Jungwon’s hand squeeze tighter, anchoring you to this reality, to the present, to the part of you still fighting. His hold is desperate, unrelenting, like he’s trying to pull you back from the edge just by touch alone.

“Almost there,” Jake’s voice grits out somewhere near your shoulder, but it’s distant, muffled—like everything else right now, dulled beneath the roar of pain.

You close your eyes and focus on the hand still in yours.

Not the missing part of you. Not the blood. Not the fear.

Just the hand. Just the fight. Just the hope that you’ll come out of this still human.

Still you.

When it’s over, the wound is blackened and raw, but closed. The bleeding has stopped. The infection hasn’t had a chance to spread—at least, that’s what Jake says—but all you can do is lie there, broken and heaving and soaked in sweat, your entire world reduced to pain and heat and the gentle pressure of Jungwon’s hand still clutching yours.

You blink up at the ceiling, trying to focus, trying to process, and you can feel the tears slipping from the corners of your eyes. You turn your head, eyes finding Jungwon again, and the look on his face—it’s not just relief. It’s awe. Like he’s seeing you for the first time. Like you’ve done something miraculous. And maybe you have. 

Maybe choosing to live is the bravest, most impossible thing you’ve ever done.

Jungwon holds your gaze, and for a moment, just a moment, it’s like everything falls away—no groaning dead beyond the door, no blood, no rot, no pain. Just you and him. Breathing. Existing. Surviving.

And then, as if your body finally catches up to everything it’s just endured, the edges of your vision begin to blur again—this time not from pain, but from a bone-deep exhaustion that sinks into every inch of you like a slow, heavy tide. Your limbs feel weightless and leaden all at once, your head swimming, the sounds around you warping into something distant and echoing. You don’t fight it. You’ve fought enough. Your fingers, still curled around Jungwon’s, finally go slack as the blackness rushes in like a wave—and just before it swallows you whole, you let yourself believe, if only for a second, that maybe this time, you’ll wake up. 

Alive.

“She’ll wake up”

“It’s been hours, Jake."

“I know I’m trying. Fuck. All I can do is increase her dosage, there’s nothing…”

“We should tie her up”

“No, don’t fucking touch her. She’ll make it.”

“Y/N, hey.”

The first thing you hear as you claw your way out of unconsciousness is Jungwon’s voice—soft, frayed around the edges, trembling like it’s been calling out for hours. You can’t see him yet, not with your eyes still refusing to open, but you can feel him. The warmth of his hand wrapped around yours again, grounding you. Holding on. Not letting go.

The world filters in slowly—muted voices, the shuffling of feet, the low groans of the dead from somewhere far off, beyond these walls. Pain registers next, dull and distant, like it’s been muted under layers of cotton and morphine. Your entire body feels foreign—heavy, stitched together, fraying at the seams.

“She’s awake,” someone whispers. You think it’s Jake. There’s a rustle of movement, the creak of a chair, the scrape of boots on concrete.

Your eyelids flutter, heavy as lead, and when they finally lift, it’s like breaching the surface of water after being submerged too long. The light from the lantern stings, blurry shapes looming into focus. The ceiling. The cracked paint. And then anchoring everything into place—

Jungwon.

His face is pale, his eyes bloodshot, but there’s relief pouring off of him like sunlight after a storm. “Hey,” he breathes again, like it’s a prayer.

You try to speak, but your throat is dry. Instead, your fingers twitch faintly in his grasp—and that’s enough. His breath hitches, and he brings your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles like it’s the only thing tethering him to the earth.

“You scared the shit out of us,” Heeseung murmurs from somewhere to the side, his voice quieter now. There’s a kind of reverence in it, a shaky pride. “But… you did it.”

It’s then that you look down—only to find the empty space where your arm used to be. And that’s when it hits you—a phantom sensation, sharp and cruel in its illusion. You feel your arm. Or at least, you think you do. The fingers that aren’t there twitch, curl, ache with a strange pins-and-needles pressure that makes your stomach churn. 

You can feel them. You know they’re gone. And yet, your brain hasn't caught up, hasn’t let go. The absence is louder than the pain, more jarring than the wound itself. It’s like your body is mourning a part of you that still believes it exists.

And as if Jungwon can sense the storm building inside you, his hand moves. Gently, he reaches over and places it over your eyes, shielding you from the sight. 

It’s a kind gesture, but it breaks you.

The tears slip out before you even feel them coming. Hot. Endless. You’re crying—not just from pain, but from grief, from fear, from the shattering weight of everything you’ve endured. You sob, trembling, breath catching in your throat like you’ve forgotten how to breathe.

Your instinct is to push his hand away, to cover your face with your own—but the arm you reach for doesn’t exist anymore.

The moment you realise that, it shatters what little composure you had left.

A sob wracks through your chest, harder, harsher. Jungwon doesn’t speak. He doesn’t let go. He holds your hand like a lifeline, brushing his thumb in slow, steady circles, whispering nothing and everything all at once.

When the worst of it passes and your sobs taper into shaky breaths, they give you a moment—just long enough to collect the scattered pieces of yourself, to gather whatever fragile control you still have left. And then, with gentle hands and quiet encouragement, they try to get you to sit up. Your body feels detached, heavy and weightless all at once, but somehow you manage to push yourself off the floor with your remaining arm, groaning softly as you prop yourself up against the cold, cracked wall. Every muscle protests, trembling under the strain, but you force yourself upright.

Jake is already on his way over, crouching in front of you with another dose of painkillers in hand, pressed into a makeshift paper cup filled with water. You don’t resist. You open your mouth, let the bitter tablet sit on your tongue, let the water burn its way down your throat. It tastes like metal. Like dust. But you swallow it anyway.

“You’re not completely in the clear yet,” Jake says quietly, not meeting your eyes. He’s trying to keep his voice neutral, but the edge of worry bleeds through. “We still don’t know if we managed to cut off the infection in time…”

He pauses, hesitates—and that’s when your gaze meets his. His expression shifts, the corners of his mouth tightening ever so slightly.

“…You could still turn. We just—” He stops, drags a hand down his face, and exhales hard, like he’s trying to breathe out all the things he doesn’t want to say. “We can only wait and see.”

The words settle into your chest like stones dropped into water—silent but heavy, rippling through your body with a slow, suffocating ache. That terrible uncertainty… it's back again. And it’s worse than death. Because at least death is final. But this—this is a slow, crawling unknown. You could still die. Or worse, lose yourself piece by piece, until the thing left breathing isn’t you anymore.

But you don’t flinch. You don’t argue or cry. You nod. Not because you’re hopeful, but because you’ve made your peace with it. You tried. You gave yourself a chance, and maybe that’s more than what most people in this world get. Maybe that alone is something to hold onto.

“I’m cold,” you murmur, turning your head toward Jungwon, who’s still crouched quietly beside you. His hand is wrapped gently around yours, grounding you like it always does. He looks up instantly, eyes full of concern.

“I’ll go grab you a blanket. Wait for me,” he says softly, as if any louder would shatter the fragile stillness of the room. He gives your fingers one last squeeze, then pushes himself up and walks toward the basement.

The second he disappears down the hall, you shift your gaze to Jay.

He’s already watching you.

You give him a small, barely-there nod. A silent summons.

Jay limps closer, his body stiff, his face unreadable—but his eyes say it all. He kneels beside you, wincing as his knee hits the floor, and leans in so he’s eye level with you. His breath is steady, but there’s something tight in the way he holds it, like he already knows what you’re about to say and he’s bracing for impact.

“Can I ask you a favour?” you say, your voice hoarse, barely audible over the sound of your own heartbeat. You feel raw. Hollowed out. Your body is in shambles, and your mind is hanging by a thread.

Jay doesn’t answer right away, but the subtle twitch in his jaw, the clenching of his fists at his sides—it’s enough to tell you he understands.

You look him dead in the eyes.

“Jay… if I turn, I want you to be the one to put me down.” Your throat tightens, and you barely manage to get the next words out. “Don’t let Jungwon do it. Please.”

His expression doesn’t change much—but his eyes do. They flicker with pain, anger, and something dangerously close to grief. You know what you’re asking. You know the kind of burden you're placing on him. But you also know he’s the only one who can carry it. Not Jungwon. Jungwon would never recover. Not from this. Not from you.

Jay’s silence stretches, heavy and unbearable, until he finally gives you a small, solemn nod.

And in that moment, you feel a strange kind of relief.

Not peace. Not comfort.

But certainty.

A mercy, promised.

The others shift uncomfortably at the exchange, their movements small and fidgety—eyes darting between you and Jay, shoulders stiffening, breaths held like the air itself has become too fragile to disturb. You can feel it—how your quiet acceptance, your calm resolve, unsettles them more than if you were screaming or panicking. 

Because if you—the one who fought tooth and nail to live, who threw yourself into fire and fury without hesitation—have already come to terms with the possibility of dying, then what hope is left for the rest of them?

No one says it out loud, but the silence that follows is deafening. Heavy. Final. And for a split second, you wonder if it would’ve been easier for them to keep believing you’d make it. Easier to cling to the illusion that everything would be fine. But instead, here you are, calmly appointing your executioner—and they’re forced to imagine what it will look like if you don’t make it through the night.

You turn your head, eyes drifting toward the ground beside you, and your stomach twists at the sight of dried blood staining the concrete, smeared and congealed like rust. A few meters off to the corner, partially obscured by the shadows, you notice a thin cloth draped over something small and misshapen. You suspect it's whatever is left of your arm.

But before you get the chance to ask, Jungwon returns with a clean blanket, his footsteps hurried and almost frantic. He’s unfolding it as he approaches, his eyes darting over your form, checking, assessing, making sure you’re still here. Without a word, he drapes the blanket over you, his movements careful, almost reverent.

He slides down to sit beside you, his back pressed against the wall, elbows propped on his knees, eyes fixated on some point far away. The others take it as a cue to give you two some privacy, but in a room where every sound echoes off the cracked walls, nothing is truly private. You catch a glimpse of Heeseung pretending to wipe the hinges of a shelf and Ni-ki awkwardly pretending to help him, their attempts at subtlety so blatant it almost makes you laugh. Almost.

“How are you feeling?” Jungwon asks, his voice low, frayed around the edges.

“That’s a very difficult question to ask someone who just got their arm cut off.” You try for a joke, something to break the tension, to convince him you’re still yourself, that you haven’t changed just because a part of you is missing.

He flinches at your words, eyes flickering with something that looks suspiciously like pain. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice strained.

“Hey, don’t apologise. None of this is your fault.” You try to sound reassuring, but the weight of everything is pressing down on you like a boulder. “Actually… I should be thanking you. For… you know, saving my life. All of you.”

He nods, but his gaze remains fixed on the floor, his fingers clenching and unclenching against his knees. The silence stretches, and you realise he’s waiting for you to say more. Waiting for you to voice the thoughts clawing at the back of your mind. So you push through, forcing the words out before you lose your nerve.

“Look, I know this isn’t… ideal.” You glance down at the blanket wrapped around you, the empty space where your arm should be. “But I’m alive. And that’s something. That’s… more than I expected to get.”

Jungwon’s jaw tightens, his shoulders tensing. He’s trying to keep his expression neutral, but you can see the turmoil bubbling beneath the surface. “You shouldn’t have expected anything less,” he mutters, his voice thick with frustration. “You shouldn’t have—” He cuts himself off, exhaling sharply, his hands raking through his hair. “We’re supposed to look out for each other. You… you shouldn’t have gone off on your own like that.”

“I know.” The admission comes out smaller than you intend. “I was reckless. And I’m sorry for making you all worry. I just… I couldn’t let A get away. Not after everything. I thought… if I could take him down, maybe everything would be okay. Maybe you’d all be safe.”

“We weren’t safe. Not with you out there risking everything by yourself.” His tone is clipped, tight, the anger barely contained. “You could’ve died. You almost did.”

“But I didn’t.” You insist, your voice wavering. “I’m still here.”

“Barely.” His retort is sharp, cutting through the air like a knife.

You swallow, your gaze dropping to the ground. “I made a mistake. I know that. But I’m still alive. I’m still here, Jungwon. And I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful to all of you.”

The words sound hollow even to your own ears, but you cling to them anyway, desperate to make him understand. Desperate to make him see that you’re not giving up, that you’re still fighting.

Jungwon’s expression softens just a fraction, but there’s something else there now, something raw and unguarded that makes your chest tighten. “You say that like it’s enough,” he whispers. “Like being alive is all that matters.”

“What else is there?” you ask, genuinely confused. “What else could possibly matter more than that?”

He stares at you, his eyes dark and searching, his breath coming in shallow, uneven bursts. And then he says it.

“It’s not—” His voice cracks over the words, like he’s tearing something out of himself just to say them. “It’s not okay.”

The air between you shifts, thickens. And you can see it now, the way his shoulders tremble, the way his fists clench and unclench at his sides. The way he’s fighting so hard to keep himself together, even as everything inside him threatens to break.

He won’t let himself be angry with you, not fully. So he’s turning it inward, letting it eat away at him from the inside out. And that realisation hits you harder than anything else.

“It is.” You meet his gaze, and something inside of you twists at the sheer desperation in his expression.

“No, it’s not!” His voice rises, cracking under the weight of everything he’s been holding in. “This isn’t okay! How—how can you sit there and say that like it’s fine?! Like you’re fine?!”

You stare at him, words caught in your throat. How do you explain that you’ve already accepted this? That you’ve resigned yourself to whatever happens next because you refuse to let it be for nothing? That you’re not afraid, not of this, not anymore. But the truth is tangled up with too many things you can’t say, too many emotions you can’t unravel, and before you can find the words, something shifts in Jungwon’s expression.

His breath shudders, his hands trembling slightly as they reach for you. The motion is quick, almost frantic. He grips your face between his hands, fingers pressing into your cheeks, his forehead knocking against yours with a force that feels almost desperate. His breath is warm, uneven, breaking against your skin like waves crashing against a shore.

“You don’t get to say that.” His voice is a ragged whisper, but it’s laced with a fury that you’ve never heard from him before. “You don’t get to tell me it’s okay. Because it’s not.”

You don’t move. You can’t. Jungwon is struggling to hold it together. You can feel it in the way his shoulders tremble with the force of his emotions, his grip too tight, like he’s trying to anchor you to him, to keep you from slipping away.

Slowly, carefully, you reach up with your remaining hand and place it over his, feeling the tension in his fingers, the desperation in his touch. You squeeze gently. “Jungwon.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Just keeps staring at you like he’s trying to burn your image into his memory.

“You’re right,” you admit, your voice barely a whisper. “It’s not okay. I was foolish. I shouldn’t have gone off like that. I should’ve… I should’ve listened. I should’ve trusted you. I’m sorry.”

“No.” His response is immediate, almost desperate. His eyes widen, raw and searching, the pain in them so evident it makes your chest ache. “No, no, no. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken my frustrations out on you. You were doing what you thought was right. And I— I wasn’t there. I couldn’t protect you.”

You shake your head, the motion weak and unsteady. “You can’t protect me from everything. That’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to me.”

He swallows hard, his gaze dropping to where his fingers twist together like he’s trying to wring the guilt out of his own bones. “Still… I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve kept you safe. And I didn’t. I’m sorry.” His voice is barely above a whisper now, breaking with each word like a confession he’s been holding back for too long.

For a moment, the two of you sit there in silence, breathing through the cracks and the grief and the terrible, crushing relief of still being here. Still being alive. You can feel his presence beside you, solid and real, his warmth bleeding into the coldness that has settled over your skin.

Then, slowly, Jungwon shifts closer, his hand reaching for yours, his fingers lacing through yours with a tenderness that nearly undoes you. His touch is cautious, like he’s afraid you might break under the weight of it.

He leans in, closing the gap between you, pressing his lips to yours so gently it feels like he’s trying to kiss away the pain, to erase the hurt he thinks he caused. His lips are warm, soft, trembling against yours like a prayer left unfinished.

His lips linger against yours, fragile and uncertain, like he’s trying to imprint this moment into something permanent—something real. You can feel the tremor in his touch, the hesitation tangled with desperation. It’s like he’s terrified you’ll disappear the second he pulls away. And maybe you are too.

Your eyes slip shut, drowning out everything but the warmth of his mouth against yours, the press of his forehead resting gently against yours. His breath mingles with yours, uneven and shallow, like he’s afraid that breathing too deeply might shatter whatever delicate thread is keeping you here, with him.

You feel the press of his fingers squeezing yours, a little too tight, as if he’s trying to anchor you to him. Like he thinks if he holds on tight enough, the universe won’t be able to rip you away. The heat of his palm against yours sends a shiver through you, a grounding touch in the midst of all this madness.

When he finally pulls back, his eyes are bloodshot, his cheeks damp. You don’t even know when he started crying. He must not have realised it either because he looks at you like you’re the one who’s breaking, like you’re the one who needs saving.

His thumb swipes clumsily over your cheek, catching tears you didn’t know were there. You’re crying, too. You’re both crying. Everything feels raw and exposed, stripped down to nothing but bruised nerves and shattered breaths.

“I’m so scared of losing you.” His voice is cracked, splintered with something vulnerable and jagged. “I tried so hard to protect you, to keep you safe… but I couldn’t. And I keep thinking… what if it’s not enough? What if I’m not enough?”

The words pour out of him like a wound ripped open, all his fears and failures spilling into the air between you. And it’s painful to hear, to see him like this—so torn apart, so desperate to make things right when all you’ve ever wanted was for him to simply be there.

“It was never about being enough,” you murmur, your voice trembling, your chest tight. “You’ve always been enough, Jungwon. Always. It’s me who kept pushing you away, who kept trying to do everything alone because I was too scared to let you in. Too scared that if I needed you… and you were gone… it would break me.”

His breath stutters, eyes widening like your words just cut him down the middle. You can feel the way his shoulders slump, like he’s crumbling under the weight of something neither of you can control.

“I was reckless,” you continue, forcing the words out even as your throat tightens. “I was so focused on trying to protect all of you that I didn’t even think about what it would do to you if I…” Your voice cracks, and you have to swallow hard before you can continue. “If I didn’t come back.”

A pained noise escapes him, something between a sob and a gasp. His fingers tighten around yours, knuckles white with the force of his grip. “Don’t say that. Don’t—don’t even think like that. You came back. You’re here. You’re—”

He breaks off, his voice cracking, his eyes glassy with unshed tears. You can see the way he’s struggling to keep himself together, to hold back the tide of emotions threatening to consume him. And it’s almost too much—to see him like this, to know that your recklessness has left him so utterly broken.

“I know,” you whisper, the words trembling on your lips. “I’m here. I’m still here.”

But you don’t say the rest. You don’t tell him that you don’t know if you’ll stay. You don’t tell him that the infection might already be spreading through your veins, that this might all be borrowed time. You can’t. Not when he’s looking at you like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded.

Instead, you reach up and brush your fingers against his cheek, wiping away the tears still clinging to his skin. His eyes flutter shut at the contact, his shoulders sagging as if your touch alone is enough to loosen the knots of tension twisted through his body.

You stay like that for a moment, your hand cradling his face, his breath trembling against your palm. It’s a fragile, fleeting moment—one that could break apart at any second. But for now, it’s enough.

You let out a shaky breath and pull your hand away, your fingers feeling cold in the absence of his warmth. Jungwon’s eyes open, and the pain there is still raw and bleeding, but there’s something else too. Something like determination.

“I can’t lose you,” he whispers, his voice fractured but laced with a desperate resolve, like he’s trying to will those words into reality.

“You won’t,” you manage to choke out, your voice trembling but certain. You’re not sure if you believe it yourself, but it doesn’t feel like a lie. Even if the worst happens—even if your body gives out—you know a part of you will always be with him. You’ll never truly leave him, not in the ways that matter.

A chill snakes down your spine, settling into your bones despite the blanket wrapped tightly around your body. Your teeth chatter involuntarily, the shivers wracking through you in waves. You must look like death itself, but you can’t bring yourself to care. Everything feels too heavy, too sharp. The world pressing down on you in all the wrong ways.

Without a word, Sunoo carefully slips a few instant heating packs from the MREs under your blanket. The warmth seeps through gradually, cutting through the chill. You offer him a weak smile, your gratitude clear even if you don’t have the strength to voice it. He nods back, his eyes clouded with worry.

“Jungwon.” Your voice is thin, trembling, but it’s enough to draw his attention.

“Hm?” He shifts closer instinctively, his body turning to face you, eyes locked onto yours with unwavering focus.

You lean into him, resting your head against his shoulder. It’s a familiar gesture, one that feels safe and steady even in the midst of everything else falling apart. He adjusts his position immediately, angling himself so you can settle against him comfortably. You feel his arm circle around your back, his touch gentle, protective.

“I’m sleepy,” you murmur, the words slurring slightly. “Will you sing me to sleep?”

His shoulders tense, and for a moment, he’s utterly still. You can hear the faint hitch in his breath, see the hesitation flicker in his eyes. There’s a long, heavy silence stretching between you. The only other sounds are the distant groans of the dead outside, the scrape of their feet against the ground.

You think you’ve asked for too much. That he’ll refuse. That he can’t find his voice when he’s barely holding himself together. But then—

He sings. And everything else—pain, fear, doubt—fades into a dull hum as his voice wraps around you like a cocoon. His singing is soft, unsteady at first, like he’s not sure if he’s doing it right, but then it smooths out, the melody gentle and haunting.

I remember tears streaming down your face When I said, “I’ll never let you go” When all those shadows almost killed your light

His voice is soft, barely more than a whisper, but it reaches you with startling clarity. It’s raw, tender, stripped down, like it’s not just a song but a plea. A promise he’s trying to etch into your bones, to keep you grounded, to keep you here. And you cling to it. To him. 

You can’t explain it—how his voice feels like fresh wildflowers blooming in the dead of winter, a warmth that cuts through the chill of the night. It’s soothing, cradling you in something that feels almost like peace.

I remember you said "Don't leave me here alone" But all that's dead and gone and passed Tonight

The others are quiet, their movements stilled. The faint glow of the lantern casts shadows across their faces, but you can still see the exhaustion etched into every line, the battles they’re fighting within their own minds. Even they seem to draw some measure of comfort from the sound of Jungwon’s voice.

Just close your eyes The sun is going down You’ll be alright No one can hurt you now

The vibration of his chest against your cheek is a steady, grounding rhythm. And as he sings, your eyelids grow heavier, your breathing slows, your body sinking further into his warmth. You let yourself drift, let his voice carry you somewhere else, somewhere safe.

You imagine the two of you sitting on the rooftop, legs dangling over the edge, the air cool but not cold. Your head rests on his shoulder, just like this. The sky is painted in hues of orange and pink, the sun setting gently over the camp. The dead are distant, irrelevant, nothing more than shadows on the periphery of a world that doesn’t matter.

Come morning light, You and I’ll be safe and sound.

As his voice drifts off, the last note hanging in the air like a whisper, you feel your breathing begin to even out. The pain is still there, lurking beneath the surface, but it’s dulled now, muffled by the warmth of his presence, by the lull of his singing.

“Thank you,” you mumble, your voice barely a thread of sound.

Jungwon’s fingers brush against yours, his touch delicate, careful. “Anything for you,” he whispers, the words thick and heavy with emotion.

And with that, you let yourself drift, surrendering to the dark, knowing that if you wake up—if you get through this—he’ll be right there, holding you just as tightly in his arms. Where you’ll hopefully feel safe and sound.

It’s a strange, surreal feeling. Dying. Or maybe not dying. Not yet, at least. You’re not sure where you stand on that precipice between life and death, but it feels like you’re hovering somewhere in between, suspended in a place where time stretches and folds in on itself.

You know you’re unconscious. You can’t move, can’t speak, can’t even open your eyes. But your awareness is still there, fragmented and hazy but present. You can feel things. Not clearly, but enough to know you haven’t crossed over to whatever’s waiting on the other side.

You feel the sensation of being lifted, your body handled with a gentleness that almost surprises you. Strong arms beneath you, cradling you with a care so profound it leaves an ache in your chest. You feel warmth when it comes, washing over you in brief, fleeting waves that seep into your skin like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.

Fingers brush over your face, cool and steady, tracing patterns against your feverish skin. You can’t tell who it is, but you can feel the touch, the way it lingers like an unspoken promise. Other hands move along your body—cleaning the grime and blood from your skin, changing the bandage on your arm with delicate precision. You feel the sharp sting of antiseptic, the pressure of gauze being secured, the subtle shifts of weight as someone tends to you, over and over again.

You want to thank them. To open your eyes and tell them that you feel their presence, that you know they’re trying. But the words are trapped somewhere deep inside of you, tangled and unreachable. Your lips refuse to move. Your throat remains closed off, like it’s forgotten how to form even the simplest syllables.

Is this what coma patients go through? Is this what it feels like to be stuck in your own body, powerless and mute, even as the world continues to turn around you?

You hear voices sometimes. They drift in and out, muffled and distorted like they’re coming from underwater. They’re talking to you, you think. But the words blur together, bleeding into a tangle of incoherent sound. You try to grasp at them, try to pull meaning from the noise, but it slips through your fingers like smoke.

There’s something else, too. A presence that lingers longer than the others. Someone who speaks to you more than the rest. The tone is familiar, threaded with desperation and something else you can’t quite name. Grief. Fear. Hope. Maybe all of them, maybe none. But it’s there, always there, like a thread tied around your heart, tugging you back toward the surface.

You don’t know how much time has passed. Hours. Days. Weeks. It all bleeds together in the darkness, in the endless nothingness that presses against your consciousness. You’re starting to get tired, when will this end?

The voices filter through the darkness, warped and distant, like they’re coming from the other end of a tunnel. But they’re clearer than before, threaded with urgency and something raw—grief, maybe, or desperation. Your mind clings to the sound, pulling the words apart, trying to make sense of them even as the fog threatens to drag you under again.

“You need to stop going off on your own. It’s not helping and it’s not going to do anything. They’re already gone.” The voice is steady, calm, but there’s a firmness to it, a caution wrapped in concern. You can’t place it, but something about it feels familiar.

“What if they come back?” The second voice is shaky, strained with the kind of fear that doesn’t fade with reassurance. 

“They won’t,” the first voice insists, its tone flat, resolute. But even you can hear the way the certainty falters, just barely, like the speaker is trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

“What makes you so sure?” The desperation bleeds through, palpable and sharp. “What if they come back and someone else gets hurt? I can’t risk anyone else getting hurt. I’m already as fucked up as it is with Y/N. Her condition isn’t even improving and I fear what we forced her to endure only extended her suffering.” The voice cracks, and your chest tightens, a phantom ache curling around your ribs. You know that voice. You know the pain threading through it.

“Heeseung, did we make the right choice? Please tell me we made the right choice, fuck I—”

“Calm down.” Heeseung’s voice now, low and controlled, trying to slice through the panic. “No one else is getting hurt. A is dead. They won’t come back. You made sure of that, remember?”

A silence stretches out, heavy and oppressive. You can practically feel the weight of it pressing down on you, thickening the air until it feels like you’re drowning.

But Heeseung’s words echo in your mind. A is dead. They won’t come back. He made sure of that.

And there’s only one person he could be speaking to. Only one person who would tear himself apart over your suffering, who would unravel so completely under the weight of guilt and fear and desperate, clinging hope.

Jungwon.

Your heart clenches, but your body remains unresponsive, your mind drifting in and out of coherence. You try to reach for him, to push through the darkness, to let him know you can hear him. That you’re still here. But all you manage is a twitch of your fingers, a slight movement so small it’s swallowed by the void before anyone even notices.

But you keep trying. Because if Jungwon’s out there, tearing himself apart, then you have to find a way back. For him. For all of them.

The sudden ache that slices through your skull feels like someone drove a knife into your temple and twisted. It jolts you awake, your eyes snapping open with a sharp intake of breath. The sensation is violent, like you’ve been ripped from the clutches of a nightmare, thrust into consciousness without warning.

For a moment, everything is too bright, too harsh. The sunlight streams through the cracked blinds of the convenience store window, painting jagged patterns across the floor.

It’s warm, too warm, and it settles over your skin like a phantom touch—too real and not real enough all at once.

Instinctively, you try to raise your hand to shield your eyes, but your wrist jerks against something cold and unyielding. Bound. To a pipe. The realisation snaps you back to the present, and frustration coils hot and sharp in your chest as you struggle against the restraints. Your fingers twitch, but then the brutal, crushing reality slams into you—you only have one hand now.

You swallow down the bitterness clawing at your throat, the taste of defeat and something sour that you can’t quite name. Great. Just great.

Your throat is dry, sandpaper against itself, and when you try to call out, your voice splinters into nothing. Just a rasp of air, useless and cracked from disuse. The more you try, the worse it gets.

Panic wells up inside of you, desperate and clinging, but before it can take root, you catch the faintest sound of voices approaching. Familiar voices.

“I’ll be right there, just need to change into some clean clothes.” The voice is clear, casual, almost too normal for the chaos your body feels trapped in. Jay. His tone is light, but there’s a strain to it.

You hear the creak of the convenience store door being pushed open, and you catch a glimpse of him stepping through, but his eyes are trained somewhere else, attention diverted.

You can’t speak, can’t call out, so you do the only thing you can think of. You kick your leg against the floor, the dull thud echoing through the silence.

Jay’s head snaps toward you, his eyes widening, and his gun is raised before you even register the movement. The wariness in his gaze is immediate, sharp, but then recognition washes over him, relief crashing through his expression like a tidal wave.

“Oh my God, you’re awake.” His voice is breathless, disbelieving, and he practically trips over himself as he rushes to your side, dropping to his knees beside you. His hands fumble with the knot binding your wrist to the pipe, fingers trembling slightly, but he manages to free you, his grip gentle as he helps you sit up.

Your body feels wrong, hollowed out and strung together with threadbare strings, but you force yourself to lean against him, letting him take some of your weight as you shakily lift yourself off the ground. The muscles in your shoulders protest the movement, sore and strained, but you grit your teeth and push through it.

“Here, have some water.” Jay uncaps a bottle with one hand, his other arm still supporting you. He brings it to your lips, helping you take a few sips. The cool liquid hits your throat and you almost choke on it, coughing weakly, but you manage to swallow enough to soothe the dryness.

“Easy. Slow down,” he murmurs, concern etched into every line of his face. His eyes are searching yours, frantic and careful all at once, like he’s waiting for you to shatter before his very eyes. “Fuck, Y/N, we thought—”

He cuts himself off, voice cracking on the last word, and you feel the weight of it, the heaviness of everything he isn’t saying.

“Jay, how long was I out for?” You manage to rasp out, the words scraping against your throat like broken glass. Even forming a sentence feels like an insurmountable effort, your vocal cords strained and unused.

Jay’s eyes flit over your face, searching, as if trying to make sense of how you’re even speaking. His shoulders sag with a mixture of relief and something else—something darker, like guilt.

“Two weeks.” His voice is steady, but his eyes betray him. There’s a tightness to them, a rawness that makes your stomach twist. “You were out for two weeks.”

Two weeks. The words hit you like a punch to the chest.

Your mind reels, trying to grasp the reality of it. Two weeks lost to nothingness. Two weeks of hovering between life and death, of your body fighting a war you weren’t even conscious to endure. No wonder everything feels wrong—your muscles are stiff and unresponsive, your throat parched, your head pounding like it’s been split open and stitched back together with jagged threads.

Two weeks of them waiting. Of them not knowing if you’d wake up again. Of Jungwon—

“Where’s Jungwon?” The question tumbles out before you can stop it, the desperation in your voice painfully clear.

Jay’s eyes flicker with something unreadable, his mouth pressing into a thin line before he answers. “He’s… he’s out on patrol. He needed some air.” The hesitation in his voice is enough to set off every alarm in your mind, but you don't push it. Not yet.

A pang of guilt twists in your gut, the knowledge of what Jungwon must have gone through sinking in like a knife. You picture him, sitting beside you, day after day, waiting for you to wake up, clinging to whatever scraps of hope he could find.

“And the others?” You ask, the words spilling out before you can overthink them.

“They’ve been taking shifts watching over you,” Jay admits. “Making sure you were warm enough, making sure the wound didn’t get infected. Jake’s been changing the bandages every day. Heeseung’s been… holding everyone together. And the rest of us are trying to… rebuild.”

You blink, your vision blurring slightly as you process his words. They’d all been here. All of them. Holding the pieces together while you lay useless, unconscious.

“Why was I tied up?” Your gaze drifts to the pipe your wrist was bound to, a slight indentation visible on your skin.

Jay’s expression darkens, guilt flashing across his features. “Protocol. Just… just in case you turned. We couldn’t risk… we couldn’t risk you waking up and—” His voice cracks, the words caught somewhere between apology and regret.

“It’s fine,” you interrupt, your voice a little stronger now. “I get it.” And you do. They were trying to protect themselves. From you. From the possibility of you being something other than yourself when you woke up.

“Wait here, I’ll go get the others.” Jay stumbles to his feet, his movements awkward, his gaze flickering away from you like he’s hiding something. His attempt at nonchalance is laughable, the tension in his shoulders giving him away. You can’t shake the feeling that there’s more he’s not telling you, but before you can question him, he’s already pushing through the door.

Moments later, the sound of hurried footsteps echoes through the store, followed by a voice so loud it nearly startles you.

“Y/N!” Sunoo barrels through the doors like a man possessed, clutching a bowl of soup so tightly you’re amazed it hasn’t spilled all over the floor. His eyes are wide, his expression straddling the line between joy and disbelief. The others spill in behind him, their faces painted with the same frantic relief, like they need to see you conscious with their own eyes to believe it.

“Thank fucking God, you’re alive.” Heeseung releases a shuddering breath, his shoulders sagging as he settles down beside you, his hand finding your shoulder as if he needs to touch you to be sure you’re real.

Jake practically beams, his grin wide and unrestrained as he kneels beside you, his eyes locked on your arm—or what’s left of it. He’s examining the stump like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, pride practically radiating off him.

It’s clear he’s been obsessively monitoring your condition, and you owe him your life for it.

Sunoo inches closer, carefully holding out the bowl of soup, his hands trembling slightly. “Here. Try to drink a little. It’s not much, but…” His voice wavers, but his determination is solid. You allow him to help you take a few sips, the warmth sliding down your throat like liquid gold.

“How are you feeling?” Sunghoon’s voice chimes in from the side, his expression cautious but hopeful.

You try to force a weak smile. “I’ve been better. My body feels like it’s not even mine.”

“It’s normal,” Jake says, his hand finding your forehead, his touch gentle and cool. “You were out for two weeks, after all.” He nods, satisfied. “Your fever’s gone down, though. That’s a good sign.”

“Hell, you actually survived a zombie bite.” Ni-ki huffs, his arms crossed over his chest, his smirk almost impressed. “That’s… wild.”

“Yay, lucky me.” The sarcasm comes out dry, but the familiar edge of humour sends a ripple of relief through the group. As if hearing you joke, no matter how weakly, means you’re still you.

For a moment, the room feels lighter, their laughter filling the air like a breath of fresh air after weeks of suffocating tension. But it doesn’t last. Because the question that’s been gnawing at you since you woke up hasn’t been answered.

“What happened?” you ask, your voice tight. “Where did the horde go?”

The shift in their demeanour is instant. Bodies tense, glances exchanged, words swallowed. There’s a heaviness to their silence, a hesitation that makes your stomach twist.

“Guys… where’s Jungwon?” The panic slips into your tone before you can reel it back. “Don’t tell me he’s—”

“God, no. He’s fine.” Jake rushes to reassure you, but his expression is strained, like the truth is something jagged he’s struggling to hold.

“After you passed out…” Heeseung begins, his voice low and careful. “I guess his emotions sort of overwhelmed him. He—he wanted every one of the dead to be gone. Every last one. It was like he couldn’t stand the idea of them being near you.”

“He went out on his own,” Heeseung continues, his eyes darkening with something that feels like guilt. “He wanted to open the gate to draw them away, but… it was already open. Whatever remained of A’s people, they fled. Jungwon spent the next two days leading the horde away from here. And he wouldn’t let any of us help him.”

“Two days,” you echo, your heart sinking. Jungwon’s name leaves your lips like a prayer, like a plea.

“He’s been hunting the rest of A’s people after that, the ones who managed to escape.” Sunoo’s voice cracks slightly. “He’d come back late, just to check on you. He’d sit beside you, take short naps, then leave again.”

“He’s not… he’s not himself,” Heeseung admits, his gaze shifting to the floor. “He’s blaming himself for what happened. And now… he’s tearing himself apart trying to fix it.”

The revelation settles over you like a cold, heavy weight. You can feel the tension in their faces, the worry etched into their expressions as they recount what happened. Jungwon, running himself ragged. Jungwon, fighting alone. Jungwon, refusing help and throwing himself at danger over and over again.

Sounds awfully like someone you know.

You look around the room, catching the strained expressions on everyone’s faces. They’ve all been watching this unfold, powerless to stop him, just as they were powerless to help you when you were dying. The guilt must be eating them alive.

“He’s still out there?” you ask, your voice coming out smaller than you intend.

Heeseung nods, his shoulders slumping. “He’s… he’s been relentless. He comes back just to make sure you’re breathing, to make sure you’re… still here. But he doesn’t stay. Not for long.”

“Where is he now?” Your stomach twists painfully, a combination of hunger, exhaustion, and something far worse—fear.

“We haven’t seen him since yesterday,” Jay admits, his voice trembling. “He said he was tracking some of A’s people. Trying to make sure none of them come back.”

“He’s going to get himself killed,” you whisper, horrified. “Why didn’t any of you stop him?”

“We tried,” Jay interjects, his tone defensive but layered with shame. “He wouldn’t listen. Just… shut us out. Every time we tried to help, he pushed us away. Like he’s punishing himself or something.”

“That sounds like him,” you murmur, your heart sinking. You feel the weight of it now, the sheer magnitude of what Jungwon’s been doing. What he’s been putting himself through because of you. Because of his failure to protect you.

You want to get up. You want to run out there and drag him back yourself, force him to see reason, to stop tearing himself apart. But your body is still weak, your muscles still shaky from the long sleep, your mind still foggy with fever and painkillers.

“Where did he go last?” you ask, fighting to keep your voice steady.

“We don’t know,” Ni-ki admits, eyes dropping to the floor. “He’s not exactly good at giving details before he storms off.”

“But he’ll be back,” Sunghoon adds, though even he sounds unsure. “He always comes back to check on you.”

You stare at the door, the silence stretching out, the air thick with unspoken fears. Jungwon is out there. Alone. Hunting ghosts and chasing vengeance. And the worst part? He’s doing it for you.

You insisted they bring you outside the convenience store, claiming you needed fresh air—something clean, something that didn’t reek of blood and antiseptic. But the truth is, you were slowly losing your mind cooped up inside that building, the walls pressing in closer every hour, the air growing stale and heavy.

It wasn’t just the confinement—it was the not knowing. The isolation. The feeling of being cut off from everything happening beyond the convenience store doors.

You could hear the faint, muffled sounds of activity outside, the occasional barked order, the dragging of something across the pavement. But no one would tell you what was happening, not really. And you couldn’t stand the uncertainty.

The thought of being kept in the dark while the others were out there, exposed, dealing with the aftermath of everything that had happened.

So you’d demanded to be brought outside, your voice sharp and unyielding until they relented. They’d been hesitant, their concern clear in the way their eyes darted between you and each other, like they weren’t sure if moving you would make things worse. But you’d been relentless, and eventually, they caved.

Now, as Sunoo carefully lowers you into one of those old, rickety wheeled chairs they’d scavenged from behind the counter, you feel the cool air prickling against your skin, the sunlight filtering through the clouds like a balm. It’s not clean air by any means—still thick with the cloying scent of blood and decay—but it’s different. It’s real. It’s enough to keep the madness at bay.

And yet, as the wheels creak and groan beneath you, and Sunoo pushes you further into the open air, you realise that knowing what’s happening isn’t always a relief.

Because the aftermath of the battle stretches out before you like a twisted, grotesque canvas—blood smeared across the concrete, darkened and congealed where the sun has begun to bake it into the ground. 

But worse than that is the silence. The absence of groans and snarls from the dead. It’s all been replaced by the laboured breathing and strained grunts of your friends as they work. And that’s when you realise. Even though you wanted to know what was happening, even though you’d fought to be brought outside—it doesn’t make it any easier to face.

The others are working with grim efficiency, their movements mechanical, burdened with exhaustion but fuelled by necessity. They’re piling the bodies into the back of the van. Blood smears the metal doors and the ground beneath it, dark and sticky where it pools in shallow depressions.

Sunghoon and Ni-ki are doing most of the heavy lifting, their shoulders hunched, jaws clenched as they haul corpses over their backs and dump them into the van. The thud of lifeless weight against metal sends a shiver down your spine.

You catch glimpses of A’s people among the carnage—bodies twisted and torn, their limbs splayed at unnatural angles, eyes lifeless and empty. The horde had done its work well, the evidence strewn across the earth like discarded remains of a nightmare. 

You try not to look too closely at their faces but it’s impossible not to see them. A’s people. The horde. Everything blurred together in death, no distinction left between monster and man.

“They’re going to burn them,” Sunoo says, voice low and weary as he pushes you closer to the van. “We didn't know what to do with them. But they started smelling real bad so Heeseung suggested to…yeah.” His tone is flat, resigned, like he’s already distanced himself from the horror of it all.

You swallow thickly, the air tasting of gasoline and decay. Your gaze locks onto the pile of bodies—they are stacked like firewood, limbs twisted and broken, some barely held together by the flesh that remains. It’s a horrifying sight, but somehow you can’t tear your eyes away.

“Guess it’s better this way.” Your voice is a hoarse rasp, the words scraping against your throat. “No more traces. No more reminders.”

Sunoo’s expression flickers, his gaze sharpening as he looks down at you. “Nothing’s ever gone for good,” he murmurs. “We just… pretend it is.”

The heaviness in his words cuts through you, a bleak truth that settles like lead in your chest. Pretending. Isn’t that what you’ve all been doing? Pretending you’re safe. Pretending you’re strong enough. Pretending you’re not terrified of what comes next.

And as you watch them load another body into the van—this one smaller, thinner, a girl who couldn’t have been much older than you were when the world went to hell—you realise Sunoo is right. The bodies might be gone. The blood might be washed away. But nothing is ever truly gone.

You’re all just pretending.

The minutes blur into hours, a cruel, dragging passage of time where every creak of the door, every shuffle of footsteps sends your heart plummeting and soaring in equal measure. The others try to distract you—Sunoo attempts to feed you more soup, Jake checks your temperature again, Ni-ki keeps making offhand comments to lighten the mood. But nothing cuts through the anxiety clinging to your chest. Nothing numbs the gnawing ache of Jungwon’s absence.

He’s been gone too long.

You force yourself to stay awake, eyes fixed on the door like if you look away for even a moment, he’ll slip past and disappear for good. You hate the way your body feels so fragile, like you could shatter if you so much as breathe wrong. You hate that you can’t be out there with him, helping him, keeping him safe. Instead, you’re stuck here—waiting, helpless, counting the seconds as they bleed into one another.

Evening stretches into dusk, the world outside dimming as the sun begins its slow descent. Shadows creep along the walls, the air growing colder, the faint groans of the undead in the distance a grim reminder of the horrors beyond the barricade.

He’ll come back, you tell yourself, over and over again. He has to. He always comes back.

But as the hours continue to slip away, doubt begins to coil around your heart, icy and relentless.

Heeseung is the first to suggest you get some rest, his voice gentle but firm as he tries to coax you away from the door. But you refuse. You can’t sleep. You can’t even sit still. 

You try to imagine what Jungwon must be going through, the battles he’s been fighting—both with the dead and with himself. And it hurts. Because he shouldn’t be out there, tearing himself apart for you. Not for something that was your own fault to begin with.

The sun has almost fully dipped beneath the horizon when you hear it—the sound of the gate creaking open.

Your breath catches, and for a moment, you think you’ve imagined it. But then the others are stirring, their heads snapping toward the door, their eyes wide and hopeful.

You push yourself to your feet, the world tilting slightly as your legs tremble beneath you. The dizziness is immediate, but you force yourself forward, stumbling toward the door just as it swings open.

He’s there.

Jungwon stands in the fading light, his silhouette ragged and hunched, blood splattered across his clothes and dirt smeared across his face. His eyes are wild, haunted—like he’s been to hell and back and barely clawed his way free.

The moment his gaze lands on you, something inside him shatters. His shoulders sag, his knees nearly buckling. But he doesn’t hesitate. He crosses the distance between you in seconds, his arms encircling you, pulling you into him with a force so desperate it nearly knocks the breath from your lungs.

“Y/N.” His voice breaks over your name, the syllables raw and cracked. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his entire body trembling as if he’s holding back a flood of emotions he can’t even begin to contain.

You feel his tears against your skin, hot and unrelenting. His grip on you is almost painful, fingers digging into your back like if he lets go, you’ll vanish right before his eyes.

“You’re okay,” he chokes out, the words tumbling from his lips in a frantic rush. “You’re okay. You’re awake. I—God, I thought—” His voice breaks completely, his breath hitching as a sob tears its way through him. “I thought you’d never wake up.”

You cling to him just as fiercely, your arm wrapped around him as tightly as you can manage. “I’m here,” you whisper, your own voice thick with emotion. “I’m okay.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you, his gaze sweeping over your face like he’s trying to memorise every detail, every line, every scar. His eyes are red-rimmed, swollen, his expression so broken it nearly crushes you.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps, his fingers trembling as they trace the line of your jaw, his touch feather-light, as if he’s afraid you’ll break under his hands. “I should’ve been here when you woke up. I should’ve—”

“No,” you cut him off, shaking your head. “You did what you had to do. You kept them safe. You kept me safe.”

His shoulders quake with the force of his sobs, his forehead dropping against yours as he struggles to catch his breath. “I thought I lost you,” he whispers. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

“I’m here, Jungwon. I’m alive. I’m alive.” Your voice cracks, splintering like glass under too much pressure. And somehow, saying it out loud makes it feel real. Like the words themselves are anchoring you to the present, tethering you to something solid and true. You’re alive. The truth of it thrums beneath your skin, a steady beat you’d almost forgotten how to hear.

Jungwon’s eyes widen, his breath stalling like he’s forgotten how to draw air. His fingers tighten around yours, his grip fierce and trembling. “You’re alive,” he echoes, voice raw, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as you. 

“God, Y/N… you’re alive.” His voice breaks entirely, the words dissolving into a strangled sob.

You wrap your arm around him again, fingers tangling in the fabric of his shirt, clutching at him like he’s the only real thing left in the world. “I’m here,” you repeat, the words thick with tears. “I’m here, Jungwon. I’m not going anywhere.”

He trembles against you, his shoulders shaking as he lets himself break, lets himself feel every ounce of pain and relief and desperate, aching hope. And for a moment, it’s just the two of you, tangled together against the cold, cruel world outside. Two people clinging to each other like lifelines, refusing to let go.

And despite the ache in your body, the sheer exhaustion ravaging through your veins like fire, it doesn’t even compare to the yearning. The longing that pulses through you stronger than pain, sharper than fear. It’s like everything you’ve endured, every broken bone, every drop of blood spilled, has only been leading you to this moment.

His hands are trembling as they cradle your face, his touch impossibly gentle even as desperation trembles beneath his fingertips.

He presses his forehead to yours, his breath mingling with your own, both of you drawing in ragged, uneven gasps like you’re trying to remember how to breathe.

And then, his mouth finds yours, the kiss urgent and desperate and filled with everything he can’t say. His lips are rough and unsteady, his hands cradling your face as if you’re something precious, something he’s terrified of breaking.

“Jungwon…” His name leaves your lips like a plea, like a prayer, your voice barely more than a broken whisper.

“I’m here,” he breathes, his words shaking but fierce in their sincerity. “I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”

And you believe him. God, you believe him. Because you can feel it in the way his arms tighten around you, in the way his eyes burn with something deeper than relief—something like love, something like hope.

You press your face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in, grounding yourself in his presence. Because no matter how broken you feel, no matter how shattered and battered and barely holding on, Jungwon’s warmth fills the cracks. His presence mends the parts of you that have been fraying at the edges for so long.

When he finally pulls away, his eyes are searching yours, his breathing ragged and uneven. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he says, his voice trembling. “Please. Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

You nod frantically, the motion sending fresh tears streaming down your cheeks as you cling to him, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt like it’s the only solid thing in a world gone mad. “I promise,” you whisper, the words spilling out with a fervency that feels like both a lie and a vow.

But even as the promise leaves your lips, you know it’s one you may never be able to keep. Because this world is a cruel, unpredictable place, where survival is measured in moments and safety is an illusion that can be torn away in an instant. And yet, despite the impossibility of it all, you want so desperately for it to be true.

Still, it’s a promise you’ll try your hardest to uphold. Even if you lose all your limbs, even if your body breaks and bends and folds beneath the weight of this relentless, unforgiving world, you’ll try. You’ll keep fighting for him. For all of them. For yourself. Even if every breath feels like a rebellion against death itself.

Jungwon tucks you in that night, his body angled towards yours as if trying to close every inch of distance between you. He lies on his arm, propped beneath his head, while his other hand gently threads through your hair, fingertips brushing tenderly against your cheek. His gaze is unwavering, his eyes tracing every detail of your face like he’s memorising you—like he’s still struggling to accept that this moment is real.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you murmur, a soft smile tugging at your lips as you nuzzle into the warmth of his touch. His fingers linger against your skin, delicate and reverent.

“I was just thinking how nice it would’ve been if we’d met in the world before all this,” he admits, his voice barely more than a whisper, each word weighed down by longing. The vulnerability in his tone is disarming. And you know exactly what he means. You’d had those thoughts before, fleeting and bittersweet. Wondering what it would’ve been like to meet him, to meet all of them, before the world tore itself apart.

“But if we did,” he continues, his eyes searching yours, “we wouldn’t have met each other the way we did. And I don’t know how I feel about that. I know I shouldn’t be happy that this is our reality. That everything’s gone to shit. But at the same time…” He trails off, a quiet, breathless laugh escaping him. “I’m so fucking happy you’re here. With us. With me.”

Your expression softens, your eyes glistening in the dim light. “Me too,” you whisper. And for a moment, the weight of the world fades away, leaving only the two of you tangled together in the fragile glow of something like hope.

“Gosh, not to break your bubble but some of us have been hauling dead bodies the entire day. Go to sleep.” Ni-ki’s voice cuts through the quiet, his tone laced with mock irritation as it echoes from the other side of the store.

You can’t help but let out a laugh, the sound coming out cracked and uneven but genuine all the same. Jungwon’s lips twitch into a smirk, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement.

“Sorry, Ni-ki. We’ll keep our heartfelt declarations to a minimum,” Jungwon calls back, his voice lighter than it’s been in days.

“Please do,” Ni-ki grumbles. “Some of us actually need sleep to function. Unlike you two, who apparently run on emotional angst and melodrama.”

You snort, burying your face against Jungwon’s shoulder to muffle the sound. “He’s got a point.”

“Yeah, well. He can complain all he wants.” Jungwon’s arm tightens around you, pulling you closer. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

Ni-ki mutters something about “disgusting couples” under his breath, but you can hear the smile in his voice. And as you drift off to sleep, cocooned in Jungwon’s warmth, you swear you catch the faintest hint of Ni-ki’s laughter from across the room.

The days blur together, bleeding into weeks. The aftermath of the battle is a bitter memory, but the world doesn’t stop for grief or guilt. It moves on, drags you with it, demanding blood and sweat and whatever scraps of hope you can muster. 

The camp becomes something of a sanctuary, though the scars of what happened are still fresh. But with each passing sunrise, life finds a way to grow amid the ashes. It’s not perfect. Far from it. But it’s something. It’s yours.

Heeseung and Sunghoon have turned the gas station’s old garage into a makeshift workshop, fabricating weapons, fixing broken tools, and finding ways to reinforce the perimeter.

Ni-ki spends most of his time tinkering with the generator they managed to find, his hands stained with grease and dirt, his eyes constantly scanning the area for new materials to scavenge. He’s been working on fixing the lights inside the convenience store—solar-powered lamps that offer a faint, flickering glow through the darkest hours of the night.

Meanwhile, Sunoo has somehow managed to coax the earth into giving life. He and Jay have cultivated a small patch of vegetables in the cleared lot behind the station, green shoots from seeds they found in the backroom poke defiantly through the cracked soil. The produce is meagre, but it’s something. Something they’ve managed to grow from nothing. And if you’re being honest, it’s a refreshing change from the endless supply of canned food you’ve all grown so sick of.

Jake, on the other hand, is tirelessly working to set up a small infirmary in the backrooms of the convenience store. It’s a crude setup—scraps of old bed sheets strung up to create partitions, tables pushed together and covered with whatever clean material he can find. It’s not much. But it’s something. And Jake has never been one to settle for nothing. 

You caught him once, hunched over the counter, scribbling notes in the margins of a medical textbook he managed to scavenge. He’s been trying to teach himself more advanced medical techniques—how to stitch deeper wounds, how to recognise infections before they become life-threatening, how to keep fevers from turning fatal. It’s admirable, if not a little reckless. But then, you suppose recklessness is a trait all of you share now.

You’re still healing, both physically and emotionally. Your stump is scarred and sore, but Jake assures you it’s healing well. You find yourself contributing in small ways, like offering the others water when they forget to hydrate themselves or helping to brainstorm plans and routes on their next expedition, all while still learning how to adapt to the limitations of your new body. And while it’s agonisingly slow, it’s progress.

And then there’s Jungwon.

Jungwon stays by your side most days, helping you adjust, never straying too far even when the others urge him to rest. He’s different now—quieter, his gaze haunted but still fierce. He’s more cautious, more deliberate. But there’s something else, too. A softness to him that wasn’t there before. Or maybe it was, and you just hadn’t seen it.

Most times, you find yourselves back on the rooftop. The place has become your refuge—an escape where the world’s chaos fades into a distant hum and it’s just the two of you, wrapped in the quiet of the night, the stars above like scattered fragments of a world that’s long since crumbled. It’s where you go when everything just feels too much, when the faces of the dead won’t leave you alone, when you need to feel like something still matters.

He’ll hold your hand and whisper reassurances you both desperately need to believe. And you’ll share stories—small, inconsequential details about your lives before everything fell apart. It feels like you can almost pretend the world is still intact. That the only thing that exists is you and Jungwon, just existing in the same space, breathing the same air. sharing the same silence, and reclaiming pieces of yourself you thought you’d lost forever. 

You remember a conversation you had with Jungwon a few days after you woke up. It was one of those nights on the rooftop, where the air was cool and crisp, the stars sharp and clear against the darkness.

It had been a conversation you wouldn’t forget, not because of what was said but because of what it meant.

“You never told me how you managed to lead the horde away,” you say, your voice quiet, almost drowned out by the gentle rustle of the breeze.

Jungwon’s gaze flickers towards you, the faintest hint of a smile playing at his lips. But it’s not a happy smile. It’s something else—something strained and distant, like he’s trying to find the right words to explain the inexplicable.

“I don’t even remember half of it…” he admits, his voice thick, roughened by exhaustion he hasn’t yet shaken off. “I was just… making a whole lot of noise to lure them out. Screaming, banging on metal, anything to get their attention.” His fingers trace absent patterns along the rooftop surface, his eyes never quite meeting yours. “Then I just started walking… for two days straight I was just walking back towards the city.”

Your breath catches. You’ve heard fragments of what he did from the others, but hearing it from him—hearing the quiet resignation in his voice—it twists something deep within you.

“It started raining somewhere in the middle,” he continues, his tone growing distant, like he’s reliving it all over again. “I was cold, exhausted, fuck, I almost collapsed right there and then. My legs were giving out, my head was spinning… but I knew if I did, if I fell, I wouldn’t be able to come back to you. So I sucked it up.”

You’re staring at him now, eyes wide, the air suddenly feeling too thick, too sharp. The thought of him out there alone, fighting against the world itself just to keep you safe—it’s almost too much to bear.

“The horde was just mindlessly walking behind me,” Jungwon continues, his voice tightening. “Occasionally something else would catch their attention and I had to shoot a few bullets to get it back. That was risky… drawing attention like that. But it worked. They kept following me.”

He pauses, the weight of his own words pressing down on him like a lead blanket. “Eventually, I passed by the village. Remember the two people we left behind?”

You nod, a cold dread settling in your stomach. You remember the desperation in their voices, the hollow looks in their eyes as they pleaded with you to stay. And you remember leaving them behind anyway.

“They were there,” Jungwon says, voice hollow. “One of them had half their face chewed out and the other… the other had their guts hanging out of their body. They were just… walking. No purpose. No sense of anything. Just… dead.”

The silence that follows is brutal. You don’t realise you’ve stopped breathing until your lungs start to burn.

“I eventually reached the city,” Jungwon continues, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “I hid out in a random store. Waited for it to clear out a little before I started making my way back.”

“Jungwon…” Your voice trembles, your chest tightening with something that feels too close to grief. “I’m so sorry…”

“Why are you apologising?” Jungwon’s eyes finally find yours, a flicker of frustration mingling with something softer. “You didn’t make me do it. I chose to do it. And you know what? When I passed by the village again, I noticed a small patch of wildflowers growing at the side of the curb.”

His lips twitch into a small, self-deprecating smile, and his laugh is more air than sound. “Stupid me thought it was a sign that you’d woken up, so I started running back. Like a maniac. I tripped over some broken glass, nearly twisted my ankle, but I just kept going.”

He’s laughing, but the sound is hollow, edged with a madness born from desperation. You stare at him, your own chest tightening with something raw and painful, wondering how he could find humour in something so devastating. “How are you laughing like you didn’t almost die?”

Jungwon shrugs, the motion careless but his eyes—his eyes are anything but. “Trust me, after experiencing your near death… everything is laughable.”

It had taken you a moment to realise what he meant. That the thought of losing you had been so unbearable, so incomprehensibly horrifying, that everything else paled in comparison. That even his own suffering had become insignificant when measured against the possibility of losing you.

You remember how you had reached for him then, your hand finding his, fingers intertwining like they belonged there. How he had squeezed your hand so tightly it almost hurt, like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.

The two of you had sat there in silence, the cool night air brushing against your skin. And for that moment, it didn’t matter that the world was rotting. It didn’t matter that you were both scarred and afraid and haunted by ghosts you couldn’t outrun.

All that mattered was that you were still there. Still breathing. Still fighting.

You’ve both changed, that much is clear. But you’re trying to grow from it, not let the darkness consume you. Jungwon has his own demons to battle. The rage he harbours against A’s people is still there, burning beneath the surface. But it’s not consuming him anymore. Not entirely. He’s found something else to fight for. Something more important than revenge.

There’s a careful balance now, one of acceptance and compromise. You still argue, still struggle against the stubbornness that pulls you apart like opposing forces. There are days when he snaps, frustration boiling over when things don’t go as planned. And there are days when you retreat into yourself, overwhelmed by the reality of your own limitations. But you talk. You let yourselves be honest, raw. And somehow, it makes all the difference.

You think about the garden often. It’s a quiet thought, one that creeps into your mind during the silences between breaths, when the world feels steady and the nightmares are held at bay. You still remember the metaphor you conjured for him—wildflowers breaking through cracks, roots winding their way through stone, claiming life where there shouldn’t be any.

But now, you realise it’s not just about him. It’s about all of you.

It’s in the way Sunoo coax life from the soil. It’s in Jake’s quiet determination as he scours books. It’s in Ni-ki’s resourcefulness as he scavenges supplies, building something from nothing. It’s in Sunghoon and Heeseung’s tireless efforts to keep everyone safe, their strength unyielding even when exhaustion clings to their bones.

It’s in Jay’s stubbornness, his dedication to protecting what’s left of this fractured family, even when his own doubts threaten to swallow him whole.

And it’s in Jungwon. The boy whose name means ‘garden’. The boy who, despite the darkness pressing in from every side, still reaches for the light. Still fights to grow, to thrive, to protect the things he’s come to care about.

You think of all the times you tried to pull away, tried to distance yourself from the tangled web of connections that’s formed between you all. You think of the nights you spent on the rooftop with Jungwon, trading secrets and fears like offerings, daring to believe that maybe you weren’t as alone as you thought.

The truth is, you’ve taken root here. Somehow, against all logic and reason, you’ve let yourself be part of something. You’ve let yourself care. And as much as you’ve tried to convince yourself otherwise, you can’t keep running from that.

Because gardens aren’t meant to be contained. They’re meant to grow wild and untamed, to spread and intertwine and thrive in the most unexpected places. And maybe—just maybe—that’s what this is.

A wild, tangled, beautiful mess of people who’ve found each other in a world that’s done everything to tear them apart.

Now, you climb up the ladder with more ease, having slowly adapted to the awkwardness of using only one arm. The process is far from graceful, but you manage.

And when you reach the top, Jungwon is already there, his back resting against the convenience store sign, arms draped over his knees as he watches the fractured skyline. He looks tired, eyes bruised with exhaustion but softened by a look that borders on longing.

He glances over his shoulder at the sound of your approach, and some of that tension melts away. He offers you a small smile, the kind that feels just a little too tight around the edges.

The air is cool and crisp, autumn bleeding into winter, and you feel the cold bite at your skin. You draw in a breath, feeling the chill of the air scrape against your lungs. But the moment you settle beside him, his hand slides into yours, pulling you into his warmth without hesitation. 

You lean into him, letting yourself soak in the quiet. “Heard you had an appointment with Jake today,” Jungwon says eventually, his voice low and careful. “What did he say about your arm?”

You glance down at the stump of your arm, the place where flesh used to be. “He says it’s healing well. But I guess my body’s still adjusting.” You lift your arm—what’s left of it—and shrug as if it’s not a big deal. As if it’s not still tearing you apart from the inside out.

Jungwon’s gaze lingers on your arm for a moment, but he doesn’t flinch or avert his eyes like the others sometimes do. He meets it head-on, his acceptance so genuine it almost hurts. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really. Not anymore,” you answer, though it feels like a lie. It’s not pain in the conventional sense. “It just… feels weird. Like it’s still there sometimes. Like I can still move my fingers if I try hard enough.”

“Phantom pain,” he murmurs, the words sounding heavy on his tongue. “Jake mentioned something about that. How your brain’s still trying to make sense of what’s gone.”

“Yeah.” Your throat tightens, a lump forming that you can’t seem to swallow down. “I guess it’s like trying to walk when your legs are asleep. The more you try, the more it hurts.” The admission is raw, but Jungwon doesn’t shy away from it. Instead, he shifts closer, his warmth seeping into your bones.

He watches you, eyes searching, waiting for something you’re not sure you can give. And you hate how perceptive he is, how easily he sees through the cracks you try so hard to hide.

“I’ve been thinking,” he starts, his gaze fixed on the jagged silhouette of the city as if the answers lie somewhere beyond the darkness. “About all of this. About us. About… you.”

Your eyes flicker toward him, curious but patient. A silence falls between you, one that feels too heavy to break. And then he speaks again, this time he’s looking at you when he does. “You’ve been different since it happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not in a bad way,” he says quickly, his voice stumbling over itself. “You’re just… you’re quieter. You’re more careful. It’s like you’re always holding something back.”

You want to deny it, to tell him he’s wrong. But you can’t. Because he’s right. You’ve become cautious, restrained, afraid of repeating the mistakes that nearly cost you everything.

“Maybe I am,” you admit, the words barely above a whisper. “I think… I think it’s because I realised how close I came to losing everything. And not just my life. But all of you.”

“Everything feels so fragile,” you continue, your voice wavering. “Like it could all fall apart any second. And I keep waiting for something to go wrong. For someone to get hurt again. For me to lose you.” The confession spills out before you can swallow it back, your voice cracking under the weight of the fear that’s been festering inside you.

Jungwon shifts closer, his arm coming around your shoulders, pulling you into him. The warmth of his body seeps into yours, his fingers tracing gentle circles along your upper arm. “You’re not going to lose me,” he says, his voice steady and fierce. “Not now. Not ever. I won’t let that happen.”

“But you can’t promise that.” Your words tremble, tears burning the corners of your eyes. “None of us can.”

He hesitates, his expression clouded, the weight of his own words pressing against him. “No, we can’t.” His admission is soft, broken. “But we can fight for it. We can make it count. And we can do it together.”

“Together.” The word feels heavy on your tongue. You want to believe him, want to cling to the conviction in his voice. But his certainty only makes your own doubts grow louder.

Because the truth is, you’re terrified. Terrified that this second chance is nothing more than a cruel joke. That you’ll fail them again. That you’ll get someone killed. That you’ll keep making reckless decisions because you’re too stubborn to admit you can’t do this alone.

He’s quiet for a moment, his eyes never leaving yours. The silence stretches between you, thick and heavy, but not uncomfortable. Just… real. Then, slowly, he reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingertips lingering against your skin, warm and steady. His thumb brushes over your cheek, tracing small, soothing circles that send a shiver down your spine.

“Y/N. You didn’t lose us. You’re still here. And it's because you fought for this, the same way you’ll continue fighting for this. Am I wrong to say that?” His voice is low, soft, but there’s a strength beneath it—a quiet conviction that refuses to break. His eyes bore into yours, searching, as if daring you to deny what he’s saying. As if his words alone could anchor you to this moment, to this fragile hope you’re both trying so hard to keep alive.

But it’s more than just words. It’s the way his touch grounds you, the way he holds you like you’re something precious, something worth fighting for. It’s not just reassurance he’s offering—it’s belief. A belief so strong it feels like it could shatter all the doubts you’ve been harbouring since you woke up, feverish and broken and terrified you’d never be yourself again.

And you realise, with a clarity that cuts through the doubt like a blade, that he’s right.

You’re still here. Bruised and battered and so damn tired, but you’re here.

The night stretches on, the air thick with the scent of soil and metal, the quiet hum of insects, the distant creak of the watchtower Ni-ki and Heeseung built not long ago swaying in the breeze. You lean against Jungwon, your head resting on his shoulder, your hand curled around his. It’s not perfect. It’s not easy. But it’s something. And maybe that’s enough.

And then, when the silence feels like it’s about to swallow you whole, he starts to sing.

His voice is soft, hesitant at first, but it grows stronger with each note, weaving through the air like a thread of gold. You close your eyes and listen, the melody sinking into your bones, soothing the ache of old wounds and new fears alike. 

You recognise the song. It’s the same one he sang to you when you thought you might never wake up. The same one that carried you through the darkness and back to him.

Just close your eyes The sun is going down You'll be alright No one can hurt you now Come morning light You and I'll be safe and sound

The song ends, but the warmth of his voice lingers. And as you sit there, tangled up in each other, you realise that the fear hasn’t gone away. It never will. But it’s quieter now. Bearable. Something you can live with.

You’re reminded again how both of you are not just trying to survive, but you’re learning how to live. And for the first time, you let yourself feel the weight of it. The love. The fear. The hope. And you know—whether you deserve it or not—you can’t push them away. Not anymore.

The rest of the night passes in silence, leaving you alone with a thought that plagues your mind: Is it weird to say you met your soulmate in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? 

Maybe it is. And if so, then you’re weird. To find people you care about in the same way they care about you feels like a miracle in a world where kindness is punished and compassion is a weakness. Where caring too much can get you killed.

But you found them. Against all odds, you found them. And somehow, that feels more surreal than the dead walking the earth. Because, really, what are the chances? That you’d stumble upon people willing to risk everything for you? People who’ve seen you at your lowest, your most broken, and still choose to stay?

What are the chances that, even in a world this cruel and unforgiving, you’d find someone who holds your hand like you’re still whole? Someone who looks at you like you’re something precious, something worth protecting, worth loving.

The others have joked about it before. How you and Jungwon gravitate toward each other like it’s second nature. How he becomes someone else entirely when it comes to you. And maybe there’s some truth to it. Because when he looks at you, it’s not just with fondness or admiration. It’s with something deeper, something that grounds you even when everything else is falling apart.

The world outside is a nightmare, a constant fight for survival. And yet, somehow, you’ve found your place. Not just in the camp you’ve built, but in the blooming garden of the boy who holds you like you’re his reason to keep fighting. Like you’re his reason to hope.

So, maybe it is weird. Maybe it’s insane to believe in love in a world like this. But as you sit beside Jungwon on the rooftop, his arm draped over your shoulders, his fingers absentmindedly tracing patterns along your skin, you realise you don’t care how absurd it sounds.

You found your soulmate in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

And it’s in that moment, with his arms wrapped around you, his heartbeat thundering against your own, that you truly understand what it means to be alive. To feel everything—joy, pain, love, fear, hope—so intensely that it leaves you breathless.

You’re alive. And so is he. And somehow, against all odds, you’re here. Together.

You fall asleep on the rooftop that night, your head resting against Jungwon’s shoulder, his arm wrapped around you. The stars blaze above, indifferent and eternal, but for the first time in a long, long time—

You feel safe. You feel sound.

part 6 - dusk | masterlist | extra: jungwon's pov

♡。·˚˚· ·˚˚·。♡

notes from nat: omg... i actually did it. i actually finished this. 124k words. I've peaked. I'm never recovering from this series, actually. first of all, thank you so much to every single one of you who've supported me and this series. i know the wait in between parts were lowkey incriminating, and yet all of you were still so kind and patient. I'm not an author who knows how to fully engage her audience interaction-wise and I truly appreciate all of you for approaching me and engaging with my blog. the amount of mutuals and lovely people I came to know through this series is actually insane. so thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I'll talk more about my feelings and thoughts writing this series in a separate post, but for now this is where I officially close out safe & sound. this is definitely not the last time you will hear from me but until then, please stay safe & healthy!

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taglist open. 1/3 @sungbyhoon @theothernads @kyshhhhhh @jiryunn @strxwbloody @jaklvbub @rikikiynikilcykiki @jakesimfromstatefarm @rikiiisoob

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[literallyuyu]

this was such a emotional rollercoaster i’m crying 🤧🤧 this was so amazing thank you

[wooyos]

[yum-nyang]

EVAN: ride or die | 260704

[kissued]

END OF THE LINE ✦ 박성훈 PARK SUNGHOON [ PART 02 ]

if you're gonna break me in two ⋆ masterpost ⋆ do what you gotta do GENRE + PAIRING ⋮ college au. ice hockey player!fratboy!sunghoon x fem!reader ⋮ PART 02 WC 31.4k

SYNOPSIS ⋮ you’ve been crushing on lee heeseung for most of your college life — long enough that you were beginning to crack. one blessed night, when a girl at a party slips you his number, it feels like fate finally taking pity on you. what follows is a slow, intoxicating unraveling — late-night calls, perfect pick-ups, subtle flirts you’d expect from a charming guy like him. so why is it that when you finally wave at him on campus, he looks genuinely confused?

CONTENT WARNINGS ⋮ explicit themes INCLUDES SMUT so +18 ONLY. themes of mental illness sex as a coping mechanism self esteem issues angst with happy ending miscommunication skinship physical intimacy inferiority complex featuring enhypen + yeonjun of txt slowburn pining NSFW TAGS ⋮ dom!sunghoon, condescending remarks, piv, dumbification, creampie, unprotected sex (don't), degradation, spanking, praise, dry humping, fingering, edging, sunghoon puts reader into a mating press halfway, breeding kink, sunghoon says i love you while in it, reader is so down Bad save her.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ⋮ heeelloo i'm back again less than a week later TT up until this point i've had a huge draft to work from, but i wrote this part mostlyyy recently (like in the past 2-3weeks). i can't wait to see what everyone thinks of the fic as a whole and i'll be lurking in ur blogs... watching... also stream dwygd by the band camino the song sparked me back into finishing this fic and it's where the titles r taken from :7 ENJOY !!!! #hoonynforever

REBLOGS APPRECIATED ⋆ THANK YOU FOR READING

you know this version of yourself very well. it’s the one that immediately starts accounting for error before drawing conclusions, and the one that treats uncertainty as concrete evidence you’ve got everything wrong. by the time you reach your car, you couldn’t even pull your stupid phone out of your stupidly tight jeans, because the pocket seemed vacuum sealed to your thighs once you sat down.

the drive home is full of revision. memories, mostly, on the phone: did you dream all of lee heeseung up? who the hell started those conversations? who called you last night?

was this all one-sided?

every turn at every corner feels excruciating. the green lights are too slow and every second that passes makes you want to reach for your phone, call him immediately, and ask just what the fuck that was. your palms stick against the steering wheel and the thought of hearing his response makes your stomach twist unpleasantly.

it just can’t be possible. there is just no way that you’re this unlucky.

the rest of the journey is blank. you didn’t even turn on the radio, nor did you bother to plug in the carplay. it’s almost pathetic how fast you slide out of the leather seat, how hard you slam the door to the driver’s, and how desperately you punch in the code to your apartment. you mess it up once, which earns a small cuss under your breath, but none of it overshadows the confusion.

you can’t possibly text him like this. ringing him would only lead to something even worse. you might say something you don’t mean, or fuck things up in that signature way of yours.

so, you settle for the same routine as always: shower, lunch, nap, and try not to lose your mind throughout the day. at some point, you think it cannot possibly be this serious—you’ve never met the man like this, never spoken to him in person, and not once have you heard his voice utter your name in real life. it is absolutely ridiculous that your knees almost buckle in the shower, at the mere thought that this truly might have meant nothing. just nothing.

there is an attempt to move through the day without acknowledging the hundred pound weight on your shoulders. perhaps it’s because you’ve spent weeks with your brain at full power that it’s starting to swirl with all kinds of things now.

you’re dragging your feet against the floorboards as you make your way to the kitchen. caffeine might help, maybe. there’s no logic or sound reasoning behind the decision, but you reach for your favourite mug and position it under the coffee machine anyway. your bottom lip is swollen from biting down on it, a habit you never really got around to unlearning from middle school, and for a fleeting, pathetic moment, you think that this is your fate.

your knuckles almost go white, grip tightening on the edge of the marble island, like it’ll help regulate your feelings any better. an annoying chime plays from the coffee machine a few seconds later—hot ribbons of steam curling into the air—but you don’t even feel like drinking it at all, really.

half-heartedly, you take the mug and head straight for your bedroom. your hair is still damp against your neck, the apartment smells like your shampoo, and for a moment, you catch a whiff of cigarette smoke from the neighbour above your unit. your things are still in a mess from last night—from when you were still on the phone with him, falling asleep with a sour mood and paper notes crumpled at the foot of your bed, books still flipped open to important pages that you conveniently wiped from your memory an hour ago.

and, your phone. face down, on your night stand, plugged into the wall and far too quiet for your comfort, as if lee heeseung could sense what was wrong with you from miles away.

“hello?”

you end up calling.

you’re sitting on the edge of your bed, shoulders slouched and back hunched over like it’ll do anything to ease the emptiness in your stomach. a screen is pressed up to your cheek, and you swear your nails might snap off if you hold your phone any tighter than you are now; the phone’s been ringing for a while, and now that he’s finally picked up, every thought decides to somersault out of the fucking window—straight down and plummeting into the concrete pavement outside.

“hey, y/n.” he says. “i’m… fuck—sorry. i’m with some friends right now. are you okay?”

he’s out of breath.

yelling in the background. plastic on plastic, some whistling, someone else calling yeonjun’s name.

you swallow thickly, but it gets caught in your throat halfway. your voice comes out more defeated than you intended. “why did you look at me like that?”

silence. you can hear his heavy breathing through the speaker, and all it does is make you pick at the skin around your nails. ears picking up everything, there’s voices layered over each other, the sound of something sharp cutting against snow, or ice. it stops momentarily when he finally understands the question, soft, but loud enough for your heart to pound.

“what?”

“like you didn’t know me,” you almost fucking whimper, and all you can think is: god, how much more humiliating can this get? “why?”

your free hand comes up to rub at the bridge of your nose, until little bursts of pressure bloom behind your eyes. all of this is giving you a headache, and there’s a split second where you think you should just hang up and save yourself the trouble. this is just how it is. your luck. your fingers knead, and knead, and knead—but it’s no use. all you can hear is him.

“y/n,” he mumbles. “can we meet? tonight?”

“you can’t just do that,” you breathe shakily. “tell me why. please.”

time has been moving wrong all day. everything feels delayed and stretched and slow in this awful, unbearable way. five seconds between responses starts feeling like whole afternoons, and minutes feel like centuries. you spent weeks getting used to talking to him whenever something happened—sending him stupid pictures and complaining about classes and saying things before thinking because there was always tomorrow, and that’s exactly what you did last night.

but now that tomorrow is here… shit, it doesn’t even matter anymore.

“y/n,” his voice breaks just a little—not very sure if it’s the horrible connection on campus, if he’s even still there. you imagine, just for the sake of your sanity, that he’s running his hands through his hair, breathing wrong, panicking. anything like those movies where the guy realises he’s going to lose it all. “i know it doesn’t make any sense—”

“what do you think, huh? do you think any of it does?”

“i know—shit, i know.”

your fingers keep kneading at your skin because the headache’s spreading now, radiating into your temples in slow pulses. you keep pressing harder like pain somewhere else will make this one smaller. it doesn’t work.

“i think we should meet in person,” he answers, calm again, like it’s how he’s always been. somehow, it pisses you off even more, when you know he can hear the shake in your voice. “i gotta go. i’m sorry.”

he’s never apologised to you before. not even for missing your calls.

“what the fuck are you sorry for, heeseung?”

you hear him breathe in, then out. he sounds exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with sleep.

“i’m just…” his voice catches faintly, before smoothing back out. “i’m sorry.”

the line goes dead.

you stay, just for a while, phone still pressed against your ear like the warmth of your skin might coax him back and force an explanation out of him. your shoulders fold further into themselves until your spine starts to ache, but moving would mean admitting the call is over, and you’re not quite ready to do that yet.

your eyes remain fixed on nothing in particular—the opposite wall, maybe, where the late afternoon light stretches unevenly across the paint and catches the tiny imperfections in the plaster that you’ve somehow never noticed despite living here for months.

your stomach really hurts. sour and hollow, underneath your ribcage, compelling you to lower your phone and lock your screen before you can over-analyse the messages from last night.

you draw a deep breath through your nose, falling back against the mattress until your shoulder blades scratch against your duvet.

you are not crying over a man you’ve technically never even met.

this is absolutely fucking ridiculous, you mutter under your breath, but you still wipe under your eyes and try to blink all the salt out of your eyes anyway. your phone dies eventually because you forget to plug it back in, and now, all that’s left is you, the tear-stained sheets and meaningless pieces of paper.

─────────────────────────

two weeks ago, park sunghoon was on the brink of losing his shit.

it was purely emotional. probably more emotion than anyone on the team has ever seen him display, and lord, was it utterly humiliating. he wonders if anyone on the team still thinks about it, given how the locker room goes dead silent every time he steps in—and it’s literally like he just got named captain all over again.

practice ended badly. not disastrously, because no one broke anything, and maki didn’t start a petty argument between the goalkeeper and him. yeonjun barely screamed at the little freshmen, and only one of them cried post-cool down—so by all technical definitions, it had been productive enough.

and still, he was irritated.

it had been building for days now, in that same slow, ugly way tension knots all your muscles before becoming pain. finals always fucked everyone over, but not enough to stop them from showing up—mentally, though, they’re elsewhere. sunghoon had been there, before he had decided he was tired of making shitty excuses for his terrible performance.

shortcuts irritate him. he’s watching people cut corners before his very eyes because they assume he’s as tired as them—well, he is, but that’s besides the point.

he hated it.

metal lockers slammed shut one after another while conversations overlapped in every direction. someone was laughing too loudly, and sunghoon was almost certain the obnoxiously loud carly rae jepsen echoing through the room belonged to maki’s fucked up speakers again. the locker room was humid in that unpleasant post-practice way—the air thick with damp towels, deodorant and sweat drying into fabric, hot enough that stepping in after the rink always felt vaguely suffocating.

sunghoon walks further into the space and, while it isn’t the most obvious thing in the world, conversations shift around him in tiny ways he’s learnt to recognize over the years. a few voices lower, someone moves their legs in so he can pass. one of the freshmen instinctively straightens up halfway through pulling his shirt over his head.

his duffel hangs off one shoulder. sweat drips slowly from his temples, sliding down the side of his neck before disappearing into the dark collar of his shirt. his whole body feels heavy today, and not even in the satisfying way—just fucking heavy. his shoulders ache in that deep, irritating way that suggests recovery isn’t catching up anymore, and lately sleep hasn’t been doing much except making him conscious again.

it’s fine. everything had been feeling vaguely wrong for a while now, anyway.

yeonjun’s already on his way out when he brushes past him, shoulder bumping his with enough force to be annoying but not enough to start anything. “have a wonderfully peaceful night,” he mutters with that unbearably cocky, punchable grin.

any other day, sunghoon might’ve shoved him into a locker.

instead, he dropped his bag beside the end of the bench, and listened to the wood creak underneath his weight. the freshmen lingering nearby begin moving almost immediately. one shifts two lockers down, and another grabs his things and suddenly remembers he has somewhere else to be. by the time sunghoon looks up from his phone properly, half of them have disappeared entirely.

he watches one hesitate after accidentally making eye contact. the kid immediately looks away, picks up his shit, and leaves.

sunghoon looks back down. god, his shoulders hurt.

the muscles between his shoulder blades have been tightening more lately. sleep’s been shit. practice feels slower. finals are making everyone stupid. nobody can pass properly anymore, or communicate once they’re on the ice. everything seems held together by routine and whatever miscroscopic amount of discipline he can force onto everyone else.

whatever. it’s manageable, he thinks. everything always is, if you’re strong and willing and miserable enough. eat properly, sleep properly, train properly, study properly. repeat until wanting anything else becomes inefficient or a distraction, until it’s ordinary and until enough days pass that discomfort isn’t discomfort anymore, and simply morphs into the default.

maybe that’s why the past few weeks have felt stranger than anything else—nothing has gotten easier. his schedule has been become even more hellish than before, his muscles still ache and everyone expects more from him; but there’s been this stupid, absurd sense of anticipation stitched quietly into the gaps of his day.

he’s excited for something. for someone.

he checks his phone when he has nothing to do. sleeps later, thinks about conversations while stretching or when someone says something that you mentioned in passing. none of it means anything, at least individually, but it feels so a embarrassingly noticeable once he becomes aware of it together.

“…i’m serious, though.”

his thumb stills over his lockscreen. sunghoon doesn’t look up immediately, because the sentence barely reaches his ears at first. locker room noise tends to sound a lot like static after practice, but then your name slips, and suddenly every other sound becomes painfully irrelevant.

there’s a burst of laughter from somewhere to his left.

“y/n? yeah, i know. she’s prettier than i thought.”

sunghoon’s hand had been unlocking his phone without thought, thumb dragging upward automatically before freezing halfway. his forearm rests against his thigh, veins standing out faintly beneath skin flushed warm from practice, and he only notices after a second that his wrist has gone rigid enough to make the tendons ache.

the fabric of his jersey sticks unpleasantly against the centre of his back, where it hasn’t dried yet.

“fuck, i still remember that dress.”

“she’s fine as fuck, seriously,” someone snorts. “wonder if she’d let me tap. you think?”

“don’t be a fucking asshole,” sunghoon hears, the laughter echoing and bouncing off the walls suggesting that nobody is really bothered by this except him. “you’re not in her league, man.”

more laughter. sunghoon doesn’t think he’s ever been this pissed off before, truly, because now his fist is balled so tight that his knuckles are starting to pale. his ears are beginning to ring, and all his body decides to do is amplify the voices of his teammates who decided you’d be the centre of their attention tonight.

someone tosses their towel onto the bench he’s on. maki’s finally out, he notices, quieter now that he’s packing his things up.

“who knows if she’s desperate… might have a chance.”

“shut the fuck up!”

sunghoon rolls one shoulder once and immediately regrets it. something pulls underneath his shoulder blade where he took a hit earlier. his body feels strangely swollen after practice—muscles tight and full and unpleasantly warm under skin that suddenly feels too small to sit comfortably in. his thighs ache where they press against the edge of the bench, palms still feeling vaguely raw from his gloves.

the conversation goes on, and he tries not to listen. realistically, these men would never get anywhere near you. he wouldn’t let them, but that’s besides the point. willingly giving this his attention would only lead to something he can’t take back, and he knows it.

“you got her number?”

“think i do. we were in the same freshie group.”

wonderful.

his tongue is pressing against the inside of his cheek, and his jaw is ticking. he swears if he bites down any harder that a tooth might shatter, but sunghoon does his best to keep his eyes trained on the screen in his hands.

someone says something else, but he doesn’t even remember what. he only remembers the feeling of his jaw hurting, the edge of his phone case digging into his palm, and the slow, annoying feeling of anger coursing through his veins.

it’s hot in here. sunghoon feels it all—anger, resentment, the guilt and embarrassment, too, because he really wants it to stop. he really, really needs it to. there’s something deeply unpleasant in having to listen to a group of people talk about you like this is all you are, that your face and body, no matter how gorgeous it may be, is your most interesting feature.

do these people know you the way he does?

they don’t. they never could.

park sunghoon’s throat suddenly feels dry in a way water won’t, can’t fix. his shoulders stay tense while his gaze drags over your messages and something inside him twists. it’s obvious that this was never supposed to become anything, and that a relationship built on a lie would crumble before he could begin enjoying it.

it’s just… one late-night call becomes another, then another, and another. somewhere between protein shakes and assignments and practice schedules, he moves everything aside for you, and realises he wants you more than anything he’s ever wanted in his life.

“could you guys just shut the fuck up?”

the words leave his mouth before he gets the chance to think about them. the social repercussions don’t even matter anymore, nor were they even factored in to begin with. his voice doesn’t come out loud, which somehow makes it worse—it stays low and level and entirely lacking in visible irritation, like he’s asking somebody to pass him a bottle instead of telling half the room to stop talking.

the effect is immediate, anyway.

conversations taper off unevenly until the entire room is quiet. somebody lets out a laugh that cuts itself short halfway through, and somewhere behind him, a locker closes gently.

sunghoon only realises he’s spoken after the silence reaches him, and suddenly, his own breathing sounds louder than before. his shoulders ease by a fraction and his fingers loosen around his phone, just enough for him to feel the imprint left across the centre of his palm from holding it too tightly.

nobody says a thing. sunghoon doesn’t even know who was speaking anymore. that detail doesn’t seem important now—not compared to the things that were said, and definitely not compared to what had slipped out of his own mouth immediately after.

park sunghoon sits in the locker room with sweat cooling against his skin, realising something he spent the next two weeks trying very hard to negotiate with.

he wants you.

slowly, surely, quietly, he wants you.

at some point, it felt easier not to think about; topped with all the things he already has to deal with, accepting this fact is not particularly beneficial for him.

fourteen days after that—today—he’s done with practice again, same old, same old; walking into locker rooms that are hyperaware of his existence, everyone treading on egg shells until he gets out of the place and into his car.

he knows people noticed. yeonjun had asked if he was alright on the walk over to the parking lot and tried unusually hard not to sound like he was asking. no grin nor stupid comment attached, it’s plain, awkward concern delivered badly enough that sunghoon knew it was real.

“you good?”

what the fuck is he supposed to say to that?

that he’d heard your voice three hours ago, spent the entire session replaying the shake in your voice, and wanted to rip his heart out of his chest?

that the only time he was so sure of someone, he’s already fucked it up?

it’s his fault that he couldn’t answer and instead settled on walking away. park sunghoon heard you on the phone three hours ago and knew he’d be thinking about it the entire session—but now that he’s actually getting into his car, on the way to see you, his heart is beginning to pound harder.

his shoes scrape quietly against the asphalt of the parking lot as he walks. his duffel drags his shoulder lower on one side, dark blue hoodie sleeves rolled up to his elbows—sunghoon’s hand reaches into his pocket automatically and wraps around his keys before he even gets to the car.

You: where are you? 20:08

Y/n: [Shared a location] 20:08

─────────────────────────

the text came at 7 in the evening. you spent the previous 3 hours wondering where it went wrong, recalling every word exchanged, every misunderstood conversation that you dismissed in the moment. it’s incredibly easy to move past things in the heat of the things, you realise—it just seems silly now, almost childish, that you let those things slip past you.

you left the house in a random zip-up, shorts riding up your thighs with every forward step you took. there’s an annoying little hill you need to climb to get to this park, obscured by dark green trees and stray cats that rub against your legs if you stand still for too long, and you’ll usually start panting by the 2 minute mark.

once you finally reach the top, it’s unmistakable. an old playground swing, a plastic slide, and a bench that sat directly behind the big, interactive structure modelled after a sunflower. your feet feel heavy as you move, slippers scratching against the concrete, and you accidentally kick a few pebbles as you walk.

this feels like a waste of your time. heeseung messaged around thirty minutes ago, and he’s still nowhere in sight—eventually, you’re hunched over the park bench table, hands in your hair, trying to get this nausea to alleviate itself.

so what if lee heeseung decided he wanted nothing to do with you? the magnitude at which this is affecting you is starting to seem ridiculous. you keep telling yourself that a boy shouldn’t matter this much, that talking means nothing, and that modern love is nothing but a cruel endeavour that you’re constantly gambling on. so what if you lose, you think, but the feeling of your heart spilling out of your ribs is pressing so deep into your heart that it’s killing you.

your fingers are pressing into the bridge of your nose again. the streetlamps feel warm over your head, slipping through your fingers when you run them over your face. you think you must look horrible right now, but so does everyone else—never mind that the occasional parkgoer jogs past and stares you down: that is what you choose to tell yourself.

some kid walks by with her mom, pointing at the slide, and it almost makes you laugh when she hesitates before saying ‘no’.

just as the thoughts begin to tone down, swirling less and less, you catch a familiar figure in your peripheral: tall, broad, sleeves bunched at the elbows and dark brown hair falling over his eyebrows, looking as tired and miserable as the day you saw him a week ago.

this can’t be real.

the yellow light washes over his face and bathes him in a warm, almost greenish light. the moment he steps into focus, you’re already on your way up—standing next to the bench, hands shaking like you can’t quite believe this is actually happening.

“y/n—”

three steps later, you’re already on your way out.

what follows is immediate: park sunghoon, tired, red eyes, lounging a big ass bag on his shoulder, jogging towards you with a stride so big that it almost scares you. you can’t bear to look at him like this, like he’s actually hurt over what he’s done, even if you don’t specifically know what it is yet.

everything’s blurry as you move. you can’t feel your stomach, and it took you more than a reasonable amount of effort just to turn away and start walking. you can hear him, faintly—sunghoon calling out your name, as familiar as every night before this one, as sweet and genuine as it had always been—but has it really, though?

“is this some fucking joke to you?”

your voice cracks on the very last word, embarrassingly enough. as if the tears running down your cheeks wasn’t enough shame to carry around, sunghoon has to hear you like this. vulnerable and hurt and wanting answers.

“y/n, please. just stop walking away from me,” he pleads, out of breath from how far he’s been trailing you. the downhill slope isn’t that far away from here, and you can see a few couples taking a night stroll—as if the universe insists on rubbing it in your tear-stained face. “let me explain.”

“what is there to explain?”

you weren’t stupid. it feels like a cruel insult that sunghoon thinks you even need an explanation; he was heeseung. you’d been calling, texting, falling for someone completely different, and the worst part is that it doesn’t even fucking matter in the way he thinks it does.

“i wanted to tell you,” sunghoon blurts out, and the moment it leaves his lips, your feet suddenly stop working. it’s like your heels are anchored to the ground by something invisible, urging you to turn around—everything in his voice screams for you to do just that, to face him, to see how hurt he is by the lie he chose to tell. “y/n, please.”

you can’t. you just can’t.

it’s incredibly corny. this whole scene just seems like a big fuck-you from the universe, dragged straight out of a drama, because god knows you were never deserving of something so beautiful and easy. love had to strangle it’s way out of your hands, somehow. it’s to a point where there’s people staring, whispering as they pass you two.

“you know what? i wouldn’t even have fucking cared, anyway.” you sighed, blinking to get your vision to clear up. “you didn’t even have to lie to me.”

sunghoon is stunned at that. his whole body feels cold, locked in place, and his heart’s pounding so hard that he can hear the blood rushing in his ears. by the time you eventually do turn around, his throat is already constricting, dry and tight, looking down at you—hand running through your hair, glassy eyes staring into his. the guilt weighs heavier now, sinking it’s claws into his neck, so deep that he can feel it nick his heart.

“what?”

he needs to rip it out.

sunghoon genuinely feels like his guts are going to spill out. your eyelashes are wet with tears and he can tell you’re trying your best not to burst into tears, and he hates himself for being the reason for it; he has to dig his fingers into his palms just so he can stop himself from reaching out for you.

selfishly, for a second, he lets himself memorise your face. he thinks it’ll be the last time he sees it. there’s something about you—even when your cheeks are red and your eyes are swollen with hurt, that he wants to see it all.

sunghoon wishes he could undo everything. perhaps, if he had just went up to you that friday night, underneath the stairs with his best smile and most polite greeting, he’d been able to hate himself a little less, and possibly not hurt you at all.

this is what he gets, isn’t it?

it’s a shame.

“i really liked you.” you sniffle. your eyes are deliberately avoiding his. sunghoon’s never leave your face. “heeseung or not, doesn’t even matter now, does it?”

for a second, sunghoon genuinely thinks he misheard you.

the streetlights blur, morphing into bright lines in your vision, and somebody laughs somewhere downhill. a bicycle rolls past, a dog barks behind you, and it is just unbearable how you have to focus on all these sounds just so you can distract yourself from the uneven breaths of your own body.

“i liked you too, y/n.”

sunghoon genuinely forgets how to breathe. his chest expands automatically, but the air never seems to reach his lungs, caught somewhere between his ribs and throat where everything suddenly feels too tight.

all this time, he thought he knew exactly how tonight would go. you’d tell him to fuck off, to stop following you, and he thought he would. it started off like that: the walking part, the not-being-able-to-look-at-him-without-crying. he prepared for it, every night, leading up to this one: imagined you laughing in his face, telling him to leave, to never call again, but this barely fits the mould.

every time he convinced himself that honesty could wait one more day because he needed more time, needed the timing to be better, needed to figure himself out first—all of it feels rotten, so useless and meaningless now.

you stand there with tears drying on your cheeks, eyes swollen and exhausted, and all he can think about is how much easier this could have been for you if he’d just been honest from the beginning. he should’ve never answered, nor should he have went with it when you started getting a little bolder. he should’ve never gone this far to feed his own selfishness.

park sunghoon doesn’t deserve to stand here and watch you cry over him.

“you could’ve told me.”

his fingers curl against his palms until his nails bite crescents into skin. he barely feels the sting. somehow, hearing you say it doesn’t feel relieving at all—not in the way he imagined it would, during all those nights where he let himself think about impossible things before forcing himself to sleep. he thought this moment, if it ever existed, would feel warm. he thought—maybe—there’d be this stupid sense of vindication buried underneath the guilt, a ugly selfish satisfaction that would prove he wasn’t completely insane for wanting you.

all he finds is more guilt, painted by a crystal clear picture of what could’ve been.

the image arrives all at once and it’s unbearable in how ordinary it is. walking up to you that first night instead of watching from a distance. introducing himself properly, and a few weeks later, he’s sitting across from you at some stupid coffee place after class. he’d be seeing his contact under his actual name and listening to you complain through his speakers without feeling his stomach drop every time you said “heeseung.” such painfully normal things that people do every day without thinking, and somehow they feel impossibly far away now, like he’d reached out and ruined them before they even had the chance to become memories.

his hand comes up to his face and presses hard against his mouth. you’re sniffling so much that your nose is beginning to redden. he notices the cuts on your lips, probably from biting down on them, and all he can see is you in the library, far away and out of reach.

“i should have told you,” he acknowledges. it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the pounding headache you have. “i thought that if you didn’t know—fuck, i don’t know. i thought you would’ve liked me better like that… if you didn’t know.”

“how the fuck does that make any fucking sense?”

for the first time today, you’re looking at him. his eyes are red around the edges, the skin underneath them looking darker than normal and his lashes look damp under the streetlights. there’s something almost unbearable about it, the way he looks more exhausted than guilty, like he’s been carrying this around for weeks and would be the one bearing most of the pain.

still, despite it all, you want to wipe the tears away.

“i wasn’t lying,” his lip trembles slightly, “when i said that everyone’s scared of me. that night—fuck, i saw you, y/n. i knew you wouldn’t look at me—”

“what the fuck? really, what the fuck?” you cut him off, voice tapering off into that high, disbelieving tone. “how—just how? how did you think this would turn out, sunghoon? did you think we’d live happily ever after when i—when we spent months talking like that?”

you’re breathing wrong. everything feels so wrong. all of this feels so impossibly fucking wrong. you need to go home.

he flinches at your response. your eyes burn with all the movement in your peripheral, and your chest tightens with every passing second. you laugh, and it sounds horrible—small, breathless, like the sight in front of you is simply too baffling to process properly.

sunghoon’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. you stare at him, expecting something, anything, but the words refuse to make it past his throat.

“what the fuck is wrong with you, sunghoon?”

there is something painfully tragic about walking away from a good thing. honestly, if you tried hard enough, you could probably forgive him. you could pretend he never lied to you, and that everything he said after that first lie wasn’t a lie, either. you could pretend he was honest and truthful and all those good things, but the thing about pushing it down is that it always bubble back up eventually.

both things can be true: that it’ll always come back, and you’ll always believe that sunghoon could’ve been it.

“y/n—”

“don’t. just don’t fucking—don’t. don’t call me, don’t do anything. i can’t, i just can’t right now.”

you never really knew heeseung at all, now that you think about it. you remember being a freshman and watching him shoot hoops by the cafeteria one sunny tuesday morning—jiwon mentioned how cute he looked, and perhaps as some act of politeness between two newly introduced friends, said that the two of you would look good together. even now, you think that if heeseung had ended up being exactly like sunghoon, you still would’ve fallen.

but that would mean you never fell for heeseung at all, doesn’t it?

with sunghoon here, standing in front of you, all you see is the hardworking, ambitious, weirdly terrified boy you got to know. you see him in front of his computer thinking too hard, and you see him looking surprised that you smiled at him. it feels strangely dissonant that this will be the last time you get to stand this close to him, or that it’ll be the final time you hear his voice.

“you’re such a coward.”

you don’t know what he says after that, because you turn and walk away so quick that anything he mumbles next falls a step too short behind you. the words feel so bitter on your tongue, and you still taste it even as you walk past that one broken street lamp around fifteen feet away, lingering by the time you step into your apartment.

when you walk into your bedroom, you stay by the door a little longer, shoulder pressed against the wooden frame.

ironically enough, you left your phone behind. face down, still plugged to the wall.

then, almost as a final act in this depressing film, you slump over and slide to the floor, crying over something that shouldn’t matter as much as it does.

it takes you a while to crawl into bed.

you blame the exams. that’s definitely why you’re too exhausted to speak to jiwon, despite the multiple texts from three hours ago detailing your predicament. now that she’s practically begging for you to pick up, three hours later, you just can’t.

instead, you scroll. scroll and scroll and scroll, through chats and messages that have nothing to do with heeseung, now that you know the truth—and as you do, a message pops up at the bottom.

lee heeseung: Get home safely, Y/n. 21:09

lee heeseung: I’m sorry for everything 21:10

─────────────────────────

the sun rises another day. it spills into sunghoon’s room in familiar strips of gold, slipping through the blinds and cutting across the walls in uneven slants that make the dust visible. tiny particles drift through the light lazily, suspended in the air and blinding enough that he has to lift a hand over his eyes instinctively, staring through the gaps between his fingers and pretending, stupidly, that if he stays still long enough, he’ll somehow fall back asleep.

he doesn’t.

his shirt is still where he threw it last night, half across the room and gathering dust in the middle of the floor. his once-superbly-clean desk is a mess, in the same way his room is lately—never dirty enough to clean, yet tidy enough not to notice.

his notes are spread all over. he’s pretty sure he should’ve stapled and organized them a long, long time ago, but he honestly could not care anymore. there’s that charger hanging halfway off the edge of his bedside table, a half-empty glass collecting warmth from the morning air, and his hockey bag remains unopened by the door from last night’s practice. he finds it amazing that he still manages to attend—just spectacular that nobody can tell how terrible he’s feeling, and even more so, miraculous that he’s able to do his job the same.

and, his curtains. left open for september’s autumn, long after that quiet summer when he still had you to call.

park sunghoon spends a little longer staring at the window once his eyes stop hurting from the brightness. the sunlight shifts slowly over his sheets as the minutes go by, reaching his hands where they rest against his stomach, and warm enough that it still reminds him of you.

the first thought he has is that he’s being selfish.

it’s embarrassing, honestly, how little he’s done in a month and how exhausting it all still feels. all he does is wake up, lie here, go to practice, come back, and sleep. heeseung’s always got someone new over, jake and jay are physically incapable of doing anything quietly, and sunoo, jungwon, and riki are too afraid to ask why he never speaks at dinner anymore—not that he did much of that to begin with, anyway. he chooses not to believe them when they say he seemed happier when the sun stayed out longer.

a month is barely enough time to break a habit, but it’s long enough that nobody asks anymore. there were those few weeks back in july where he’d let a laugh slip in front of his brothers and didn’t feel immediately disgusted by the sound of it afterwards. he supposes you brought out that side of him—the one that doesn’t need to act all perfect and gorgeous and saintful. at some point, he even let himself eat a tub of ice cream because riki asked nicely enough for him to stay and watch a movie. it didn’t feel difficult then, of course.

yeonjun stopped trying to irritate him after a while, probably realising it wasn’t possible. now, he just avoids it out of pity instead, and sunghoon knows it. nobody says it out loud, but they all look at him differently these days; like he’s become quieter in a way they can’t quite fix, and they don’t know whether to drag him out of it or leave him there in this pit he’s chosen to bury himself in.

he shuts his eyes, and it doesn’t help. all sunghoon sees is that fucking library, and you, standing between metal shelving under the evening sun—squinting and pouting, warm cheeks and messy hair from running your fingers through it all day, and back then, sunghoon wanted nothing but to do the same. that stupid expression you made, pretending like your eyes weren’t watering from all the dusty books and the harsh light hitting your irises, too.

he sees himself telling you to sit on his side, your smile, and how he almost froze up then and there.

all the brains in the world and none of it did anything for him then, and even less now. he spent years believing everything had a formula—that if he worked hard enough, controlled enough, became enough, things would eventually make sense and fall into place. but there was nothing logical about wanting to sit in uncomfortable, sticky heat because it touched your skin first, or remembering the exact way your eyebrows moved when you were confused, or missing somebody so intensely that even morning light starts feeling like fate; there was nothing sensible in falling for someone that makes him act so unpredictably.

“listen, dude. you gotta get the fuck up.”

sunghoon doesn’t realise how badly his neck aches until he turns away from the window. the movement pulls uncomfortably down his shoulders, stiff from sleeping wrong and doing absolutely nothing for days that didn’t involve practice. to his right stands lee heeseung, leaning against the doorframe with one eyebrow raised, looking mildly offended by the fact that somebody could sleep until ten in the morning.

“this is pathetic, do you realise that?” he sighs, pushing himself off the frame and strolling into sunghoon’s room with that same easy, unaffected energy he’s always had. carefree in a way that feels irritating today, and familiar in a way that reminds him too much of you. for a brief second, sunghoon sees it—the appeal. why you looked at him first, and why it was easy to do so. “man. you don’t even run in the morning anymore.”

“get out,” sunghoon mumbles, rolling over onto his side. his skin is cold where it leaves the sunlight and the sheets feel warmer than they should, sending a brief chill down his spine. “i am not in the mood to deal with you.”

“deal with me?” heeseung lets out this dramatic breath of disbelief and sunghoon hears the familiar squeak of his desk chair protesting under sudden weight. wheels scrape softly against the floor before rolling closer and closer until heeseung’s annoyingly charismatic face enters his peripheral. “everyone’s been dealing with your moping, hoon. it gets obvious when it’s six instead of seven after, like, two days—”

“okay.”

“okay?” heeseung repeats immediately, eyebrows lifting. his elbow lands on the arm rest and his chin settles into his hand. “okay.”

sunghoon shuts his eyes. the silence feels like summer all over again.

“do you wanna tell me why the fuck you’re being all weird?”

heeseung’s voice softens slightly. not enough to make a big thing out of it, because god knows how bad sunghoon would freak out and punch him in the mouth for that—but it’s enough to show the concern building up over the past few weeks.

sunghoon opens his eyes again, and somehow, seeing and hearing it for himself only annoys him more. sure, he knows it’s ridiculous and childish and just unfair, but he can’t help himself.

heeseung shouldn’t be worried. nothing happened to him. he didn’t stand in the park and watch you walk away, and he didn’t spend a month replaying every conversation, trying to figure out which version of him you liked more—and he did not ruin anything.

he swallows and stares at the windows again, drifting away from heeseung’s face.

the sunlight’s moved further away.

“i’m fine,” sunghoon says—his voice comes out flatter than intended. regardless, he does nothing to make himself sound any more convincing, and even if he did, he knows heeseung would see right through it.

the chair squeaks again as his friend leans further back, an unconvincing scoff being the only thing that leaves his lips. a soft thud as the backrest hits the wall, sunghoon would’ve glared at him any other day—but now, he can’t seem to find the energy.

“y’know, for someone who spent years acting all emotionless,” heeseung mumbles under his breath, “you’re shit at pretending like you don’t have them.”

it’s a decibel too loud to be accidental. sunghoon can’t even get angry now, because he knows better. after all this time, he really does—he knows better than to get angry at anyone else but himself.

he doesn’t answer. heeseung watches him for a little longer, head tilting slightly as his eyes drift over sunghoon’s face, lingering around the redness in his eyes and the exhaustion dragging down his expression. there’s a brief moment where he looks like he wants to say something and thinks better of it.

“…you know, i still think what you did was insane. i still don’t get why you didn’t just tell her.”

sunghoon closes his eyes. he’s not trying to avoid it, believe him—he’s spent majority of his days holding the guilt against himself, on his shoulders, feeling it weigh down on his chest for days a time. he doesn’t necessarily disagree.

“you talked to someone for months, pretending to be somebody else, and expected that to work?”

sunghoon’s jaw almost shatters from how hard he’s clenching it. he imagined you saying those same words to him, at some point. your gentle smile behind his eyelids seem to be one of many things preventing him from beating the shit out of the guy.

lee heeseung notices it, and can’t help but sigh. “you looked happier, hoon. really.”

sunghoon wishes he just went back to sleep. he doesn’t know what good this is doing him, really—he’s aware of it. it’s lying everywhere, the proof scattered around like meaningless scraps: his reduced sleep, terrible appetite and unwillingness to see any girl that isn’t you.

he knows better than anyone how happy he was.

“didn’t know what it was at first,” he says. “thought you made it to the olympic lineup or something. shit’s no joke.”

he’s not even looking at sunghoon anymore. “i know it when i see it. checking your phone every five minutes, laughing more. then you came home looking like someone fucking died.”

heeseung scratches at the back of his neck, but sunghoon looks away before he can utter the last word.

“do i know her?”

“no.”

sunghoon’s answer is immediate. too quick not to raise his other eyebrow, apparently. heeseung notices, and sunghoon notices that heeseung notices—but both never look each other in the eye.

“…okay.” heeseung mutters. his eyes drift around the room instead, trying to keep themselves occupied, if only for the sake of not looking too long at his miserable, bed-ridden friend’s face. his fingers tap idly against the armrest once, twice, before stopping altogether.

“you’re making this way worse for me, heeseung,” sunghoon deadpans, hand coming up to rub at his eyes. the scene feels oddly intimate for someone who still doesn’t know half of what sunghoon’s done. “it’s getting on my nerves.”

“good.”

sunghoon shoots him a look. heeseung just smiles, soft and underpainted with concern that hurts him to even acknowledge. for all the effort sunghoon’s spent making himself difficult to read—for all the years of swallowing things whole and convincing himself that if nobody saw him, then nothing could really touch him—he’s still shocked that people notice when things go bad.

after a few, quiet minutes of sunghoon wishing for heeseung to vanish into thin air and heeseung’s incessant staring, he speaks again.

“…you going to sunoo’s thing this weekend?”

he completely forgot about that. sunghoon blinks slowly, the memories coming back to him now—he remembers, vividly, your voice on the phone, rambling about the stupid thing for five minutes.

you sounded ridiculously excited. obvious now why that was, it still feels just as bitter as it did back then. “what?”

he knows what. he doesn’t know why he’s acting like he doesn’t have a clue what heeseung’s saying.

“sunoo was freaking out yesterday,” he laughs to himself, head tipping back slightly as the chair rocks under him. one foot drags absentmindedly against the floor while his fingers hook around the edge of the armrest. “said he only needs two more people before he reaches the donation limit. i wonder how long the queue’s gonna be.”

sunghoon can vaguely predict where this conversation is going. his eyes narrow a little, and thinks he’ll genuinely kill lee heeseung if he even suggests going to that ridiculous event. if anybody came up and asked him for donations, he’d give it. fine. whatever. just not while publicly exchanging his dignity for it—

“you should go.”

of course.

sunghoon stares at him, blank-eyed with lips pressed together so tightly they almost disappear.

heeseung looks back for exactly half a second before exhaling through his nose, rolling himself backwards in the chair, spinning once and pushing himself off the wall with one foot.

“okay—listen. you need it, man. you’re acting like the love of your life just died, and shit, sitting around and waiting to stop missing her isn’t gonna fix anything.”

sunghoon lets out a quiet laugh through his nose. humourless, if anything. his hand drags slowly down his face, pressing hard enough over his eyes that little bursts of colour bloom behind his eyelids, like he could wipe the exhaustion—or the irritation—straight off his skin. “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ah-ah,” heeseung immediately lifts a hand and wiggles his weirdly long index finger right in sunghoon’s face. nothing productive is going to come out of this conversation, sunghoon realises, so he just decides on shutting up for the rest of the conversation. “i know you keep acting like she already decided on hating you. it’s fine, y’know, if she does.”

heeseung sighs before slapping his palms against his thighs. he gets up in one, swift motion. “don’t you think she has every right to, sunghoon?”

his throat tightens.

“i—”

“shut up,” heeseung cuts him off instantly. “you’re such a control freak, it weirds me out. how did sooha even deal with all that?”

sunghoon is already pushing himself up from the bed. he will hang lee heeseung out to dry—upside down, in nothing but his boxers on this cold, dry autumn day.

though, by the time sunghoon actually manages to sit upright, heeseung’s already halfway out the door. with his hand still clasped around the metal doorknob:

“if she hates you, you should probably let her say that herself.”

the door shuts before sunghoon gets the final word.

he sits there, just for a moment. blanket pooled at the waist, room quiet except for a heater that doesn’t work very well. outside, there’s leaves scraping against the roof and sunghoon just stares at the closed door like it might open up again, with a completely different approach or words that won’t scare him the way heeseung’s did.

it does not.

─────────────────────────

you spent most of your summer waiting.

there’s something cruel about time. unstoppable, immovable, and somehow always aware of when you want it to move faster. it stretches itself thin when you need relief and collapses in on itself when you want more.

summer had always felt like that—golden and lazy and unbearably alive through the heat—but this year, it moved strangely, like someone had pulled all the warmth out and left only an afterglow.

your routine had gone to shit.

you slept at four in the morning, most days, and woke up at around eleven. lunch only happened when there was enough to get by in the fridge, and if your air-fryer was clean enough from the night before—jiwon often had to drag you by the ear to make that happen. half your laundry stays unfolded, because god knows where you disappear to in the middle of folding it, and the books from a month ago still stay.

there are hours spent doing nothing, and yet, the exhaustion lingers. stays in your bones, fusing with you, and refusing to leave.

the worst part isn’t even that you miss park sunghoon, either. it’s how often you reached for him, that being without him feels as significant as loss.

how ironic, considering you never had him to begin with.

you’re curled up on your couch, cheek squished up against the fabric and your knees tucked to your chest. oh jiwon is somewhere in this apartment with you—you’re not exactly sure where, but the soft banging of pots is enough to make a guesstimate.

“what’re you doing?” you yell, half-heartedly because you’re still aware enough to acknowlege your neighbours. “jiwon?”

she doesn’t respond. probably something about dinner, you think. the show on tv is loud enough for her voice to fade into the background, anyhow.

summer break ended some time ago—and with it went the warmth and heat and fuzziness that came with the man on the other end of the line. autumn arrives eventually, cruel in the way all inevitable things are, forcing you and everyone else to spend a little longer indoors because of the increasing cold. september is especially vicious; the air is sharper now, thinner, and you stop walking through that park altogether because every bench and every couple under those stupid yellow streetlamps reminds you too much of him.

for a guy that claimed to be so mundane, he sure takes up an absurd amount of your headspace—even now, even after more than a month of waiting and leaving and forcing yourself not to say things you wouldn’t be able to take back, he still lingers.

your hand still hovers over your phone after seeing something stupid online. you still walk past cute cafés and think he’d probably hate this place. you still watch movies and mentally bookmark scenes because you think he’d have too much fun analysing them with you and somehow, make the whole experience annoyingly enjoyable at the same time.

you still doubt yourself, and you still hear his voice afterwards—steady, certain, monotonous and so lovingly boring—pulling you back up before you spiral too far.

the silence fills your room like a slow-moving plague, settling into corners and underneath your blankets and against your walls until eventually, you start relying on old conversations to fall asleep.

you remember his laugh before his face, and you loved him before you saw his eyes. there’s something pathetic in that, you think, almost gullible—that after everything, after all the anger and humiliation and crying and weeks spent convincing yourself that this should not matter as much as it does—you still soften at the thought of him.

you hate that. you hate that he lied to you, and somehow, still ended up becoming so woven into parts of your life—enough for it to feel impossible to pull apart.

you hate it all, but never him.

“heeello?”

you blink before seeing jiwon’s legs standing right in your line of vision. blocking the subtitles, more like it.

she stares down at you from above with one eyebrow raised, afternoon light shining behind her head, casting her face into shadow in a way that feels unnecessarily threatening for someone holding an empty pot.

“what are you doing? get out of the way.” you squint, shifting ever so slightly—and completely uselessly—to get a full view of the text on screen. your head tilts one way, then the other, as though changing the angle will somehow let you see through her body.

she narrows her eyes and tilts her head, hair falling over her shoulder fluidly. she does that motion where she’s about to hit you with the pan, but you flinch hard enough for her to laugh and lower it down. “welcome back! have fun spacing out? i’ve been asking what you want for dinner, for like, five minutes.”

jiwon follows your line of sight and twists around, just enough to get a proper look at the tv, rolling her eyes before her mouth pulls strangely to one side.

“…you know you watched this last night, right?”

of course she knows that. cons of sharing a netflix account with your best friend, and co-habiting with her for the past month.

your eyes drift back to the screen and the episode progress bar, sitting near the end and there’s already that stupid little preview box hovering in the corner asking whether you want to continue to the next episode. you don’t remember a single thing that happened, and can’t find the energy to recall.

you let out a long sigh and prop yourself up properly against the sofa, blanket bunching around your waist. jiwon’s folding her arms now, a slight frown on her face, and you dislike it immensely.

“…what?”

she stares at you for another second before walking over and dropping onto the other side of the couch, pulling one leg up beneath herself.

“…okay,” she says slowly, looking at you in that way people do when they already know the answer. “are we gonna keep pretending you’re okay or am i finally allowed to ask? will you blow up on me again, or—”

“jiwon—”

“it’s fine, y’know,” she babbles on, immediately waving the hand holding the ladle, before circling around the coffee table. she drops down right next to you with enough force to make the cushions dip. pulling one leg underneath herself, she points dramatically to the apartment around her. “i can just stay here forever, cook forever, and clean forever. it’s alright!”

you stare at her, then glance at the pot, and finally, at the folded laundry sitting on the armchair.

you pinch at the bridge of your nose.

“…i didn’t ask you to do all that,” you mutter under your breath, eyes dropping back to the paused show. your fingers knead at the skin there once, twice, before your hand drops into your lap. you let out another sigh and lean your head back against the sofa. “i’m fine by myself—”

jiwon turns immediately. her eyebrows pull together, and her jaw almost goes rigid. “i do it because i care about you. don’t make me regret it.”

she’s already looking away afterwards, fiddling with the sleeve of her hoodie, and reaching over to adjust the blanket pooled around your legs.

your head hurts. the room is too quiet, again, without that show playing, or the music blasting on the home speakers.

how is it that the missing piece in your life is shaped exactly like park sunghoon?

summer. so useless, and yet, you were so alive.

“listen.” jiwon’s voice cuts through your thoughts. you turn, and she’s twisted sideways now, one leg tucked under herself and chin resting against her palm while her other hand reaches over to steal the remote. she clicks it twice before deciding against turning anything on again.

“about that thing this weekend—”

your jaw hangs. “are you kidding?”

jiwon’s eyes widen immediately. she sighs, both hands dragging down the sides of her face before slapping against the backrest of the couch.

“okay, i know we agreed to go together to the charity event, and all the different booths and shit like that, but my dad’s finally in town again, and i just—”

you wave your hand quickly, once before she can finish, eyes not leaving the screen as your fingers start picking at the seam of the blanket. “oh, yeah, no. i’ll just skip. it’s all good.”

jiwon turns properly this time. her forehead creases. “…what? what about the money?”

you shrug one shoulder and scratch absentmindedly at a loose thread near your knee. “it comes back. it’s all good. if it’s that big of a deal to you, ask your dad to apple pay me.”

jiwon stares at you for a second too long before setting the remote down, scooting across the couch in one smooth movement until her knee bumps against yours. she squints slightly, head tilting as she searches your face. “okay,” she says slowly, one hand reaching over to pinch the fabric over your thigh. “not funny.”

you squeal, and she just grumbles.

then, she nudges your knee with hers again. “but seriously,” she says, shoulders relaxing as she turns more towards you and props her elbow against the backrest, “you need to get the fuck outside.”

you let out a quiet laugh. “you’ve been stuck with me this entire time. we need to go outside.”

jiwon shakes her head immediately and sits up straighter, her fingers slipping off the blanket and flat against your forearm instead. “no,” she says. “that’s not what i mean.”

you look away, and she notices. of course, she notices.

her thumb taps once against your skin before she lets her hand drop.

“…i know you’re avoiding seeing him,” she mutters, eyes drifting briefly around the apartment—the dishes, the curtains that haven’t been opened properly all week, the same hoodie you’ve worn thrice in a row—before settling back on you. she presses her lips together and reaches over to smooth the blanket over your knee again. “but you’re throwing everything away for that.”

you don’t say a thing. you feel like a coward. you feel like a liar. you feel like a lot of things, but jiwon’s looking at you like you’re not.

“…you’ve been talking about that stupid fundraiser since february,” she continues. “you made me pay thirty dollars to get matched with strangers…. among other things. you’ll pay me for that, right?”

she realises, a second too late, that you’re not laughing.

you look away, eyes locked on something outside the window. you can’t really tell with how your vision begins to blur. she waits for a response, but when it becomes clear she isn’t getting one:

“you wanted to go.”

your hand comes up and presses against your mouth.

you remember sitting in the library during finals with your laptop open, and your notes everywhere and thinking about it between lectures. your brain would drift whenever revision got unbearable, and suddenly, you’d be imagining what you’d wear and whether heeseung would actually come, and if he’d be as nice as everybody said he was.

it felt harmless then. stupid and harmless. a little reward waiting at the end.

you remember texting jiwon about it. making jokes, pretending not to care.

but now, you remember another thing.

you remember sitting in the exact same library with someone only two feet away. you remember somebody asking if you’d eaten, and somebody telling you to stop being perfect. somebody remembering your schedule better than you did. somebody finding you in that secluded corner, where the world didn’t exist beyond it, if only for a few hours.

you remember leaving that library and not thinking about lee heeseung at all.

your thumb presses harder against your lip. you’ve been biting at a piece of dead skin on your cuticle unconsciously. “that’s embarrassing.”

jiwon frowns.

“…i don’t think i actually wanted him.”

she doesn’t interrupt.

you keep staring at the television instead, eyes tracing shapes that stopped moving minutes ago. your fingers keep smoothing over the blanket stretched across your lap, flattening the same crease over and over until the friction starts irritating your palms. eventually, your thumb catches on loose thread and you pick at it absentmindedly, winding it once around your finger before letting it snap back. “…i think i just liked wanting something. he was hot, yeah, and people liked him.”

“thought maybe…” you bite down on your bottom lip. “i don’t know. maybe if somebody like that liked me back, then that would mean something.”

everyone’s always told you that you had terrible luck.

you remember teachers saying things like that’s unfortunate and friends joking that your life always sounded a little too dramatic to be accidental. wrong place, wrong time—missing buses. getting sick before things you cared about, liking people that didn’t like you back. liking people too late. liking people wrong. liking people at all.

“proving that i’m not all that unlikeable...” you mumble. “but i’m just as unlucky as everyone says.”

it was never that serious to complain about. it mostly served it’s purpose as comedic relief in other people’s lives, but as one knows, after the age of sixteen—everything just seems self-deprecating instead of humorous.

“you like him.”

jiwon’s voice is slightly too quiet for it to be a declaration. she says it softly enough that you could pretend you didn’t hear, or so that you could roll your eyes and say obviously not and she’d just let you.

you try to think about all the reasons why you don’t, and why you can’t. you think about lying, about the trust, about the humiliation and about standing in the middle of the park, crying like that in front of someone who played you like a puppet.

and still, you do not say a thing.

“i think…” she starts quietly, eyes dropping to where your hands meet before lifting back to your face. “it doesn’t actually change anything. the one you like is still sunghoon, y/n. no amount of this—whatever this is that you’re doing—is going to change that.”

“you fell for who he was. the name was irrelevant, wasn’t it?”

jiwon watches you for a while after that, shoulders sinking further into the couch. she studies your face, one hand disappearing into the sleeve of her hoodie while the other stays resting over the blanket draped across your legs, fingers absentmindedly playing with yours.

she glances at the television once—the paused menu, your reflection sitting small and folded into yourself against all that dead blue light—and exhales quietly through her nose before shifting closer to you.

“can i say something else that might piss you off?”

you keep your eyes forward, rubbing your thumb over the edge of the blanket. “what?”

jiwon squints at you for a second before nodding once, slowly, like she’s 99% sure you will get pissed off anyway at the statement she’s going to make.

“okay. i think you’re being unfair—not to him, though. just yourself,” she says. “i’ve been watching you do this thing for a month now. you keep saying he’s bad for you.”

you look down. she notices, of course.

“maybe he is. probably. whatever,” jiwon mutters under her breath, trying to remember what point she was trying to make. “but i don’t think that’s why you’re cancelling on m—”

“you cancelled, by the way.”

“still. you’re just scared that all those feelings will come back, or that they’ll be completely gone, and it’s scary.” she’s looking forward now, too. she finds it harder to be serious when she’s looking at you in the eye. “it was real, right? everything?”

right.

you hum in acknowledgement, low and partially absent, eyes still fixed somewhere near the bottom corner of the television where the subtitles would usually sit. jiwon watches your face for another second too long, before taking it as permission to continue. honestly, she’s a little surprised you haven’t mauled her yet. a month ago, she would’ve gotten a cushion launched at her head by now.

“the more like you pretend he isn’t real, the more it’ll hurt,” she sighs. “you can forgive him, or don’t, i’m not gonna tell you what to do like we’re fifteen again. oh, that was a really bad time for both of us—ow!”

your fingers dart out before you can stop yourself, pinching the soft skin above her knee hard enough for her whole body to jolt sideways with a startled squeal. she swats uselessly at your hand, rubbing furiously at the spot through her sweatpants before shooting you the most deeply offended look she can manage.

“could you just listen to me for once?” she groans, collapsing dramatically into the couch cushions. “i’m trying really hard to be wise here.”

you roll your eyes, but the corner of your mouth betrays you anyway.

“there it is,” jiwon points immediately, grinning so wide it almost irritates you. “see? you’re capable of experiencing joy!”

“i’m about to experience violence.”

“that’s my girl!”

she laughs to herself before the smile gradually slips away again, replaced by something more serious. her fingers fold together in her lap, thumbs rubbing absentmindedly against each other as she stares down at them for a moment, gathering whatever was left of her courage. when she looks back up, there’s none of that usual teasing left on her face.

“look,” she sighs. “i’m not trying to convince you that what he did wasn’t awful, because it was. i wanted to punch him just from hearing about it, and i still kinda do.”

she wrinkles her nose. “but i also watched you spend almost your entire summer waiting for him to call. you kept pretending you were watching movies when you were really staring at your phone, and you even stopped walking through that park because every bench reminded you of him.”

your throat tightens.

“you don't have to forgive him,” she continues, shaking her head slowly, reaching over to brush a strand of hair away from your face. “honestly, maybe you never will. maybe you shouldn't. but i don't think hiding from the world is the same thing as moving on, y/n.”

you keep your eyes fixed on the ceiling, on the little crack running along the corner where the paint has started to peel. “what if i see him,” you mumble, barely louder than the hum of the fridge from the kitchen, “and i still want him?”

jiwon's expression doesn't change. she takes a moment before her mouth parts slightly, just enough to answer. “then you'll know.”

"and if i don't?"

she shrugs gently, her hand lingering over yours for another second, thumb brushing your knuckle once before it falls back into her lap. she looks almost sad when she says it. "then you'll know that, too."

the apartment falls quiet again. somewhere outside, a car door slams, and a few birds chirp before scattering into the clouds. someone's drilling something in the apartment above you. someone's yelling something in the street. the world keeps going, indifferent and loud, the way it always does when you seem to be

“okay.”

jiwon watches you for a second longer, like she's checking the word for cracks. she must not have found any, or perhaps a few too many to name, because she just lets it go.

─────────────────────────

by the time you reach campus, the fundraiser is already in full swing.

the entire quad has transformed overnight into something almost unrecognisable. white canopy tents stretch across the lawn in neat, uneven rows, their fabric flapping in the wind whenever the cold september breeze decides to pass through.

handmade banners hang crookedly above each stall, painted with far too much enthusiasm and not nearly enough artistic ability—bright acrylic letters bleeding into one another, beneath glitter and shiny lettering that catches the afternoon sun every time somebody walks past.

“come visit booth 6!” “free drinks at booth 52!” “stand a chance to win—”

somewhere off to your left, somebody is aggressively advertising homemade brownies through a megaphone that crackles every other sentence, while another group has somehow convinced the jazz society to play live beside the engineering department’s robotics display. the music overlaps with laughter, conversations, applause and the occasional groan from somebody losing money at one of the carnival games, until it all melts together into any introvert’s worst nightmare.

jiwon, as foretold, is busy smiling, shaking hands and pretending to enjoy the company of the stepfather she’s complained about for the better part of four years, leaving you to fend for yourself amongst a sea of strangers. you’re beginning to wonder if any of this was even worth not paying her the thirty dollars for bailing. you could’ve been at home instead, cocooned underneath your duvet with instant noodles balanced precariously on your stomach while you binged that stupid show she keeps interrupting halfway through every episode—but apparently you did not need to be “sixty dollars broker,” and allegedly, according to her, “exposure builds character.”

students drift through the walkways in slow, uneven currents, weaving around one another with paper cups warming their hands and tote bags slipping from tired shoulders. autumn has only just begun settling over campus, leaving enough warmth in the afternoon sun to coax everyone outside while the breeze nips at exposed skin, carrying with it the smell of caramel popcorn, burnt coffee, fried food and fresh paint that still hasn't completely dried on half the handmade signs.

every few steps, someone brushes your shoulder without meaning to, and another laughs so loudly it echoes between the buildings. the quad feels impossibly alive, like the entire student body had been holding its breath for weeks and finally remembered how to exhale.

you've just realised how long it'd been since you'd seen campus like this.

exam season had stripped everything bare. the library became the centre of everybody's universe, swallowing entire afternoons until the only sounds left were pages turning, keyboards clacking and chairs scraping softly against carpet. everyone looked permanently exhausted beneath fluorescent lighting, surviving almost exclusively on caffeine and blind optimism, and now they're outside again.

clubs are recruiting first-years with embarrassingly enthusiastic chants, and the fourth-year students are pretending they aren't equally interested in the free tote bags.

autumn seems to bring something different into the air. meanwhile, summer, as you've known it, was spent mostly indoors or at the corner store fifteen minutes from campus, where you'd stand in front of the instant noodle shelf for far longer than necessary before carrying the same cup outside to eat on the outdoor seating. there were a handful of evenings where you'd glance up every time a dark-haired guy walked past, stomach flipping before common sense caught up with you. there were even more where you caught yourself wondering whether park sunghoon had ever been here before, whether he'd ever stood in front of the same vending machine deciding between two drinks, whether he'd look out for you the same way you did.

every single time, you wanted to walk straight into incoming traffic for even entertaining the thought. it's ridiculous. he literally lives on campus.

you spend quite a bit of time walking around the place. the sun isn’t too brutal at this time of day, and for once, you don’t dread seeing a bunch of people you know—there’s moments where you make eye contact with an old friend, a new acquaintance or someone who’s friends with someone you know, and they wave like they’ve known you for years. your feet begin to hurt by the end of the hour, and when you look down, you realise you’re holding an overpriced sea salt latte, a bag of homemade cookies, and a doodle of you a second-year student made for $5.

there’s a few flyers in your bag, too. you don’t even remember being interested in crocheting, but alright. somewhere along the way, you’ve lost the map that some student union members handed you when you first walked in, and for fifteen blissful minutes, you convinced yourself that you’ve never been to this part of the quad before.

it works. for a while.

you’re patting your jeans down. perhaps you folded it or crumpled it together with receipts or other useless junk from the day, but it’s literally vanished. nevertheless, your feet are carrying you to unknown places, through thickening crowds and high-pitched laughter that feels impossible to distinguish which direction it originates from.

somebody almost knocks your latte out of your hand. you almost cuss him out, before he whispers a ‘sorry!’ and joins a snaking queue, spilling onto the footpath.

“my god.”

you’re back at sunoo’s booth. pastel pink, covered in ikea string lights that are certainly not suited for outdoor use, the banner above spelling exactly what you signed up for: soul searching.

it sways gently overhead, now slightly lopsided after surviving what looked like several hours of relentless traffic. whoever had decorated the booth this morning had given up on maintaining any sort of order—heart-shaped balloons floated at uneven heights, paper cupid arrows had started peeling away from the tent poles, and one of the volunteers was hurriedly taping another handwritten sign across the front of the table.

queue full! please scan the qr code to join the line! we'll text you when it's your turn ♡

"honestly," somebody behind you mutters as they walk by. "this is way better. nobody’s standing for two hours.”

“right? i’m hoping they move me to the front,” their friend responds. “i bought the early ones too… i feel so fucking desperate. at least we’re in the line at all.”

you glance towards the front, almost absentmindedly. they weren’t wrong—the line that had wrapped halfway around the quad earlier had disappeared entirely, replaced instead by clusters of students with phones in hand. they’re hopping around and comparing wait times while volunteers hurried between the very few tables available, trying to answer stupid questions before the next wave arrived.

you did pay for this. your latte’s gone warm, anyway, and the condensation is starting to drip down onto your sleeves. might as well find out whether your ticket's even still valid.

the qr code sits laminated against the edge of the registration table, surrounded by little hand-drawn hearts and stars that look suspiciously like sunoo's work. you fish your phone out of your tote, thumb hovering over the camera app for just a second before lifting it. you step closer to get a clearer view, tongue poking at your cheek—

"hold on.”

you glance up, blinking slowly until sunoo comes into focus. he’s dressed in all sorts of shades of pink, from hot to muted to pastel, and his cheeks have hearts face-painted onto them.

“y/n! you actually came!”

he breaks into a wide grin, so wide that it almost scares you. for a brief moment, you wonder if this is even the kim sunoo you know, considering he was never too worried for your attendance when the fundraiser was first brought up.

before you can even say hello, he's already leaning across the table, volunteer lanyard swinging forward as he peeks at the ticket confirmation on your screen. you hadn’t realised it’s already loaded, displaying the ‘early-bird’ status right at the top. in bold, like it wasn’t humiliating enough just being here.

“i paid, so…”

he circles around the table.

“exactly!” his finger points at your phone. “early bird. you’re lucky!”

you nod slowly, like you understand where this conversation’s about to go. truth be told, you don’t, so in order to hide the confusion, your eyes dart around to avoid his.

"…early-bird participants get priority once they join the queue.”

strange. the other laminated sign your eyes land on, which is pasted right behind sunoo’s head, conveniently says otherwise.

early-bird = guaranteed queue number! ♡ NO PRIORITY sorry!!! :( ♡

“i’m pretty sure that’s not how it works—”

“it literally is.” sunoo declares, with such effortless confidence that you might’ve believed him if not for the piece of paper taped up behind him. he still wears that smile, his cheeks rounding in a way that makes it dangerously easy to nod along, right until one of the volunteers at the registration table slowly lifts his head and looks over.

he deadpans. “sunoo.”

“what?”

“…since when?”

kim sunoo doesn’t even bother turning around to answer his fellow volunteer. you suppose being the organiser has its perks, because he simply says, “since today! operational changes are needed, aren’t they?”

all the guy can do is sigh and rub at his temples.

“great!” sunoo beams, already uncapping a marker with his teeth before flicking the cap into his palm. he hunches over the clipboard, the tip squeaking furiously across the paper in quick, decisive strokes, barely pausing to breathe before thrusting it back against his chest. “congratulations, y/n!”

you narrow your eyes. “on what?”

“you’re next!” he tears a small ticket from the pad with a sharp riiiip, stamps it against the clipboard with far more force than necessary, then slides it into your hand like he’s finalising an important legal transaction.

“sunoo, there’s literally people waiting behind me.”

sunoo merely raises an eyebrow. he tilts his head, peering past your shoulder with enough curiosity that, against your better judgment, you glance back too.

you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

a queue of complete strangers is, in fact, staring directly at the two of you. some look mildly confused, others openly entertained, but most are just pissed off. one guy even checks his phone, like he’s trying to figure out whether he’s somehow joined the wrong line, and how he, too, could join ‘priority-access’.

“huh."

when you turn back around, sunoo’s already smiling again, not a shred of shame anywhere on his face. “you’re making this up, aren’t y—”

“prove it.”

“okay, then.”

─────────────────────────

a volunteer pulls the canvas flap aside for you with an overly enthusiastic smile, hair sticking to his forehead from the (presumably) constant back and forth sunoo’s making him do. for such a small booth team, the place is surprisingly put-together, and the online queue isn’t glitching out the way other booth’s are. you had to admit that you were somewhat glad you came.

“good luck,” he whispers, to which you reply with a confused expression before walking in.

the noise disappears almost immediately.

the bustle outside dulls into a soft, muffled hum behind layers of canvas, leaving the tiny booth wrapped in an unexpected sort of quiet. sunlight filters through the cream-coloured fabric overhead, warming the little space in soft patches until everything inside glows honey-gold.

it smells faintly of vanilla and paper, with the lingering sweetness of somebody’s perfume clinging stubbornly to the air from the last pairing. you wonder where they went to after their five minutes of alone time—did they go to grab coffee? did he say something to piss her off, and she stormed out early? is that why sunoo’s giving you priority?

you stop just after the entrance.

“oh.”

it’s… actually kind of nice.

someone had gone through an embarrassing amount of effort decorating the place. ivy vines wind around the tent poles alongside more tiny string lights, and battery-powered candles flicker lazily in the centre of a small round table dressed with a cream linen cloth.

a little glass jar is overflowing with folded paper stars. it sits between two untouched bottles of water, and it almost makes you wonder how much money they poured into this thing, before you remember that they probably went over the donation limit a long, long time ago.

somebody had even scattered fake rose petals across the tabletop, though several had already drifted onto the flimsy plywood beneath the chairs.

there’s only two seats. complimentary seat cushion, too, also pink and plaid. you sigh, seeing how it was already squished flat from all the people sitting on it before you, but you make your way regardless. the amount of walking you’ve put yourself through has done no justice to your feet, anyway.

the first thing you notice is that whoever’s sitting across from you is going to bump your knees, unless he happens to be significantly shorter.

you don’t really mind it. the tent is only so big, and god knows how they even managed to squeeze a table through that narrow entrance. still, it’s enough to make you silently hope he isn’t particularly tall, either.

you let out a quiet breath through your nose.

beside the battery-operated candle sits a neat stack of laminated cards bound together by a stainless steel ring, each one printed with colourful lettering and tiny doodles tucked into the corners.

♡ conversation starters ♡

you already know this is going to be terrible. who the hell pitched this?

#5 what’s your most irrational fear?

too intimate.

your fingers flip through the stack, anyway. there’s an identical set resting on the opposite side of the table, presumably waiting for whoever draws the short straw across from you.

#8 if you could relive one day of your life, which would you choose?

too deep. nobody thought these through. you keep flipping, snorting under your breath every few cards.

#10 what’s your biggest regret?

#11 when did you last cry?

#12 do you fall for looks, or personality?

your smile fades before you realise it had even appeared at all. another prank by the universe, you suppose.

the cards settle back onto the table with a soft tap. your hands find their way to the armrests, tapping against the wood, anything to stop thinking about the guy you’re not supposed to be thinking about.

outside, somebody cheers loud enough for it to seep through the canvas walls, followed by another chorus of laughter that slowly dissolves back into the fundraiser’s usual chatter. you glance instinctively toward the entrance, expecting the fabric to move.

nothing. the chair opposite you remains empty, and no one’s walking through that tarp.

you check your phone. it’s been three minutes.

you’re drumming your fingers lightly against the edge of the table now, watching the fake candle flicker. the tiny plastic flame sways with every movement of the air-conditioning fan someone had hidden near the ceiling of the tent, convincing enough that you almost forget it isn’t real.

the things you do in pursuit of love, you think.

it’s almost funny, now that you’re sitting here.

you remember signing up for this thing with only one person in mind—someone you barely knew, someone you had no right to like because of all the missing pieces your imagination had so generously filled in. back then, this booth felt like a shortcut. maybe you’d sit across from lee heeseung, maybe he’d smile at you, maybe the universe would finally decide to do you one favour in this unlucky life of yours.

there was a point where you thought you knew your type. the kind of guy that seemed so easy to trip and fall on your face for. maybe it was that new year’s party, when you caught him standing at the front of the house with a cigarette between his fingers, the street light catching against his jaw while everyone else laughed somewhere behind you. maybe it was those tuesday mornings outside the cafeteria. maybe it was the words of everyone around you, but either way, you never really heard his voice, or stood close enough to know how he laughed, what he sounded like when he was tired, or whether he was a better listener than talker.

distance has a funny way of disguising itself as depth. you mistake wondering for understanding, admiration for affection, until one day you’ve built an entire person out of scattered glances and second-hand stories. maybe that was all the crush had ever been—a collection of assumptions, stitched together by not knowing enough.

perhaps, it was never about lee heeseung at all.

park sunghoon is a fucking headache. he lingers in every inconvenient corner of your life, occupying your thoughts long after he shattered your heart and broke your trust that summer night. it’s almost cruel how thoroughly he’s rooted himself into your memory—his voice still finds you before your own thoughts do, his quiet laugh still sneaks into your head whenever something stupid happens. you remember the thoughtful pauses before he’d answer your questions, the accidental sincerity he always seemed embarrassed by, and the unwavering certainty with which he’d tell you that you were capable of things you never believed you could do yourself.

despite the lies, the betrayal, despite everything. despite the way he looked at you that night, like he couldn’t bear to lose you, and still let you walk away—you realise that there isn’t a single part of you that wishes it had been lee heeseung from the beginning.

the canvas shifts.

at first, it’s nothing more than a shadow moving across the pale canvas, followed by the dull scrape of shoes against packed grass outside. somebody murmurs something—a volunteer, probably—and another voice answers too quietly for you to make out.

your heart’s beating out of your chest. the last time you felt like this, it was january first, and also three in the morning.

the flap rustles once before stilling again, as though whoever’s on the other side already regrets doing this. you let out a quiet laugh through your nose, watching the silhouette hesitate in the narrow entrance where the fading warmth of september collides with the dry chill of the portable air-conditioner humming somewhere overhead.

the afternoon sun outlines him first. he’s tall, broad, holding a bouquet of flowers in his right hand. he turns halfway around to mumble something behind him, and through the gap in the canvas, you catch a glimpse of someone suspiciously resembling sunoo. whatever he says earns him a sharp slap between the shoulder blades and an exaggerated shove forward, the bouquet wobbling dangerously in his grip before he manages to catch it against his chest.

your fingers are still tracing the laminated edge of one of the conversation cards when the canvas finally parts. he stumbles through the entrance, muttering what sounds like an embarrassed complaint under his breath, one hand instinctively reaching back to steady the flap before it swings shut behind him.

you only realise who he is when he looks up.

the sleeves are shoved up to his elbows like they always are, but he looks better than the last time you saw him—cleaner, less wrecked, like he’s actually been sleeping well now that you’re not around. his hair has grown out just enough to fall over his eyebrows, and despite everything, despite the month that’s wedged itself between the two of you, you remember every single feature on his face, and just how much you missed it.

that’s when you realise that a month and a half is nearly not enough time to forget.

for one impossible second, relief blooms before your brain catches up to your body.

the world seems like it’s flipping upside down, now. park sunghoon freezes, like he wasn’t expecting either; your pulse is slamming against your ribs so violently that you swear he must be able to hear it. you can hear your blood rushing in your ears by the time you stand up—chair screeching violently against the plywood as you shove yourself backwards, the legs offering some resistance before jerking free with your force.

your knees collide with the underside of the table hard enough to send the fake candle wobbling between the two of you. it’s tiny, plastic flame is flickering, almost mocking.

every instinct you have screams the same thing: leave.

sunghoon notices (of course he does), and something inside his expression crumbles just enough for you to feel like you’ve been stabbed in the heart.

his shoulder sinks by barely an inch, the hand which holds the bouquet to his stomach now dropping to his side. he doesn’t move any closer, too afraid to even breathe audibly, just standing by the entrance with the afternoon light outlining his familiar silhouette.

his eyes are soft, a gentle smile painted across his face, as though he’s trying to show you how much it hurts not seeing you for so long.

you’re just like how he remembers. golden light on your face, diffused now from the tent’s shade, bright eyes looking up at him the same way it did in the summer. perhaps it’s because of his dreams that this doesn’t feel as shocking as he’d thought it’d be—that one evening in the library between bookshelves replays like a highlight reel behind his eyelids, and in a way, he thinks it’s helped with his what little sleep he's managed to get recently.

and, in the same vein, he looks everything like the boy you've spent the last month trying to forget.

“…you.”

your voice is barely a whisper. sunghoon swallows, and his lips part once before closing again. you want to scream at him, maybe even punch him in the face. with that sad look on his face, you think he might even let you.

“y/n.”

you don’t hesitate. the moment sunghoon sees you grabbing your things, ready to turn around and leave—he speaks again, rushed with a tinge of desperation.

“please. five minutes, it’s all i need.”

what could he possibly say that would undo all of this?

park sunghoon bites down on his bottom lip, trying to stop it from trembling. you’re staring at him with glassy eyes, hands shaking from either anger or just pure despair, waiting for an answer that might not even fix anything at all.

your shoulders stay angled towards the exit, eyes not meeting his. you’re afraid that if you look at him properly, you'll remember everything all over again.

“i'm sorry, y/n.”

you should’ve left as soon as you saw that frame in the sun—as soon as your heart sank and your mind briefly flashed to sunghoon.

silence stretches between the two of you. you’re somewhat thankful for the loud noise outside that helps dampen it. the laughter sounds impossibly far away from where you stand.

“not because i got caught lying to you.” his fingers tighten around the bouquet, knuckles paling beneath flushed skin. “i think about it every day. it never leaves.”

your molars grind together until your temples start to pulse. the muscles in your jaw ache from holding back everything that wants to come spilling out, and you realise, belatedly, that you're digging your fingernails so deeply into the canvas strap of your tote that the fabric has started to wrinkle beneath your grip. you’re blinking the salt away, too, trying not to let it drip down your cheeks. “why did you do that to me, sunghoon?”

your voice comes out quieter than you intended. it’s nothing short of humiliating. sunghoon stares at you for a little while longer, and it really does feel like his heart’s being ripped out of his ribcage all over again. there’s nothing nice about seeing someone you love in tears, much less because of you.

“i didn't think it’d go far.” his voice is barely above a whisper now. “that’s not an excuse. i know it isn’t. i realised that really early on.”

his thumb catches on the edge of the brown paper wrapped around the flowers, smoothing the same crease over and over until it begins to tear.

“i just...” he laughs quietly through his nose, and it breaks somewhere in the middle. “i was terrified, y/n.”

your breath catches. you just can’t understand. every word from him feels like relief and a new betrayal all over again, and for a moment, you wonder how you’re still standing here. there’s half of you that feels glad that he cares enough to show up again—and another that never wants to see his pretty face again.

“the only lie i ever told you,” he continues, finally forcing himself to meet your eyes, “was that i was lee heeseung. everything else was real. all the calls, conversations, every second i spent listening to your voice.”

sunghoon says it like a confession. like an intimate secret he’s yet to admit to anyone else but you, because truly, he hasn’t. it’s stupid how long he’s allowed this to suffocate him.

“i was scared of how much i wanted you, and i let it go on, because it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. i didn’t want to lose you, and i acted selfishly because of that.”

“you could’ve told me from the beginning.” your hand comes up instinctively, thumb dragging beneath your waterline before another tear has the chance to fall. you sniffle once, sharp and involuntary, and sunghoon feels it somewhere behind his ribs. “you could have. do you have any idea how humiliating that was?”

the words roll off your tongue before you can think twice. “i made myself look like a fucking idiot in front of you.”

sunghoon's breathing falters. his grip tightens around the bouquet until the brown paper crumples loudly in the silence, stems bending awkwardly beneath his fingers. he can't bring himself to look away from your face—not when your eyelashes are clumped together with tears, not when the skin beneath them has gone raw from how hard you're rubbing at it.

“i know.”

his voice barely survives the distance between you.

“every time i think about you,” he swallows hard, the muscles in his throat straining around the words. “i think about everything you trusted me with, and all i can remember is that i stood there and let you keep believing me.” his eyes fall to the floor for the briefest moment before finding yours again, impossibly guilty. “you deserved better than that.”

“i put you through so much,” park sunghoon adds, his voice so quiet you're forced to listen for it. “i was selfish. i convinced myself that if i told you the truth, i’d lose you, even if i deserved to.”

his thumb smooths absently over another crease in the bouquet's wrapping paper. “every day i waited after that, for the right time, for when it was easiest for me—it just got harder, and then it got impossible.”

he exhales shakily. “there was never going to be a good time. i knew that.”

you stare at him, at the bouquet he'd probably spent too long choosing. you imagine how out of place he must've looked picking those out, asking the store owner which ones would be good, knowing nothing about flowers, buying whatever was recommended to him without a second thought.

and then you're looking at the circles beneath his eyes—better now than they were before, but still there, still belonging to a boy who somehow looks exactly like the person you spent all summer missing, and the person who broke your heart in the very same breath.

“you could’ve told me,” you whisper again, the words catching somewhere behind your teeth. your fingers curl helplessly around the strap of your tote until the rough canvas digs into your palm. “you could’ve walked up to me that first night. i would’ve—”

another tear slips free before you can force the last word out. your breath catches violently in your chest, chin dropping toward your collarbone as a broken sob tears through you before you have the chance to swallow it back.

sunghoon moves before he thinks. the bouquet lands forgotten against the table with a muffled rustle, baby's breath spilling over the edge of the table as he closes the distance between you in two hurried strides. his hand comes up instinctively—halfway to your face, halfway to your shoulder, he doesn't even know anymore—before stopping inches from your face.

"...y/n."

sunghoon freezes. fingers trembling, not knowing if he's allowed to be this close to you again, not knowing if he gets to touch you just because you're crying. nevertheless, his hand curls slowly into a fist before falling uselessly back to his side.

your shoulders shake harder.

you clap a hand over your mouth as if that'll somehow muffle the sound, but it only turns each breath into something more desperate and more painful. tears slip between your fingers anyway, dripping onto the backs of your knuckles before disappearing into the sleeves of your top.

sunghoon feels sick. everything is telling him to touch you, to hold you, to do everything he can to rid you of the tears staining your face. wiping your tears away with his thumb and all, like how he’s imagined doing a hundred selfish times over the phone—to tell you it’s okay.

something’s siphoning all the air out of his lungs. "...i'm sorry," sunghoon whispers again, voice splintering under the weight of the words. "i’m sorry, y/n. please, don’t cry, please.”

there’s a tiny part of you that wants to lean into him. instead, you let out something between a laugh and another sob. you drag the heel of your palm beneath your eyes, every tear replaced by another before you can finish catching your breath. vision blurry as you stare down at sunghoon’s shoes, he shuts his eyes.

“i didn’t care,” you sigh. “i wouldn’t have cared.”

your ears don't catch the quiet sniffle that escapes sunghoon. his own vision has long since blurred, tears gathering stubbornly along his waterline until the fairy lights overhead fracture into soft, indistinct halos. he doesn't bother wiping them away, not when you're crying like this—not when every broken breath that leaves you sounds like something he's carved into your chest with his own hands.

“i fell for you, hoon.” you look up at him then, your eyes swollen and shining beneath the warm fairy lights strung across the ceiling of the booth. tears cling to your lashes, catching the light every time you blink. “you could’ve told me.” your voice cracks again, almost pleading. “you could have.”

the words seem to find every hollow place inside him.

his shoulders, already drawn painfully tight beneath the navy hoodie, sink another inch, the tension draining from them so suddenly he almost folds into himself. his hand, still hovering uncertainly between the two of you, curls instinctively before slowly uncurling again. this time, he doesn't stop.

fuck it.

park sunghoon’s touch brushes your cheek so lightly you barely feel them at first. gentle, like he doesn’t know quite how to handle you—warm and careful and everything you’ve ever needed.

his palm settles against the side of your face, thumb sweeping gently beneath your eye to catch the tear before it slips past your jaw. your skin burns beneath the touch, not because it hurts, but because you've missed it without ever knowing what it felt like—it's unbearably familiar for something entirely new.

you don’t mean to lean into him, but your body does it anyway.

for the smallest moment, your cheek rests against his palm, and the breath sunghoon lets out is so quiet that it almost disappears beneath the hum of the air-conditioner overhead. a sigh escapes him, almost as if he can’t believe how much he’s hurt you—and before you break into a sob again, you speak.

“maybe...” you whisper, voice shrinking beneath the weight of the thought—of park sunghoon and you, of that stupid new year's party, of library afternoons and late-night phone calls and every version of the future that never got the chance to exist. “maybe we’d be fine. maybe we’d be happy, if that’s what you even wanted—”

“it is.”

there isn’t a trace of hesitation.

sunghoon's thumb stills against your cheek as fresh tears spill over his own, his forehead dipping just enough that he's looking at you from beneath damp strands of dark hair.

“it’s all i’ve ever wanted,” he mutters. “you are all i’ve ever wanted.”

park sunghoon has never been a decisive person.

it sounds contradictory when you consider everything he's responsible for, but those decisions were never really decisions at all. hockey is straightforward once you've watched enough game tape, drilled the same movement until your muscles remember it better than your brain does, or spent enough hours on the ice for instinct to replace hesitation. there is always a coach standing behind the glass with a whistle around his neck, always someone older, better, more experienced to tell you where your feet should be and how to fix what you've done wrong. school isn't much different. people call him gifted, but sunghoon knows discipline has always done more for him than talent ever could. if you study enough, if you sacrifice enough sleep, if you repeat something often enough, eventually the answer reveals itself.

life has always rewarded certainty. show up, work harder, do better—and there is comfort in that. an almost mechanical predictability to it all, completely untouched by human emotion.

but you have never worked like that. this, whatever this is—it has never operated on that principle.

sunghoon has known he loves you for longer than he's been willing to admit it aloud. what he hasn't known—not for a single day since you walked away from him beneath that streetlamp—is whether seeing you again would heal the wound or rip it open all over. every version of the future he imagined ended differently: maybe you'd scream at him, maybe you'd ignore him. maybe you'd look at him with the same quiet disappointment that had followed him into every waking hour for the past month. there was no correct answer to memorize, no strategy to rehearse, and no amount of discipline capable of guaranteeing that he wouldn't lose you all over again.

he even tried searching for it.

three in the morning, phone balanced against his chest, he'd typed every variation of lied about my identity and fell in love that he could think of into reddit, reading through strangers' catastrophes until the sun came up. none of them sounded quite like his, and none of them ended with an answer worth believing. he’s pretty sure 75% are engagement bait.

there wasn't a guidebook for getting back the only girl he'd ever loved. there was, however, an annoyingly persistent lee heeseung.

his friend spent the better part of yesterday refusing to let him back out, talking over every pathetic excuse sunghoon came up with until there were none left to hide behind. sunoo only agreed to squeeze him into today's schedule after extracting the promise of unlimited access to his card for food deliveries over the next month, grinning so hard throughout the negotiation that sunghoon briefly considered leaving on principle alone. jake had sat through the entire story for the first time without interrupting once, only burying his face in his hands whenever the second-hand embarrassment became physically unbearable. jay, jungwon and riki had been considerably less diplomatic.

yes, he'd fucked up. spectacularly.

yes, there was every possibility you'd never want to look at him again.

no, none of them blamed you for it.

they still told him to come anyway. because if you were going to reject him, then he deserved to hear it from you—not from the version of you he'd spent the last month inventing inside his own head. park sunghoon is not every sure if he’ll ever move on from it, from you, though he sincerely hopes he doesn’t have to.

“i can’t—i can’t hate you, hoon. i tried so hard, and it never worked, so what do i do now?”

the words seems to knock the air from his lungs.

sunghoon's thumb stills against your cheek. even now, even after hearing the words, he can't let himself believe them immediately. his thick eyebrows draw together in quiet disbelief, lashes still damp, mouth parted around a breath that never quite leaves him.

“i think about you so much it hurts.” a laugh escapes you, exhausted more than amused, and you shake your head as tears gather at your chin. when you look up at him, the expression in your eyes drives something sharp straight through his chest. “i just don't know what to do.”

your fingers find his wrist without thinking, curling around it lightly. beneath your touch, his pulse stutters wildly, and sunghoon has the absurd, terrifying thought that if you hold him there any longer, you'll feel exactly how badly he's falling apart.

“i still want you,” you whisper. “so tell me, what do i do?”

sunghoon’s face crumples with relief, so sudden that it almost looks like pain. his shoulders shake before he even realises he's crying again. he presses his lips together, turning away for a second as a breathless, disbelieving laugh slips through his nose, and when he looks back at you, his eyes are wet and helpless and impossibly soft.

every sleepless night and every terrible decision has led park sunghoon here, standing in front of you and bracing for an ending that was never truly his to decide. you are the only thing he has ever looked at and thought, i might not get this back if i lose it, and that realization terrifies him more than failure ever could.

everything else feels survivable. the carefully constructed life he's spent years maintaining—he could lose all of it and eventually claw his way toward something new. he knows himself well enough to believe that, and well enough to know that you are different.

the mere thought of you turning around and walking away again is enough to hollow him out from the inside. it followed him into quiet rooms and sleepless mornings, into practices and lectures and every place he tries to forget you. for the first time in his life, there is something he cannot outwork, outthink, or outrun.

and still, even now, that something is standing here with tears on her face and her hand wrapped around his wrist, asking him what to do.

sunghoon’s wiping uselessly at his eyes. “i don't know,” he admits. “i don’t know what you’re supposed to do.”

your chest immediately drops. there’s that churning feeling again. you pick up on every movement of his, from the way his eyes never leave yours to how he can’t seem to speak up.

“i spent months trying to decide that for you, and look how that turned out,” another shaky breath leaves him, and his shoulders shudder with it. “if you want to yell at me, do it. if you want time, take it. if you wake up tomorrow and realize listening to me was a mistake, i’ll understand.”

sunghoon looks into your eyes. somewhere between the apologies and confessions, the distance between you has disappeared without either of you noticing. your knees almost brush, breaths mingling in the tiny booth, warm enough to fog the already close air between you. the fake candle flickers quietly in your peripheral, behind the abandoned bouquet and scattered conversation cards.

he blinks, just once, watching your eyes soften as they stare back at his. they never leave him, and they’re not searching for answers anymore.

“but if you're asking me what i want,” sunghoon mutters, taking a deep breath in. “i want you. i want you to let me stay, and i want it to be your decision.”

“you hurt me.” you swallow. “forgiving you doesn't magically make all of that disappear—but i’m tired. i’m really tired of being scared.”

“so this is my decision,” you step closer until the space between you disappears entirely. “stay.”

oh, park sunghoon is certain, now.

certainly, for the first time, he cares about someone other than himself, more than his stupid hockey games and ridiculous quizzes that he’d ace regardless if he studied or not—

certainly, the girl he loves is here, in front of him. her heart is in his hands and he’s trying not to crush it, because hurting her means hurting himself. she’s uncomplicated, and she’s beautiful, even in this kind of light, even with tears running down her face—looking at him like he’s all she’s ever asked for, despite everything he’s done.

certainly, he loves you.

all of you.

your arms find sunghoon’s waist with a familiarity that steals what little breath he has left. the movement is so instinctive neither of you seem to think too much about it. sunghoon's hand remains against your cheek for one lingering heartbeat, before his other joins it, cradling your face with impossible care, thumbs brushing absently beneath skin still warm from tears.

the space between you disappears altogether.

your arms slide further around his back, bunching the fabric of his hoodie between your fingers, the last of the tension leaves his body in one long, shaking breath. sunghoon’s own limbs slip around your shoulders, drawing you against his chest so gently it almost hurts, his chin resting lightly atop your head as though he’s afraid that if he lets go now, you’ll disappear all over again.

“i love you, y/n.”

the confession comes easier than he expected—true, almost painfully so, for far too long.

you tighten your hold around him, your cheek pressed against the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

“i love you, too, hoon.”

for a second, park sunghoon forgets how to breathe.

all those nights spent lying awake, replaying every conversation until sunrise—every version of this moment he'd imagined, every argument he'd had with himself, every impossible outcome he'd tried to prepare for—they dissolve so quietly that he almost doesn't notice them leaving.

the questions that had followed him for weeks no longer demand answers. the guilt is still there, the hurt is still there, and he knows neither of them will disappear overnight, of course—but for the first time in months, park sunghoon knows one thing for sure:

he does not care, and he will keep loving you despite it all.

─────────────────────────

the fundraiser slowly forgets about the two of you.

by the time you step out of the little booth, there’s an insanely long queue that won’t stop staring at you and sunghoon—a bouquet sits in the crease of your elbow, and the man by your side is smiling so wide that it’s borderline embarrassing. he might as well put a sign on your head.

the sun’s begun sinking lower behind the engineering building, bathing the pathways in that familiar honey-gold light that always seems to arrive when you and sunghoon are together. conversations swell around you as students drift from stall to stall with paper bags hanging from their wrists and half-melted ice cream in their hands. somewhere behind you, sunoo lets out an aggressively theatrical cheer before somebody—jungwon, if you remembered correctly—smacks him hard enough to shut him up.

neither of you acknowledge it.

park sunghoon’s hand finds yours instinctually. he’s not even looking at you to see if you’re fine with it, but it doesn’t matter anyway. your fingers intertwine with his, warm and steady and weirdly tight—you glance down and feel the heat rushing up your cheeks.

“…you know,” you mumble, watching your joined hands swing gently between you as you walk down the wide path. “i think this is technically our first date.”

sunghoon blinks. date? you? you and him? on a date?

the crowd has thinned out considerably, but when you glance back towards the familiar pink tent, the queue is somehow still moving. students continue drifting in and out of the little canvas booths, phones in hand as volunteers wave them forward one pair at a time. sunoo catches your eye from behind the registration table, arms folded dramatically across his chest as if he's personally responsible for the greatest love story in university history. you can't help but to smile, and sunoo notices immediately. with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, he flicks his wrist in a half-hearted shooing motion before waving the two of you away.

you laugh under your breath.

ahead of you, the fundraiser is slowly settling into the evening. a handful of student union members balance precariously on folding ladders, looping warm string lights from one streetlamp to the next until little pockets of golden light begin blooming across the walkways. conversations soften as the afternoon crowd disperses, replaced by the quieter rhythm of people lingering instead of rushing somewhere else. somebody nearby is packing away handmade jewellery while another stall is still desperately trying to sell the last of their brownies to anyone willing to make eye contact.

your hand is still in sunghoon's. neither of you talk.

“oh.”

you glance sideways. he’s staring ahead, eyebrows pinched together in the sort of concentration that seems excessive for something this simple.

you snort. “that’s all you have to say?”

“i'm thinking,” sunghoon murmurs, finally allowing himself a quiet chuckle. his thumb absently brushes against the back of your hand before he looks over at you. “does this mean i have to pretend i don't already know everything about you?”

“i wouldn't say everything...” you mumble, nudging his shoulder with yours before looking away a little too quickly. you don't have to see his face to know he's smiling. you can feel it somehow, in the way his gaze lingers a second too long, in the quiet that stretches between you while he leans ever so slightly closer, just enough that the warmth radiating from his hoodie brushes your arm.

“you blush really easily.”

“i do not!” your eyes widen, yet, still refusing to meet his.

“you're so pretty, y/n,” sunghoon says before he has the chance to psyche himself out of it. the compliment leaves him with such effortless certainty that it almost catches him off guard. “so cute when you're shy. blushing like that in front of me...” he continues, the corners of his mouth lifting into the smallest grin. “i don't think i've ever seen anything prettier.”

you squeeze his hand so hard he almost laughs again.

“god,” you mutter, finally daring a glance at him before immediately looking away again, cheeks burning beneath the string lights overhead. “you're still so annoying!”

the fundraiser eventually disappears behind you. after sunghoon’s insistence on sharing an overly-sweet milkshake, his hands are full with paper bags, filled to the brim with overpriced homemade desserts and a few too many keychains. neither of you remember who suggested leaving first—at some point, the booths become smaller in the distance, and the chatter fades into little more than background noise.

there isn’t really a destination. there doesn’t have to be, you both know that—but it helps with the conversation. it flows easier than any of you expect, familiar, curious and gentle in the same way it’s always been.

you stop by a convenience store because sunghoon insists you’re hungry. allegedly, your stomach rumbled on the walk here, so he rushes into the store so fast that there isn’t enough time to protest. the high-school part-timer stares at him weirdly as he wordlessly pays for both ramyeon cups, spending the next five minutes pretending not to hear you complaining about it.

you eat, anyway. sunghoon can’t help but take a picture, too. you almost hit him on the head for that.

an hour later, the walk to your apartment is slower than it needs to be. autumn has finally settled over the city, the breeze cool enough to make you tug your sleeves over your hands every few minutes. leaves skitter across the pavement whenever the wind picks up, collecting around your shoes before scattering around them again, and somewhere overhead the sky melts from gold into a dark, deep blue.

you pass through that same park—cyclists pass every now and then, bells chiming politely before disappearing further down the winding path, elderly couples taking a night stroll with plastic bags hooked around their fingers. the atmosphere is completely different now, though nothing tangible has really changed.

the two of you keep walking. sunghoon feels like he's going to explode from the amount of dessert you'd somehow convinced him to share with you, but the weight tugging at his shoulders feels lighter now. maybe it's because your hand is folded so naturally into his that neither of you have thought about letting go—or the fact that you managed to get rid of all those bags, thanks to him.

“it's nice to talk to you,” you murmur after a while, your gaze lingering on the river instead of him. the city stretches across the water in ribbons of gold and white, every reflection trembling with the movement of the current. “without the phone. easier to hear you.”

another breeze rolls against the river, cool enough to send little ripples across the water and lift loose strands of your hair across your face.

“uuuuhuh, i’m sure.” sunghoon smiles at you, easy-going and so reassuring it makes your pulse race. “keep pretending like we didn’t meet how we did.”

“the hell?”

you glance at him. all he does is squeeze your hand once—then, the corners of his mouth lift into that small, effortless smile.

your heart gives an embarrassingly obvious thump. you let out a laugh before you can stop yourself, ducking your head almost immediately as warmth rushes into your cheeks. “don’t look at me like that—”

“like what?”

sunghoon stops walking. your footsteps falter a beat too late.

your hands are still joined, the sudden halt tugging you backwards before you can catch yourself. you stumble lightly into his chest, the front of his hoodie brushing against your sleeves as his fingers tighten instinctively around yours to steady you. your free hand lands against the warmth of his ribs, and for one, disorienting moment, all you can hear is the wind behind you and the quiet hitch in his breathing.

sunghoon looks down. you're close enough now that the warm lights stretching across this dim path catch in his eyes, turning the dark brown almost amber beneath the glow. a strand of your hair has fallen across your cheek again, flowing in the breeze—and sunghoon, stupidly, reaches up without thinking.

his knuckles brush your skin first—then his fingertips. they slip carefully beneath the loose strand, tucking it behind your ear with a tenderness that makes your chest ache. it lingers for a moment longer than necessary, five seconds too much just to move a strand of hair away, and his thumb rests lightly against your temple as though he’s trying to memorise the shape of your face underneath his touch.

oh. you can’t tear your eyes off of him.

park sunghoon looks like someone you could know forever. a gaze so gentle that you’d think he’s known whoever he’s looking at for a thousand years—a touch so tender that it’s unbelievable that he’s never loved anyone else.

the smile tugging at the corners of his lips dissolves into something almost disbelieving. sunghoon’s forehead dips, just enough so that your face comes into full focus, and the space between you disappears disappears so gradually that neither of you seem to notice how your noses almost brush.

his breath ghosts over your lips. warm, nothing like the cold air that’s enveloping you both. sunghoon hesitates for a moment—even now, he wonders just what he’s done to deserve this. he wants you to choose, and you do.

closing the distance, your lips find his with all the gentleness of someone coming home after being gone for too long.

for one impossible, weightless moment, the whole world seems to narrow until it is nothing more than the warmth of your mouth against his. the quiet rush of wind rolling off your skin, your hand tightening ever so slightly around the fabric gathered at his chest—every sleepless night, every apology, every version of this moment he'd rehearsed alone in his room dissolves the instant you kiss him back.

park sunghoon's convinced nothing has ever felt this right.

you're soft against him, kissing him with the same quiet hesitation you've carried all evening, as though you're still afraid that pressing yourself any closer might shatter whatever fragile thing the two of you have only just managed to rebuild. meanwhile, sunghoon melts into it like he's been starving—he holds himself back for only a heartbeat before months of missed chances quietly unravel between you, his hand sliding around your waist with a tenderness so instinctive it almost startles him. he gathers you closer, careful enough to let you pull away whenever you want. you do not.

instead, your fingers slip from the front of his hoodie to the back of his neck, threading into the soft hair resting there. the movement draws the smallest, almost inaudible breath from him, and before he realises he's doing it, he's smiling into the kiss.

it’s contagious. you’re smiling now, too.

your lips part around a tiny, breathless laugh, and the sound is enough to make a smile form on his face. sunghoon leans in again without thinking, chasing another kiss, only for the movement to catch you off guard. you stumble back half a step, dragging him with you by the collar of his hoodie until the both of you have to force yourselves to stand properly.

your foreheads bump together as his arm tightens instinctively around your waist, trying to stop you from losing your balance.

“do you kiss all your girlfriends like this, sunghoon?”

“don’t piss me off,” his arm loosens from your waist for half a second, just enough for you to stumble before he catches you immediately, pulling you back against his chest with an annoyed sigh. “i don’t kiss anyone else.”

“i could’ve died right here. do you even care about me? should i just die right now?”

“i’m not even going to answer that, y/n.”

─────────────────────────

“who gave you my number?”

by the time the two of you find yourselves right outside your apartment building, the streets have grown quieter. most of the shops have already pulled their shutters halfway down, leaving only convenience stores and late-night cafés spilling warm light onto the pavement. the walk here had taken nearly an hour—your car is still parked at campus, but sunghoon promised to pay the overnight fee anyway. neither of you remember deciding to take the longer route back to your place, but every turn just seemed like another excuse to keep talking.

you stop right in front of your building. the path is uneven here, the road tilted upward; the automatic doors slide shut behind somebody leaving, and the chime hums softly before settling into silence again.

“sooha,” you smile. the blush that infects sunghoon’s face spreads like a wildfire—you’re the one teasing now, after an entire day of his antics. “you had a thing with her, i’m guessing?”

“well, i wouldn’t call it a thing,” sunghoon sighs, thumb rubbing against the back of yours. he swallows before looking at you again. “i’ll be honest with you—we were hooking up.”

he watches your expression carefully for a shift. anything that'll tell him you were upset, or livid—anything at all. he swore he wouldn't blame himself if you were. how would he have known that the love of his life would waltz right in thirty minutes after sooha's exit?

sunghoon adds on a little too quickly. “it was before you.”

“how long?” you ask, tilting your head. curiosity, it seems, but these are dangerous waters that sunghoon’s treading. based on past experiences, his partners (can he even call them that?) never took to well to a previous acquiantance.

sunghoon almost considers lying, just to make himself sound better, before deciding against it. he's never been too good at that anyway. “on and off. a few months, maybe. nothing that meant anything.”

he exhales through his nose, something between a laugh and a wince. “i know. i wasn't—i didn't handle it well. i never called it anything, and i never made her think it was anything, but i also never stopped it when i probably should have.” he pauses, “that’s my fault.”

it's such a sunghoon answer. blunt and completely unflattering to himself, a lack of an attempt to soften it into something easier to hear. you almost want to laugh at how little effort he puts into making himself look good, like it hasn't occurred to him that he could, and you’d never be able to prove otherwise.

you nod, trying to hold your laugh in at the sight of his face. he looks like he's just seen a ghost, no matter how much he tries to hide it—lips pursed together instinctively, eyes wide and scanning yours for any hint of anger. “okay. good to know.”

you give his hand a small squeeze before beginning to loosen your fingers from his, only enough to shift your grip more comfortably. “i appreciate the honesty.”

sunghoon keeps staring. “that's it?”

“were you expecting more questions, hoon?” you can't help but smile now, your free hand covering your mouth in an attempt to hide how adorable you find him. “i didn't know you back then. you were still staring at me weird from the stairs.”

“i was not staring,” sunghoon shakes his head, a stray strand of hair falling loose over his brow with the motion. “you were staring. i’m surprised heeseung didn't notice.”

your jaw drops, mouth falling open in mock offense. "excuse me?"

“whatever. it’s over now, right?” sunghoon sighs, dragging a hand down his face in dramatic disapproval, fingers pausing briefly over his eyes like he's shielding himself from the sight of your face. "not really trying to share you with him."

“you're so annoying!” you shove at his shoulder, and he barely rocks with it, solid where he's standing, biting back a grin like he's trying—badly—to look unaffected.

sunghoon's mouth curls into a smile that reaches his eyes—dark in this dim light. he's still taller than you despite standing a few steps higher, your face now level with his, close enough that you can count the individual strands of hair falling loose over his forehead.

his hair is still a mess from the wind, and from your fingers ruffling through the strands earlier—sticking up at odd angles he clearly hasn't bothered to fix, like it hadn't even occurred to him. his cheeks are still faintly red, yet to fully fade since you first touched his skin, and his ears are airbrushed with a soft pink he probably has no idea is visible.

you hope no one else has ever gotten to see it on him before.

it's quiet. no dogs this time, for some reason. it’s just the low hum of the streetlight above you, buzzing faintly, flickering once before steadying again. an occasional cricket announces its presence somewhere in the bushes lining the building, and beneath that, nothing. though, there’s just your own heartbeat, loud and unreasonable in your ears, and the sound of sunghoon breathing, slow and careful like he's trying not to disturb whatever this is.

sunghoon’s hand is still loosely wrapped around yours, thumb tracing an invisible circle over your knuckles—it’s not quite a habit yet, but close to being one, you can tell. you can feel the calluses along his palm, rough from what you assume is hockey, a strange and grounding kind of proof that this is real, that he's real, standing this close to you at almost midnight with his heart clearly in his throat.

and then, there’s you. even in this horrible, fluorescent lighting—the kind that makes everyone look a little sick—you look undeniably beautiful to him. almost glowing, or maybe he's just sleep-deprived enough that his eyes are playing tricks on him. either way, he thinks, quietly and with helplessness, that he has never wanted to kiss someone this badly in his entire life.

his gaze drops, just briefly, to your mouth. then back up, like he's asking permission before he's even said anything at all.

“can i kiss you, y/n?”

the question is so earnest it hurts. his voice is breathy, needy, everything that you could possibly ever need in a man right in front of you. you feel like if you fall for it—answer him right now, that your life ends here, because this is a trap, or a dream, or all of it at once.

you’re already leaning into him, tilting your head until your noses are brushing each other’s. sunghoon’s breathing so heavily that you feel it against your bottom lip, teasing, just asking for that final push.

one of his large hands settle at your waist. waiting. always waiting.

the kiss is slower than the last one. a little more desperate, maybe—you feel sunghoon’s large arms wrap around you again, tighter now, tongue swiping against your bottom lip, moving you as he pleases just so he can get the most of you.

you taste like him.

the thought’s driving him crazy. you've already confessed everything worth confessing tonight; now, there is only the quiet luxury of learning each other properly, without distance, without static, without the countdown of a call timer reminding either of you that morning would eventually come.

it’s messy in the way that two people are when they’re starving for each other. borderline greedy, too much tongue and then not enough at all, your hands running along the upper part of his back as you keep him anchored to you. sunghoon’s lips feel so perfect when they’re against yours, he genuinely believes that this is what he’s been chasing for all twenty-four years of his life.

every time one of you pulls back to breathe, the other closes the distance again without thinking, as though separating has become something your bodies no longer understand. your fingers wander instinctively over the broad line of his shoulders before settling against the back of his neck, keeping him close without ever needing to ask.

sunghoon’s hands remain anchored at your waist, warm through the fabric of your clothes, thumbs tracing absent little movements that make your pulse flutter for reasons you can't quite explain.

“not here, hoon—” you mumble against his lips before he pulls you right back in. so annoying. sunghoon’s lips crash into yours again, still just as curious, palm flat against the small of your back.

“hm?” the sound vibrates softly between you before he finally relents, resting his forehead against yours instead. one of his hands slides carefully along the curve of your side until it settles once more at the small of your back, holding you as though he'd forgotten any other way to stand. “...tell me where, then.”

you shake your head once, trying very unsuccessfully to compose yourself before meeting his eyes again.

you’re huffing, trying to catch your breath when your hands fall to his chest. the guy is looking at you with the most feverish smile, eyes narrowing because he knows he’s got you flustered.

“upstairs,” you murmur, barely louder than the evening breeze slipping between the apartment buildings. your fingers fist at his hoodie. “come upstairs.”

─────────────────────────

park sunghoon likes to think that he’s good at sex.

there’s nothing complicated about it, really. he knows he’s good at most things.

his body—he knows it’s the kind most people would kill for, the kind other men spend half their lives trying to build. of that, he’s well aware. hockey, school, laundry, cooking, smiling and talking as if nothing’s ever the matter. he’s reduced it to a science: technique, precision, mastery, painstakingly perfected.

the data is there. they scream, they cry out of sheer pleasure, they moan like no one else exists but him, but park sunghoon. he predicts it in the same way he knows he’ll get that perfect score, and make that one ‘lucky’ shot—it’s calculation in it’s most unsurprising form.

human bodies are scientific. their anatomy is roughly similar, so he knows if he moves just like this, whispers just like that, she’ll fold. she’ll crumble underneath him like it’s her first time ever sleeping with a man, clinging onto sunghoon like what he’s doing is some lost art among the modern male.

there’s significant amounts of advice online to tell him how to please a woman. it’s not rocket science applying these concepts in practice, as he’s done—and sure, it’s done himself favours. there were nights where sunghoon couldn’t believe that he’d ever quit hook ups, but soon realised that that’s just how his brain works: that that’s just what the dopamine rush whispers into your ears as you cum for the third consecutive time.

there is a nice predictability in sex. it’s instinct, and where there is instinct, there is nature and nature is almost always studied—even if it’s an utter waste of time, stress relief aside.

though, when he finds himself stumbling into your apartment, kicking off his shoes and slide his hoodie off his back while simultaneously trying to keep his lips on yours, he finds himself wanting time to slow itself down.

just something about you, he thinks. that look on your cute face, staring at him like you didn’t know what to do with the heat pooling between your legs; you stumble against him a few times while you both try to find your way to your bedroom, shoulders nudging against light switches and shoving a few chairs out of place. your laundry is still on the couch from this morning, you note—but when sunghoon puts his hand on your jaw, forcing you to look at him—the reminder fades completely.

“what am i going to do with you?” sunghoon grins, letting his ass fall to the edge of the bed. sitting up, his hoodie’s discarded somewhere by the entryway, and the only article of clothing left being his jeans. his hands roam your body—up and down, before looping around your waist and pulling you between his spread legs. “so pretty.”

you whimper when his hands begin sliding underneath your top. “can i, baby?”

it’s almost pathetic how fast you nod. your hands rest on his shoulders, eyes locked on the way he leans closer to your belly. sunghoon’s slender fingers move up your warm skin, now burning hot under his touch, and eventually, he lifts your shirt completely.

“you sure about this, y/n?” sunghoon looks up, pupils blown with his cheek resting against your bare stomach. “we can stop. whatever you wanna do—”

“n-no,” you sigh, watching sunghoon’s eyes blink up at you, so dazed. “i want you, hoon.”

he hums at your response, turning his head so his lips touch the skin of your belly. they’re still wet from your earlier kisses, pressing nice and slow until he reaches from your belly button to your ribcage. truthfully, sunghoon’s mind has already gone to mush at the mere scent of you: the sweat from the day and your perfume blending into one, the heat from your body, that he just can’t help but to start leaving hickeys along the exposed area.

“i’ll make you feel so good, y/n,” he mumbles against your skin. “but you gotta be good for me. you can do that, can’t you?”

oh. he’s that kind of guy.

something’s flipping in your stomach—simmering low, intense, nothing like you’ve ever felt before. you stare down at him, face visibly flushed from the way he’s touching you; your knees almost buckle upon hearing his voice, and sunghoon can’t help but let a chuckle out at that in between kisses.

“can’t hear you. speak up for me.”

you swallow, feeling sunghoon’s hands exploring further—until his thumbs are right on your nipples, bypassing your annoying bra, rubbing gentle circles, smiling up at you like he’s done nothing too crazy.

“y-yeah, i can,” your voice comes out a tad too soft for his liking, evidently, because his little grin fades into something more displeased.

sunghoon stands up instead, large hands hooking around the hem of your shirt and helping to pull it off of you. your arms point to the ceiling, naturally, letting the fabric part from you with a gasp—the cold air hits your skin, and the wet imprints of kisses on your stomach feel even icier now.

he moves back to your stomach, taking in your scent; it’s even more potent now when you’re bare like this. curiosity gets the better of him once his nose bumps against your bra, his hair nuzzling against your chest as one of his hands move to unclasp it. effortless.

“sunghoon, stop teasing,” you whine, watching him lean back. sunghoon pulls your bra off of you on one swift motion. it’s an understatement to say that you were pretty—just gorgeous when you’re naked in front of him like this.

he ignores you. asshole.

sunghoon’s fingers hook around your skirt next—not quite pulling it down just yet. then, almost as if you’ve done something wrong, he stands up.

you forget how huge he is for a second. when the dim warmth of your lamp hits him, you lose your breath completely. every muscle is highlighted in orange, the definition outlined by shadows that leave you wanting, and it’s like air is caught in your throat from how unfairly good he looks.

“i’ll ask again,” sunghoon mutters, hands back down to your waist, and then your hips, and then he’s flipping you over onto the mattress. “you’ll be good for me, won’t you?”

whatever. fuck it.

all sense of reasoning leaves your body at once. sunghoon cages you between his arms, staring into your eyes, and the look in them sends pure electricity through your veins. he looks hungry, thirsty, like he needed you right now or he’d die.

and still, he waits for an answer.

“i’ll be s-so good, hoonie, i promise.”

the nickname doesn’t leave a bad taste in his mouth anymore. it’s been a while since he’s heard it—but when it comes from you, god, it sounds like it’s dripping in honey and coaxing him into whatever trap you laid out for him.

“gonna fucking kill me,” he rasps, pulling away before pressing a kiss to your cheek, down to your jaw, then to the patch of skin underneath your earlobe. the feeling of his warm tongue sliding against your skin makes you shudder—combined with his fingers pressing into your back, feeling every inch of skin, savouring the feeling of you;

when sunghoon first walked in, he noticed how unbearably you your room was. decorated in posters of your favourite bands, little trinkets here and there that he has no clue how you keep organized. his eyes glazed over your desk, your laptop, your lamp, and everything that you chose to keep that would now remind him of you—right now, your legs are wrapped around his hips, heels digging into his ass while he grinds nice and slow against the warmth of your pussy—feeling right through your panties, skirt tossed somewhere in the corner of the room.

what was most interesting about your room was that mirror in the corner—perhaps he was a pervert for wondering, only for a moment, if you had ever touched yourself in front of that very reflection. he could imagine your legs spread in desperation, knuckles deep in yourself as you chased whatever high you terribly wanted.

did you think of anyone? did you get off to the sound of his voice? though, most importantly, would you let him ruin you in front of that little mirror of yours?

“can i take this off?” he whispers into your ear, hands roaming down from your neck and to the lace around your panties—you nod again, and the chuckle that escapes his lips only sends shivers down your spine.

your legs fall to the side of his thighs, leaving you bare and spread in front of his eyes. “what about you?”

sunghoon literally laughs in your face. “be patient, baby. haven’t even gotten you nice ‘n loose yet.”

your breath hitches at his vulgarity. the image pops up behind your eyelids: sunghoon’s long, pretty fingers buried somewhere deep in you, curled at the perfect angle and prodding at that one spot that makes you sees stars—how long would it take for him to get there? would he even know how to?

famous last words, as they say. it takes four minutes for sunghoon to have your thighs pinned to the mattress, three to have the tip of his index and middle fingers inside of you and two to get you whimpering like a hot, pathetic mess.

maybe just one to get you soaking his wrists.

“what’s wrong, baby?” sunghoon pouts. his eyes are glimmering in the dark, the tiny light left outside reflecting off his irises. in this atmosphere it just seems like a mockery. “too much for my pretty girl? she can’t seem to get enough, though.”

and then his eyes flick down to where you suck him in—glistening, disgustingly sloppy and wet where you take every inch like it was always meant to be yours. it’s times like these where you truly believe fate is real; because there’s just no way you were this close to going your entire life without this—without sunghoon’s fingers buried knuckle deep into you.

“h-hoon, ugh—fuck!” you squeal when he curls his fingers just right, and he just watches, an eyebrow raised like you were some intriguing specimen. just a body underneath his touch, poking and prodding and spreading you as wide as he can, as best as he can. everything he does seems to illicit some reaction from you, too amusing for him to stop. “please, gonna cum, i’m gonna cum, ngh—”

“so quick?” sunghoon sighs, kissing his teeth. “god, you’re so cute. must be too much, then?”

and then, he slows down. ripping your delicious orgasm right from your useless fingers.

“n-noooo,” you drawl, nails clawing into sunghoon’s veiny forearms as he nods slowly, expecting a coherent answer. what a mistake, as if you could even think straight right now. “it’s not—it’s not, fuck, i can take it.”

sunghoon chuckles, head tilting up just enough to get your pretty face in full view. “reaaally? need my permission to cum, too?”

your stomach flips at the way he says it—low and sultry and teasing, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. rearranging your guts with his hands alone, whispering these ridiculous things to you, expecting zero reactions. is he stupid? has he lost it?

“you trying to snap my fingers off? relax, baby. can’t have that.”

the humiliation washes over you rather quickly, but disappears just as fast when you feel every muscle in your body beginning to lock up. the words can’t even find themselves, too lost in your mushy brain—everything narrows down to the man with his hands between your legs, pumping his stupidly long fingers in n’ out, watching you lose every piece of sanity you have left.

“who’d have known. such a sensitive girl,” and his thumb brushes against your swollen clit with just enough pressure to have you twitching, but never to cross that final, potentially fatal line. “do you always cum this fast?”

sunghoon sighs dramatically. if you couldn’t see his face, you’d have assumed that he was irritated with you—but your eyes haven’t left his, nor the red in his cheeks and his slightly parted lips, groaning whenever you buck your hips against his palm, feeling the friction of your clit against his skin. they occasionally glance down at the tent in his pants, fighting against tight cloth to be freed, twitching and already forming a dark, wet patch where his tip would be.

“oh my god,” you moan, gripping tight around his wrists. there’s a part of you that just wants to sit up and grind against his hand yourself, but that’d be much too embarrassing to live with. “can’t—can’t, i j-jus… can’t, please, hoonie—”

the words ring a bell that he can’t quite recall, is what he would say if his memory was absolutely terrible. the man remembers exactly when and where you said those terrible, terrible things, under a streetlamp and in a park he had never seen before; so sure that he’d never see you again, and now, here you are, losing your mind and at his mercy.

“oh.” sunghoon grins. cocky little bastard. “you close? gonna make a mess on hoonie? c’mon, soak me. won’t stop ‘till you do.”

there’s something utterly perverted about him tonight. hoonie was never an exclusive nickname, of course—generic by all means. sooha had taken great pleasure moaning and whimpering that exact term a hundred-something nights ago, and sunghoon swears that he must’ve been in a completely different body then. wonders how he ever let the name reach his ears without gritting his teeth, but now that you’re here… it’s like a completely different world has opened before his eyes, and his cock has never, ever been harder.

how could he have fucked anyone else when you existed? how could you have slept with other people when he was right there? the selfish thought invades his sick brain as fast as he feels his cock swell up.

never-mind that. this is way more important—there comes a point during sex where all the pleasure folds in on itself and magnifies by tenfold, becoming it’s own force, taking over your nervous system—nothing matters. sunghoon doesn’t matter. your pride definitely does not matter.

so it’s not really your fault, is it? couldn’t possibly be, even if you’re sitting yourself up (with an unreasonable amount of effort) and grinding your hips against his large, calloused hands, and whining like a bitch in heat against his mouth. even less so now that sunghoon’s letting you—his breath is taken from him when your tongue slides against his, wet and soft and everything he needs to get that pretty cunt fluttering around his digits.

“my filthy girl,” he moans between kisses, his warm breath ghosting against your glossy lips. your arms are running up and down his shoulders and finding a place to stay anchored, and when they finally do, sunghoon doesn’t wince one bit when your nails dig in, out, and in again. “just look at you, fucking yourself stupid on my fingers.”

you don’t hear him. genuinely. it’s all buzzing and static and you feel yourself starting to shake from the hip up. you shudder when he flexes his fingers, and it’s like everything you’ve ever done has led to tonight, every choice, every mistake.

“h-hoonie, ‘m sorry—fuck, need more of you,” you press a searing kiss to his bottom lip, almost missing completely and letting your mouth fall open against his anyway. your breath feel like fire against his skin, and sunghoon can only groan when he feels your walls spasming around his slender fingers. “please, i’ll be so good.”

sunghoon does that same, amused grin on his face, just watching you pant underneath him. the expression only reminds you of that night: you in the kitchen, and him, watching you from the front door on new years eve.

the corner of his lips turn upwards and it’s nothing short of pure perversion—tongue poking at the inside of his cheek, face red with heat crawling up his neck, and an eyebrow cocked up. “are you actually begging me right now? while you’re riding my hand like this?”

you nod your head, frantic. of course you’re fucking begging. it’s been an entire lifetime of teasing and sunghoon’s still dangling the idea of fucking you in your face, just revelling in your visceral and absolutely humiliating reactions.

your mind’s going blank. every thought diverges into park sunghoon and every desire has his stupidly handsome face plastered onto it. your stomach’s so tense that it’s starting to hurt, and you feel lightheaded from how often your breath gets taken right from you—so close, and yet, still so far.

“yes, pleasepleaseplease, i—”

“god, you’re greedy,” sunghoon mumbles under his breath, using his free hand to push you backwards. your spine hits the mattress with a recoil, and the springs creak just enough to muffle the pathetic whine that slips off your lips. “just an ungrateful girl. fine, then.”

and then, there’s nothing. just that mind-numbing feeling of having your body be sent to heaven, only to be denied at the pearly gates.

your heart’s pounding at the sight of him: warm, glistening skin under the dimness of your lamp, chest heaving as he pulls his fingers out from your slick entrance—it feels increasingly, unbearably empty as he retracts his ridiculously long digits. sunghoon does nothing but enjoy the view, eyes glazing over the way your body twists and turns at his cruel punishment.

“come on. again.”

who does he think he is, really? you kiss and make up, and in the same day, he makes you beg for a little gratification? does he have any idea what he put you through? to be truthful, you could go on and on about how he doesn’t deserve any sort of control over you—

“please, hoonie. i’ll take everything—fuck, just fuck me already.”

fuck it. you don’t care. it doesn’t matter that park sunghoon is toying with you. you need him, you need all of him, you need every inch of skin that he’s willing to give and every word he’ll spit at you.

park sunghoon isn’t exactly inexperienced with sex. he knows that intimacy is one of man’s greatest discoveries, and it’s only natural that he participates in it. as one does. what’s not normal is that he’s never felt this before: this insatiable, lustful heat simmering in his core, making his cock twitch before it’s even been touched.

god, you look so perfect—spread bare beneath him with inner thighs soaked in your own juices, whining and pleading and begging for a taste of him, as if he wasn’t holding himself back already. you’re truly the greediest, just taking and taking even if he tries to take his time.

there’s blood lingering in his mouth and the metal feels sharp on his tongue, and still, he continues biting on his lip. sunghoon’s eyes never leave yours, hands coming down to unbuckle his belt with a single hand—the other pins your knees open, and while you squirm under the pressure, you never quite gain the courage to defy.

when sunghoon finally leans forward, the scent of him is enough to overwhelm your nervous system; he grunts when your arms wrap around his neck, and your nose nuzzles against his neck like it has nowhere else to go. a deep breath in and it’s like you’ve never felt more alive than now.

“this enough for you?”

he picks up on everything. from the way your eyes never stay on his for too long, to the way you twitch when he presses his briefs right against your cunt—your breathy moans in his ear as he leans in close, and how quickly you stain the spandex with your slick, mixing with his sticky pre.

“this should be fine, right? my girl can cum juuust like this.” sunghoon’s voice is the only thing cutting through the fog in your head. it’s spinning so much that gripping onto him is serving as the only anchor to your consciousness. your nails drag along this trapezius, sinking into the superficial skin, waiting for a reaction that never comes—instead, all he can offer is a mocking smile, fangs bare and taunting.

his hips are teasing. he moves them slow, taking his time with every drag of up and down, the fabric sliding between your pretty folds and swollen clit; there’s a brief second where he feels the tip of his cock slide into you through the barrier of clothing, only to slip free when he slides up again.

“so perfect,” sunghoon whispers into the conch of your ear—you don’t realise what he’s said until you feel his sharp teeth gliding against your helix, before he finally nips at it. “you’re so perfect, baby. made for me, aren’t you? can’t believe i almost let you go.”

sunghoon thinks about how ridiculous he must look right now—humping your poor cunt like he’s in heat, holding himself back for reasons beyond him, whispering these obscenely intimate things in your ears like he doesn’t want to fuck you right this second. the strain on his cock is getting too much; blood’s rushing down, he’s aching, and he doesn’t know how much longer he has left before he flips you over and has your ass slapping against his skin.

“hoon, fuck, i’m gonna cum,” you say, bucking your hips up just once. wrong move. “please, don’t fucking stop—it feels so good.” sunghoon’s head turns in your direction, nose brushing against your cheek before his mouth meets yours again. he doesn’t care that they don’t latch properly, nor that he’s practically drinking in your saliva, or that he’s gonna cum just from feeling the friction between your bodies. all sunghoon truly cares about is that you’re holding him like he’s all you truly need in this world.

“yeah? just from this?” sunghoon’s hand comes up to grip at your jaw, thumb and index pressing deep into the flesh of your cheeks. his body feels heavy on top of you, quick little movements doing the most to get you both over the edge—and though he still seems a little more composed than you, it all goes to shit when your fingers graze the sides of his ribs. “fuck—do it. cum for me, please, y/n—”

his hands run up your arms until his fingers are tracing your palms, slithering between your own, before finally interlacing. sunghoon’s pressing sweet kisses to your jawline as you moan into thin autumn air, feeling the vibrations of his groans against your throat; he moves at a frenzied pace, chasing friction that won’t ever compare to being buried tip to cervix, but it’s all he can get right now.

“i’m fucking cumming, hoon, oh my god—”

twenty seconds. twenty seconds is all he needs to have you gushing all over the spandex of his briefs, and twenty-five is all you need to chase his lips because you know you’ll scream if you don’t. perhaps around thirty for him to stop feeling like the room is spinning, and him along with it—your tongues meet and circle on another’s again, moans clashing between desperate attempts to slow down, and it’s only sixty for him to finally hook his thumbs around his boxers and shove them down his thighs.

thwap.

sunghoon’s heavy in a way you can’t say out loud. words get caught in your throat, with nothing but a pathetic hitch in your breath being audible. he’s so unbelievably pretty, flushed a deep red from the relentless teasing he’s put you through, serving as confirmation that he’s wanted this as much as you have.

he stares for a minute, catching his breath, before his hand reaches for you—spreading your folds wide between his fingers, watching it glisten under the orange light, almost sparkling if he could look close enough. the sheets below are soaked with you—a large, wet patch that’s darker compared to the rest of the pink duvet.

“thought about this pretty pussy for weeks,” sunghoon lets his saliva collect in the well of his tongue, before spitting a thick glob riiight onto your entrance. “and now you’re aaaall mine. aren’t you, baby?”

sunghoon looks up just as the name rolls off his tongue. you look absolutely wrecked, hair tangled in places where you didn’t even know it could get tangled—tear stains running down your face and highlighting the flush on your cheeks so well. your eyes are wide, caught between staring at his leaking cock and his expectant eyes, shifting between the two every now and then;

a reverent sigh leaves you when sunghoon begins pumping himself, nice and slow using his hand, spreading the pre all over his hardened length. sounds of wet slick echo through the room as he strokes, just enough to get himself wet, before his knees shift forward and he’s finally, finally letting himself touch you without a stupid barrier.

“gonna stuff this pussy full,” sunghoon hisses through his teeth. “pump you full of my cum, fuck, i can’t hold back anymore—” his right hand wraps around the base of his cock, the back of your knees brushing against his thighs as he pulls you flush against him. you’re still heaving by the time he taps his mushroom tip against your folds, running it along the wetness of it, once or twice before aligning himself with you.

“you’re so… annoying,” you huff, eyebrows pinched together, watching his jaw go slack at how warm you feel even from the outside. sunghoon’s stomach is in knots, anticipating the moment he finally sheathes himself all the way, how you’d probably claw at his skin from the sheer stretch—

and that’s exactly what you do.

“f-fuuuuck, hoon! it’s too—you’re too—”

park sunghoon is thick. so undeniably heavy and dizzying, pushing past your walls, and as much as you clench and squirm around him, they offer no real resistance. your pussy takes him in like it needs him—squelching when he bottoms out at last, big arms caging your relatively smaller head between them—all the air in your lungs feels like it’s being siphoned out.

who the fuck is this big? when was the last time you’ve had something this huge inside of you?

“o-oh my fucking god,” his eyes screw shut for one, weightless second, before they shoot back open. he stares down at where you two finally meet, your velvet walls fluttering around him so warmly, a desperate whimper clawing it’s way out of his throat that’s interrupted by a messy kiss.

“so perfect, baby, you’re so perfect,” he mumbles against your swollen lips, hips at a standstill because he plain refuses to move—convinced that he’ll cum as soon if he so much as shifts his weight. “wish you could see your face. so pretty when you’re taking me.”

“you’re… fucking… crazy,” you whisper against his mouth before your hands tangle in his hair; they bunch around the dark locks, pushing his lips against yours again, and he laughs between the sloppy attempts to lock your lips together—noses bump and his forehead thuds against yours. “just fuck me, please, hoon.”

“look at what you do to me,” he sighs, his warm breath sending shivers down your spine. borderline addictive the way you wriggle underneath his touch, like you know his size would knock you out cold, but you still beg through small movements. “all your fault, isn’t it? and you keep asking for more. just a needy little slut for me, huh?”

and then his hips retract—pulling out halfway, your cunt still weeping from the reduced contact. he looks back down, hair falling over his forehead, marvelling at the way his cock glistens with you. so utterly filthy.

you whimper when you feel the emptiness. his veins slide against your gummy walls as he pulls out agonizingly slow. “don’t wanna hear you complaining tomorrow morning, then.”

sunghoon’s pace is slow at first. gentle, sweet thrusts that still manage to make you see stars—he’s too afraid to hurt you, too busy savouring in the sweet moans that sprinkle in his name every once in a while. he feels hot, every bone in his body begging for him to hurry and stuff you full of his cock—but how could he? you’re taking him so well just like this, and all he wants is to drag every second out longer, until he dies blissfully happy in this pussy of yours.

“fuck, mmngh—” and the man slams his lips against yours as his fingers find yours again. you wonder just how many times you’ve managed to kiss tonight, but the thought immediately wipes itself clean when he angles his hips so deliciously right that you feel him all the way in your throat.

“shit, i can’t—you’re too fucking big,” the sound of your breath shakes, too much for his brain to compute, and something primal claws at his sick brain until all he’s thinking about is folding your knees up and bullying your cunt ‘till it’s red. you moan into nothing, hands running over every hard-earned muscle in his back, eyes screwing shut because looking at him feels like a perverted form of self-torture. “fuck, you feel so good, hoonie.”

“yeah?” and sunghoon literally feels every thread of sanity snap when you say his name again. “fuck, look at me then—wanna see your pretty face.” your thighs shake with every slap of wet skin, his heavy body shifting the bed closer to the wall as he pounds and pounds and pounds. his hands move the damp strands of hair out of your eyes, ensuring the perfect, unobstructed view.

you mewl, all sweet and so coaxing when he presses an innocent kiss to your cheek. it’s wet and salty on his tongue, but sunghoon’s smiling so wide that you think he must’ve truly fucking lost it completely.

“want you harder, hoon—not enough, please,” you whisper against his mole. there’s just something in the way you’re batting your eyelashes at him that he thinks is sending his nervous system into overdrive, but it’s irrelevant now. your pleas sound like honey to his ears, but the one singular thought that keeps circling his mind is if you’ll be able to take him like that.

his hands slide back down, stopping right where your tits are—his thumb grazes the hardened bud before he begins to palm at the mound of flesh. “f-fuck—”

“god, can’t hold myself back anymore,” sunghoon’s nose nuzzles against your neck and he takes his time breathing in your scent. the smell of your shampoo lingers, now masked mostly by sweat and fading perfume, and it faintly reminds him of a familiar library where all he could focus on was you, you, you.

you, beautiful you. you who’s underneath him now, pleading with him to give you what you want—still so naive, still so unaware, asking for things you have no idea what to do with—you, who bats her eyelashes with a curiosity he doesn’t know how to address, not without showing you.

he licks a long stripe along your jaw, rutting into you a little faster now. sunghoon’s hands find their way to the sides of your head; rationality has long left him, and his brain’s all foggy with visions of you. he wonders if he could take you just as well on the counter, on the desk, or by the window, and he just gets needier.

he’s getting sloppy and his brain’s all fuzzy. he’s not even sure what the rush is; when there’s someone else in his bed, he almost always finds it easier to take his time. teasing, foreplay, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it—he realised that the reactions he got were much more visceral.

but now—god, he needs you to cum around his cock as soon as possible.

“f-fuck, ngh—pussy was made just for me,” he mutters under his breath, pushing himself up—he towers over you like this, lowlights bathing his skin in warmth all over again as his arms wander down to your waist, then your hips, and then to the back of your knees. “w-what’s wrong, hm? gotta speak up, baby. let me hear you. all that talking was just for show, huh?”

“f-fuuuuh—hoon, please, t-too much—”

“ah-ah, take it like the good girl you are,” his eyebrows knit together in focus, and a bead of sweat rolls down his face, down his chin and drips right onto the valley of your breasts. “y-yeaaah, see? just like that.”

you’re choking on a sob by the time he folds your knees up—brutal, to say the least. your tits get squished by your thighs as he pins your legs up, sunghoon’s rough fingers wound tight around the soft flesh, bullying his way into your poor cunt.

the sounds echoing through the room might as well be featured in a porno. your moans mix until it’s an amalgamation of yeses, gentle sobs, and sunghoon’s relentless teasing. every thrust knocks the wind out of you, your hands clawing at his wrists and leaving red streaks—but the pain barely even reaches him—the only thing on sunghoon’s mind is how gorgeous you look underneath him, taking every inch like it’s what you were born to do, moaning the name he spent so long hating;

“f-fuck, i love you, love fucking this pussy so much—” he hisses through his teeth, eyes zeroed on the way your eyes roll every time he buries himself to the hilt. your head tilts back, throat bobbing as you swallow back embarrassing moan after embarrassing moan—sunghoon’s making it difficult with the way he presses against your belly with one hand, the other holding your left thigh up. “shit, baby, you can be louder than that, can’t you?”

oh, fuck park sunghoon. fuck this stupidly huge cock drilling it’s way through you, and fuck this ridiculously gorgeous man who has you biting back screams, fuck everything, fuck how good you feel—your vision is clouding, stars exploding behind your eyelids every time you shut them, and all you can do is just sit and take it. “s-sunghoon, a-ah—slow down, i’m gonna fucking cum again—”

he kisses his teeth, now resorting to grinding his hips against yours. the angle is new, almost beautiful in it’s discovery. his hands are too curious, before settling on the fat of your ass, palming and fondling and treating it like his personal stress-toy until—

smack.

the moan you let out on contact is nothing short of humiliating. his palm smooths over the handprint, now blooming red right before his eyes, and your brain actually short-circuits for a second.

“fuck,” sunghoon laughs, mocking, rude and mean all in one. “you into that shit?”

the sting sends electricity through your body. sunghoon pulls his hips back just enough, before sliding back between your pretty folds so slow that it actually makes you gasp. every single time he pushes himself back in, it’s like you have to get used to it all over again—the stretch never becomes familiar, always melting your brain and forcing every coherent thought you have to mere nonsense.

“god, you’re such a fucking slut,” sunghoon’s head tilts back momentarily, his hair falling with the gravity and sending little drops of sweat down his neck and onto his back. his heart’s beating all wild now, cock aching for more friction, more force, more of you; so greedy and full of desire, bringing his hand up to land another harsh blow to your ass.

“a-ah—hoon!” you hiss, but you never really try to stop it. you squirm, hips jerking with every slap he decides to give you, but sunghoon knows your cunt tells a different tale: your pussy clenches around him so tight that it’s suffocating him, just begging for his load, and it’s driving him insane. “t-too rough, i can’t—slow down, fuck, you’re gonna break the bed in half—”

it’s true. the frame’s creaking upon each thrust, headboard slamming against the walls, but why would sunghoon care? fuck, he’ll buy you a whole new bedroom if he has to, so long as you just let him have you like this for a little longer.

“don’t give a shit, haa—i’ll buy you a new one, mm? fuck you again ‘till we break that one too. bet you’d want that, wouldn’t you?” he grins, and the corner of his lips turn up sharply when he sees how utterly fucked out you look. there’s this familiar expression he’s seen on other girls—when sunghoon proves to be too much for them to handle, and they end up tapping out—but it’s none of that on you. no matter how much you cry that you can’t take it, you cling onto him like the only thing you know, want, and need is him.

“answer me.”

and the coil in your stomach begins to tighten almost instantly—you don’t even realise that his hands have made it’s way up to your jaw, thumb and index pressing into the bone. a small squeal escapes your throat, and there it is again; that innocent look written all over your face, making sunghoon’s stomach do somersaults. his grip gets firmer with each passing second, before you finally manage to speak:

“y-yes, fuck, need it—i want it, pleasepleasepolease, sunghoon!”

it’s times like these were sunghoon really is convinced he’ll never quit sex. not when there’s a woman like you, with a pussy like this, with a voice so sweet that it makes his chest ache and his cock drip pre. it’s quite a confusing matter, actually, considering he’s never been one to talk too much during the act—that shit just leads nowhere, and feelings get confused by the time he comes down from his high, but god, he doesn’t think his mouth can stop at this rate, not when it’s you he’s buried in.

“yeaaah? gonna cream all over me, baby? make a mess all over this cock, come on.” sunghoon nods feverishly, both hands pinned to the undersides of your knees now, pushing you deeper and deeper into the mattress. your mind tries to catch up, but the pace at which he moves is too relentless for any real thought to form.

his hair falls over his face when he leans forward, just enough to press his full weight down on you. sunghoon’s washboard abs tense every time your nails claw at his chest and just thinking felt weirdly impossible now. your mind’s reduced to slush, ears ringing with wet smacks and constant grunts from the man above you. there’s an occasional moan that slips from him, to which he realises, far too quickly, turns you on more than you’d (probably) ever be willing to admit. mental note for the next time he decides to rearrange your guts, he supposes.

sunghoon glances down again. just for a moment. in the past twenty seconds that’ve passed, you both don’t realise how close you’ve got, damp foreheads pressed against each other in something sweet in the midst of all the roughness. his grunts have transformed into something else completely—now laced with need and breathy pleas, begging.

“there we go, yeah—cum on my cock, please, baby. i’m so fucking close—”

“i love you.”

the words almost kill him.

something seems to have snapped almost instantaneously. park sunghoon’s lips crash into yours with newfound fervor, and every muscle in his body seems to be operating on the sole purpose of getting you to come undone. he’s so fucking tired, truly—but the pain fades and all the soreness in his muscles from yesterday’s practice is irrelevant now.

“yeah? you love me?” his pussydrunk face is the only thing in view, a small gasp slipping when he feels you clench down on him. his hips begin to stutter, jerk, pace faltering. his eyes stare into yours through the gaps in his damp hair, waiting for an answer. “fuck, say it again—please.”

“i love you, sunghoon,” you whisper, almost sultry, your voice barely reaching his ears but ghosting against his lips anyway. “i-i love you—”

a starving man he proves to be. his lips lock with yours again, and this time, they never really leave. his tongue swirls around yours, drinking up every sound that you have to offer, still rutting into your cunt like he needs to fuck a whole new generation into you. your core tenses up so much that you think you’re gonna pass out from the impending orgasm—all sunghoon does is moan into your mouth, fingers intertwining with yours as he abuses your pussy with ruthless strokes.

“i love you, y/n,” the words are so sweet it makes your head spin. it doesn’t correlate at all with the obscene view beneath you, his soaked pelvis and your thighs pressed up against your stomach—your hole squelches with every roll, now much messier and haphazard, and the high is so close that you can almost taste it on the tip of your tongue. “that’s it, baby. let it out for me, just like that.”

so cruel.

“c-cumming, fuck, i’m gonna cum, hoon—”

a revelation comes to sunghoon as soon as your walls begin spasming around his length—sunghoon has never had sex this good. you get impossibly tighter, and your moans are broken up by your lungs trying to take in more air. you sob when it hits, almost blinding in it’s entirety as sunghoon continues fucking you through it, feeling how you soak him from the inside and how it gets disgustingly easy to pound into you when you’re this wet.

“fuuuck, o-oh my god,” a guttural sound claws it’s way out of his throat. his forehead dips again, lips still glossy and tasting just like you, entranced by the way your pretty lips part in a silent scream that ends as a loud gasp. “you’re so fucking tight when you cum, shit—”

sunghoon is gone. just chasing his own release, sloppy thrusts making your juices splurt everywhere; your moans amplify and you’re barely holding your sanity together by the time you come back from whatever plane of reality you decided to visit. his thumb digs into the dip behind your knees, still trying to push his cock deeper into you, tip grazing your cervix every now and then—god, it’s pure filth. you’re half convinced that you might have to take the stairs tomorrow if you want to avoid your upstairs neighbour.

humans are truly just animals. sunghoon proves just as much with how frantic he is to spill himself inside of you. truthfully, the thought is stirring him on more than he’d like to admit—which is kind of scary, if he thinks too long about it. it’s a shame that he’s incapable of that right now, because all he manages to babble is:

“please, y/n, can i? let me cum inside of you, please, please—shit, need to fill you up, wanna see it dripping out of you all fucking night, please.”

and you, as drunk on him as he is on you, nods like it’s all you’ve ever needed in life.

sunghoon’s hips snap against your ass, eyebrows knit in frustration and lips parted to let an animalistic groan out. you take it, all of it, from the way he kisses you like he wants to eat you up, to the way he thumbs at your clit because he just needs you to unravel with him again. selfish as he is, he can’t have this alone—not when you look so beautiful breaking.

it takes ten seconds for you to cum for the second time, and him, eleven. it’s all heat and lust and pure hunger condensing into one, singular moment, where he buries himself to the hilt and spills months worth of holding back.

your walls pulse around him. your clit throbs unapologetically under his restless thumb, still circling nice ‘n slow as if you weren’t already gasping for air as it is. his dick almost feels like it’s getting bigger, twitching as it shoots load after load, hot and thick as it paints every crevice.

god, what the fuck. sunghoon’s panting when he finally collapses on top of you, the soreness from yesterday creeping up on him—though he has reason to believe it may be more of your doing. his face buries itself into your neck, not before his hands finally let your thighs loose, dropping right next to his, and for a minute, the two of you simply lay there.

sunghoon breathes you in again, slow enough that the scent of you settles somewhere deep in his chest. your arms slip around his neck without hesitation, fingers disappearing into the soft hair at the nape of it while your lips find his forehead in small, absent kisses that feel less like affection and more like habit. he lets out a quiet sigh against your shoulder, eyes falling shut as warmth spreads through him in steady waves.

“you smell good today.”

he lets himself believe, just for now, that it can stay this way, though it is probably foolish. if he were being honest, every sensible part of him should still be waiting for the other shoe to drop, for you to wake up and realise you've chosen the wrong person, for the guilt he's carried around for months to finally become heavier than whatever it is you've found in him. even after all of it, all you’ve dragged each other through—you’re still here, trusting him with your body.

confusing, he thinks. you’re so confusing.

“hoon,” you mumble against his skin. he hums in response. “you’re being weird—oh my god. stop sniffing me, i’m getting ticklish.”

he hums against your skin before taking another deep breath in. “don’t care.”

before you, none of this would have unsettled him. there had been other people, other nights, other attempts at filling the empty spaces—and it had been good. he had learned very early that casual was easy to survive because it demanded so little of him—he could leave before morning and return to his life unchanged, carrying nothing home except the faint smell of someone else’s perfume and the relief of having avoided being known. it never bothered him. if anything, he preferred it that way.

“can we wait a little longer?”

“didn’t know you were into cockwarming. you’re sick in the head.” you sigh dramatically, earning a groan from sunghoon—he shifts his weight slightly, hissing when he feels you squeeze around him again.

“just give me a minute,” he answers. “need to remember my first with you. should we take a selfie?”

you fist at his hair and sunghoon winces. “fuck, i was just kidding.”

four in the morning.

the clock on your nightstand blinks the numbers back at you in soft, white light, stubborn and familiar. nine months ago, that hour belonged to a stranger's voice crackling through your speaker and a crush that felt enormous simply because it was all imagination.

you remember lying awake with your phone pressed against your cheek, convinced the boy on the other end of the line was someone else entirely, and now the room is quiet enough to hear the city breathing beyond the windows.

sunghoon shifts against you, cheek warm where it's pressed to your chest, his hair a soft mess beneath your fingers. when he tilts his head up, tiredness still clings to him around the edges of his eyes, but they find yours immediately, like they've learned the route by heart. there is something almost unfair about it—that the boy who once hid behind another person's name now looks at you with such terrifying honesty.

“can you get off of me now?”

sunghoon lifts his head just enough to look at you, cheek still resting against your chest, dark hair falling messily across his forehead. he considers the question with suspicious seriousness before leaning over to press another lazy kiss against your collarbone. “no.”

luck and fate. such intangible concepts, but the feeling creeps up on you regardless. the universe seems unusually generous now, which scares you—after everything that’s happened, after all the ways the two of you managed to hurt each other before finding your way back, it feels dangerous to believe that happiness could be this simple.

and still—something tells you that this feeling might be yours to keep, anyway, so long as you keep choosing for it to.

sunghoon shifts closer, his voice rough with impending sleep as he presses his face into the warmth beneath your jaw. “i love you, y/n.”

when your eyes flutter open the next morning, the blinds are only half-shut, thin ribbons of sunlight slipping through the gaps and painting pale gold across the floor. there's a t-shirt bunched around your waist that definitely wasn't there when you went to sleep, and your hair is sticking to your cheek in a way that immediately informs you that you’ve slept in way too long.

you stretch with a quiet groan, arms reaching above your head until your shoulders pop pleasantly, then roll onto your left side in search of the cooler side of the bed—but instead, you’re greeted by more warmth.

for a brief, sleepy second, you wonder if autumn has somehow changed its mind overnight. is it summer again?

but then, you see him.

park sunghoon is sprawled face-down across your mattress like somebody dropped him there and forgot to pick him back up. one arm is flung over the edge of the bed, the other trapped beneath your pillow, and his dark hair sticks out in every possible direction. sometime during the night, he'd apparently migrated until three-quarters of his body occupied your side of the bed while you clung to the remaining sliver.

his bare back is outlined by faint shadows of the morning, still unfairly sculpted while knocked out cold. it annoys you, just a little, but enough that you briefly consider stealing the blanket back out of spite.

instead, you stay where you are and watch him.

you watch the slow rise and fall of his ribs beneath your fingertips, the tiny hitch in his breathing every few breaths, and the way one hand twitches occasionally against the mattress as though he's still reaching for you in his sleep.

you lean forward until your lips brush the warmth of his shoulder—but the words you whisper there are too soft for him to hear.

“i love you too, park sunghoon.”

he sleeps through your confession, completely unaware of the smile that finds your face as you settle next to him again. your heart slows just a fraction, calming when your breathing unconsciously matches the rhythm of the man beside you.

time seems to slow itself down. the morning birds are quieter than usual, the grandmother across the street has spared the neighborhood her daily yelling, and when you look over at your calendar, there is nothing waiting for you there.

for a love this gentle, the universe has chosen to be unusually generous.

lucky you!

─────────────────────────

hoonie <3: [Attachment] 20:28

hoonie <3: I’ll be over after practice 20:28

hoonie <3: Yeonjun and Maki keep asking about you it’s starting to piss me off 20:29

hoonie <3: Also did you change my contact? 20:34

y/n: yes heeseung 20:40

y/n: oops i meant Park Sunghoon. my favourite boyfriend out of 10 20:40

hoonie <3: I’m going to walk into traffic 21:12

y/n: ????? ur so dramatic Hello 21:15

© kissued 2026 — do not repost, edit, redistribute or translate my work without prior permission and credit. all my work is strictly fictional and not an accurate representation of these people in real life.

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[literallyuyu]

you deadass have a talent omg this was so good im crying

[en-ternity]

When a friendship comes with too much history, rules become necessary. It’s easier to stay safe when you can name the lines you refuse to cross. That’s why Jaeyun has always been so strict about his secret little guide, or at least, he was, until the moment you asked him to sleep with you, and everything started to shatter in his hands like it was never real at all.

a friends to lovers oneshot｜27.7K

PAIRING: Jaeyun x fem!reader

WARNINGS: university au, Jaeyun is an electronic engineer student, kinda nerdy, and too down bad for the reader even though she is a bit of a brat, i am not sure if there’s a major plot, smut, nipple play, fingering and oral (f. receiving), handjob, virginity loss, protected and unprotected sex, there’s a fwb situation within, one fight between Jaeyun and reader’s ex, and jaykehoon being the most chaotic roommates ever

PINTEREST MOODBOARD

RULE ZERO: DO NOT RUIN THE FRIENDSHIP

When you were twelve, Jaeyun got you both grounded.

He had the brilliant idea of bringing a bottle of whiskey home — something one of his soccer teammates had stolen from his father’s cabinet and hadn’t known how to get away with now that it had been opened and already had a swig taken from it.

Jaeyun didn’t know why he decided to take charge of it, much less bring it home — he could have just let his teammate deal with it alone, for God’s sake. But perhaps because he liked the thrill of secretly carrying it and the astonishment in your eyes when he took it out of his backpack, he did bring it home. 

But the fact was — neither of you drank any of it, yet his brother — the Mr. Perfect, as you used to whisper in each other’s ears — had caught you with your hands on it, and in the end it didn’t matter.

You were grounded for four weeks. No phones, video games, or allowances. You were only allowed to go to school and straight back to your homes — Jaeyun having only the small detour of dropping you off before going to his. 

It made you miss the Seoul Annual International Book Fair. A major literary gathering with author events, book markets, and cultural programs that you had been looking forward to. 

Nerdy, he had told you, which only made your tears flow even harder, and he felt so bad about it that he gave you a voucher the next morning, a handmade thing that got you laughing when he handed it to you.

Jaeyun had never been much of an artsy type. The voucher was irregular, and his handwriting was so bad you could barely decipher the words free wish — but perhaps because it was his way of trying, you took it, promising you would use it well.

That was probably when it started: the first page of a guide he would never mean to write, on how not to ruin a friendship that felt bigger than him because as he watched you folding the paper and tucking it into the front pocket of your sweater like a keepsake, he had a sudden clarity that he would do anything not to lose you.

You never really used the voucher.

Eleven years into your friendship, you never once brought it up. 

Perhaps because Jaeyun always did everything for you, the voucher seemed useless. 

When you got asked for a date for the first time in your life, Jaeyun agreed to go shopping with you without much fanfare — even though he despised every second of it — and when you called him afterwards, telling him to come over so you could rant about it, he once again was there without the voucher having even passed through your minds. He simply came and stayed there, listening to you, your backs side to side on the hardwood floor of your bedroom until the walls had turned orange and pink with the sunrise.

When you crashed your father’s car and called him crying, he asked where it had happened with his jacket already on and searching for his keys.

And when you moved out of the university dorms somewhere around your second semester, Jaeyun was carrying your boxes and luggage without you even glancing at his side. 

So it felt a bit weird now, seeing you pushing the little thing through the counter — its edges turned so yellow with the advance of the years that he could see it even in the bar’s reddish light — and especially with the words that followed: 

“Sleep with me,” you said. 

RULE #1: DO NOT ACCEPT RECKLESS REQUESTS

Don’t answer requests she makes when she’s drunk, mad, or sad — that’s when she turns reckless. I’m supposed to get her home, get her water, and let time take the sharp edges off whatever she thought she wanted. If I do my job right, she’ll wake up with a headache — maybe puffy eyes — but no regrets. At least not the kind that have my name on them.

Arcano wasn’t as fierce as the name made it seem.

If Jaeyun were being honest, it was, in fact, a terrible bar. Awful, actually.

The seats were constantly sticky, and the tables were permanently stained with something spilled too long ago. The restrooms always smelled like weed and sex, and there was writing on the walls telling you who to call for a good time — but, awful as it was, it was the only bar on the outskirts of the university, and the drinks were cheap, which made it a reasonable choice for anyone who wanted to get drunk in the middle of a weekday. 

Which, apparently, was what you were doing. 

You had called him, your voice softened and a little slurred at the edges, even as you tried to keep it brief — trusting him to hear the truth between your words, as he always did — and his body went tight, that low instinct already moving beneath his skin with the need to make it better.

Jaeyun came in without question, his eyes scanning through the dim room. Tables first, booths next, then the bar counter, because putting things in order always helped him keep control — but then he saw you, and his heart hitched hard enough to make his hands unreliable.

Arcano was nearly dark, red bulbs offering more irritation than light, and yet whatever sheen clung to its corners now seemed to gather around you; the glint of bottles, the thin neon humming above the bar. Even the noise shifted, bending your way subtly, as if the room itself couldn’t help but want to be near you. 

Or perhaps it was only him — caught on you like gravity, a quiet flaw built into his body that only ever showed itself in your presence.

Across the bar, the music shifted, and someone laughed too loudly as a glass hit the counter with a wet little sound, but none of it reached him the right way, not while you were there, bent toward the counter with your hair falling forward and your shoulders loose with drink and something sharper underneath it.

Jaeyun swallowed and pushed his hair back off his forehead — the gesture automatic in the way habits were — as he closed the last steps in.

You shifted on your stool as he stopped behind you, small and unthinking, leaning back into him as if it was the most natural thing in the world to put your weight onto his chest merely because you trusted him to catch it without ever asking. And he did, his body reacting before his mind did, his arms raising and settling just enough to keep you upright.

He didn’t understand how you did it — how you could recognize him without looking. If your bones had memorized the shape of him and refused to forget even here, in a terrible bar, with alcohol in the air and the whole world pretending not to watch, or if you merely felt the same gravity as him, because you, too, had been built with some quiet flaw that only ever showed itself in his presence.

“Hello,” you said, tipping your head back to look at him.

“Hello, Princess,” he said, leaning in just to drop a kiss on your forehead. But you smelled like vanilla and white flowers — the kind of soft sweetness you always insisted on having threaded through every perfume you owned — and he allowed himself to breathe you for a second more before he let go, sliding onto the stool beside you. 

His jeans brushed your bare thigh, and when you turned toward him, he had no other option than to spread his legs further apart, opening space so your knees fit between his; and for a second, Jaeyun’s brain focused on the image, slowly and cruelly, taking the stark line of your skin against denim, the heat of you seeping through a fabric barrier that suddenly felt too thin to be decent. Your knees fit perfectly between his, and the placement was so intimate it might’ve been accidental if he hadn’t felt how quickly his body registered it as right.

He went still.

Not because he didn’t want more contact, but because he did. Because he wanted it in a way that made him feel juvenile, and his restraint could turn into nothing but a costume you’d just tugged at the seam.

So he forced himself to look up, his gaze finding your face like it was the only safe thing left, but it only turned to be worse. 

You were flushed from the alcohol and the heat, color blooming across your cheeks and the bridge of your nose as if you’d been kissed too many times already. And your eyes were bright in that unfocused way that made his whole body ache with protectiveness and something he refused to name. 

Jaeyun swallowed, dropping his gaze before he could stop it — and that was when he saw the dress. 

Low-cut, and reckless in the quietest way, exposing your skin in a soft curve that made his throat tighten, not because it wasn’t vulgar or blaring, but merely because it was you — warm, real, and too close. 

And resting there, right in the center of it all, was the necklace he’d given you on your fifteenth birthday, the thin chain catching what little light Arcano offered and holding it like a secret. Jaeyun felt something in his chest twist — sharp and familiar. A gift, a promise, a piece of him you’d kept on your skin for years without making a thing of it.

He blinked, dragging his eyes back up, back to your face, as though that could undo what he’d seen. As though looking anywhere else could turn his thoughts into something normal again, but it didn’t.

“You called me,” he said in the end, voice light on purpose, aiming his gaze at the safe edge of your hairline instead of your eyes. 

“Is there a question in this statement?” you asked, your head tipping to the side the way it always did when you were teasing him, letting a strand of hair slip loose and rest against your cheek.

Jaeyun huffed a quiet breath through his nose, something that almost counted as a laugh if anyone else had been listening. The bar noise swelled and dipped around you — ice clinking in glasses, a burst of laughter from a booth, the bass thudding like a distant heartbeat — and for a second it made the moment feel ordinary. Like this was just the two of you, playing the same game you’d played a hundred times.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’re the linguistics genius among us.”

His hand lifted without thinking and brushed the strand away — quick, familiar, and thoughtless — the kind of gesture that belonged to years of friendship. He didn’t linger. He didn’t let it become a thing. He just tucked it back like he’d done it before and would do it again. Still, you felt the contact anyway, blinking at him, and it took you a moment to speak again.

“I think there was,” you said, your voice more serious than he expected. “I need to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

You turned halfway on your stool to reach into your purse, and Jaeyun took the moment to breathe — really breathe, looking across the room as his hands found and pushed at his hair, steadying himself. 

Overhead, a red bulb faltered, and the neon hissed in — thin, stubborn light clinging on.

“Yun,” you called.

He turned to you again, catching as you slipped the voucher toward him, the piece yellowed into something that didn’t belong to the present. His own handwriting stared up at him, crooked and absurd in the way only a teenage promise could be.

Jaeyun’s lips parted around a question, but the words slipped before they could reach his mouth.

“I’m using it,” you announced, slurring a little — but not enough to take the weight of the words that followed:

“Sleep with me.”

Jaeyun inhaled too fast and choked on the air, like the sentence had gone straight for his throat and his body refused to swallow it. He coughed once, twice, eyes watering, and hated himself for how obvious it was.

“Drink,” you said, lifting your glass toward him — offering it with the careless kindness of someone who had no understanding of the damage they were capable of causing.

Jaeyun pictured you rummaging through your drawers for the voucher, trying to guess when the decision had formed. Whether it had been planned. Whether it had been impulsive. Whether the dress had been chosen with him in mind—

He didn’t get to finish the thought.

He took the glass too fast, his thumb grazing your knuckle — more an echo of a touch than a touch itself — but his whole body registered it like a confession. And he forced himself to bring it to his mouth and swallow it. The liquor burned his throat, cheap and harsh and useless, and then — for one horrifying second — he tasted you there, sweet and faint beneath the sting.

He set it down.

“What—” he tried, and his voice came out wrong. He cleared his throat. “Where’s Baekhyeon?”

Because it felt reasonable to ask where your boyfriend was when you were asking him to sleep with you.

Your eyes gleamed at the name and then cleared just as quickly. Whatever that feeling was, it was banished with a blink before you reached for your glass again, considering the few drops he’d left.

“We broke up,” you said.

“When?”

“Today — or yesterday.” Your brow creased. “I’m not sure. What time is it?”

“But why?”

You shuddered, already turning toward the bartender for another drink, but Jaeyun reached for your wrist and drew you back in. His hands were cold against your warm skin, and a shiver danced across you, strong enough to make your shoulders tremble.

He let go.

“Princess, talk to me,” he said. “What happened?”

And so you told him, your words coming rushed and messed up, one long stream being pulled out of you because now that you’d started, you couldn’t afford to stop. You told him how Baekhyeon had gotten quieter ever since he started his internship. How he’d been thinking, whatever that meant. How he wasn’t so sure anymore, like your relationship was a class he could drop mid-semester. And when you’d asked where it put you, all you got were half-answers and that look people had when they were already gone but didn’t want to be the villain.

“And it is so humiliating, Yun,” you said, your hands dragging down your face, hiding it as you folded forward and rested on him again — forehead against his shoulder, your whole body fitting into the space between his thighs like it had always known where to go.

Jaeyun reached out without thinking, one hand settling at the small of your back as the other slid into your hair, fingers tangling gently there — holding you together in the only way he knew how.

“It’s not like I thought he was going to be my forever one,” you said. “But I thought that — God, I’m — I’m a virgin in university, Jaeyun. Do you know how insane that sounds? Especially after having a boyfriend? It’s like I’m — defective.”

The whole sentence hit and sank in with a dull ache, shifting a fault line in him so sharply his whole body twitched. His fingers flexed against you, tightening at your back before he could stop himself, because this was simply his first instinct: pull you in, hold you tighter, so perhaps he could keep you from breaking by sheer force of his will.

But then he hated himself for it — for the greedy relief that came with the feeling of you against him, for the way wanting and protecting acquired the same face in his body — and he loosened his grip immediately, forcing his touch back into something safer, something that could still pass as friendship.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

“I’m feeling terrible,” you muttered. “Like I might have done something wrong in my life.”

“Princess,” he said again, the nickname rolling softly through the air, and for a moment, it didn’t feel like a joke at all. “Look at me.”

You shook your head, stubborn even like this, forehead still pressed where you’d chosen to hide. And Jaeyun exhaled through his nose, trying to sand the edge off himself before it could cut you.

“You’re drunk,” he told you. “And you’re not thinking straight.”

You didn’t react this time — which somehow made it worse.

“Come on,” he said, his hands slipping away only so they could find you again, but this time, somewhere safer. His palms spread on the bare skin of your arms to guide you up. “I’m taking you home.”

“But—” you began, your gaze sliding to the voucher.

Jaeyun reached for it and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans, taking it out of your sight like he could make the exchange never happen — like merely hiding it could erase the fact that something had moved inside his chest with your ask, and now refused to calm down.

“I’ll keep it safe,” he said, and the promise tasted older than tonight.

He helped you off the stool with one hand at your waist as the other caught your purse, looping it around his wrist before he returned it to your elbow — steadying and guiding, making sure your feet landed where they were supposed to.

You swayed into him, coming so close that when you spoke, he not only heard you, but felt it through his skin.

“You always do.”

Jaeyun’s fingers flexed once again at your side.

“Yeah,” he said, looking ahead as he led you through the mess of bodies and sticky tables. “I know.” 

˖ ⟡  ݁˖

Outside, it was already spring in theory, but in practice, Arcano’s door swung shut behind you, and the night folded over — winter still pressing into April nights, and making it chilly.

The sidewalk out in front was uneven in that neglected-university-outskirts way, broken slabs and hairline cracks waiting for someone careless, and tonight, that someone was you. 

Jaeyun watched as you made it three steps before you stumbled. It had been nothing significant, just your ankle rolling in a way that could have passed unnoticed — but he was watching, and before you could pretend that it hadn’t happened, his hand had already closed around your forearm, firm and quickly, holding you.

He brought you closer to him on instinct, the lines of your bodies collapsing and melting under the same yellow wash of streetlight, and when you looked up at him, it gathered in your eyes in tiny gold flashes, softening you at the edges, and making you look heartbreakingly close; the tiny gasp you released warming his mouth.

“Easy,” he muttered. 

“I am being easy,” you argued, but you made no effort to disengage yourself from him, and so, neither did he — letting you both stay in the dim hush of the night for a moment more before he finally eased back, shrugging out of his jacket and easing you into it, one sleeve first and then the other. 

Jaeyun gave your purse back, and only when your fingers closed around it did he turn and drop into a crouch in front of you — shoulders broad and steady on purpose.

“What are you doing?” you asked.

“Taking you home,” he replied. “Get on.”

“I can walk.”

“You can barely negotiate a curb,” he argued. “Get on.”

Jaeyun waited then, bracing himself for another surge of protest, but instead, you leaned forward, your arms sliding around his shoulders, automatic, and with the kind of trust that never failed to set a quiet ache behind his ribs.

But if anything, he hooked his hands under your thighs and stood, letting your weight settle against him and your cheek to press into the side of his neck, warm and familiar.

“This is a bit embarrassing.”

“This is practical,” Jaeyun said. “Better than having to take you to the hospital over an ankle you refuse to admit you could break.”

You hummed, and he huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh, tightening his hold as if you could slip out of his hands.

As if he would let you.

“Princess,” he muttered, more to himself than to you, “you’re going to be the death of me someday.”

You didn’t react this time — either because you didn’t hear it, or because your hazy mind had already filed it somewhere dangerous for tomorrow — but in any case, Jaeyun kept walking.

˖ ⟡  ݁˖

Jaeyun’s apartment building greeted you in the same failing way it always did. The hallway light flickered with stubborn inconsistency, always seeming one second away from burning out, and the front door still refused to open unless someone met it with a shoulder and a certain amount of conviction.  

He did it one-handed, you still on his back and refusing to let go even when he had to fumble for the key, his free hand going to his pockets once, twice, while the other kept you anchored against him, steadying you with the same absent care, as though you were simply part of the equation.  

Inside, the living room looked exactly the way it always did — dim, cramped, familiar in the ugly way cheap rent always was. Sneakers lay abandoned near the entrance like they’d given up halfway through the day. A laundry basket sat in the corner with the quiet menace of something that had been ignored too long.

And a few steps in, Sunghoon was there — barefoot, hair damp, skin still carrying that clean, just-showered warmth, as if he’d stepped out of steam and decided the world could handle itself for a while.  

His gaze flicked to you, draped over Jaeyun, then back to him, and his mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile.

“She really can do whatever she wants to you,” he said, flat as anything.

At the sound of his roommate’s voice, Jaeyun felt you shift against him, lifting your head just enough for the night’s air to slip into the space you’d made.

“Hello, Hoon,” you said.

“Hello, Princess.”

The hallway light blinked out, wiping your shadows clean for a quiet beat before Sunghoon shifted, and the sensor caught it, coaxing the bulb back to life. Jaeyun adjusted his grip like it meant nothing, like you weren’t warm against him in all the places he worked hardest not to think about. You shifted at his back once more, settling and slipping, and his shoulders tightened on reflex — prepared to steady you, prepared for anything — except your next words.

“If Yun doesn’t, would you do it with me, Hoon?”

“Do wh—”

“Nothing,” Jaeyun snapped. “She’s drunk, and I’m taking her to my room.”

Sunghoon’s brows rose at his roommate’s urgency, his mouth twitching deeper, but he didn’t push. If anything, he stepped back, clearing the way like Jaeyun needed permission at all.

“Tell me tomorrow, Princess,” Sunghoon called after you, loud enough to be heard down the hall. “Though I’m pretty sure Jaeyun will do it for you.”

Jaeyun didn’t give you the chance to answer.

He was already moving, turning down the hall. And when he reached his room, he shifted your weight higher with a small, efficient jerk of his arms, then shoved the door open with his shoulder.

The motion-sensor light in the hallway faltered again behind you, a brief blink of dark, and then the room swallowed you whole — quieter, warmer, smelling faintly of detergent, old cologne and whatever Jaeyun used to pretend he didn’t care about.

He stepped into his room and kicked the door shut with his heel, shutting the rest of the apartment out — Sunghoon’s smugness, the hallway’s flicker, all of it cut off as if it had never happened.

Yet still, he didn’t set you down. Jaeyun carried you the last few steps to his bed, and when he finally tried to set you down, you clung tighter — arms locking around his shoulders as your thighs pressed against his sides. 

“No,” you said, and there was no explanation required. It didn’t matter that it had been six months since you last shared a bed. He knew your rules just as much as he knew his: you didn’t do beds before a shower — much less in outside clothes. You didn’t even sit on them in anything that had been out in public.

“Princess,” he sighed. “It’s my bed. I don’t have that rule.”

“Your bed is contaminated,” you decided.

Jaeyun went still for a second, like sheer willpower might make you reasonable. But it didn’t. You stayed latched onto him, stubborn as a vow, and he realized — again — how useless he’d always been at saying no to you.

He sighed again.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine — let’s take a shower first.”

He tried to lower you, shifting his hands to set you down properly, but the moment your heels brushed the floor, you stiffened in protest, clinging harder.

“No shoes inside,” you reminded him, as if he were the one being difficult.

Jaeyun’s eyes shut for a brief beat — his surrender arriving the way it always did with you, tender and doomed.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I know.”

He crouched carefully, still keeping one arm hooked around your legs so you wouldn’t tip, and reached for the thin strap of your heel. His fingers worked quickly and practiced, undoing what he could without looking like he was paying attention. 

Only when both heels had slipped free did he straighten again — and only then did you finally loosen, sliding down from his back. Jaeyun kept his hands on you the whole time, steadying you through the transfer, guiding you down until your bare feet found the floor without a stumble.

“There,” he said. “Now cooperate.”

Jaeyun went to his drawer and pulled out a t-shirt so old it had softened past saving, turned into the kind of thing that should’ve been discarded a long time ago. But it was the one you always chose when you slept over, and so it stayed — stupidly and hopefully, waiting for you.  

He pushed his hair back off his forehead, his hand lingering there for a beat before he reached for a towel and stood up.  

“Come,” he said then, placing his hand behind his back to encourage you to catch up and grab it.

You held hands across the apartment and into the bathroom, letting go only when Jaeyun reached for the switch and snapped the light on — white and harsh in a way that suddenly made the night tangible.  

“The lock is broken,” Jaeyun said.  

“Wasn’t Jongseong going to fix it months ago?” you asked.  

Jongseong had, but it broke again and again, and by the fourth time, the three of them had decided it was what it was and left it to its habits.

“I’ll wait outside,” he said. “Can you handle yourself?”

You leaned against the sink, head tipping to the side. Your necklace sparkled with the movement, catching the bathroom light in thin, bright flickers, and all at once, he regretted asking.  

It all felt too real, too reckless. What if you asked him to stay and help you, as it had happened a dozen times before Baekhyeon?

He couldn’t trust himself to make good decisions — couldn’t trust himself to help you out of your dress without looking. Not with the voucher still in the pocket of his jeans and your words coiling through his mind, slowly displacing all his other thoughts.

He was suddenly wild under the fluorescent lights of the bathroom.

“I’ll be right outside,” he said, reaching past you to set the towel on the counter, then the shirt beside it — lining them up like order could keep the night under control. “Take your time.”  

“Okay.”  

Jaeyun didn’t say anything as he stepped out. He merely pulled the door shut and folded himself down in front of it — knees up, forearms crossed above them, and his fingers tightening against the sides of his jeans for a quiet moment before he let go. 

From inside the bathroom came the soft shift of fabric. Then the small, telltale clink of something against porcelain — your necklace, surely your necklace — before the water finally started to run. And Jaeyun let out a slow breath he couldn’t quite believe in.

It wasn’t the first time he’d guarded a door for you, and he should’ve known how to breathe through it by now.

But tonight had reached in and rearranged all the defenses he’d built, and now he was back at the beginning with nothing solid to brace against. His fingers flexed once again, anchoring himself to the pressure and the bone, and making him almost miss the complaint of a floorboard down the hall.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jongseong’s voice carried from the hallway. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”

“The lock doesn’t work,” Jaeyun said.

“It never worked.”

“She’s inside.”

“Who?” Jongseong asked — more reflex than curiosity — because the moment his gaze landed on Jaeyun, the question dissolved on its own, understanding settling without needing a name.

“Oh, it’s been a while,” he said, and Jaeyun’s mouth tightened, the words pressing an old bruise.

It had been six months since you last slept here, to be exact — the same amount of time you’d been with Baekhyeon, and the same amount of time Jaeyun had been pretending the distance was natural. Reasonable. Maybe even healthy.

It wasn’t as if Baekhyeon had forbidden your friendship with him, or your sleepovers at this apartment. Baekhyeon was—

Jaeyun’s mind halted.

For a second, he tried to call him nice, the word rising up like it wanted to be fair, but then he recoiled from the generosity of it.

Nice didn’t matter. Nice didn’t change what it meant to watch you choose someone else day after day. Nice didn’t stop the humiliating clarity of memory: the shape of you curled into his bed like you belonged there, the way you’d mutter his name half-asleep when you couldn’t find the edge of the blanket — then the way he’d learned, almost overnight, how to live without it. And so, he said nothing, merely breathing out, real slow, between barely parted lips, which ended up being louder than anything he could have said.

Jongseong leaned back against the opposite wall and crossed his arms, staking out the space without saying a word because that was how he always did. He didn’t press — never that. Jongseong just stayed, letting the world breathe between them until it started to feel like an invitation people never knew how to refuse.

Jaeyun looked away.

“She called,” he said. “She was at Arcano. Drunk — not falling-over drunk — but enough.”

“Baekhyeon?” Jongseong asked, not because he was looking for gossip, but because it was logistics. It was the obvious missing piece.

“They broke up — he broke up with her,” he said. “Something about not being sure anymore.”

“Damn.”

Jaeyun hummed in agreement, and because he didn’t know how to bring up the topic, he merely said: “She asked me to sleep with her.”

Jongseong blinked — actually blinked, his whole body failing with the sudden information.

“She asked you,” he repeated.

Jaeyun’s jaw flexed. “Yeah.”

“To sleep with her.”

The words hung there between them, obscene in how plainly they fit the shape of the night. Jaeyun breathed out slowly through his nose; the air itself didn’t want to make room for them.

“And you said?” Jongseong asked, though his tone already suggested he knew the answer. Everyone knew Jaeyun’s reputation. Everyone knew he didn’t say no to much — especially not to you.

“I said no,” Jaeyun replied. 

Jongseong stared at him, then let out a low whistle, indecisive whether to be impressed or concerned.

“Don’t make it weird,” Jaeyun muttered.

“I’m not making it weird,” Jongseong said. “I’m just—” He paused, pondering what his next words should be. “You’re kind of famous for not being the guy who says no. Not to her.”

Jaeyun’s lips parted, his tongue already rolling in to say something, but the words stuttered and stammered, refusing to leave immediately, and Jongseong shifted his weight, glancing down the hallway once as if checking whether Sunghoon would appear and make this worse. But when he didn’t, he looked back at Jaeyun and waited again.

Of course he did.

Behind the door, the shower shifted pitch — water on tile instead of skin, the soft scrape of movement as you’d turned under the stream — and Jaeyun’s shoulders tightened at the sound, reflexive and stupid, like his body wanted to go in there and steady you with his hands.

He forced himself to stay where he was.

“You know what the problem is?” Jaeyun asked.

“Tell me.”

“I know her,” he said, and he hated himself for how quickly it came out, like a confession that had been waiting all night. “I know she meant it.”

Jongseong’s expression softened, but he didn’t interrupt.

“But what if it changes something?” he asked. “I could say yes, and for one night I’d get—”

He cut himself off, shoving his hair back as if he could physically push the thought out of his head.

“Fuck — I’d get something I’ve wanted for a long time.”

“And then?”

“And then she’d wake up, and something could flick.” Jaeyun said. “Like she’d look at me and realize she made a mistake. Like she’d hate me for letting her.” His grip tightened once, then loosened. “Like I’d lose the only part of her I’m allowed to have.”

The hallway seemed to draw in around him, the air thickening as if it could listen. And Jaeyun lowered his voice in response.

“I’d rather have just a part of her forever than have her entirely for a night and lose her in the morning.”

“That’s — that’s more honest than I expected.”

Jaeyun let out a humorless breath. “Thank you.”

“I’m not done,” Jongseong said, because of course he wasn’t. “You’re treating having her like it’s one thing.”

Jaeyun frowned, irritation returning on instinct because it was safer than admitting Jongseong was right. 

“It’s either you stay in the safe version of your friendship forever — half-measures, unsaid things — or you sleep with her and blow it up.”

“But it could happen.”

“But it also couldn’t — not if you do it in the right way.”

“In the right way,” Jaeyun scoffed. “That clears everything up.”

“When she’s sober,” Jongseong continued, ignoring the sarcasm like it was a symptom. “You tell her the truth she can use.”

“Like what?”

“You tell her you said no because she was drunk.”

“Obviously.”

“And you tell her you care about her too much to risk the friendship over a night.”

Jaeyun’s stomach tightened. The sentence was too clean — neat edges, no mess, nothing anyone could accuse him of — and it sounded like something he was allowed to say. But it wasn’t the real reason, though. The real reason lived lower in him, hot and humiliating because of the selfishness of it. 

Jaeyun cared too much to let you choose him with alcohol blurring the corners, too much to wake up and find your eyes clear and horrified — he cared too much to have his name become the sharpest part of your regret.

He didn’t want a night he’d have to defend. He wanted a tomorrow that didn’t require forgiveness.

He couldn’t lose you.

“And if she guarantees nothing will change?” he asked, and his voice sounded small there, drowned out by the fantasy of it.

“You decide,” Jongseong said. “You do it, or you don’t. But don’t lie to yourself that you can keep something by freezing it.”

“I can keep it by not touching it.”

“And you can lose it that way too,” Jongseong said, immediately and all at once making Jaeyun halt. “You’re already changing. She’s already changing. Baekhyeon happened. Tonight happened.” 

“So what?” Jaeyun asked. “You think I should accept?”

“I think you should accept the conversation,” Jongseong corrected. “Not the drunk proposal. Not the chaos. Not the one-night disaster you’re picturing.”

He paused, just long enough for Jaeyun to swallow.

“It’s the best way,” Jongseong added. “Because it’s the only way she gets to choose you with a clear head — and you get to be chosen without feeling like you stole it.”

“Fine,” he said. “I will talk to her tomorrow — when she’s sober.”

“Good.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke, but then Jongseong nodded toward the bathroom door with a faint grimace that tried to pass for humor. “Rap on my door when she’s done, yeah? I need to use the bathroom, and I don’t feel like getting murdered for walking in on — whatever this is.”

Jaeyun shot him a look, he wasn’t going to, but if anything, Jongseong’s mouth quirked, teasing and mean, as he turned and started back toward his room, leaving Jaeyun alone with the thin shaft of light coming from under the door, the broken lock, and the sound of you moving on the other side — alive, breathing, and close enough to ruin him if he let himself reach.

˖ ⟡  ݁˖

The bathroom door opened with a tiny complaint from its hinges. Your figure momentarily silhouetted against the spill of light before he blinked and put you into focus, barefoot, hair slicked back and tucked behind your ears, cheeks still flushed from the shower, alcohol, and something that didn’t belong to soap or steam. His old shirt hung off you all wrong and yet perfectly: too big in the shoulders, too long in the hem, but familiar in a way that made Jaeyun’s chest tighten.

Perhaps he was dreaming this night.

“I thought I heard someone,” you whispered.

“It was Jongseong,” he replied, smoothing his tone into something casual, in the hope that you wouldn’t notice the way Jongseong’s appearance now sat warm and heavy beneath his ribs, pulsing each time he breathed, threatening to spill.

“Did we wake him up?”

Jaeyun shook his head and pushed himself up, his joints protesting with stiffness from the position and from the sheer act of not moving every time his instincts had told him to go in and make sure you were okay. “No. He just needed the bathroom.”

You nodded at him, and Jaeyun reached his hand to you, the gesture so unconscious, he didn’t notice he had done it until you reached back to him, fingers finding the slots between his, and intertwining your hands.

“Let’s go,” he murmured, already turning and guiding you down the short stretch of hall.

He wasn’t sure what time it was, but when he opened the door to his room, the world outside seemed vivid in comparison, a mist of light blue and purple coming through his open window, and spilling across the rumpled sheets and the scatter of things that made the space undeniably his: a jacket draped over the chair like it had been forgotten mid-thought, a half-open book, and a glass of water caught a thin slice of shine. The air was warmer in here, carrying the faint, familiar mix of laundry soap and skin and something clean underneath everything that had happened.

“Lie down,” Jaeyun said, swinging your interlaced hands toward the bed even though he expected you to refuse, saying something about contamination or demanding clean sheets, and forcing him into the familiar rhythm of your rules because that was how it always went — he was already halfway bracing for it, already planning how to humor you through it without letting his hands linger where they shouldn’t — but you moved then, slipping from his touch and laying on the mattress without protest. And it was somehow worse than anything.

“Princess,” he called, not really sure what the rest of the phrase was supposed to be, and the nickname hung in the air longer than it was necessary.

“Aren’t you coming?” you asked, and he was caught by the simplicity of it.

“Close your eyes,” Jaeyun said. “I’m going to get changed first.”

You made a small sound that almost counted as a snort, like the idea of him needing you not to look was ridiculous. But you did it anyway — eyes shut, face turned into his pillow, going still with the kind of obedience you only ever gave him when you didn’t want to argue.

Jaeyun changed quickly, like speed could make him safer. Jeans off. Sweatpants on. Shirt pulled over his head and tossed it somewhere he refused to look at. He kept his movements efficient, controlled — all about angles and purpose — because he couldn’t afford softness. Couldn’t afford the way tenderness turned reckless when it had nowhere to go.

By the time he finished, you hadn’t moved, and for a moment, he thought you’d fallen asleep, your body finally ceasing. But when he stepped closer, you opened your eyes, the dim light catching in them like a held secret, glazing along your lashes, turning your gaze into something soft and deep, as if whatever remained of the light had found a way to live inside you.

And Jaeyun hovered at the edge, forgetting for a beat how to be anything but pulled in.

He sat on the bed, and you shifted closer, cheek pressing deeper into his pillow like it belonged there — like you belonged there.

And the fact that you were smelling like him didn’t help. His shampoo was tangled in your damp hair. His soap clinging to your skin. The boring smell of him with something sweet underneath — vanilla and white flowers — threaded through it all. Like the night had taken the parts of him that were supposed to be private and braided them through you.

He wouldn’t sleep tonight.

“Yun,” you called. “About what I said—”

“Just sleep,” he cut in. “We can talk tomorrow.”

Your mouth parted as if you wanted to argue on principle. But your body betrayed you in the softest way: your breathing deepened, your fingers loosened on the sheet, your forehead sank into his pillow as if it was the only safe thing left in the world.

Jaeyun lay down beside you before he could think too hard about it, keeping the space between your bodies like a rule — a boundary he could hold — but you drifted closer inch by inch, pulled by some instinct that had never learned to be afraid of him. Your knee brushed his leg. Your hand settled near his, warm and lax, fingers curved like they might reach if you dreamed the right dream.

Jaeyun didn’t move. He only stared at the ceiling and listened to you breathe — slow and even — trying not to count it.

Tomorrow, he told himself.

Tomorrow, he would be brave. Tomorrow he would say the right things — the usable truth, as Jongseong had called — the truth you could hold without cutting yourself on it. 

Tomorrow, he would not ruin you, or the fragile shape of a friendship he’d carried for years like a glass of water.

But tonight—

He turned his head just enough to look at you, and stayed awake anyway — guarding the morning like it was the most dangerous thing he’d ever faced.

˖ ⟡  ݁˖

Jaeyun woke up to the morning sunlight filtering through the still-open window of his bedroom, and you curled into him, cheek on his shoulder, as your hand rested on his chest.

He didn’t move — he couldn’t bring himself to move — he didn’t even let his breath deepen because his first thought was the same one it had always been, old as instinct and just as merciless: don’t wake you. Don’t jolt you out of whatever gentle, thoughtless trust had guided you here in the dark and kept you here in the light. He merely stared at your hand on his chest.

Your fingers were loose, resting over his heartbeat like they’d found it by memory. Like your body had reached for the most familiar thing in the room and settled before your mind could intervene.

He swallowed.

The sunlight was falling in slow stripes across the sheets and across the line of your shoulder beneath his shirt, turning the old cotton into something almost translucent, and catching on your necklace. Dust drifted through the brightness like the morning was innocent — like the world hadn’t heard what you’d asked for last night, hadn’t seen the way his restraint had shaken under the skin.

He’d stayed the whole night trying to remain as far as he could tell. And still, here you were — curled into him like this was allowed. Like this was fine. Like you belonged in the hollow of his shoulder with your palm over his heart, claiming the one part of him he’d never learned how to hide.

You made a small sound in your throat, barely more than a breath, and nudged closer, your knee tucking nearer, your fingers flexing once against his shirt, and the heat of you spread through him like something inevitable.

His gaze drifted to your face.

Sleep had unmade you cruel in its sweetness; your lashes cast a faint shadow under your eyes; your mouth was parted just slightly, softened by the quiet. There was no teasing there, no armor, no bright deflection — only you, unguarded, and breathing against his shoulder like you trusted him to hold.

Because he would — he always would.

Jaeyun swallowed and very carefully — so carefully it bordered on absurd — slid his arm out from beneath your head, immediately receiving a small sound of protest from you, brows drawing together, and for one panicked second, he thought you’d wake.

But if anything, you only turned your face further into his pillow, drifting your hand from his chest to the sheet between you.

Jaeyun sat up slowly, pushing his hair back off his forehead as if he could physically push the feeling out, and looked at you once more.

Then he reached for the blanket and pulled it higher, covering you with a tenderness that felt dangerously close to a confession — tucking the edge beneath your arm, smoothing it down over your ribs, restoring order because order was the only thing that kept him from doing something reckless — before he stood up, crossing the room barefoot.

Jaeyun left the room, pulling the door nearly shut behind him, careful not to let the latch click.

˖ ⟡  ݁˖

The kitchen met him as it always did on weekdays.

The sink was crowded with his roommate’s morning small evasions — a cup abandoned to the drying rack, a plate left half-rinsed as if someone had set it down and decided they couldn’t be bothered to finish. Old coffee grounds sat in the filter, gone cold and sour, and the air held that faint, stubborn bitterness like it had seeped into the walls.

Jaeyun stood in the middle of it all for a moment, then two — trying to make his brain behave.

Tomorrow, he had said, and it was tomorrow.

He exhaled through his nose and opened the fridge, scanning the shelves as if the answer to what to do with his hands might be hiding behind the milk, but not even this they had. There were eggs, half a loaf of bread, butter, something green that had once been vegetables in a kinder timeline, and the strawberries he bought weekly and kept in the back, pretending it wasn’t for you.

He closed the door on impulse, pushing his hair back off his forehead before he reopened it and grabbed the eggs.

Jaeyun had never been a breakfast person, but he needed something to do with his hands that morning, and so, he warmed the pan, melting the butter as he had seen you do a dozen times. 

He cracked the first egg too hard, and a piece of shell fell in, forcing him to fish it out with the edge of a fork with a curse under his breath. The second one cracked clean. And he caught himself staring at it for a second, mildly offended by success.

He scrambled the eggs like he was negotiating with them — low heat, constant movement, refusing to let them burn. The toast popped up too dark on one side, and he had scraped it with a knife.

He got strawberries in the back of the fridge, rinsed them, and set them on a plate.

And by the time it started to look like something someone might eat, he heard you, softly coming down the hall and making the air shift, the apartment itself holding its breath.

Jaeyun turned, and there you were in the doorway — his shirt hanging off you, hair a mess, eyes brighter than they had any right to be.

Your gaze landed on the plates — on the counter, catching the eggshells still on it, the crumbs of his burned toast, and the strawberry tops before it moved to him.

“You made breakfast,” you said, the corner of your lips shifting into a smile.

“I’m aware.”

You padded toward him, bare feet on the kitchen tile, and suddenly you were so close, he could smell you, his soap still clinging to your skin. Your eyes were puffy, your cheeks still a little flushed, but the embarrassment had already arrived; Jaeyun could see it in the way you held your shoulders, in the way your gaze didn’t stay on his for too long.

“I’m sorry,” you said suddenly.

Jaeyun leaned his hip against the counter, arms crossing because if he didn’t put his body in order, his face might betray him. “You were drunk. You called me. I picked you up. That’s not like it never happened.”

“I remember what I said.”

Jaeyun went still.

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t,” you said. “Or that I said it only because I was drunk — I mean, I was drunk.” 

You paused, heat creeping up to your cheeks and making it a tone warmer.

“Jaeyun, I’m—” You pressed your palm to your forehead briefly, as if you could push the shame back inside. “I’m in university. I’m still a virgin. And it’s not even because I’m some — saint. It’s because I kept waiting for the right moment.”

Your voice dropped. “But now it just feels like I’ve been standing still while everyone else moved.”

Something moved in Jaeyun’s chest then — sharp, protective, and making him push himself off the counter before he meant to, closing the space between you in a step he didn’t ask permission for.

“Princess,” he called, his voice as soft as the way his arms eased apart, but he didn’t touch you. Didn’t put his hands on your shoulders or tuck your hair back or do any of the things his body begged him to do on autopilot — because this was morning, and you were sober, and this mattered.

“You don’t owe anyone a timeline,” he said. “And you don’t have to make it some performance to prove something.”

“I know, Yun, it’s just that—” Your mouth tightened, lips pressing as you searched for the shape of the truth. “When I think about it, I keep coming to the conclusion that it would be safe if it were with you.”

“Do you remember that party at Seoyeon’s where they did that stupid bottle game, and we both had our first kisses in her parents’ closet?” you asked. Jaeyun blinked at the sudden turn of topic, but nodded anyway. “It was awful and so awkward. The guy made it so awkward. And the whole time I remember — the whole time I remember wishing it had been you on the other side of the bottle, because it would’ve been easier if it were you.” You swallowed. “If it were you, I’d be safe — and it’s still true, I know it would be okay with you,”

“You’re the person I trust the most in this world.”

The whole sentence went straight through his ribs and sank there, spreading through the parts of Jaeyun that had learned to stay careful until his restraint loosened another notch, and his chest went tender with it, so sudden it almost hurt.

In his mind, he was back at Seoyeon’s party, you laughing and brushing the situation off in front of him, cheeks flushed even in the low light with what he thought was shyness. And perhaps it had been. Perhaps he hadn’t been completely wrong: you’d been shy there, but not because you’d just had your first kiss, but because you’d wished he was the one there. He, your best friend — and the thought came so suddenly he couldn’t prevent it — he wanted it to be him, too. He wanted to be your first in every way that counted.

And that was exactly what you were offering to him.

Jaeyun swallowed, his fingers flexing on the counter.

“Do you truly want it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“But nothing can change between us,” Jaeyun said. “We start as best friends. And even if this — if this thing doesn’t work and we turn out to be awkward, we end as that. Best friends. No matter what.”

You stared at him for a second.

“Are you afraid of losing me?” you asked, teasing like you could make this lighter if you tried hard enough.

Jaeyun could hear the invitation in it. The offer to laugh. To dissolve the moment back into something safe. But when he looked at you, his eyes were solemn. So solemn that whatever retort you’d been about to throw at him got stuck somewhere between your lips and your courage.

“Yes,” Jaeyun said, and the teasing fell away.

Your breath caught for a moment before you exhaled, your face softening into something older than jokes.

“Okay,” you whispered.

“Okay,” he echoed.

Your gaze flicked to the counter again, to the two plates resting there, and suddenly the objects felt too ordinary, too real.

“So,” you said, voice a little too bright, “we’re doing this?”

Jaeyun’s mouth twitched. “Eat.”

“That was not an answer.”

He reached past you, grabbing a fork, and placing it in your hand with exaggerated seriousness.

“Eat,” he repeated. “Then we talk.”

“Jaeyun.”

He held your gaze, and the air between you tightened with something that had nothing to do with breakfast.

“Yes,” he said, his voice coming out rougher than he wanted it to. “We’re doing it.”

“Good,” you said, and then, because you were you, because you couldn’t help yourself: “When are we doing it?”

Jaeyun stared at you.

“Are you—” he began. “Are you trying to schedule sex?”

“Seems reasonable.” You shuddered. “Or do you want us to do it now—”

“No,” he cut in, eyes narrowing, but the fondness in it betrayed him. “Tonight.”

“Don’t you have classes?”

“Are you having second thoughts?” he countered.

“Tonight,” you agreed. “My place?”

“That makes more sense,” he said, not only because he didn’t want his roommates hovering around, but because if he kept you here, if he kept you in his bed again, he didn’t trust the part of him that wanted to pretend you didn’t already belong.

“Okay,” you said.

“Okay,” he echoed.

Jaeyun straightened, grabbed his own plate, and turned away from the counter as if he hadn’t just scheduled the end of the life he’d been carefully maintaining like a lie. As if he’d invited you to the movies instead of into the most dangerous part of him.

“Eat,” he said again, voice rough. “Before I change my mind.”

You took a bite of eggs, crunching your nose. “These are terrible.”

“They’re edible,” he argued.

You smiled around your bite, and in the brilliance of it, Jaeyun noticed with sudden clarity that you might not be drunk, you might not be mad, but it had been a reckless request.

And he had just said yes.

He should’ve panicked.

He should’ve backed out and clung to his rules until they cut him open.

But he only watched you — standing in his kitchen with his shirt draped around you, alive and real and trusting him with clear eyes, and he couldn’t make himself care about the danger.

RULE #2: DO NOT TOUCH HER IMPROPERLY  

Some touches are allowed because they keep her safe — elbow, shoulder, wrist, maybe her waist; small steadying things I can explain without it sounding like a lie. Improper is anything I do for myself. Improper is touching her like I’m owed something just because I’ve been here a long time.

Jaeyun liked electrical engineering — he really liked it — perhaps more than he’d ever admitted out loud.

There was something about how he could take a mess of a problem — wires crossing like arguments, values that looked meaningless until he stopped panicking and actually looked — and reduce it to rules that held. KCL. KVL. The calm mathematics of not lying to himself. Find the reference. Label the nodes. Define the direction. Solve.

If he couldn’t control other things — timing, people’s feelings, the way you could laugh like nothing was wrong while something in him quietly broke — then at least he could control this.

At least here, the world had edges. Here, the answer existed, and he found some calmness in it.

But not tonight.

Jaeyun sat in the last row with his book open and his pen in hand, trying to make his body obey.

But the professor’s voice moved through the room, muffled by the low hum of the projector and the whisper of AC that never quite cooled the lecture hall. Something about the transient response. Something about step inputs and settling time. Jaeyun stared at the diagram on the slide until it started to blur, because all he could see was you in his kitchen, barefoot on his tile. His shirt on your body. Your mouth around the word tonight like it was a dare and a promise and a joke all at once.

He wrote a line of notes, realizing a moment too late that it didn’t make sense; it was just a string of symbols that meant nothing. His jaw tightened. He scratched it out so hard the paper tore, then froze, breathing through his nose like he could sand himself back into something normal.

He tried to listen again, forcing his gaze to the board, and his brain into the shape of equations.

But the truth was: he wasn’t there anymore.

He was already walking to your studio apartment. He was already at your door, pressing the code of your keypad as he had done a thousand times. 

He was already hearing your voice say his name the way you always did when you wanted something — and he hated that the wanting in him answered like a trained dog.

His leg bounced under the desk as his eyes moved to the clock.

The second hand dragged itself forward like it was doing it on purpose, like time had decided to become cruel just to prove it could. Jaeyun forced himself to look back down at the board. Forced his jaw to unclench. Forced his foot to stop bouncing.

It didn’t work.

He dragged a hand through his hair, knuckles scraping his scalp, and stared at the open page like he could threaten it into giving him peace.

Step response.

Damping ratio.

Overshoot — his chest felt like overshoot.

Jaeyun exhaled slowly, then made a decision, closing his book with a sound sharper than it should’ve been in the lecture hall, a final clap that made the person in front of him glance back, but Jaeyun didn’t care. If anything, he slid the book into his bag, capped his pen, and stood.

Outside, the late afternoon air hit him with a faint bite — winter pretending it hadn’t left yet. And the campus was loud in the way it always got near the end of the day: students spilling out of buildings, scooters whining by, laughter too bright, life too easy.

Jaeyun walked straight through it, taking the quickest route off campus, cutting between two buildings, and down the narrow street that always smelled like fried food and stale cigarette smoke.

He didn’t stop to think — didn’t even breathe; he only followed the line to your apartment complex, pushing the door open and taking the stairs, two at a time.

At your door, the keypad was there, small and impersonal, a little square of plastic and numbers that shouldn’t mean anything. But Jaeyun had always been stupidly good at remembering what mattered, and your passcode was one of those things he picked up without asking, without naming it as intimacy — the way he learned strawberry was your favorite fruit when you were both twelve, the way he memorized the sound of your laugh before he realized he was paying attention. Four digits. He knew it — he had used it a dozen times, but as his finger found the first digit, he froze because him knowing it all too well, suddenly felt like trespassing.

Jaeyun stared at the numbers. His hand still in the air, suspended, and ridiculously caught between two versions of himself. The one that had always been allowed inside your life, the one that had walked into your space carrying groceries and textbooks and your bad moods like they were part of his schedule, and the one standing here now, with the taste of tonight still sharp in his mouth, and the knowledge that tonight is not errands or emergencies.

He exhaled, slowly, trying to make his body act normal — trying to make his hand stop trembling with the sheer idiocy of wanting.

But couldn’t, and when he raised his hand again, he only knocked at the door and waited, hearing his own pulse in his ears, a stupid, loyal metronome that refused to slow down. 

And then — movement.

The smallest sound from inside. Footsteps. A shift of air through the crack of the frame, like your apartment exhaled before the door even opened.

Jaeyun straightened without meaning to, shoulders going back like he’s bracing for impact. His hand dropped to his sides, finding his pockets because he refused to be caught halfway through panic.

Warm light spilled through the gap, and the scent of your place followed it — something clean and faintly floral, the trace of whatever you always used that made you smell like comfort when you hugged him goodbye. And there you were, framed in the doorway as if you’d been waiting in the exact spot where he would have to see you all at once.

For half a second, Jaeyun couldn’t breathe, his lungs catching, devastated by you.

“Hi,” you said. It was the same word you’d always used, yet it didn’t sound the same. “Did you forget the code?” 

Jaeyun swallowed, forcing his face into something neutral.

“No,” he managed, his voice coming out rougher than he wanted it to. But if anything, you hummed at him, requiring no further explanation, as you opened the door a little wider so he could come in.

Jaeyun had molded the moment when he would step into your place in his mind enough times to believe he would be prepared when it finally came into reality. 

Yet it didn’t.

He tried to don a neutral aspect, tried to speak — make some joke — but the words stayed in, hooked into years, and yanked, allowing nothing but air to pass through his lips.

Your apartment was small in the way studios always were — everything close enough to touch from the same spot, everything bearing the faint imprint of your routines. A blanket was folded too neatly on the end of the bed. A mug sat on the counter that looked like it had been rinsed and set down without being fully put away. A stack of books with their spines cracked in the middle like they’d been loved, not displayed.

And there was you — too close, too real.

You hadn’t really changed since he had seen you early on; you were the same girl he had known his whole life, and yet, there was something different about you tonight, and it made something in him tighten until it felt sharp.

Jaeyun shut the door behind him with his foot, careful not to let it slam, yet the click of the latch sounded louder than it should’ve, and he stood there for a beat too long, backpack strap still across his shoulder, hands in his pockets.

“Shoes,” you remembered, because you couldn’t help yourself, and a laugh escaped through him, familiar enough to settle him.

Jaeyun bent, unlaced his sneakers, slipped them off with quick, efficient motions before he lined them near the door and dropped his backpack.

When he straightened, you were still watching him, draped in a dress that didn’t try to be subtle.

It hugged you way too prettily, clinging to your waist and hips like it had been made with the sole purpose of making him forget he’d ever learned how to breathe. The neckline dipped just enough to show skin, and right there — resting against it like a quiet, years-old claim — was the necklace he’d given you. 

“Jaeyun,” you called. And he knew this tone — he knew it so damn well. It was your do something. 

And so he did, striding in your direction, his hands already reaching for your face, cradling it on his palms before he looked down at you with a small question that he couldn’t come to pronounce because you were already replying by closing your eyes, tipping your head up so he didn’t need to do much to catch your top lip within his.

It was your first kiss. Jaeyun had known you for his whole life, but it was the first time he had come to know your mouth, and it felt almost like a travesty of the universe.

You tasted like strawberries, sugar, and something so familiar that his chest ached, threatening to break open and groan escaped him when you parted your lips, allowing him to dip his tongue inside, pressing against yours until he couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t you.

You and the way your hands found the front of his t-shirt and curled on it.

You and the way you pulled him along with you as you stepped back — and back, until the back of your knees had hit the mattress, and you had no other option but to fall on it, his hands bracing around your face, one knee bent and pressed where the skirts of your dress had pooled in too high.

You didn’t say anything as you reached for him, rushing your hands beneath the blue shirt and pushing it over his shoulders.

“Wait, Princess, wait,” he asked. “Slow down.” 

“Is this how you always do it?”

And he could have lied, could have merely said yes, that was how he took all the other girls, but he didn’t.

“No,” he said. “It’s because it’s you and me.”

You stared at him, and suddenly the room felt too small for your heartbeats, too quiet for how loud everything inside of him turned.

But then, you leaned in and kissed him again — slower this time — giving him space to meet you properly. 

His hand slid from your jaw to the side of your neck, his thumb pressing and feeling your pulse through the tip of it as his other hand followed the line of your shoulders, moving further and further until his palm had found your waist, his fingers spreading on you the way he always did to anchor you — except that now it was less anchoring than keeping you.

You shifted beneath him, your leg sliding close enough to brush the inside of his thigh, and Jaeyun felt it like a jolt — small, accidental, and devastating — traveling straight through his length, and making his breath catch.

He forced himself to hinder — force himself to keep his head clear. But his body was already answering you, heat gathering with every centimeter of contact, the novelty of it turning molten and bright in his blood — wanting to move, to press in, to take what you were offering without thinking. 

“Tell me if—” he started, then stopped, trying to rearrange his thoughts. 

“If what?”

“If you want me to stop,” he managed. “Say it if you—”

“I won’t,” you said, and the certainty in it hit him like a punch.

Jaeyun exhaled, pressing his forehead to yours — not kissing, not moving — just breathing the sweet scent of you, vanilla and white flowers, the same he always had as he counted the seconds like he could make them behave through the sheer force of his want.

“You’re sure?” he asked — because he had to — because he knew that this was the line where everything became real, and everything before this was going to feel small in comparison.

“Yes, Sim Jaeyun,” you whispered. “I’m sure.”

“Okay,” he murmured, more to himself than you. “Okay.”

Jaeyun’s fingers found the strap of your dress, sliding it with a gentleness that didn’t match the way his pulse was climbing, easing it down through your shoulder slow enough that it felt like a question you could stop without words — yet you didn’t — and the dress shifted with a soft whisper through your body. 

He leaned in and pressed his mouth to the skin he’s uncovered — one brief kiss, then another — until the dress loosened and pooled lower, until he could guide it away and reveal your lingerie set, pinkish in a way that only made your skin warmer under the lights of your apartment. 

His breath hitched.  

You were beautiful in a way he’d always known, but also in a way he’d never allowed himself to study — never this close, never with permission. Never with the soft spill of your skin under his hands, much less with the heat of you turning every familiar detail into something obscene and new. 

His hand splayed over your belly, the tips of his fingers skimming the lower edge of your bra before he slid down, finding the band of your panties and hooking it lightly.

“You’re—” he began.

“Don’t get too full of yourself, Jaeyun,” you murmured. “I dress like this because I just happen to have no bad sets.”

The laugh that left him was helpless, more air than sound, relief threading through it because you were still you, even here, even now, just in your lingerie set and with skin turning reddish because of his kisses, and it truly didn’t matter that you interpreted him wrongly this time. 

“Right,” he managed. He couldn’t argue with anything you said — not right now — not never. “Of course.”

Your fingers curled in his shirt, pulling him closer — not frantic, not desperate — just needy, and Jaeyun went still for one beat to let himself feel it: the pull, the permission, the way your hands on him turned his years of restraint into something soft and breakable.

“Of course,” he whispered again, bending down and kissing you, your temples first, and then your cheeks — his lips pestering over your face with soft pecks before he moved lower, discovering that one sensitive spot underneath your jaw, and when you gasped, he took it as an incentive to move to the column of your neck, his mouth parting as his tongue slipped out in a tiny tease that got you gasping softly — almost silently, hands closing at the shoulders of his shirt as if you couldn’t help yourself.

“You’re sensitive,” he murmured, tucking his discovery carefully alongside all the other details he’d collected about you over the years.

You called for him, but if it had been a warning or a submission, you lost interest in the rest of your thought as he kissed you again, open mouth and tongue rolling against your skin, surely leaving a mark, and making a moan to rumble through your lips instead. 

Jaeyun’s eyes flicked up to your face, and he didn’t let go — not even when his hands slipped to your back, the tips of his fingers finding and curling on the clasps of your bra. Not even as he opened it and slid further into you, kissing the tip of your breast and sending goosebumps through your skin. 

He never let go.

And when his lips parted, tipping his tongue out, and making your hands move to the back of his head, fisting at his hair almost bitterly, he only smiled against you, the movement adding another coating to the sensation and making your arch against him.

He licked you softly, licked you hard, covered the areola with his lips and pulled the tip into his mouth, pulled more and harder, until your back arched even more and created a gap between the mattress that his hands took no time to fill, his fingers spraying through your skin and holding you still as his mouth moved, leaving your nipple just to create a path through your body, trailing down to your sternum, your stomach — taking in every piece of your skin in between his lips.

Jaeyun lifted his head then, just enough to look at your face properly, catching the flush on your cheeks, the way your lips had parted because your breath had turned pant, your chest moving too fast and allowing your necklace to sparkle.

The room was suddenly too small for how loud his blood had gotten. 

For a moment, he didn’t kiss, didn’t lick, didn’t give either of you the mercy of motion; he only held still and watched, like he needed to see what he was doing to you before he let himself do more.

“Princess,” he breathed, the word slipping out before he could decide on anything else. 

You looked at him, and your gazes locked as they had done a dozen times across the existence of you, yet the moment acquired that dream quality because you were here, bare in a way he’d only imagined in the abstract — late at night, in the quietness of his room, in the version of his imagination he kept locked away like contraband — and the distance between wanting and having had narrowed to a single breath.

Jaeyun swallowed, trying to steady himself, before let the moment break by degrees — his palm slid down the slope of your stomach, slow enough to feel like asking, fingertips grazing your skin as if he were relearning it; as if touching you like this rewired something in him that had always been too careful until his fingers finally found the band and paused there, hooked lightly under the elastic.

He looked back up at you then, thumb stroking once along your hip as his other hand held you steady at the small of your back, refusing to let you drift away from him — from this.

“You okay?” he murmured, and it sounded like he meant all of it.

You nodded at him, and he moved — quietly relentless — his knuckles brushed your thighs on the way, accidental touches that weren’t accidental at all, and the sound you made hit him physically. 

He had never been so hard in his whole life.

He guided the panties lower, and lower, until they slipped free; and for a beat, he just held them, as though the simplest thing in his hand had become proof that the night had finally crossed into real.

Then he set them aside without looking, his attention snapping back to you immediately — hand returning to your inner thigh with a firmer hold than before. 

“If I do anything you don’t like — you tell me, okay? We have to communicate.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoed. 

His thumb drew one more slow line along your inner thigh, watching the way you answered it before he allowed himself to lower his head again, kissing the inside of your knee this time — soft — almost innocent, if the moment hadn’t been burning at the edges. Then another kiss, slower, lingering, his mouth warming you as his hands guided you open with a care that felt reverent. 

“You are just — beautiful,” he heard himself say.

You let out a small sound that wasn’t quite a breath and wasn’t quite a laugh, startled by how earnest he was being. Your cheeks warmed, and you turned your face just slightly, like you could hide behind the angle.

“You’re ridiculous,” you murmured, aiming for teasing, but it came out too soft for anything but shyness.

And Jaeyun’s mouth twitched, a helpless curve that didn’t reach humor so much as relief. And his hand tightened once at your thigh, then gentled, thumb stroking a quiet line as if to soothe the flush he’d put in you.

“Yeah?” he said. “But is it okay?”

“Yeah,” you said, the word threaded through the quiet laugh that escaped you. You didn’t dress it up, didn’t offer an explanation, didn’t hand him the because — you just let the answer be simple. But it wasn’t simple at all, not to him because he heard the rest in the way your gaze found his and held: yeah, you said, because it’s you.

The first touch of his mouth against your folds was light enough that he didn’t even taste you, but your body still reacted: a sharp inhale, a pull through your spine, the instinctive arch that made his own breath break low in his throat.

And when you tipped your hips to him, he mouthed you again, his hands sliding further into you, thumbs finding the tender flesh of your hood and lifting it — leaving your clit in full exposure for him to lean in, the tip of his tongue kneading the sensitive flesh around, slightly rubbing before he pressed it, unable to prevent the sound that escaped his throat then — something between reverence and desperation. 

It took your smile away — your lips parting in a gasp as your fingers met and wove through his hair, pulling him in a demand that he had no second thoughts before obeying, giving you another lick — a harder one.

His tongue twirled all around the edge, then he pressed a kiss over it — a long, tender wet kiss before he lowered his head and licked at the entrance of your body because you were clenching around nothing, and it suddenly felt too evil, and Jaeyun would never be evil to you.

He pushed his tongue against your hole, and then, he pushed again until his tip went inside it, and he had to control his will to roll his eyes back.

Even his boldest fantasy hadn’t come close to how sweet you actually were. And the thought landed too tender to survive, cracking him open into something darker because being careful had started to feel like another kind of denial, and he couldn’t come to continue to restrain himself when you had given him all the permission. Jaeyun lifted his head just long enough to look at you, eyes blown wide and honest, as if he was giving you one last chance to pull him back. To tell him to stop. To make him good again.

Yet you didn’t. And something within him shifted. His hands held you firmer, spreading you open as he went back to you no longer soft-edged, and decided to stop hovering at the threshold, giving you what you were asking for.

Jaeyun’s grip tightened as he worked on you, alternating between broad strokes and precise licks on that one spot that never failed to make you cry out his name.  

“That’s it,” he whispered. “Let me hear you.”

Your response came almost immediately — a broken moan that seemed to come from somewhere so deeply inside of you, Jaeyun felt your own desperation reverberating through his entire body.

You were getting closer, he could tell by the way your thighs kept quivering under his hands, your breathing becoming more and more ragged with each pass of his tongue, but it wasn’t enough — he needed to see it: the moment pleasure turned undeniable, the moment he could stop wondering if he was reading you wrong.

Jaeyun retreated with a torturous care, pressing a final kiss to your folds as he pushed himself back onto his knees and earned a protest from you.

“Jaeyun—”

“Not yet,” he said. “For now, I need you to hold yourself open for me. Can you do that, Princess?”

You nodded despite yourself, spreading your legs further apart — pushing the soles of your feet against your sheets for some leverage and fuck.

The sight of you like this — glistening with your fluids and remnants of his saliva — the sight of you so ready for him.

He could hardly breathe.

He brought one hand down through your thigh, his thumb resuming the circular motions on your clit while his other hand moved to your seam, teasingly brushing the tips of his fingers through before he slid a single one inside.

You were so wet already, he slipped with no resistance, and it was so dizzying — everything about it was so dizzying — he hardly heard you panting as he began to move his finger in and out, your stomach tightening and giving a small convulsion, but you kept your legs apart as he had asked you to.

It was a false deed, honestly — as if Jaeyun could command anything when both of you knew — he was the one to always follow. 

But he really didn’t care.

When Jaeyun felt you opening up to him, he added a second finger in, curling them slightly to discover that one spot that soon enough got you into a mess — squeezing him with your release as your hands grabbed at your sheets. Your lips parted around his name, and your hair turned wilder as your head pushed against your pillows, arching your back in that one beautiful bow before you melted again.

“Princess,” he called, and you clenched at the endearing name, a velvet heat that he felt in his very soul.

You hadn’t done anything to him, but Jaeyun felt utterly undone by you. His breath was coming in short, ragged gasps just by watching you.

God — he could come just by watching you.

You were so wet. His hand was coated with you, white slick dribble coming out of your cunt, making each of his moves obscenely loud in the quiet night, yet — all he could think was how stunning you were like this, so lovely and so his.

He wanted to keep looking — to hold the moment still, to learn it by heart, and make it something real enough to survive the morning. But he wanted to look away, too, all at once — startled by the sheer size of his wanting.

You had so much power over him, it was terrifying even to examine the way you owned his soul. When your gazes caught, his heart seemed to burst in his chest.

Was he doing it for you, or doing it for him? He couldn’t tell anymore.

He curled his fingers deeper inside of you, making you mumble something unintelligible, a sob ripping through your chest and already threatening to turn into a release. Jaeyun couldn’t help but grin at the sound, reveling in the way your body trembled and arched underneath his touch.

You thrashed and thrashed as he still tended you the way you needed, stroking the spots inside that made you shudder and rubbing at your clit until he heard you panting, his own name falling from your lips in a breathless moan before it turned into whimpers, and when you came around him, he leaned in to kiss you.

Jaeyun stayed close through the last shiver, like he didn’t trust the world not to startle you out of it. He kissed you again — slower now, softer — catching your mouth as your breathing stuttered, and pretending that he could take the edge off the intensity just by holding you there. His hand eased from its grip into a gentler touch, smoothing along your thigh.

“Hey,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”

His forehead brushed against yours as his hands smoothed over your body, taking you through until he could cup your face, and his thumb could reach for the corner of your mouth, wiping away the evidence of his kiss with a tenderness that didn’t match how wrecked he looked. He swallowed, chest rising and falling too fast, and forced himself to slow his breathing until yours started to follow.

“Still okay?” he asked again, softer, as if the question mattered more now than it had before.

You nodded at him, managing a flimsy sound that might’ve been yes, and Jaeyun pressed another kiss to your temple, then your cheek, unhurried, almost devotional, as if he needed to apologize for his own intensity.

“You did so well,” he whispered. “Tell me what you need. Water? A minute? Do you want me to hold you, or-?”

“Jaeyun,” you cut.

“Yes, Princess?”

Your hands slid to the back of his neck, fingers curling and weaving through his hair, holding him still.

“I need you.”

It might have been the words, the small plea that took Jaeyun anew because he would never refuse anything you asked him, or perhaps it was the way you said them, a bit flimsy because you couldn’t control it still, but either way, he gave in, slipping from your hold only so he could take his t-shirt off. 

He almost choked when you stood with him, your hands reaching for his lower abdomen, nails scraping his skin slightly before you took his belt and unbuckled it. 

“Princess,” he called, the questions already on his tongue, shaped by habit, and the need to do this right.

But you didn’t give him time.

Your hands moved for his jeans, unzipping them as if you’d decided you were done waiting, easing them down in one smooth, impatient motion. The room seemed to go hushed around the sound of it — denim shifting, breath catching — until the only thing left was the sudden, helpless awareness of his length slapping against his abdomen.

Your hand found him, fingers curling around him almost beautifully, closing and molding with a care that didn’t match, and making his whole body go taut, breath pulling tight in his chest like it had nowhere to go. Not because he didn’t want it — God, he wanted it — but because he did, too much, too fast, the kind of wanting that threatened to ruin the rest of the night by sheer impatience.

He caught your wrist gently, holding you as his forehead dipped toward yours again, his eyes shutting.

“If you do that,” he began. “I’m not going to last.”

The honesty of it landed between you, sharp with embarrassment. And when he opened his eyes again, there was something almost pleading in the way he looked at you — like he was asking you not to laugh, not to make him feel small for how quickly you could undo him.

“Another time,” he promised, realizing the implications of his words a fraction too late. Not just later tonight. Not just when you feel like it. But again. As if he’d already decided that there was going to be a future where he got to learn you — and be learned — without rushing.

But you didn’t tease him. When you looked at him, your gaze holding his until the heat in his face had nowhere to hide, you merely nodded.

“Okay,” you said.

You were no warmer than Jaeyun was, but when he touched your waist, your skin shivered, a fine tremor running under his fingertips.

“Okay,” he echoed.

You let him ease you down onto the sheets, smoothing you into place as he followed you down, bracing himself over you without crushing you, and kissed you — slow, mouth soft, reverent in a way that made the moment feel almost holy.

“Tell me if anything hurts,” he whispered. “Tell me if—”

“I know,” you breathed, and the words sounded so much like trust — Jaeyun’s throat worked, and he kissed you again and again and again, only letting go to reach down beside the bed for his jeans, fingers finding the pocket by feel — clumsy in a way he never remembered being. His breath caught when you made the smallest sound behind him, and he hurried to get his wallet free, forcing it out with a practical shuffle before the faint and quick tear of foil came in the hush.

He slid it on with shaky hands that he hoped you wouldn’t notice.

But you did — of course you did. 

When he climbed back over you, you reached for his arms, your fingers brushing down until you found his hands.

“You’re shaking,” you whispered, your brows knitted, and searching his face like you were afraid you’d pushed him somewhere he didn’t want to go.

Jaeyun went still.

“Because it’s you,” he replied, not giving himself time to consider how much he had exposed with this mere phrase. 

Of course he was shaking. He’d wanted you for so long it had grown into something foundational, something he’d learned to live around and never touch. And now you were here beneath him, looking at him like he was allowed — like he was chosen — and his wanting hadn’t been foolish after all.

His throat worked. He tightened his fingers around yours, trying to make the shaking stop by force.

“If I mess this up, you won’t ever let me hear the end of this,” he smoothed.

You laughed at him — familiar in a way that loosened something in his chest, easing everything inside him as if the sound of you had always known where to press to make him breathe again.

“Don’t worry,” you said. “I’ll keep it all as another of our secrets.” 

“What other secrets do we have?”

“What you had under your bed when we were teenagers,” you began. “That you couldn’t sleep without a lampshade until you were twelve. Where we were on your eighteenth birthday. That you cried watching The Notebook—”

“Everyone cried watching The Notebook at least once.”

“Baekhyeon didn’t—”

“Did you watch it with him?”

“It’s my favorite movie, of course I did,” you said. “But don’t worry, it was just once — it’s funnier with you anyway.”

“Obviously,” he said. “Everything is funnier with me — and we are about to have a lot of fun.”

You laughed again, softer and only because he was allowed to — he kissed you again, his hands smoothing your thighs, your calves, his fingers moving and curling around your ankles and pulling you to him, lifting your legs to his hips.

You stiffened as his tip made contact, your body going taut beneath him and he stopped like he’d been trained for it, like every instinct he had rewired itself around not hurting you. His grip shifted back from your ankles to your thighs — his thumbs stroking small, steady circles as if he could coax your muscles out of panic.

“Princess, look at me,” he murmured. “Do you want me to stop?”

You shook your head, a little bit too frantically as if you were afraid he would really stop it, and Jaeyun exhaled through his nose, a sound that stood somewhere between a laugh and a prayer. He kissed you once, slow and grounding, then another at the corner of your mouth.

“Okay,” he said. “Then we go slow. I’m right here.”

He shifted — barely enough to change the angle, but you seemed to feel it and his thumb reached for you seam, wetting the tip of it with your fluids, and finding your clitoris, rubbing it in slow and deliberate circles that got you closing your eyes, moving your hips, and welcoming whatever he was giving.

Jaeyun made himself still enough to read you, his eyes tracking your face with the kind of focus that might’ve felt clinical, if it hadn’t been so tender. He watched your breathing first, then your mouth, then the tiny shifts in your shoulders before he slowed and it eased again.

He moved in careful increments, pausing whenever your breath changed. Waiting whenever your brows pinched. His hands steadied you — firm at your thighs, gentle at your waist, and holding you through the newness of it.

“Tell me,” he whispered. “Is it okay?”

You nodded and he lowered his forehead toward yours.

It was slow at first, all about him discovering the new shape of you, but soon enough, it was confident and knowing. When he drew back, he knew exactly how to move back in, how to make you tighten around him, and his name to escape from your lips a little bit more frantically as his rhythm increased.

Your fingers spread through the back of his neck, fingers twisting at the hair at his nape and bringing him closer and closer, as if you couldn’t help it. And when your breath turned ragged and your fingers tightened, Jaeyun pressed his mouth to your temple, whispering your name like a promise he could finally keep.

Even if only temporarily.

“Yun, I’m going—”

“It’s okay, Princess,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

And this time he meant it in every way.

“Come for me, babe.”

You twisted under his body, even as he kept you pinned in place with his hands on your hips, squirming and whimpering your way through it, finishing with an almighty shudder as you came a second time, and it was so beautiful, and overwhelming — he tried to stay careful. He tried to keep his breathing even. But you said his name like you needed him, and something in him cracked clean through.

He buried his face against your neck, a shaky sound trapped in his throat. “Princess—”

He didn’t have room for anything except you.

No thought. No control. Just the force of feeling, cresting too high and too fast, until it dragged a groan from him with your name inside it — like that was the only thing he could say when he finally lost himself — and with a final, deep thrust, his body tensed and spilled inside of you — groaning your name. The echo of it carved into your skin as he buried himself, his fingers molding into your skin with an intensity that left behind indentations as the waves of his pleasure washed over.

Jaeyun hadn’t realized how noisy you both had been, but the room felt suddenly too quiet after. 

And for a beat, he only stayed still — his forehead tucked against the curve of your neck, breathing you in like he was trying to memorize the exact shape of the air between you, the feeling of your pulse under his mouth, your fingers still lost in his hair, and your bodies so tangled, he couldn’t quite tell where he ended and you began — his whole soul afraid that the moment would slip away the second he admitted it had happened.

But then, you made a small sound, and it made him force his head up — just enough to look at you.

He brushed his knuckles along your cheek, then paused, thumb hovering at your lips because he didn’t know if he was allowed to touch you like this now that the moment was gone. 

“You okay?” he asked, the question already worn thin by the number of times he had used it through the night, but it felt heavier somehow, meaning more than any of the earlier ones ever had.

But if anything, you only nodded — leaning into his touch as your lashes fluttered shut.

“Just stay,” you whispered.

And so, he stayed — rolling you both through your bed, his back sinking into the mattress as he drew you to his chest, giving you a place to rest as if it was any other night and you were merely best friends falling asleep together. He stayed until your heartbeat evened out against him and the room turned orange and pink with sunrise, dust motes catching in the full light like glittering hush, and the night had inevitably bent itself into morning.

˖ ⟡  ݁˖

Jaeyun lay on your bed, holding a breath in his chest as if it could keep the morning from happening. The sun slipped through your parted curtains and spilled across the room — patient and indisputable — turning everything into proof.  

Your dress was still pooled on the hardwood, your panties right above it, and his jeans were so close it could’ve been one thing. Your bra was still at the edge of the bed, pink, half-tucked into the sheets he couldn’t remember tangling.  

He let the breath go, and the mattress answered, making you stir — just a little — your head rolling off his chest until your chin found him again.  

When your eyes opened, the light caught and held — as if it had nowhere else to be.  

Jaeyun felt the instinct to speak. Something practical. Something safe. Something that could be filed under morning conversation and good friend behavior.  

Are you okay? he thought. Do you need water? 

Do you want me to make breakfast again and pretend I don’t care when you mock me for it?

But you didn’t give him time.  

You lifted your head — sleepy as it was certain — brushing your nose against his before you caught his lower lip between yours and kissed him in a way that made teasing feel like a promise.

Jaeyun went utterly still, his hands hovering, useless with hesitation. He had spent years learning which parts of you he was allowed to hold — elbow, shoulder, wrist; the small, steadying touches that could be explained without telling on himself.  

But this was your room.  

Your bed.  

Your morning.  

And you were kissing him like you’d never once needed an explanation, catching his lower lip — so gentle it hardly counted as a bite — holding it for one heartbeat longer before you let him go and eased back.

Jaeyun blinked, and the muted morning light dazed him — your room pressing in with a kind of hush that made it feel like a dream: sun-warm sheets, the sound of breath, the closeness of you like something he hadn’t earned but had been given anyway. He let it hold him for a suspended moment before he leaned in and kissed you again, this time with more feeling than thought — one hand found your waist, as the other slid behind your neck, tilting you up to him.

Your breath caught at that, and for a moment, Jaeyun feared he had gone too far — too fast. He’d finally slipped enough to not be able to lie and pretend he hadn’t broken his second rule, but then you shifted, sliding a leg over his hips, straddling him like it was the most natural place in the world to be, and something in him went quiet with the rightness of it.

He didn’t move first. He didn’t take. He only held where you’d placed him.

And when you parted — pulling back just enough for you to breathe — it carried the kind of practicality that had always been your shared language. 

“I need a shower,” you said.

For a beat, Jaeyun blinked at you, incapable of understanding the words. But then, his brain latched onto it, and he felt thankful. A shower meant tiles. Water. Soap. Clean lines. A task that could be completed. A thing he could do without interpreting your mouth, your eyes, the way your kiss had said stay.

“Okay,” he heard himself say. “Okay, yeah.”

Jaeyun shifted carefully, guiding you off him with hands that tried to remember what permitted felt like — waist, ribs, shoulder — anywhere that could still pass as gentle logistics instead of want. His gaze skated away from your face on instinct, as if looking at it too directly might pull him back under, and slipped out of the bed.

You followed, swinging your legs over the side of the bed, slightly swaying — more due to sleepiness than weakness, but Jaeyun’s body reacted anyway. He reached for you, his hands steady on your arms.

He helped you up. Guided you through your studio: past the small table with the stack of books, past the mug you never fully put away, and into the narrow bathroom where the tiles were warm and the mirror caught the gold of morning and gave it back to him as evidence.

Your skin carried so many marks from the night before that his breath caught.

He looked away so fast it felt like a flinch.

Jaeyun moved like he was trying to fix the world.

He turned on the light first. Then the fan. Then the tap — hot first, then cold, adjusting in small increments until the water felt right because putting things in order always helped him keep control. 

He watched the water steam faintly as it ran, watched it like it was a system he could calibrate.

He set a towel within your reach. Folded it once, then unfolded it because the fold looked too neat and he didn’t want you to notice how nervous he was. Then he reached for your shampoo and put it back where it already was, because he suddenly ran out of things to do, but his hands still sought for something.

You leaned your hip against the sink and watched him with that quiet softness that made his chest feel too full. The bathroom was suddenly too bright for how careful he was trying to be.

“Yun,” you called, and he turned to you like a man answering a question in class — focused, braced, trying to keep his face neutral.

“Yeah?”

You tilted your head, gaze flicking once before you merely stepped past him, your hands brushing and taking his, pulling him to the shower with you.

The steam gathered immediately, beading on his skin, blurring the sharp edges of the morning until the world became smaller and quieter.

“Sometimes, I can hear you thinking,” you said. “Did you know that?”

“I’m sorry,” he replied.

You laughed at that, but didn’t say anything. You merely turned around, reaching for the shampoo bottle he had previously rummaged and gave it to him. 

“Wash my hair,” you said. 

And so, he did.

Jaeyun took the bottle, pouring shampoo into his palm — more than he needed, because his hands were unsteady — and rubbed it between them until it warmed and foamed. Then his fingers slid into your hair, working the suds in small circles at the crown of your head, careful and thorough, moving outward as the steam gathered and the water ran down your spine. His knuckles grazed your ear once. An accident, maybe. But you let out a sound — more a sigh than anything, and something in Jaeyun tightened anyway, a flare that made his chest feel too warm. His jaw flexed at it, and he forced his hands to stay where they belonged — his attention to stay on the sequence, because sequence meant control: lather, rinse, repeat.

He rinsed you with his palm shielding your forehead, water sluicing through your hair in clear sheets. The gesture was intimate in the most domestic way — protective, and practiced — as if he’d been doing it for years.

And maybe that was why it did him in.

You must have felt the pause in him, the way his body went too still behind you, because when he finally finished, you turned to him, reaching for the bottle, and pouring shampoo into your own palm as you stepped closer — the warm line of you almost meeting the warm line of him, and slid your fingers into his hair.

Jaeyun didn’t know what to do with himself.

He merely bent a little so you could reach, letting your hands take over with a quiet competence that made his throat work. Water ran down his temples, traced the line of his jaw, caught at his lashes. He kept his eyes on the tile like a prayer — like if he looked at you, he’d lose the last clean edge of himself.

You rinsed him, and only when you tapped his hands — did he straighten again.

Then you smoothed soap over his bare skin, starting at his shoulders, your palms unhurried and warm. Down his collarbones. Over his chest.

Jaeyun’s breath broke when you reached his lower abdomen, your fingertips hovering dangerously close to the ache he’d been holding back, and making a sound slip from him — low, involuntary — rushing before he could trap it.

“Princess,” he said, but the word carried no warning at all, and you merely allowed your fingers to rest there, steady as the way your gaze met his.

“You said another time,” you remembered. 

Jaeyun froze.

Not because he didn’t understand. Because he did. Because the memory arrived with humiliating clarity: your hand curled on him in a way that made his honesty slip out raw and breathless last night.

He dragged in a slow breath through his nose. Steam beaded along his lashes; water traced the line of his jaw. He still didn’t look at you — not fully — like eye contact might knock the last brace out from under him while he was still negotiating with himself. Like he was trying to find the border between permitted and improper and realizing you’d moved it with one sentence.

“Are you asking me?” he began. “Or—”

“I’m asking,” you said.

His gaze found yours.

“Okay,” he whispered.

He took your wrist and guided your hand, not down, not yet, but to his jaw, to his throat, to a place he could handle without losing himself.

“Slow,” he said, and you nodded at him, letting your fingers linger.

Your thumb brushed the hinge of his jaw first — testing, almost absent — before your hand slid lower and lower, following the line of his throat, his collar bones. Water ran between your knuckles and his skin, warm and constant, making every touch feel softened at the edges, as if the steam had filed down the danger until it could pass for tenderness, but Jaeyun’s pulse changed immediately, his heart racing as though it too wanted to reach for you through his skin, meeting where your fingers brushed against his chest.

Jaeyun’s lips parted in a soft gasp as you reached for him, tentatively brushing through his extension. Starting from the already flushed tip and moving to the prominent veins all over him and then, all the way back, receiving an almost imperceptible buck of his hips in response.

“Okay?” you asked, and he nodded, but it wasn’t an answer so much as a reflex — his body trying to behave when his mind had gone helpless and searched for something to say — something small enough to fit inside a bathroom, inside steam, inside the ordinary noise of water hitting tile.

But there was no small word that fit because how could he say that anything you did with him would be okay?

How could he say that if you asked for his heart, he would open his ribs for you? If you reached in and took it, he would hold still and even tender you if you faltered.

Jaeyun swallowed, throat tight, breath catching on the way out as he reached for you, his fingers splaying over your cheek as his thumb reached for where a drop had taken place on your skin. 

“I’m okay,”  he said then, the closest answer he could give for what he meant. If you could feel the shape of the unspoken right alongside the spoken, you didn’t show it. 

Your hand merely closed around his length, fingertips tracing the same places his mind had traced a thousand times in private, and every pass of your hand felt like it rewrote him — like your touch didn’t just touch, but claimed a truth he’d been denying for years.

Jaeyun’s breath hitched as you guided him closer, his eyes shutting as his forehead tipped to the curve of your neck.

“Princess,” he whispered, not really sure if he intended to say something, but the sudden call made you pause, your hand motionless enough to make his breath hitch again, his hips bucking and chasing for the friction still. 

“Don’t stop,” he said, and perhaps it had been the words, perhaps it had been the way he said it, more like a plea than a request. But you didn’t — even when his grip tightened on you, his finger shaping bruises on your hips, and his lips parted, leaving a matching one at your neck.

You didn’t stop, even when he came into your hand. You merely gentled him, moving to his stomach, his chest, smoothing him down until his breath wasn’t so ragged and his heart had come into peace beneath your touch.

“Yun,” you called, and he hummed at you, still pressed close, eyes half-lidded, mouth parted like he’d forgotten what to do with the air. Water clung to his lashes. Steam softened the hard lines of him into something boyish, something undone. For once, he wasn’t braced for impact — he was simply there, breathing, and letting you see him, and it was strange how it made your kiss just even better.

How he could simply melt into you.

You smiled at that — small, warm — kissing the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, then a place beneath his jaw that made Jaeyun’s eyes flutter shut, his head tipping just slightly to give you access, like his body wanted to cooperate even when his mind still tried to keep score.

“Princess,” he breathed again, and this time it sounded less like a plea and more like disbelief.

Your hands found him at your hips, guiding it down through your body, the swell of your ass, giving him enough time to grow on it, and take the lead, brushing over warm skin, following curves with a care that made it feel devotional rather than desperate. 

“Okay?” he murmured, because he couldn’t help — he couldn’t ease — not until you had nodded, brushing your noses and making something within settle with the gentleness of it.

Jaeyun exhaled and stepped closer. One hand halted at your waist while the other slid down and around, his fingers tightening briefly against your skin before he shifted, and lifted one of your legs — guiding it up to rest against his hip.

His tip brushed against your seam with the new position, barely anything, but you drew in a breath that didn’t quite make it back out to you, and a faint, trembling noise escaped through your lips instead, and he couldn’t help the soft, almost-gentle smugness that warmed his smile.

He rolled his hips against yours, and your head tipped back, eyes closing and lips still parted on that same faltered breath, allowing sunlight to catch on your skin in the shift, warm and liquid-gold along the lines of you.

“Bed,” you whined, and you didn’t need to tell him twice. 

Jaeyun turned the taps off, not really checking if he had done it properly, before he took you in his arms again, folding your legs around his waist as he walked you back down the short stretch of your place. Water tumbled from you both — tiny drops trembling loose with each step, catching the light before they fell in a thin, gleaming trail on your floorboards.

But you didn’t complain, you didn’t even say anything. When he placed you on the mattress; you merely spread your legs further — wordlessly making room for him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Condom,” you reminded him. “Do you have more?”

For a moment, the question didn’t make sense, but then, he nodded at you, slipping from your touch — just enough to reach for the wallet still tossed on your floor.

“How many did you bring?” you asked, and although Jaeyun had listened to it and understood, he didn’t reply, he allowed the question to hang in the air, a flush of warmth spreading up to his cheeks because the memory of him piling it at the chaser before he went to his classes last evening was too fresh still. 

Just enough, he had thought like he wasn’t, in fact, hoping.

Hoping that it wouldn’t be a one-time thing.

Jaeyun’s fingers fumbled once at the wallet before he forced them steady. He didn’t let himself look at you while he did it; if he looked, he’d lose the last clean thread of control he had left, and so, he merely tore the foil, the sound too loud in the quiet room, and the practical motions that followed felt like an anchor — something procedural to keep him from drowning in the fact that you were watching.

He climbed back onto the mattress, moving slowly, knees sinking into the sheets between your thighs. The bed dipped under his weight, and you shifted automatically to make space for him, your body already well known in the shape of him.

Jaeyun paused above you.

Water still clung to your hair, darkening the strands where they stuck to your neck. Your skin gleamed in the soft light — warm, flushed, kissed by steam and morning and the evidence of him. You looked up at him with your mouth slightly parted, breath uneven, eyes steady and it hit him so hard it almost made him gentle to the point of breaking.

“Princess,” he said, but if anything, you reached up, fingers catching at the back of his neck — not pulling him down, only holding him there — close enough to feel your breath on his mouth. Close enough that he couldn’t lie to himself about how much he wanted it.

Jaeyun lowered his forehead to yours and breathed once, then twice, as if he was counting himself into calm.

“Tell me if—” 

“I know,” you cut, and he snorted at that, his hands finding your thighs, and spreading there with care — measuring you, reading you, bracing you the way he always did when something mattered and he couldn’t afford to do it wrong.

He pulled in slowly, pausing each time your breath changed. Waiting when your fingers tightened in his hair. Listening like your body was the only language he trusted.

“Okay?” he murmured against your mouth.

“Okay.”

Jaeyun exhaled, giving himself a moment before he shifted his weight and settled in deeper.

You made a small sound at that, and Jaeyun halted — caught mid-motion as his eyes stayed on your face, searching for the smallest crack of discomfort, for anything he might have missed and could never forgive himself for.

“Talk to me, Princess,” he said. “Is it too much?”

“No,” you whispered. “It’s — good.”

That answer landed somewhere under his ribs and stayed.

Jaeyun’s eyes shut for a beat. And when he opened them again, he looked wrecked in the quietest way.

He kissed you once more, slower, lingering at the corner of your mouth, your cheek, beneath your jaw — mapping comfort into you the way he mapped calm into circuits, the way he tried to fix the world when it was too big.

And then he moved again, careful and deliberate, letting the moment become real one breath at a time.

The sheets gathered under your fingers. The room narrowed to heat and the sound of his name caught in your throat. Jaeyun held you like he could keep you safe simply by refusing to rush, like tenderness was the only rule he needed now.

“Look at me,” he whispered, and you did, blinking under the morning light and making him swallow, his chest swelling then, big enough to break open with love for you. And perhaps, you had felt it too — heard it in his voice, this sickening desperation, because your hands found his face, cupping it with a tenderness that didn’t match the way he was burying deep inside of you, his tip forming an eminence on the lower part of your belly as he worked on you with slow, long thrusts, and making you come in the morning haze.

Jaeyun collapsed beside you, his back sinking into the mattress as you followed rolling so you rested over his chest.

“Always,” you whispered, the word coming so suddenly, Jaeyun blinked down at you, his head rolling so he could search your face, confused if he had asked you something in his own haze. But sunlight picked strands of your hair, reflected through your damp skin. And he couldn’t make sense of anything.

“What?”

“I’m always okay when I’m with you,” you said.

He knew that he shouldn’t — but Jaeyun felt so right about it.

He felt so right when you called him Sunday afternoon, a tiny can you help me with something? rolling from your tongue and making him sprint to your place, being greeted with you already in your lingerie and you didn’t lie — you had no bad sets.

When he brought you down onto the bed, he didn’t even care about taking it out of you; his fingers merely reached in between your thighs, holding the piece as he slid inside of you.

He didn’t know then, if his hands were still doing their job or if they’d defected. If he was still keeping you safe — or if he’d finally started touching you like he’d wanted to for years, and breaking one more rule.

But as he held you, listening to you breathe quickening and setting against the curve of his neck, he couldn’t make himself care.

Again.

RULE #3: DO NOT BE POSSESSIVE  

I’m her best friend. I always have been. That doesn’t give me the right to be possessive. If I can’t be calm about her, I at least have to be kind. If I touch her, it has to feel like a question she can stop — not a claim. And if someday she chooses someone else, I have to accept it. I have to accept it like it won’t split me in half.

Jaeyun woke to movement.  

Not the slow, sleep-warm kind he’d grown used to in the past weeks, but something quicker — restless. Drawers scraped open and knocked shut again in the same nervous motion; fabric whispered against fabric, and hangers clacked as they were shoved aside.

He didn’t open his eyes — not yet. He listened to you instead: your bare feet skimming the floor, the breath you kept trying to hush, the tiny hitch of frustration when something wasn’t unfolding the way you needed it to.  

And that — that was what pulled his eyes open at last. You sounded wound tight with it, and Jaeyun couldn’t stand the idea of you being anything but fine.

You were half-dressed — shorts on, bra, hair still messy in the way only the mornings after managed, the frizz denoting the number of times he had made you come the night before, arching and pushing your head against the sheets — one of his t-shirts clutched in your hands like it belonged to you more than it belonged to him.

“What—”

You looked over your shoulder at him, guilty only for the fraction of a second it took before your face rearranged into something else.

“Sorry,” you whispered. “I’m late.”

Jaeyun pushed himself up on his elbows, the sheets slipping down his waist. He blinked slowly, trying to coax his mind into one piece through the morning haze.  

“Late for what?” he asked — voice rough with sleep and something worse.  

“My exam,” you said, already turning and moving another hanger. This time you pulled a blue plaid shirt free — the kind you’d been loving to borrow and make him come to collect it himself, your scent worked into the fabric like a quiet claim disguised as comfort.  

“You’re stealing that,” he said.  

You didn’t even bother to look guilty. “Borrowing.”  

“My wardrobe is becoming empty.”  

“And yet,” you said, turning to him with that familiar tilt of your mouth, “you really don’t hate it.”

Jaeyun didn’t answer. He merely watched as you stepped in close again, stealing the air from between you, as you pressed a kiss to his mouth — soft, swift, like a blessing you left behind on purpose.

And the second you pulled away, he moved. Jeans in his fists, he dragged them on as he went, stumbling through the doorway — desperate to be the first thing at your heels.

He caught you at the exact moment his roommates did — both of them lingering in the living room, their backpacks slung over one shoulder, caught in their coffee-stained routines — until the second they saw you and stopped like they’d walked into an invisible wall.

Sunghoon’s gaze went straight to the shirt.  

Then to Jaeyun.  

Then back to you, his mouth twitching like he was trying not to smile.

Jongseong’s eyebrows lifted, slow and serene — the kind of calm that only existed because he liked chaos best when it belonged to someone else.

“Morning,” Jongseong said.

“Morning,” you replied — too bright. “I’m late.”

“Exam?” Jongseong offered, easing into conversation the way he always did: polite, steady, giving everyone an out.

Jaeyun cleared his throat. “She’s late.”

“I am late,” you echoed, pointing at him like it was somehow his fault you’d woken up tangled in his sheets instead of your own — in a room with no alarm clock at all, because Jaeyun despised morning obligations. “But yes.”

You crouched by the door, fingers quick on your laces, and slipping your shoes on.

Sunghoon’s eyes tracked you the whole time, amusement sharpening at the edges of his expression as Jongseong, bless him, kept the conversation where it belonged — safe, ordinary. 

“Good luck,” he said.

“Thank you,” you chirped, already halfway upright again. “Do you have exams too?”

“We’re finishing our exams too,” Sunghoon said. “We should go out after. Celebrate.”

Jaeyun’s jaw worked, like he was chewing down whatever sound wanted to come out of him.

“Arcano?” you asked, and Jongseong’s expression tightened into immediate refusal. He despised the bar, convinced it was what got him hospitalized during his first semester. “I know it’s terrible, but Yun has classes until late tonight — it’s the most reasonable for him.”

For a moment, the room went strangely quiet.

Jaeyun’s gaze found yours and held, warmth rising in him — quiet, disarming — and he went still with it, not knowing where to put the feeling. His mouth parted on a reflex, then he swallowed it back.

Jongseong’s eyes flicked to Jaeyun, then back to you.

“Fine,” he said at last. “But if anyone ends up in the ER again, I’m haunting all of you.”

“That’s fair,” Sunghoon said.

“You don’t have to—” Jaeyun began.

“I — we want to,” you cut in, the words coming as gentle as it was final before you stood and took the knob. “Text me the time!”

You slipped out with a bright, hurried smile, the borrowed shirt hanging off you like a secret, and making Jaeyun step forward, holding the door open so he could stand in the doorway, lingering in the shape of you leaving, and the way you’d arranged the world so he could follow.

When Jaeyun finally clicked the door shut, silence filled the hallway for exactly two seconds before Sunghoon whistled. 

“So,” he began, but Jaeyun didn’t look at him; his gaze stayed on the closed door. “Friends-with-benefits?”

Jaeyun’s jaw flexed. “Don’t.”

“Oh, it is that.”

“It’s not—” Jaeyun started, pushing his hair back off his forehead before he turned to his roommates. “I mean, I don’t know! We haven’t talked about it.”

“But you should,” Jongseong said, his voice neutral enough for Jaeyun not to hear the warning it carried until the air in the room shifted.

“Baekhyeon talked to me yesterday,” Sunghoon said.

“What?” Jaeyun asked, more as a reflex than in fact, understanding what it meant. “Why?”

Sunghoon’s gaze flicked to the door before it moved to Jongseong. And Jaeyun didn’t need anyone to spell it out — his roommates had already talked about this when he wasn’t there.

“He wanted to ask about her,” Sunghoon said. “He didn’t come in aggressive — just pathetic.”

Jongseong’s mouth flattened. “Careful.”

“I’m not being cruel,” Sunghoon replied. “I’m telling the vibe. He was clearly bothered, like he knew what he’s doing was humiliating.”

“What did he say?” Jaeyun asked, his voice warped to his own ears. “Exactly.”

“That was it,” Sunghoon said. “He just asked if I’d been seeing her around.”

He paused. 

“And if she was with someone else.”

Jongseong’s eyes cut to Jaeyun, concern flashing there before he forced his expression back into stillness.

“And?” Jaeyun asked.

Sunghoon’s mouth twitched. “I’m not stupid, I didn’t say you both have been acting like bunnies over the past few weeks.”

“Do you think she told him something?”

“No,” Sunghoon cut. “That’s the thing — I think he has been trying to contact her, but she has been ignoring him.”

And suddenly, it made sense — all those times he’d watched you skim your phone, thumb hovering over the screen, before you set it aside and you looked back at him, a smile forced into place.

God — he’d been so silly for overlooking it.

“He broke up with her,” Jaeyun said. 

“We are not telling you this to make you stressed,” Jongseong cut in. “We are just telling you so you can decide — this thing of yours is working for now, and I am glad for you — she apparently doesn’t want Baekhyeon back, which is great, but it might be someone else someday, and you will have to decide if you are okay with having only a part of her again.”

The apartment fell silent at this, and only then did Jaeyun notice how fast his heart was beating. It hummed against his ears, so loud he couldn’t even think.

When you were both younger — ten, maybe eleven — you had camped in your parents’ garden, your backs side by side on a too-thin blanket and a tent that never stopped letting the wind in. The world had been so silent, you’d whispered that it felt like there were only the two of you in the world, wouldn’t it be nice? You had asked. Back then, he’d rolled his eyes and said something dumb to make you grin, too young to consider anything.

Now, in his hallway with your perfume still on his skin and your borrowed shirt still bright in his mind, he understood what you’d meant. It would be so nice — so nice — if the world really could narrow down to just the two of you, and choosing you didn’t mean risking everything else. And he didn’t know whether that thought made him in love or made him dangerous.

˖ ⟡  ݁˖

By the time Jaeyun arrived at Arcano, you were already on the dance floor with Jongseong and Sunghoon.

And it was stupid, honestly, how whenever he thought he was getting used to your existence, you managed to surprise him — newly lit, newly impossible — you stood between his roommates, eyes sparkling, arms half around Sunghoon’s shoulders as you both shouted the lyrics of a song that was too loud and too familiar, and Sunghoon was singing like he meant it, even if he was off-key on purpose. Jongseong yelled the chorus at your back, his face turned upwards as if the ceiling had personally offended him.

Arcano was the same as it had always been — red bulbs that made everyone look like a rumor, sticky floors that clung to the soles of your shoes like the place didn’t want anyone leaving sober, and bass so loud it turned thought into vibration. The air smelled like cheap liquor and perfume and sweat and the faint bite of citrus from a just-spilled drink. 

And it’s too much — everything was too much.

But the moment he stepped further, you turned to him — not searching, but sure — as though you knew he was going to be standing there.

Gravity, he thought.

He moved through the bodies like he’d done it a hundred times — shoulders angled, hands careful, a quiet apology here and there, never shoving, never rushing. The bass beat against his ribs and still he stayed steady, eyes on you the whole time as if the rest of the room was just static.

You didn’t meet him halfway — you never did — you stayed where you were, your body turned subtly toward him, and only when he got close enough, your hand lifted, fingers finding his. And the moment you held him, the noise of Arcano seemed to dull around the edges, like the room had agreed to give you a fraction of quiet.

His hand was cold while yours was warm, and a shiver danced across you, strong enough to make your shoulders tremble.

And God — he wanted to kiss it. 

You had changed since the morning, trading the shorts and t-shirt for a white dress, but his shirt remained, draped around your shoulders, and making his breath catch — he tightened his grip only enough to be sure you felt him back.

“Hi,” you said, loud enough to be heard over the music, but soft in the way you always became with him.

“Hi,” he replied.

“Look who finally decided to show up,” Sunghoon shouted. “We were about to file a missing person report.”

Jaeyun huffed a breath that almost counted as a laugh. He had gone to the apartment after his classes to drop off his backpack, but he didn’t feel like explaining, not when you were squeezing his hand — small, and private.

“Did you eat?” you asked, and Jaeyun felt the absurd tenderness of it. The fact that you could be in a bar, sweating and laughing and alive, and still your first instinct with him was care.

“Yes,” he lied automatically.

Your eyes narrowed. “Yun.”

“I ate.”

“You ate what?” you asked, and Jaeyun opened his mouth, but his words stalled, and so he closed it again.

“He didn’t eat,” Jongseong said.

“He did that thing where he decides worrying is a food group,” Sunghoon agreed.

Jaeyun’s jaw flexed, but his hand stayed linked with yours like the connection mattered more than winning. “I’m fine.”

You didn’t argue, or at least, not right away. You just watched him for a second, your expression shifting into something softer and knowing, like you could see through him even in red light and bass.

“I am getting you something,” you said. “Stay here — don’t wander.”

Sunghoon leaned in. “He literally can’t. He’s on a leash.”

Jongseong barked a laugh. “Be nice.”

Jaeyun opened his mouth to protest, but you were already gone — your smile tossed back at him before you turned toward the bar and leaving him to stand there, eyes following, and tracking the small obstacles: the drunk guy who swayed too wide, the table edge that could catch your hip, the slick patch of floor near the booths. All the little risks the world liked to place in your path, as if daring him not to rush up and fix it before it could hurt you.

You barely had reached the counter when he approached you. 

For a moment, Jaeyun thought it was a guy merely trying his luck with you, but then he shifted, red light catching on his features and Jaeyun recognized him immediately. 

Baekhyeon.

Your body stiffened as he leaned in, his mouth close to your ear for a moment before you shifted sideways, trying to create space. Jaeyun couldn’t hear the words leaving your mouth, but your body was speaking loudly enough: no.

Yet Baekhyeon didn’t step back; when you seemed to be about to leave, he reached out, his hand closing around your wrist, and forcing you to stay.

Jaeyun didn’t even think, Sunghoon shouted something behind him, but he was already moving, shoving through people, and cutting a direct line toward you.

“Just listen.” Jaeyun heard Baekhyeon say, his grip still on you.

“I said no,” you said. “Let go—”

“Let her go.”

Baekhyeon turned at the sound of his voice, eyes unfocused and caught in that ugly space between sober and drunk. For a second he only stared, his brain having to wade through the noise to understand what he was seeing. But then, something in his face tightened, reading the truth between the lines and understanding, all at once, that you weren’t alone here. That you weren’t waiting to be won back. That whatever space he thought he still had in your life had been filled.

Or worse — that it never existed at all.

Jaeyun inhaled, his chest filling with a silly compassion toward Baekhyeon because he, too, wouldn’t know what to do if he ever found himself being dismissed from your life like this, but then Baekhyeon’s hand tightened on your wrist, making your fingers contract in pain, and Jaeyun exhaled, letting it all go. 

He would crawl through hell, cut himself open until his body had become numb to pain, but Jaeyun surely would never hurt you — never.

“Let her go,” Jaeyun repeated.

Baekhyeon’s laugh echoed oddly loud in Arcano’s air.

“Here he is,” he said. “Always showing up like a good little — what is it? Lap dog?”

Jaeyun’s jaw flexed once. He’d been called worse — he could take worse — but then Baekhyeon’s gaze slid over you again, slow and mean, taking in your dress, your flushed cheeks, the smile you’d been wearing five minutes ago like it was a crime, and Jaeyun couldn’t stand it. 

He stepped forward.

“Baekhyeon,” Jaeyun warned, and the other released your wrist, flicking his hand in a dismissive gesture as he looked around the bar. 

For a moment, Jaeyun believed Baekhyeon had given up, putting an end to it, but then he turned back at you again, eyes brighter than ever.

“Tell me,” he said, loud enough that people nearby started to glance. “Did you ever actually care about me? Or was I just—”

He looked at Jaeyun.

“—filling time until your lap dog finally got his reward?”

Jaeyun didn’t decide to shove him — he didn’t plan it — his body merely moved like it had been waiting for permission from something older than thought.

His hands drove into Baekhyeon’s chest, making him stumble back, hard, and knocking into someone behind him. 

Drink spilled onto the floor, and the scent of it rose almost immediately — sharp citrus and cheap sugar, muddled by the stale sweetness already living in the boards. It cut through the sweat and perfume for half a second, bright as a peel torn open, before the warmth of the room swallowed it again and left only the sour bite of liquor drying in the air.

“What the fuck—?” Baekhyeon barked. 

“Yun,” you called, but it was already too late.

Baekhyeon launched himself at Jaeyun, his knuckles across Jaeyun’s cheekbone with a hot, skidding sting.

For a beat, the impact didn’t hurt the way it should’ve — it was just information — pressure, heat, the metallic taste of adrenaline flooding his mouth.

But then, something in him snapped.

The image of Baekhyeon’s hand around your wrist flashed behind his eyes like a match struck in dry tinder, and Jaeyun moved before his mind could catch up.

His fist drove forward on instinct, a short, brutal arc — no finesse, no warning — just the need to hit back, to end it, to make Baekhyeon understand with his body what his brain refused to learn.

The punch connected.

Jaeyun felt it in his knuckles, in the jolt up his arm, in the startled give of flesh beneath bone — and the sound that left Baekhyeon was small, shocked, as if he hadn’t expected consequences to be real. Jaeyun didn’t wait to see what it did to his face. He only stepped in closer and did it again.

Baekhyeon fell on the dirty floor, Jaeyun above him, fist in the middle of another throw, when someone hooked an arm around Jaeyun’s chest from behind and hauled him up.

“Stop it,” Jongseong snapped. “You’re going to ruin your damn face.”

But Jaeyun barely heard him. He was still leaning forward, still straining toward the floor like if he just landed one more hit, the feeling in his chest would finally loosen, and make sense. 

Jongseong tightened his hold, bracing his weight behind Jaeyun’s back like an anchor.

“Yun,” you called.

Your voice wasn’t loud.

It didn’t need to be.

Jaeyun froze like you’d put a hand straight on his spine. His fist hovered, trembling with leftover momentum, and then your hands were on his face — warm palms cupping his jaw, thumbs brushing his cheekbones as if you could physically pull him back into himself.

“Yun,” you said again, closer now, eyes searching his like you were trying to find the part of him that still knew you.

And just like that, the fight drained out of him in a shuddering rush. His shoulders sagged. His breath broke. He let Jongseong hold him up for a second longer than he should’ve needed before he leaned on your touch.

“Princess, I—”

“Come with me,” you said. “Can you?”

For a second, Jaeyun couldn’t find the shape of an answer. Not because he didn’t have one — but because he had too many, a lifetime of yeses he’d never said out loud. His body was still buzzing with violence, his knuckles still singing, but your hands on his face made the world narrow into something he could survive. You were asking like it was a choice, like he was a person with options, when the truth was simpler than that: he had been following you since he was old enough to recognize your voice in a crowd. Since gardens and tents and school hallways. Since the first time you turned and expected him to be there — and he was.

“Yes,” he breathed, and the word came out rough, almost broken with how easy it was. Because you could’ve asked him to walk through fire and he would’ve stepped forward without thinking, just because you were the place his instinct went when the world got sharp. His hand rose, uncertain at first, then settled at your wrist like a question he’d spend his whole life answering the same way. 

Always.

You looked past him to Jongseong and nodded, a quiet reassurance, and Jongseong finally released Jaeyun.

“Come,” you said, your fingers slipping into his.

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Arcano’s neon shrank behind you with every step, its red glow thinning into something distant and irrelevant, but Jaeyun’s body hadn’t gotten the memo yet. The adrenaline still sat high in his chest, making his breath feel too big for his lungs, his heart beating like it was trying to outrun what had happened. He kept swallowing like he could force it down.

You didn’t talk much at first. You didn’t need to. You just walked — your fingers laced through his.

And every time his grip tightened without meaning to, you squeezed back once, small and reassuring. It’s okay. I’m here. 

The street was cooler than it had any right to be, so closer to the summer, late-night air cutting cleanly through the smell of booze still clinging to him. The city sounded normal — cars passing, a laugh from someone’s balcony, a distant siren that didn’t belong to you. It was strange, how quickly the world returned to ordinary after a fight. As if nothing could be important for more than a few minutes.

Jaeyun glanced at you once, then again.

You looked furious in a contained way, like your anger had somewhere to go now that you’d gotten him out. Your mouth was set, your brow faintly pinched. Your thumb brushed the side of his hand, absent and grounding, like you couldn’t help checking he was still there.

Jaeyun’s chest tightened.

He wanted to say something useful. He wanted to apologize in a way that would actually fix it. But every sentence he tried to build collapsed into the same thing: I saw him touch you and I lost my mind.

Instead, he stayed quiet and let you lead.

You pushed the code into the keypad of your door with muscle memory, the little beep sounding too loud in the stairwell before it buzzed open and revealed your apartment.

Quiet in the specific way your place always was — soft, contained, familiar, smelling like clean laundry, faint florals, the lived-in warmth of your routines. The small lamp near your bed cast a gentle yellow glow that made everything look calmer than it felt. Books stacked neatly where they always were. A mug by the sink. A blanket folded too precisely at the end of the bed like you’d been trying to keep your life in order by force.

“Shoes,” you remembered. “Then sit by the counter.”

Jaeyun did as you said, slipping out of his shoes before he went to your counter and sat down on a chair, his hands on his thighs, and palms down, like he was trying to behave as you rummaged around — drawers, cabinet, a small basket you moved too roughly — the soft clack of objects knocking together filling the silence between you.

“First aid,” you muttered. “I know I have it.”

“Princess,” he said quietly.

“Don’t move.”

“I wasn’t going—” he began, but stopped, suddenly understanding. You weren’t being dramatic, but practical, anchoring the night into tasks: disinfectant, gauze, bandage. The same way he always did when his emotions got too big to hold comfortably.

You found the kit with a little gasp before you crossed back to him and set it on the table with a soft thud, kneeling slightly so you could see him properly.

“Give me your hand,” you said.

Jaeyun hesitated for a fraction of a second — then extended it.

Your hand closed around his, gently turning it over in the light, and beneath this sudden clarity, you frowned, eyebrows knitted, lips pressing into a thin line. The wounds were worse than it seemed. There was a cut over his fingers, bleeding as a darker bruise spread over. You reached for them, the tips of your fingers wandering through his skin as if you could erase them with your bare touch.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

Jaeyun went still, your words reaching past the cuts and hitting something deeper.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t say you’re sorry for that.”

“It’s my fault—” you started. 

“No,” Jaeyun cut in. “No. He did that. Not you.”

You turned to the aid kit on the kitchen counter, dropping your gaze like you could hide behind the small, practical motions of it — like if you focused hard enough on gauze and antiseptic, he wouldn’t see the way your eyes had gone wet. But Jaeyun did. He always did, in the quiet, unfair way he noticed everything about you.

“I hate that you got hurt because of me,” you said.

Something in Jaeyun’s chest tightened — sharp and aching. 

He leaned forward in the chair before he fully knew he was doing it, his uninjured hand sliding to your wrist, fingers curling gently around your skin as he pulled you onto his lap.

The motion was clumsy with the chair and the counter and the first aid kit half-open, but the moment you settled, your thighs bracketing his hips, the world narrowed into something that made painful sense.

His hands came up to your face, palms cupping your cheeks as his thumbs brushed along your cheekbones, cleaning your tears like he had done when he got you both grounded at twelve, and like he’d done again years later, on the night you crashed your father’s car — your hands shaking on his wrists, as he told you to breathe.

He made you look at him.  

Your eyes were wet and bright, with tears, the shine gathering at the lower lid until it spilled and traced down your cheek, and his chest ached at that low instinct already moving with the need to make it better.

“Don’t take the blame,” he said. “I can’t stand it when you do that.”

Your breath hitched.

“It wasn’t your fault — he grabbed you and said those things. He—” Jaeyun’s throat worked, and for a second his voice broke. “I heard the way he talked to you, and I didn’t know how to be calm about it. If there’s someone to blame here, it isn’t you. It’s me.”

You stared at him for a second before your hands lifted, your fingers finding and resting at his wrists as they always had.

“Yun,” you whispered.

Jaeyun’s breath shuddered out, and he leaned forward without thinking.

You met him halfway.

Your kiss was soft at first — careful, like checking whether he was still Jaeyun, whether you were still you. Like asking permission in the only language that didn’t require words.

But Jaeyun answered too eagerly.

His grip tightened at your cheeks, desperately — like he needed the proof of you. His mouth moved against yours with a yearning that felt out of proportion to the moment, and he hated himself for it even as he did it.

He kissed you like he was still at Arcano. 

Like he was still shaking.

Like the only way to stop the night from replaying was to overwrite it with you.

This wasn’t protection anymore. It was possession.

He wanted proof that you were still here.

Your hands slid into his t-shirt, fingers curling at the thin material the way they always did when you wanted him close, and it was enough to steal a sound from him — quiet, and yet completely wrecked — his arms slipped, and tightened around your waist, pulling you nearer until there was no space left to misunderstand.

“I’ve been trying to be good. I keep failing when it’s you,” he heard himself say. “I don’t know how to be only your friend anymore.”

There was a lost moment — a second where none of you moved, and Jaeyun thought that he finally did it — he had finally ruined the friendship, but then, you leaned in again, lips on his as your knees tightening around his hips, your weight settling into him like you’d chosen the place on purpose.

And it made him exhale like relief.

His uninjured hand slid along your side, finding you. The curve of your waist. The line of your ribs. The warmth of you under your dress like a living proof he couldn’t talk himself out of. He paused every time your breath changed, as if he was listening for the smallest no, for any flicker of doubt.

But you didn’t give him one. Instead, you tipped your forehead to his, noses brushing, and whispered his name in that soft, wrecked way that always pulled something honest out of him.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmured, the words rough around the edges. “Tell me and I—”

You kissed him before he could finish, fingers threading into his hair, holding him so close, he not only heard the next word, but felt them. “You.”

Jaeyun’s throat worked.

He lifted you — not smoothly, not perfectly, because the chair was in the way and the table was too close and the first aid kit lay open like a dirty evidence — but he did it anyway, with a gentleness that didn’t match the violence still humming under his skin. He carried you those few steps like it mattered, like the distance between your kitchen and your bed was a threshold he needed to cross carefully.

When he set you down, you caught the back of his t-shirt and pulled him after you. His restraint cracked in the smallest way — enough to let a kiss turn deeper, enough to let want show itself without becoming rough.

He braced his weight so he wouldn’t crush you, forearms on either side of your shoulders, head dipping until his mouth found you again, again and again, pressing kisses along your cheek, your throat, the place beneath your ear that always made your breath hitch and he made a question of always finding it. His hand slid down your arm to your fingers, lacing them together above your head for a moment like a question, like an offering, and when you squeezed back, he let himself believe you.

His shirt went first, easing off your shoulders like a last, familiar layer — then your dress, and then your bra, quietly as the breath you released when he leaned in again and kissed the tip of your breasts, one at a time before he moved to your sternum, your stomach — taking in every piece of your skin in between his lips.

When he reached your panties, he didn’t care about taking them off; he merely kissed you over them, the thin lace not doing much to dull the feel of his mouth over your cunt and making you shiver, hands coming to his hair and threading almost bitterly, but if anything, he hummed, giving you another kiss and then, another. Open mouthed and tongue sneaking out every now and then to bump against your covered clit, and making you squirm in his hands, head thrown back, and sliding away a bit.

He pulled you into him, hands grabbing at your thighs so he could push his face back between them, licking a flat, slow stripe over your cunt. The lace did nothing to hold your fluid this time, and he tasted you through, his eyes closing almost instinctively to savor it better. 

“You taste so good,” he couldn’t help but say. “So fucking good.”

A grin broke across your face — bright, and disarming — and Jaeyun forced his arms to push him up, kissing it like he could keep it there, among your already flushed cheeks, and your hair messy against the sheets because God — he was so in love with you.

“Princess,” he called, not really sure if he had something to say. But you hummed at him anyway, hands reaching for the hem of his t-shirt, and slipping your fingers underneath it.

His abdomen tensed and contracted as you wandered through, your trembling fingertips grazing through the lines long memorized, and pushing the piece up and up, until he had no other option but to lift his arms and help you take it off. 

Jaeyun groaned as you moved to his belt, unbuckling it with the same ease you unzipped his jeans.

“Shit,” he murmured. 

“What?”

“Condoms,” he whispered. “I — we used the last one yesterday. I was going to buy after Arcano.”

“That’s okay.”

It was his turn to halt, your words catching somewhere between sound and meaning. “What?”

“That’s okay,” you repeated, and when he didn’t move, you arched up beneath him, lips finding his ear. “I am saying that you can hit it raw, Yun.”

He made a sound — small and involuntary — the kind of honest noise his body made when his mind was still trying to pretend it had control.

You blinked up at him for half a second — then a laugh slipped out of you, warm and bright, the exact laugh you’d always used to turn moments into something survivable, and Jaeyun’s face heated immediately, color climbing up his neck.

“Don’t,” he managed, as if the word could stop you from seeing him like this — undone by you, made soft by a sentence and the brush of your mouth near his ear.

But you only smiled wider, eyes shining with the kind of fondness that hurt.

And Jaeyun — God, Jaeyun — looked at you like he didn’t know what to do with how much he felt. Like love had taken up residence in him years ago and never once paid rent, and now it was everywhere: in his breath, in the way his hand hovered and then settled, careful, as if touching you was a question he wanted to keep asking for the rest of his life.

He exhaled, a little shaky. Then, because he couldn’t help it — because you were laughing and alive beneath him, and he was hopeless — his mouth twitched.

“You’re going to be the death of me, Princess,” he whispered, the words rough with tenderness.

You shook your head, not quite dismissively, but more like you couldn’t believe how silly he was — how silly he was for you. 

Yet he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Hips up, babe,” he instructed, and you met him there, your body moving on a quiet arch, as you pushed at your feet, and allowed him to curl his fingers at the band of your panties, sliding them away.

His attention snapped back to you immediately — hands returning to your inner thigh, your calves, taking over your ankles, and pulling you toward him. 

You shivered as he pushed himself inside of you, your fingers digging into his back as your lips parted on a quiet moan that he made up for you — Jaeyun simply not being able to be quiet at the feeling of you around him with no limitation and groaning loudly.

Jaeyun never thought he would be the type of guy to be emotional over taking a girl without a condom, but it was you with him, and when he started moving again, it was slow and deep, each thrust deliberate as if he wanted to memorize every sound you made, every way your body responded to his. The friction was different, he could feel every ridge, every pulse of you around. And it was almost too much, the intimacy of it making his chest tight with emotion he couldn’t name.

Jaeyun hissed, looking down between your bodies, eyes all warm and glazed as he watched how you fit together for a quiet moment before his forehead dipped and rested against your shoulder, his breathing uneven, as if he was trying to keep the night from turning reckless again.

He was so careful with you it felt like devotion.

But then, you drew him closer — insistent — and he finally let his body answer with the same honesty his voice had tried to avoid. Jaeyun kissed you until you tasted like him. Until your hands clung. Until the space between your bodies stopped feeling like a rule and started feeling like a lie. Each thrust of his hips pronounced with a wet clash, and the sound of your headboard hitting the wall.

And it was too much, honestly — you were too much.

When you came, he followed — quietly, inevitably, his breath breaking as if your body had taken his and led it somewhere he’d never learned to survive. Yet still, he didn’t punish you; he stayed close, slowly towing your climaxes for as long as he could. And when he finally stilled, he pulled back with a tenderness that looked almost like it broke him to let you go.

Jaeyun eased down and let his head rest against your lower stomach, breathing there for a second — then another — almost as if his lungs needed to relearn how to work. Your hand found him, threading into his hair, fingers combing gently until his face softened and his eyes fell shut. And, for the first time all night, his body stopped bracing.

RULE #4: DO NOT LET HER KNOW YOUR TRUE FEELINGS  

If I say it out loud, I make it her problem. I put something heavy in her hands when she never asked to carry me. And I’m afraid — plain and simple — that if she knows, everything changes. And if everything changes, she might step back. She might leave. I can survive wanting her. I can survive swallowing it. I can’t survive losing her. So I’ll keep it useful: jokes, rides home, answers at 2 a.m., the kind of loyalty that looks harmless from the outside. I won’t say I love her. I won’t say I’ve always loved her. I won’t turn our friendship into a question she has to solve.

Jaeyun stayed where he was a little longer than he ought to have, his palms splayed at your sides, lips parted against the skin of your stomach as he pressed a kiss there, and then, at your hips, your thighs, covering all the way to your knees and back up again. 

You shivered as he nipped at the tender skin just inside your hip, your fingers tightening in his hair for a moment before you eased again — slow, and unconsciously, keeping time with your breath.

“Jaeyun,” you whispered, and perhaps it had been the way your breath changed then, caught on something that he couldn’t quite hear, but his heart wavered in his chest.

He knew you enough to know it was the beginning of a confession. He just didn’t know what kind. And that was what scared him: not the truth itself, but the possibility of it. That you might be about to ask for distance. That you might be about to reach for a word that would make him either the safest thing in your life — or the mistake.

“Could you turn the lights off?” you asked. 

It could have sounded silly then. But it was something old between you — something you’d done as kids when you needed to confess something embarrassing, something heavy. As if darkness could make secrets smaller. As if not seeing each other’s faces could make bravery easier.

Jaeyun propped himself up, knees pressed against your mattress as he reached for your lampshade and turned it off.

The room darkened instantly, but not completely — not with your curtains still open and the city’s light streaming in, painting the walls in soft silver and distant neon, scattering stripes on your sheets.

Jaeyun hadn’t noticed how still you both had become until a car passed outside, its tires whispering over the asphalt before it was gone, and the room held onto the quiet that followed, too complete, too attentive.

The sheets rustled softly as Jaeyun lay back down beside you, not touching you — not yet. He just stayed close enough that when you turned to him, he could feel you through the dark, but then you reached for his hand, interlacing your fingers as you had done when you were nine and whispering that you’d heard your parents arguing and didn’t know where to put the feeling, you were thirteen and admitting you were terrified that one day you’d grow up and he wouldn’t be yours to keep.

“Talk to me, Princess,” he whispered.

“Baekhyeon wasn’t wrong,” you said, the words scattering through the space of your bodies so quickly, Jaeyun took a moment to catch it all, and when he did, he went very still, eyes sharpening on your face.

“Not about you,” you added. “But about me — he wasn’t wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember my first date?” you asked.

Jaeyun let out a breath that was almost a laugh, except it didn’t contain humor. Of course he remembered. He remembered the outfit. He remembered your perfume. He remembered how a strand of hair didn’t quite stay on your pins and he kept fixing it while you paced through your room. He remembered how his fingers lingered there for one last time before you slipped through the door.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I remember.”

You stared at your hands for a beat, thumb brushing against his knuckles. 

“I thought you would tell me not to go,” you admitted. “But you didn’t, and so I went, and through the whole day I kept thinking oh, it would have been so much better if Yun was here,”

“The same thing happened with Baekhyeon — I kept wishing you were there with me instead, and I thought it was just because you’re my best friend and everything is funnier when it’s just us. I thought it was just because I feel safer when I’m with you, but—” you paused. “But through these last weeks, I just realized that I truly wished you had asked me to stay,”

“I truly like us.”

Nothing in the room moved, but something in him did, his internal footing slipping, the world turning unstable while his body stayed perfectly still beside you.

You weren’t saying I wanted you to forbid me. But I wanted you to want me enough to risk it.

Jaeyun’s mouth parted, but his body acted like it was still losing its footing. His breath snagging, throat tightening, the words jamming as if speech required solid ground he no longer had. And in the middle of his silence, you created your own answer.

“Never mind, I just—” you began, slipping from his touch and slipping away, but he caught you then, fingers closing around yours again and keeping you there.

“I’ve wanted to tell you to stay a thousand times.”

Your breath caught at his words, your gaze lifting to his and holding, steady and unblinking, the kind of eye contact that made everything feel suddenly too honest to survive. His grip tightened on your fingers, then gentled again, careful not to turn it into a claim — only a question he was asking with his whole body.

“I wanted to,” he said. “When you had that first date. When you called me after and tried to laugh about it, like it didn’t get under your skin. When you—” His breath caught. “When you started seeing Baekhyeon, when he called when we were together. Every time — every damn time — I wanted to ask you to stay.”

Jaeyun lifted your joined hands to his face, turning them slightly so the backs of your fingers brushed his cheek. 

“But I didn’t,” he whispered. “Because I thought if I told you to stay, that was when I was going to lose you entirely — and you know, Princess, I can handle being your best friend forever. I can handle being the one you call when you’re sad or drunk or mad — even if it’s just for you to leave once the moment passes. I can handle having only parts of you.”

His voice lowered. “But I can’t handle losing you.”

You turned toward him properly then, shifting until your faces were close enough that when you spoke, he didn’t just hear the words that followed, but he felt them.

“I would have stayed,” you said. “Every damn time — I would have stayed.”

Jaeyun made a sound that didn’t belong to him — small and raw — the sentence going straight through his ribs and lodging there.

His grip on your hand tightened — and his forehead dipped toward yours, hovering there as if he didn’t trust the space between you not to change its mind. 

“Stay, Princess,” he asked.

“I’m going nowhere.”

FINAL RULE: NO MORE RULES  

I wrote rules that were supposed to keep me from ruining us. I thought that if I could define every boundary, I could pretend I could control the outcome. Don’t accept reckless requests. Don’t touch her like I’m owed. Don’t be possessive. Don’t say the words that might make her leave.

A small guide for surviving her without losing her.

But I’m not losing her.

She’s here. She’s not a maybe, not a mistake, not something I have to handle with gloves on. She’s with me — clear-eyed, chosen, real. And for the first time, the future doesn’t feel like a threat I need to solve. It feels like something we’re walking into together.

So this is the last rule: no more rules.

Not because I’ve stopped being careful with her — fuck, I’ll always be careful with her. But because I don’t need rules to keep her close when she’s already choosing to stay. Because I don’t have to hide love inside procedure anymore. Because I can finally stop bracing, and start living in the simplest truth I’ve ever had:

It’s us.

[kangsyeosang]

[literallyuyu]

i'm cooking something up lets hope i dont give up in a week cause i highkey like this idea

[literallyuyu]

ABOUT THE BLOG OWNER...

hi!! i'm jess and i'm a 05' liner! here's some fun facts about me:

i'm twenty years old, and i'm in my third year college! i'm currently a nursing student.

i grew up in the states and i live in the southeast.

i'm desi!!! (where my desi people at)

i've always liked writing growing up but never had the space to show it, so now i'm here!!

my mbti is isfj and i'm a capricorn.

i've had tumblr for a while but had to take a break because of school... now i'm back!!!!!!

here's some fun facts relating to the groups i stan:

i'm a multi-stan, but my ults are ateez, enhypen, and p1harmony.

some other groups i like are stray kids, cortis, lngshot, txt, aespa, new jeans (sigh), xlov, and bts!

my ateez bias is yunho!

my enha bias is heeseung (3/10/26 💔) and jake.

my p1 bias is intak! (are you noticing a trend with dog men)

here's some stuff about writing:

i don't write incest, stepcest, pet play, pedophilia, big age gaps, or male reader.

i like cliche tropes like fake dating, academic rivals, enemies-to-lovers/childhood friends-to-lovers/strangers-to-lovers. i also like writing college aus and angst!

i'm not a big fan of writing love triangles, royal/fantasy aus but i'm always open to try new topics :)

i'm opening up to smut! it's always been something i've wanted to try but never got the chance to really write about... so bear with me.

hope you guys enjoy and have lots of fun on my page!!

[seoyuna]

mingi cursing moodboard <3

[kangsyeosang]

YUNHO 'BAD' 260628

[0210sjy]

˚ ༘♡ ⋆。˚  sim jake “You don’t have to like her. Just take her out.”

━━ PLEASE JUST TAKE MY SISTER OUT.

(🦮) After seventeen years of surviving his older sister’s constant supervision, Riki Nishimura decides you need a hobby. Preferably one that is tall, charming, and costs him a hundred bucks a week.

paid! jake x fem! reader ˗ˏˋ brother’s friend, paid dating, he falls first, slow burn, romcom, highschool au BUT THEY'RE NOT MINORS they're 19 and 20, mean reader, patient jake, little angst, fluff, smut, porn with plot, crack, profanity, unprotected sex, oral sex, f receiving, MDNI ! inspired by 10 things i hate about you !

Riki was seventeen years old, which by legal law, he understood there were certain things he wasn't supposed to do. He wasn't allowed to drink, gamble, or just make any life-altering decisions with the judgment of someone whose brain was still developing. It was, no doubt, very reasonable and he never tried to argue.

What he didn't understand though, were your laws.

No smoking, drinking, piercing, tattoos.

No driving without adult supervision.

No going out past 10PM.

No girlfriends until eighteen.

No accepting rides from people he didn't know.

No staying out without answering his phone.

The worst part was that none of these rules came from his father — a man who, at first glance, seemed exactly like the kind of parent who'd enforce discipline, high standards, high expectations, strict curfews, and strict grades. Except he wasn’t.

These rules came from you, his older sister. Scratch that — his terrifying older sister that’s also been known as a heinous bitch. You somehow managed to be nineteen years old and forty-seven years old at the same time, right after hearing Beyonce talk about girls running the world, and ultimately decided to make it your entire personality.

You remembered appointments, you knew where every important document in the house was, you made sure groceries appeared in the fridge, and you knew the hardware store. That was a good thing, especially since your Mother is a long story and has been gone from the picture since you turned eleven. It should be a good thing, because while your father forgot that he was meant to be a parent, you managed to step into the role for the then nine-year-old boy. 

The bad part was that you also happened to be ruining his life. 

"Don’t drink." you state.

Riki looks up from his phone, brows furrowed and eyes wide with confusion. "Why?"

You roll your eyes. "Because you're seventeen."

He stands up, his hands raised in even more confusion. "So are half the people going!"

You didn't even look up from your laptop, just continued on with your academic duties as the poster-child and perfect student you exactly are. Everything that Riki isn’t (he doesn’t give a fuck, he’s actually glad he isn’t as tense as you are). "Be home by ten."

He groans. "It's a party." 

You narrow your gaze at him. "Then leave at nine-thirty."

He had barely been there twenty minutes before somebody handed him a drink and accepted it immediately. He didn't even know what was in it, but it was blue and it was something that would give you an MI, which practically made every sense for him to take it. 

A hand suddenly smacked the back of his head. "Ow — what the fuck?!"

Riki turned around to find Jay looking unimpressed and clearly annoyed, arms crossed like he was already embodying your spirit for you. “Your sister would freak the fuck out if she saw you.” he says.

Riki scoffs, shaking his head before taking more sips. “Good thing she isn’t here.”

“Wow, someone’s bold.” Jungwon snickers.

Sunoo lets out a laugh from where he's leaning against the counter. “I can already count the amount of times she’ll call me tonight because you won’t be answering your phone.”

The worst part was that none of them were exaggerating. Most people heard the words overprotective older sister and pictured somebody mildly annoying that decided the takeouts. You were something else entirely, you were a mean person with good intentions, who treated Riki like a highly intelligent houseplant that couldn't be trusted unsupervised. Which, admittedly, was only a little unfair.

Jake looks significantly less invested in the conversation than everyone else, which makes sense considering he'd never actually met you before. He knew who you were, obviously. He had seen you around school a handful of times, though only in fragments, passing through hallways with your books tucked against your chest, standing behind podiums during assembly speeches, moving through student events with a clipboard in hand, and occasionally appearing in Riki’s house whenever his friends came over, though never long enough for Jake to understand what everyone meant when they talked about you like you were a natural disaster.

You didn’t hover during those visits, maybe because Riki was already home and therefore safely within the borders of your net, which meant Jake never had any firsthand evidence of the so-called atrocity people kept describing, no grand personal encounter with the hornless devil of a woman they swore you were. To him, you were just Riki’s older sister, put-together, sharper than most people, and clearly the kind of girl who knew how to keep things from falling apart.

He shrugs as if the entire conversation had been blown wildly out of proportion. “Honestly, she can’t be that bad.”

They all try and fail to hide the biggest smiles, until Riki finally let out a laugh so unhinged it sounded like Jake had just said the stupidest thing ever invented. “You’ve never met her, then.”

Jake frowned. “I mean, she just sounds responsible.”

That only made the laughter worse, because how exactly did someone describe you without sounding dramatic? How did anyone explain a girl who could build furniture, schedule doctor’s appointments, cook dinner, maintain perfect grades, and still somehow have enough energy left to lecture her younger brother about road safety, curfew, peer pressure, and why riding in a car with anyone named Jay was apparently a preventable tragedy? 

“She’s like…” Riki started, then stopped, because there genuinely wasn’t a normal word for you, only some abstract painting of red and black, wrathful but organized, terrifying but color-coded.

Jay stepped in with both hands raised, like he was trying to translate a myth. “Imagine your mom, but if she had anxiety.”

“And a planner,” Riki added immediately, “and a superiority complex, and an attitude, and the ability to track your location and all your friends’ locations. She has everyone’s number saved, too, just so she can call around and make sure I’m actually where I said I was.”

Riki smiles though, because the way Jake shrugs it off and doesn’t think you’re that bad makes a terrible idea begin forming in his head. If he felt that way about you, maybe some things could be arranged. 

The thing was, if anyone could survive you, it would probably be Jake. He was patient enough, he was also the kind of person teachers liked, parents trusted, classmates voted for, and strangers somehow ended up telling their life stories because he was just so easy-going. He was responsible enough to get good grades without making it his entire personality.

It was weird how the two of you had somehow never interacted despite orbiting the same school, same academic events, same kind of reputation, and yet somehow the universe had kept you separated for years. Now potentially united because of a very dumb idea.

Riki takes another sip of his drink while the idea starts taking shape. If Jake was as patient as he seemed, maybe he could handle you, if Jake could handle you, maybe he could distract you, and if somebody distracted you — Riki's life would finally begin.

Riki clears his throat, staring directly at Jake, with the kind of focus that makes Jake slowly lower his cup and narrow his eyes in suspicion.

"Why are you looking at me like tha —"

“Have you ever considered dating my sister?”

Jake simply stares, because a question that insane and honest has never landed on him before. The more Riki thinks about it, the better the idea becomes, which is unfortunate for everyone in the room because his expression slowly shifts from impulsive desperation to genuine, terrifying conviction. 

“No.”

“Why not?” Riki asks, genuinely offended, like Jake is the unreasonable one here.

Jake looks at him as if he has lost his mind. “Because she’s your sister.”

Riki waves a hand, dismissing the concern as if family relation is just a minor technicality on a form. “You don’t have to like her. Just take her out.”

Jake shakes his head, “What?”

“Take her out,” Riki repeats, slower this time, like Jake is the one struggling with basic comprehension. “Dinner, coffee, whatever girls like. Somewhere outside the house where she can’t govern my life.”

And for all the ridiculousness of the conversation, something in his face turns a little more serious. “Look, she’s always busy. Always. If she’s not studying, she’s doing house stuff, and if she’s not doing house stuff, she’s worrying about me, and ruining my life. Anyway, I think she needs to go outside and be a normal nineteen-year-old.”

“I’m not dating your sister because you want fewer curfew checks,” Jake says, though his voice has lost some of its earlier horror.

Riki stares at him for a long second, and whatever dignity he has left seems to lose the fight somewhere between desperation and the thought of another month spent being interrogated. So he will compensate. “Okay, fine,” he sighs, “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks weekly,”  

Unfortunately, the offer is not completely ridiculous in the financial sense. Your father might have forgotten how to parent somewhere along the way, but he had certainly remembered how to compensate for it by making sure money was never a scarce resource in the household. You're both pretty spoiled.

Jake was not desperate, of course, and he was not exactly suffering in the financial department either, because the Sim family had enough money for philanthropy. He did not need a hundred bucks a week, did not need to be paid to sit across from a girl at dinner, and definitely did not need to accept what was less like a favor and more like an internship. Still, there was something almost offensively easy about the idea of it — a challenge.

The proposition is ridiculous, the girl in question sounds even more ridiculous, and yet the more Riki talks about you, the more Jake finds himself wondering what kind of person could make everyone so terrified.

Jake exhales slowly, then shakes his head like he is disappointed in himself before finishing the rest of his drink. “When do I start?”

By the time the party began thinning out and people started calling rides home, Riki had graduated from slightly irresponsible to actively incapable of functioning like a normal human being. By his fifth blue drink, he started a speech about oppression that was very clearly about you and was dangerously starting to sound like a prick to the hard-earned established feminism that Jungwon had to cover his mouth. Jake was also unfortunately present for all of it, because he has to drive Riki home.

"You're a good man, Jake."

"I'm aware."

"No, like, a really good man."

"Thank you."

"The best."

Jake adjusts his grip on him, while Riki is leaning heavily against his shoulder, forcing most of his weight onto the former as they make their way up the front path of your house. Every few seconds he stumbles, nearly dragging both of them into the bushes.

"You know what my problem is?" Riki asks. "My sister."

Like he managed to summon you with a single call, the front door opens. And for the first time in his life, Jake finally sees you and not as a passing figure. The first thing he noticed was that you looked nothing like the distant, polished version of yourself he had seen around school. Those glimpses had always been quick and incomplete, a neat figure behind a podium during assemblies with your hair done properly and your expression fixed into something polite enough. Standing on your front porch at midnight, however, your hair loose, a few loose strands escaping around your face, and you're in sleeping clothes. The porch light caught the irritation on your face clearly, and you exactly had a face that looked like it had been designed to ruin a person’s confidence.

Your gaze landed on Riki first, and whatever thin thread of patience you had left snapped immediately. “You’re dead.” you said, voice flat enough. 

Riki, drunk and useless, pointed at you before looking back at Jake. “See?”

Jake could see, yes, but not exactly what everyone else seemed to see.

“I told you not to drink,” you said, already stepping forward.

“Technically,” Riki started. “You said I couldn’t drink too much, and I think —”

“No.”

Riki shut his mouth, which Jake found impressive considering he had spent the entire car ride arguing. You reached them and immediately took over, not gently, but not aggressively either. One second Jake was supporting most of Riki’s weight, and the next you had somehow taken your brother’s arm, and dragged it over your shoulder.

“You are seventeen years old,” you muttered. “Seventeen. Not grown enough to survive every stupid decision your friends encourage.”

Riki groaned and sagged against you, deciding, with the cruelty only younger brothers possessed, to become completely boneless. You nearly stumbled beneath his weight, and your annoyance sharpened so visibly that Jake almost took half a step back. “Stand properly,” you snapped. “I swear to God, Riki.”

“Uh,” Jake said, because apparently he was articulate, just not under porch lights and direct eye contact.

You paused, like you had forgotten he was there, then turned your head just enough to look at him. “What?”

“I can help.” The words left his mouth before he could fully decide whether he meant them, and for the first time that night, your attention shifted from Riki to him.

It lasted maybe two seconds, three if he was being generous, but it was enough for Jake to finally get a proper look at you and realize, with a strange and deeply inconvenient sense of betrayal, that nobody had mentioned the tyrant had pretty eyes. 

You looked at him like he was another problem that had arrived, taking in his face, his clothes, and his car behind him. Your expression did not soften, in fact, it became even more unimpressed. “No,” you said. “I’ve got him,”

You turned away before he could say anything else. The door closed a moment later, leaving Jake alone on the porch with the cool night air, and the silence of having been dismissed by a girl who had barely given him enough time to become charming.

For several seconds, he just stared at the closed door. 

That was it? That was his grand introduction to the infamous sister everyone had sworn was some terrible, unbearable monster? He had spent the entire night hearing stories about you, had driven your drunk brother home, had offered to help, and all he got in return was a death sentence aimed at Riki, two seconds of eye contact, and a rejection so cold.

Wow. Okayyy.

You’re sitting alone beneath one of the trees lining the courtyard, legs crossed neatly at the ankle, a planner open on your lap. Your attention is fixed on whatever system of color-coding you have, your neat cursive filling the page in careful lines. Even from across the courtyard, you look overwhelming. The Miu Miu loafers, the Bottega Veneta resting beside you, like you were deliberately trying to repel anyone who didn’t belong in the same tax bracket as your family.

Jake walks over easily, casually, friendly in the way he usually is without trying.

“Hey.”

You look up, not startled nor pleased, just disturbed. He smiles automatically, the kind people return before they even realize they’re doing it, because he has the sort of face that makes friendliness look charming instead of invasive. Your eyes move from the top of his head to the tips of his shoes, slow and blatantly judgmental, before returning to his face.

He waits, yet you close your planner, stand up, pick up your bag, and leave.

For a second, he just stands there while every gear in his brain grinds to a halt. Nobody has ever dismissed him that cleanly and efficiently, like he had been a minor scheduling conflict you decided to remove from your day. Obviously, he follows. You hear his footsteps behind you but you don’t react, your pace remains even, your expression unchanged, and by the time he catches up beside you, you still don’t give him so much as a glance.

“So that’s how this is gonna be?” he asks, amused despite himself. “You pretending you don’t hear me?”

You finally look over briefly. “Hi.”

Jake practically lights up at that; his smile widening, eyes brightening like he has just won something ridiculous, considering all you did was say hi. Still, he takes it as progress, watching your profile as you keep walking with your attention already returned to your planner. 

He raises an eyebrow. “Do you remember me?”

That barely gets your attention. “Yes, Jake Sim,” you say, your voice stays perfectly even. “You’re one of Riki’s friends.”

The answer comes instantly, and Jake has no idea why you saying his name feels satisfying. “So you do know me.”

You only look back down at your planner as he flashes another smile, the one that usually makes people start talking, or laughing, or tucking their hair behind their ear because what is anyone supposed to do with all of Jake Sim’s attention? Unfortunately, you aren’t looking at him at all.

He exhales a quiet laugh through his nose. “Have you always been this friendly?”

“No.”

He frowns. “So it’s personal.”

“No.”

Before he can decide whether to be offended or impressed, you push open the door to a classroom. He follows one step too close, only for you to stop at the threshold and turn around, leaving him outside. Your eyes land on him properly, sharp and unreadable, and his thoughts stumble over themselves for half a second.

“What exactly do you need?” you ask. Your tone is calm, but somehow it feels like an insult wearing perfume.

Technically speaking, he needs nothing. This becomes obvious the longer he stands there saying absolutely nothing, and from the way your eyes narrow, you reach the same conclusion at the exact same time. “If you’re looking for assistance regarding academics, facilities, or student concerns,” you say politely, “I suggest you start by talking to a member of the student body.”

He opens his mouth, but you continue before he can speak. “Although,” you add, giving him one last slow once-over, “the nurse’s building might be more appropriate.”

For a second, Jake genuinely cannot tell if you’re joking.

You are not. You offer him the smallest smile imaginable, neither warm nor friendly, but decorative at best. Then you shut the door directly in his face — which, for the record, is the second time you have done that since he met you. He stands there, staring at the wood, while inside the classroom he can already hear you speaking to someone else in a perfectly normal voice, as if he had never existed at all.

Jake spots you three days later in the library, clearly because he was looking, but this time he has a plan, and for some reason, he still believes plans work on you.

Afternoon sunlight slips through the tall windows and stretches across the desks in pale strips, and Jake finds you near the history section, seated at a wide table with your laptop open and your papers arranged so neatly. Your curls are pinned back from your face, loose pieces framing your cheeks, your eyeshadow soft and precise in a way that makes you look even more put together. You are highlighting something when he sees you, chin resting lightly on your hand, completely absorbed and completely unreachable.

Naturally, he walks straight toward you. The chair across from yours screeches when he pulls it back, loud enough that two people at another table look up. Your eyes lift immediately, widening at the earsplitting sound before narrowing at him with such open irritation that he almost feels proud for earning a reaction at all.

“What are you doing?” you ask, voice low.

Jake drops into the seat with the confidence of someone who has already survived two doors being shut in his face and is somehow eager for a third. “Studying.”

Your gaze moves from him, to the empty table behind him, to the empty seats beside you, then back to him. The silence that follows is not confused, just judgmental. “And you chose the only occupied table in this section?"

“It had the best lighting.”

“It has me.”

“Exactly.”

You stare at him for another second, face unreadable except for the small, unimpressed lift of your brows. Then you look back down at your notes, clearly deciding he is not worth the strain of further expression. For about twelve seconds, Jake pretends to open his textbook for a real reason — flips one page, glances at your highlighter, then at your face. “Can you help me with something?” he whispers.

You don’t look up. “No.”

Jake’s mouth parts slightly, then closes. He has been rejected before, technically, but never with so little effort. It bothers him more than it should, especially when you do not even look pleased with yourself. You simply continue highlighting, lips slightly parted in concentration, as if dismissing him is just another item on your to-do list.

“Fine,” he says, leaning back. “I need help with economics.”

Your highlighter stops moving, and for one hopeful second, Jake thinks he finally got you. Then your eyes lift from the page, slow and suspicious. “You got a ninety-four.”

He blinks. “So?”

“You have the second-highest grade in the class.”

“You know my grade?”

“I’m the TA,” you say flatly. “That isn’t special.”

It lands with embarrassing accuracy. His smile falters for half a second before he recovers and leans forward again, lowering his voice like the two of you are sharing a secret. “Maybe I want to be first.”

This time, you do smile, but it is not warm. “No,” you say, “Because I’m first.”

The corner of his mouth rises before he can stop it. “Then I definitely need your notes.”

“You need attention,” you correct, closing your highlighter with a soft click. “There’s a difference.”

You turn a page, your tone still calm after shutting him up. “You ask questions you already know the answers to. You sit where you clearly aren’t wanted. You make jokes because you think being charming is the same thing as being interesting.” Your eyes lift to his again. “It’s not.”

Jake stares at you. Around you, the library stays quiet, and the air feels suddenly too still, like everyone else has been kind enough not to watch him being quietly dismantled. He tries to laugh it off. “Wow.”

“You asked for help.”

“I asked for economics.”

“And I gave you something useful.”

His mouth opens, but nothing decent comes out of it — the worst part of it all. Usually, he has a joke, a grin, a way to make people soften, but with you, every easy thing he reaches for turns useless in his hand.

You begin packing your papers into your bag with that same infuriating grace, not rushed, not flustered, not even angry. You stand, bag over your shoulder, eyes catching the light when you tilt your head slightly. “Also, next time you want to sit with me, try having a reason that isn’t your ego.” Then you walk away.

For a long moment, Jake just sits there, staring at the library doors after they close behind you. The silence settles back into place around him, heavy and humiliating. He exhales slowly and comes to one devastating conclusion: he can’t do this.

“Come on, dude! It’s barely been a week and nothing happened yet. I already gave you the cash!” Riki practically begs on his knees.

Jake frowns from the other edge of the pool table as he chalks the cue, the crumpled bills still existing somewhere in his pocket because, technically speaking, he hadn't earned them. At this point, the arrangement felt less like a job and more like repeated exposure therapy that would actively ruin his psychological welfare rather than heal it. 

“No.”

Riki stares. “No? Jake.”

“No.”

Across, Jungwon looks up after his turn in billiards, with the expression of someone witnessing a familiar trainwreck but still expecting it from a mileway anyway. “What happened?”

Jake isn’t entirely sure where to begin. Maybe the front porch, then the devastating situations after it. Collectively, all encounters had taught him one important lesson: you’re impossible, not in the fun way people usually meant when describing someone to be cute — but actually a pain in the ass.

“She’s difficult,” Jake finally says while adjusting the cue against his purlicue. Jungwon just shrugs because such inference wasn’t surprising at all, I mean it’s you. 

“She doesn't want anything,” he adds. “There's usually something. People want you to laugh, they want you to like them, or they want attention. Dude, people want conversation — or literally anything.” Jake scoffs. “And she doesn't.” he exclaims, coming out more frustrated than he intended, resulting in a miscue.

Social interactions followed a pattern and Jake knew that well, even if he wasn’t the most outgoing person on this planet, he still spent his entire life understanding that pattern. With you, it felt like throwing pebbles at a castle wall that decides public embarrassment for his punishment. Normally, being Jake Sim worked. He was hot, smiley, handsome, smart, well-spoken, and had great, healthy hair too. You treated all of that the same way you'd treat a weather report; filed away and forgotten before opening up an umbrella. 

The more Jake thought about it, the more absurd you seemed. You’re nineteen years old and somehow functioning as a parent, a student, a volunteer, and whatever terrifying responsibilities that you could have stowed in that pink planner. There was probably a reason you looked perpetually exhausted, and why every conversation felt like you were mentally checking a to-do list. Also probably why you looked at Jake the way someone looked at a pop-up advertisement — unnecessary. 

“Please,” Riki says, and for the first time all afternoon there was genuine desperation in his voice. “Just keep trying.”

Jake groans. “No.”

“Please.”

Jake rubs a hand down his face, because he already knows he’s going to lose this argument. Not through Riki’s annoying persuasion, but because somewhere between getting his face ignored at the Humanities building and getting dissected in the library, Jake had become painfully curious. Every interaction left him feeling like he'd only managed to scratch the surface of an entire unearthing no one yet has discovered. He hated that a lot, the mysteries and the unfinished conversations because you just can’t seem to bear him. 

Most of all, of course, he hated that he was already wondering where he'd find you next.

A few days later, Jake finds himself in a bookstore three blocks away from campus, flipping through a poetry collection he absolutely does not want to buy. His teacher has insisted on physical copies because apparently PDFs are destroying the educational experience, while Jake personally believes the educational experience would improve significantly if the book cost less than a decent meal.

The bookstore is small, old, and crammed from floor to ceiling with shelves. It smells like paper, dust, and someone’s grandmother’s living room. He is still pretending to care about Shakespeare when the front door chimes, and he barely looks up until he hears your voice. You step inside with a headband pushing your hair back, still dressed like you came from school, except this version of you looks nothing like the girl he has been trying and failing to understand. For one thing, you are smiling, which isn’t polite smile you use like a weapon, but something real and easy.

“Hi, Mrs. Park,” you greet.

The elderly woman behind the counter brightens immediately. “There you are.”

Jake stares because, apparently, his brain has decided blinking is no longer necessary. A fat orange cat sprawled across the counter lifts its head when you approach, and you reach over to scratch beneath its chin. The cat melts instantly, stretching into your hand while you coo at it under your breath. He has seen you annoyed, composed, sharp, and dismissive, but this version of you, smiling at an old woman and whispering sweet nonsense to a cat, feels almost impossible to place beside the girl from campus.

It startles him how much he wants to keep watching.

After telling Mrs. Park you are only going to browse, you turn toward the shelves and move right into his aisle. Jake steps back instinctively, half-hidden behind a row of books, but the sensible part of him lasts for about four seconds before he decides, unfortunately, to bother you.

“You come here often?” he asks, leaning against the shelf like this is a normal thing to say and not the opening line of someone who has clearly run out of better ideas.

Your hand pauses on the spine of a novel, expression already rising from irritation. Slowly, you look at him, then around the aisle, then back at his face. “What are you doing here?”

He blinks, as if the answer should be obvious. “To read books.”

You stare at him for a second before your expression flattens. “Wow. I didn’t know you knew how to read.”

His face shifts into immediate offense. “I know how to read.”

You hum, entirely unimpressed, and continue walking down the aisle. “Coloring books don’t count.”

He laughs under his breath, dragging a hand over his face like he is trying very hard not to look too entertained. Or annoyed at how plainly rude you are without masking it. “Wow,” he mutters, following after you. “For the record, real books. Little Women. The Bell Jar. Percy Jackson.”

You stop walking and turn to him properly, huffing once through your nose. “Percy Jackson is new. Is that a thing now? The male campaign for feminism?”

His eyebrows lift. “All I’m hearing is you also read Percy Jackson and that we have something in common.”

Your eyes lift to his, flat and unimpressed, but there is the faintest twitch at the corner of your mouth. “Right, how exciting it is to bond over a children’s fantasy series.”

“Well,” he says, smiling. “It’s a start.”

You turn away, but he catches the tiny pause in your movement, the almost-smile you refuse to let happen. It feels ridiculous, how much that small reaction does to him even though he has won games in front of cheering crowds and accepted medals in crowded auditoriums, yet somehow, getting half a smile out of you in a dusty bookstore feels more victorious. “Since we’re apparently literary equals now, do you want to get coffee?”

You just stare at him, brows drawn together, lips parted slightly, as if you are trying to understand what series of events in his life has led him to think that was an appropriate thing to say to you. “No,” you say.

The answer comes cleanly, and he just blinks. “What? Why not?”

“I have coffee at home.”

For a second, he just stands there, disbelieved and a little done. You turn back to the shelf like the matter is settled, fingers skimming over another row of spines while he processes the fact that you have somehow rejected him without remorse or politeness.

“That’s not the point,” he says.

You scoff. “Then why did you ask?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. Instead, he exhales a laugh, softer this time. “Because most normal people actually understand that getting coffee means spending time together.”

You hum, still not looking at him. “Then you should have asked that.” You reach for a book on the higher shelf, and when you glance at him again, there is the faintest flicker of amusement in your eyes.

He laughs under his breath, and this time, he doesn’t even bother hiding how entertained he is. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re predictable.”

“Fine,” he says, straightening a little. “Go out with me?”

You stop moving for barely a second, but Jake sees the tiny pause in your hand against the shelf, the way your face goes still like the question landed somewhere you didn’t expect. For once, he doesn’t grin.

Then you pull a book from the shelf and shove it against his chest. “No,” you say, coming out quieter than before, less mean than before. “Read your book.”

Jake catches it automatically, turning it a little to see that it’s the poetry collection he came here for.

By the time he looks back up, you’re already walking away, but not before he catches the smallest curve at the corner of your mouth. And, unfortunately for him, that feels a lot like a maybe.

The annual charity gala occupied all three floors of the Grand Ballroom, transforming an expensive venue into something that looked less like an event and more like a display of wealth (though, yes, it is). Guests emerged draped in custom couture and tailored suits, while somewhere near the entrance, a string quartet played softly enough not to interrupt conversation. Crystal chandeliers hung overhead in cascading tiers, fresh floral arrangements towered from the center of each table (imported blooms flown in specifically for the event, you coined in the suggestion of peonies). Waiters moved soundlessly between guests carrying silver trays lined with champagne flutes. 

You had spent your entire life in diamond rooms where people discussed acquisitions over appetizers and spoke about money like it was weather. You'd sat beside CEOs at dinner because they were family friends, and investors shared laughter with your father over barbecue in your backyard. Without the pretense of acting remotely impressed, you boredly made your way through the halls as you passed by familiar faces. You smile, greet, remember names, and pretend you enjoy hearing about quarterly growth projections — your father did tell you to learn from what the older ones tell you, but now you learn to breathe deeply through your nostrils so as to not yawn.

The Elie Saab Spring 2003 gown skimmed against your legs as you moved through the ballroom, pale fabric catching the chandelier light whenever you turned. It was just something your father had pulled from storage for tonight, another piece of old couture that had spent more time preserved in garment bags than actually being worn. The fabric itched, the fit was annoyingly snug around your hips, and entirely wasted on you considering all you could think about how little room it left for dessert.

You'd just escaped a conversation about market expansion into the rural regions of the country when you reach for a glass of champagne from a passing tray.

"Wow."

You freeze immediately. Because you know that voice. Know it well enough that your eyes roll before you even turn around. Jake Sim stands a few feet away, hands tucked into his pockets, looking entirely too entertained by something.

Specifically you.

"What?" The question leaves you sharper than intended, but he has always had a talent for earning it.

His gaze sweeps over you once, slowly. It isn’t enough to be inappropriate, just enough to be annoying. "Nothing."

You narrow your eyes. Jake, unfortunately, appears completely unbothered by this, like he’s finally used to it and finds it amusing rather than frightening.

For a moment, the two of you simply stand there, shoulder to shoulder, watching guests drift across the ballroom that it almost looks normal — respectable, even, as if you’re two people attending the same charity gala with poise and tact instead of a high school bizarrerie of a situation this has become.

"You clean up well." His gaze drifts back to you for a brief second before returning to the ballroom. 

You turn so quickly towards him he actually laughs. "I always clean up well."

"Right."

"I do."

He bites the inside of his cheek, clearly trying not to smile. You take a sip of champagne as he steals a glass from a passing waiter, mirroring your movement to sip from his. "What are you doing here?" you shoot back under your breath.

He blinks at the question, looking almost offended on behalf of his own presence. "Are you asking why I'm at a charity event," he begins slowly, "or are you accusing me of stalking you?"

You practically glare at him but quickly shift to a warm smile when a familiar older face greets you, wrinkly and your father’s acquaintance. Once she leaves, you clear your throat and shrug casually. "I’m starting to think it's reached concerning levels."

That earns you a look — a long, disbelieving stare. He gestures vaguely to himself, as though presenting evidence before a jury, and that he clearly belongs here about as much as anyone else in attendance. "Come on." he chuckles as his eyebrows rise. "I look like this and your conclusion is that I trespassed just to see you?"

You hate how your eyes give in to immediately flicking toward him because, God, he's annoyingly right.

The black suit fits him unfairly well. His hair, usually left to do whatever it wants, has actually been styled for once, pushed neatly away from his face save for a single strand that has somehow escaped and fallen across his forehead. Standing beneath the chandeliers with a champagne glass in hand, he looks less like the guy who regularly shows up during the most random times and a prince, unfortunately.

You clear your throat and look away before that thought can do any more damage. "You make it hard not to think that way."

You almost forgot just how affluent the Sim’s are — that is, in your defense, was just a detail you overlooked. He isn't some random idiot who keeps appearing in your life through increasingly unlikely circumstances, his family name actually appears in newspapers and annual reports and conversations your father has over dinner. 

You drain the rest of your champagne before he can say anything. "Well," you say, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from your gown, "it's been lovely speaking with you, Mr. Sim." The title earns an immediate snort, and you continue before he can interrupt. "Please extend my regards to your family." Satisfied with yourself, you offer him the sort of polished smile that had been drilled into you and turn to leave, as you’ve decided that you will stop entertaining the jest.

A hand settles lightly at your shoulder. “There you are.”

You turn at the sound of your father’s voice and immediately straighten. It happens before you can stop it, your spine aligning, your expression smoothing, every loose, irritated part of you folding back into place like a napkin at a five-star restaurant. “Hi, Dad.”

He then guides you aside with the kind of effortless authority. “You’ve been doing well tonight,” he says.

The compliment should feel nice, and it does for half a second until you remember who it’s coming from and how rare it is, and suddenly it feels less like praise and more like something you have to catch carefully. “Thank you,” you say.

His eyes drift past you, scanning the room. “Where’s Riki?”

Your fingers tighten slightly around the stem of your champagne glass. The room remains warm with bodies and lights and expensive alcohol, but somehow you feel cold all at once. “He probably forgot. He had practice earlier, and his workload’s been heavy.”

Your father looks at you then, and you immediately hate the expression on his face. Because it’s disappointment dressed up as responsibility, one you know too well. “You’re his older sister,” he says. “You know how he is. You should have made sure he came.”

For a second, you only stare at him, at the neat way he fixed his hair and made his collar. Somewhere near the stage, the host tests the microphone and the feedback screeches faintly through the room. “I can’t force him to come,” you say carefully.

Your father’s mouth presses into a thin line. “You’ve never had a problem controlling him before.”

Something hot sparks behind your ribs. You didn’t care for anyone to think that way about you, but the way your father had borrowed the notion feels shitty. “He’s seventeen, he’s going to be careless — that’s expected. But you know better.” he looks at you this time. “So do better.”

For a moment, you can’t speak. Because how can you be nineteen, and somehow old enough to be held responsible for everyone else’s failures. “I should talk to some friends,” you say as you take a step back.

Your father nods, already looking toward another guest who has begun approaching him. “Good.”

You turn before your face can betray anything and walk away, heels clicking against the marble floor. By the time you reach the hallway leading away from the ballroom, irritation has burned through whatever hurt came first — your jaw aches from clenching and your chest feels tight with things you can’t say. You turn the corner too quickly and a hand catches your wrist, a gasp spilling as you’re pulled backward, your shoes skidding slightly against the polished floor before another hand steadies you just enough to keep you from stumbling.

Then you look up to see Jake. 

“What the hell?” you hiss.

He raises both hands immediately, though one stays close in case you lose your balance again. “Okay, bad approach.”

You stare at him, breath uneven. “Are you insane?”

“A little,” he admits. “But I just came from the restroom and you came out looking very mad.”

Your expression shifts before you can stop it. “Move,” you say, trying to step past him.

However, he doesn’t move. “You need air,” he says.

“I need people to stop telling me what I need. And I need you to stop appearing everywhere.”

His mouth twitches. “Fair.”

You narrow your eyes again. “Then move.”

He glances behind him toward a side door at the end of the corridor and you follow. Beyond it, you can see the faint spill of garden lights through the glass, and when you look back at him, you can see the words in his eyes. “Two minutes,” he says.

“No.”

“Then one.”

“Jake.”

“You can yell at me outside.”

You should go back into the ballroom, smile at executives, pretend your father didn’t just hand you responsibility for a brother he barely remembered to parent. Instead, when Jake gently reaches for your wrist again, you let him anyway.

The garden outside is cooler, quieter, and beautiful. Tall hedges line the stone pathway, trimmed carefully beneath strings of warm lights while white roses climb the trellises, their petals pale and some aging. The distant sound of the ballroom fades behind the closed door until it becomes nothing but a muffled noise as you walk further.

The cold reaches you almost immediately, slipping through the thin fabric of your gown and settling against your skin, but you refuse to shiver in front of him. For a while, neither of you says anything as you only tighten your arms around yourself, pretending it’s irritation and not the cold making your shoulders rise. He watches you for a second, like he’s debating whether saying anything will get him killed faster than staying quiet. Then, with both hands tucked into his pant pockets, he nods toward the stone path. “Walk with me?”

You stare at him, unimpressed, but eventually follow because the alternative is going back inside and smiling until your face cracks in half. The two of you move beneath the garden lights in silence, your heels clicking softly against stone while his steps stay slower than usual, like he’s matching your pace without making it obvious. You keep your arms crossed tight, eyes fixed on the roses ahead, while Jake walks beside you with his hands still buried in his pockets. For once, he doesn’t fill the silence just to fill it.

Which lasts forty-seven seconds.

“Riki told me he wasn’t going.”

Every strange thing that had happened to you recently could be traced back to your brother tonight. When you open your eyes again, Jake is looking ahead, hands still tucked in his pockets. “Right. You’re friends.” you say as you remember. “So he just tells you things.”

He shrugs. “Occasionally.”

“About me?”

He looks like he already regrets opening his mouth, but only halfway. “Not that much.” He falls into step beside you again, catching up with your pace. “Him not showing up must be why you’re upset?” he says carefully.

You turn your head slowly and he immediately lifts both hands, palms out, although the smile pulling at his mouth ruins the surrender. “I’m just asking.”

“You’re nosy.”

“Well, yes.”

You stare at him for a second longer, trying very hard to remain annoyed. Unfortunately, Jake has this terrible habit of making honesty look harmless. Although, he is very much a threat, maybe not the loud or dramatic kind, but the sort that slips past defenses because it smiles and asks questions and walks slower beside you when your feet are hurting.

You look away first, only for him to take that as permission, because he continues. “Let me guess. Your dad’s pissed because he didn’t show up.”

“No.” Still, your jaw tightens. And he notices. His expression shifts slightly, amusement dimming into something quieter. “You’re shitty at guessing.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He nods like he’s accepting the challenge. “Then maybe it’s the champagne. Bad year?”

You give him a look. “It’s champagne.”

“So yes.”

“No.”

“Is it the gown? You keep tugging at it.”

Your hand immediately stills at your hip, growing a little insecure. “I am not.”

“You are.”

You glare at him, but there’s a traitorous twitch at the corner of your mouth that you immediately force away. He catches it anyway and his eyes brighten. “There it is.”

“There’s nothing.”

“Well, I think there is something. The garden’s very enchanted tonight.” he sighs in relief, looking very pleased with himself.

“You are so annoying,” you mutter, turning your face away before he can catch the smile fighting its way onto your mouth.

“I’ve been told.”

“Frequently, I hope.” You roll your eyes and keep walking, but the anger inside your chest has loosened slightly, enough that breathing doesn’t feel like swallowing flute glass anymore. It irritates you a little that he helped without doing anything grand, only so much as walking beside you, filling the silence with stupid guesses, making it impossible for you to fully sink into whatever your father had left behind.

He looks at you again. “Is it one of the donors?”

“No.”

“Board member?”

“No.”

Then, because Jake really is bad at guessing, he says, “Or maybe it’s about a guy.”

Your head snaps up. “A guy?”

He shrugs, trying for casual and failing spectacularly because there is something too deliberate in the way he doesn’t look directly at you. “Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe a boyfriend.”

You actually laugh, disbelieving. “A boyfriend?”

“A shitty boyfriend,” he clarifies, like that makes it a more reasonable theory to hypothesize tonight. “Maybe he said something stupid. Maybe he’s the reason you look so grumpy in couture.”

You stare at him before you scoff, shaking your head as you look away. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

The silence that follows is immediate and loud. He doesn’t say anything, and because he doesn’t say anything, you look back to see he’s looking ahead now, with the corner of his mouth lifted just slightly.

“Good.”

Your heart trips over itself. You stare at him, horrified by the fact that your face feels warm. “Good?”

His mouth twitches. “Yeah.”

“You’re being weird.”

He turns back to you then, eyebrows raised. “How?”

You open your mouth but nothing comes out. Explaining it would mean admitting that you noticed the difference between his usual and this one; it would mean admitting that you were paying attention to the boy that’s making space for himself in your life, little by little. So instead, you do the mature thing of looking away and walking.

He hums, pleased with himself, and the sound makes your hands tighten around your arms again without the cold having to do with it at all. For a few steps, neither of you speaks as the garden path curves around a fountain, water spilling quietly over stone. Out here, your hair has loosened from its pins and the night air has cooled your cheeks after learning warmth a little too much tonight.

“You know,” he says after a while, softer now, “for what it’s worth, I don’t think Riki skipping tonight is your fault.”

Your throat tightens before you can stop it, continuing to stare ahead. “I didn’t ask.”

For once, he doesn’t tilt his head with that pleased little smile, doesn’t turn your sentence into something lighter just because he can. He only keeps walking beside you in silence, letting the water from the fountain grow louder as you near it. You almost wish he would say something annoying, just so that it would give you something to swat at, something easy to roll your eyes over, something that didn’t require you to stand there with all the ugly feelings still sitting in your chest like stones.

A bench sits just in front of the fountain, tucked between two rose trellises and half-hidden from the ballroom windows. One second you’re walking, the next you’re lowering yourself onto the bench, careful with the fabric of your gown, your hands folding tightly in your lap like you’re trying to hold yourself together through posture alone. He stops a few feet away and after a careful pause, he sits on the opposite end of the bench, far enough that there’s a whole stretch of cold stone between you, choosing to understand that closeness right now might make you run.

He isn’t looking back when you look at him, his hands are clasped loosely in front of him as he stares at his fidgeting fingers instead, giving you the sort of space he knows you need. The kindness of it is small. A boy sitting a respectful distance away from you in a garden at a charity gala, saying nothing while you pretend you don’t feel miserable.

You bite your bottom lip, contemplating whether you’ll entertain words sitting at the back of your throat, heavy and stubborn, and you tell yourself not to say them. You don’t even know him like that because he’s not your friend; he’s Riki’s friend, an irritating hallway apparition, a boy who somehow knows too much and still not enough.

Your eyes stay on the building across the garden, right where you both came from. When you speak, your voice is quieter. “It’s not just because Riki didn’t show up.”

Jake remains still, but you notice the way his attention sharpens a little. “I told him about tonight,” you say. “I reminded him. I even texted him this morning.” Your fingers tighten around each other in your lap. “And he didn’t come. Which is annoying, yes, but it’s also just Riki. He forgets things, gets distracted, acts like nothing bad can happen to him.”

The fountain fills the silence for a moment, the ballroom doors open briefly, spilling faint music and laughter into the garden before closing again. “I don’t do it for fun,” you say, almost under your breath. “The controlling thing.”

You hate that word and how easily people use it, like it explains everything, like you woke up one day and decided being difficult was easier. “I don’t know how to parent,” you admit. “I know he’s my brother, not my child, but somehow it became my job anyway.”

Jake does not interrupt, he only looks at you, steady and quiet, and that makes it worse because it makes you want to keep talking. “My mom’s a long story, and my dad…” You laugh softly, but there is no humor in it. “He pays for things. He’s not cruel. He just doesn’t know the small things. When Riki has practice, or when he has exams, or when he’s sick and pretending he isn’t.”

You look down at your hands. “He doesn’t know who to call when Riki doesn’t answer his phone.” Your throat tightens. “And I do.” The words sit between you, heavier than you meant them to be. “I just did what I thought was right. I’m not a mom. I don’t know what I’m doing. But then my father looks at me tonight and tells me to do better, like I haven’t been trying since I was eleven.”

For a moment, Jake doesn’t say anything. His expression shifts again, losing the last of its teasing until all that’s left is something quieter, something you don’t quite know how to hold without feeling embarrassed.

He looks down at your hands. “Is that why you’re upset tonight?”

You press your lips together before you nod. His gaze lifts to your face again, his voice gentle when he asks, “Is that why you’re upset every day?”

The question catches you so off guard that you laugh, a soft and helpless sound that slips out before you can stop it. 

Then you nod again and he smiles a little too. “Okay.”

You huff, wiping beneath your eye quickly before anything can happen there. Somehow sitting beside Jake Sim in the cold garden after admitting the worst parts of yourself feels less humiliating than it should. Maybe because he hasn’t moved closer, even though some terrible, traitorous part of you wonders what would happen if he did. Instead, he stays on his side of the bench, careful and warm from a distance.

You look at him finally. “Do people really think I’m a bitch?”

He freezes instantly, so immediate that you sigh for even asking. His eyes flick to you, then away, then back again, like he is suddenly trying to navigate a conversation with several live wires tucked into it.

You raise your brows, but you’re smiling. “So yes.”

“No.”

He exhales, rubbing the back of his neck, looking genuinely shy, which is oddly enough to distract you from your own misery. “I mean, I don’t think that.”

You tilt your head, amusement softening your face. “Okay, so what did you think?”

His tongue pokes the inside of his cheek. “I thought you were scary.” He looks at you, then immediately adds, “I still think you’re scary.”

Your eyes narrow, almost to a glare. “You’re scared of me?” You try to make it sound like a joke but it doesn’t quite work.

His mouth tilts. “The first time you shut the door in my face? Yeah.”

A breath of laughter escapes you as you remember a very irritable night of a brother coming home drunk. “You should’ve stopped then.”

“I considered it.” He leans back slightly, looking at the fountain instead of you now. “But then you smiled at a cat named Chicken.”

Your head snaps toward him. For a second, he looks like he wants to physically pull the words back into his mouth after saying it too easily and comfortably, like the memory had been sitting there the whole time and slipped out before he could decide. He exhales, rubbing a hand over the side of his face. “I saw it,” he admits. “You were with Mrs. Park, and then the cat got up, and you just...” He stops, suddenly aware of how much detail he is giving. “You looked different.”

Your face warms despite yourself, but you keep your expression sharp. “So you were watching me.”

He lifts one hand like he is surrendering in court. “I know how it sounds. I just mean I noticed you before you noticed me.”

You fold your arms, still looking at him like he has committed some minor felony against your privacy. “And you remembered the cat’s name?”

“You called him Chicken.”

“Because his name is Chicken.”

“Which is insane, by the way.”

You almost smile at that, but you press it down immediately. Unfortunately, Jake sees the attempt; fortunately, he has enough survival instinct not to mention it, and to choose his words with more care this time. “I guess I just didn’t expect you to look less angry.” His gaze flicks to yours.

You scoff, but there is barely any bite in it. “So you watched me because I looked less angry?”

“No,” he says, then pauses. “Maybe. A little. I don’t know.” He exhales, looking down at his hands. “Everyone talked about you like you were this impossible person. Then I met you and, yeah, you were mean to me.”

A laugh slips out of you before you can stop it, quiet and a little disbelieving. “Yeah, well,” you say, looking away first, “I wasn’t exactly making myself likable.”

His smile softens at that, not teasing this time. “I’m not saying you made it easy.” His eyes stay on you, steady enough to make your chest feel weird. “I’m saying I still wanted to get to know you.”

For once, you don’t have anything sharp to say back. You study him, searching for the joke, the little loophole where he gets to wriggle away from accountability. But he only sits there on the far end of the bench, shoulders slightly hunched, looking embarrassed enough that it almost feels unfair to keep glaring. The two of you listen to the fountain where water spills over stone, soft and repetitive, while the ballroom continues humming in the distance like another life waiting for you to come back and behave.

“You know,” you say slowly, “normal people introduce themselves.”

He glances at you. “I did.”

You give him a look. “You followed me through campus.”

“I said hey.”

“That is not an introduction, that was stalking.”

He laughs, and you roll your eyes, though the smile threatening the corner of your mouth makes the whole thing less convincing than you probably want it to be. He turns his body slightly toward you, still careful not to crowd your space, his expression shifting into something softer beneath the amusement.

“Okay,” he says. “Then let me redo it.”

He straightens a little, smoothing one hand over his suit jacket like he is preparing for something far more formal than a conversation beside you. It should look ridiculous, but then he looks at you with an earnestness that makes your guard hesitate before you can stop it.

“Hi,” he says, offering his hand. “I’m Jake Sim. I’m Riki’s friend. I have a border collie named Layla. I play soccer, I’m good at math, and I’m apparently terrible at approaching girls who scare me.”

You stare at him. Surprised. Confused. Heart fluttering a little.

His smile softens, but he keeps going, quieter now, like the next part matters more than the joke. “I also know I made a bad first impression. And I know you had every reason to think I was annoying.”

“You are annoying,” you say automatically while your hand reaches his to shake.

“I know.” His smile grows a little. “But I’m trying to be less annoying.”

“Unlikely.”

“Probably,” he admits. “But I’d still like to try.”

For a second after that, neither of you says anything. Your hand slips out of his, and both of you look away at almost the same time, like you’re both processing that you’ve just held hands. Jake clears his throat and fixes his posture, sitting up straighter as if that might undo the way his smile is still refusing to leave his face. 

“Well,” you say after a moment, folding your hands over your lap, “you’re the first person who’s actually lasted this long with me.” You say it lightly, almost dismissively, but your eyes stay in front of you. “Most people usually give up before this part.”

His smile fades just a little, not into sadness exactly, but into something more attentive. “Because you push them away?”

You huff out a small laugh. “Friends, mostly.” Then your mouth twists, like you’re deciding whether to soften the words or not. “Apparently, people can’t handle a heinous bitch for very long.”

He huffs a small laugh, looking down at his fidgeting hands. You glance at him, confused. “What?”

He shakes his head once, like he’s amused by something private. “Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

His gaze lifts to yours again. There’s a strange look on his face now, which isn’t teasing exactly, but not shy either. 

Then he says, “I’m not trying to be your friend.”

The sentence lands so cleanly that, for one impossible second, your entire brain goes quiet. You stare at him and Jake stares back.

Somewhere behind the doors, people are still drinking champagne and discussing donations and waiting for you to return as the version of yourself they understand, while here, on this bench, Jake Sim has just said something far too simple to be misunderstood.

Your mouth parts slightly. “What?”

His confidence seems to flicker only after he realizes he has actually said it out loud and not something he kept in his head. His ears go faintly red, but he doesn’t look away, keeping his legs crisscrossed on the bench like an idiot prince, looking at you like he knows exactly what he meant and is terrified by it anyway.

“I mean,” he starts, then stops. He exhales, laughing under his breath, embarrassed now. “I mean, I can be. Your friend.”

“That is not what you said.”

“I know.”

“You said you weren’t trying to be my friend.”

“I know what I said.”

Your face feels hot. Horribly, unmistakably hot.

His eyes drop for half a second to your mouth before returning to your face so quickly you almost think you imagined it. You look away first because if you keep looking at him, something very stupid is going to happen to your composure.

You clear your throat. “I should go back.”

His gaze lifts immediately, but he doesn’t argue. “Yeah.”

You expected a joke, a dramatic sigh, maybe some irritating line about how tragic it is that society needs you more than he does. Instead, he only nods and begins unfolding himself from the bench. “You’re not going to convince me to stay?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

Jake stands, brushing one hand over his trousers. “Do you want me to?”

He looks at you, and something in his expression grows rigid again when he realizes what he just asked. So he corrects himself. “I mean,” he says, “I can. But I can also walk you back.”

You look away, pretending to adjust the fabric of your gown. “Fine.”

His mouth curves. “Fine?”

“Yes.”

He laughs under his breath, and you hate that you smile. You stand carefully from the bench, smoothing the skirt of your gown with both hands, only to freeze to find the pale fabric is stained. It’s not ruined, necessarily, but definitely marked where the garden path must have turned soft near the fountain, with a faint smear of mud that darkens the edge of the gown, and when you glance down at your shoes, the thin straps and pointed toes have flecks of dirt on them. You’ve spent all night holding yourself together, only to end up in a garden with Riki’s friend, exposing everything you’ve kept to yourself, and now covered in mud at your father’s charity gala.

“I can’t walk back in like this.” you can only sigh.

He grins, then his eyes drop again to your shoes, while the amusement fades into thoughtfulness. “Do you want me to carry you?”

You look at him so fast your neck nearly protests. “What?”

His face changes instantly and his ears go red again. “Sorry. I mean, not like that. I just meant because of the mud, and your heels, and the dress, and the path is kind of wet. It might get worse. Aren’t your feet tired?”

You stare at him as he exhales, glancing away for a second before looking back at you, steadier this time. “I can carry you back.” The correction is soft, because it’s not a question that leaves you to decide whether accepting makes you ridiculous. It’s an offer.

“In front of everyone?”

“No,” he says quickly, then gestures toward the side path. “Not everyone. There’s another entrance near the hallway, right? The one we came out of. I can take you there.”

You blink and the idea is absurd, too much for everything that has happened tonight. “I’m not letting you carry me.”

“Okay.”

You shake your head, but you’re smiling again, and this time you don’t try to hide it anymore. 

The two of you start down the side path slowly, your steps careful over the damp stone and softer patches of grass. The garden seems colder now as the breeze slips beneath the thin fabric of your gown, crawling across your bare shoulders until you can’t stop the small shiver that runs through you. You tuck your chin, tighten your arms around yourself, and keep walking like your body hasn’t just betrayed you in front of the most observant boy alive.

One second he is walking beside you in his perfectly fitted black suit, and the next, warm fabric settles around you, heavy and soft, falling over your bare shoulders with a carefulness that makes your breath catch. You stop walking, letting his hands hover for half a second near your shoulders to make sure the jacket doesn’t slide off before he pulls them back.

You look down at the jacket, then back at him with a glare of concern. “You’re going to get cold.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re in a dress shirt.”

“And you’re shivering.”

“I was not.” You glare at him, but it has no teeth now, no bite, which he seems to know that too, because his smile turns softer. 

“Just wear it.”

The two of you continue toward the side entrance, slower than necessary, slower than you have ever been. Your gown brushes against the grass, stained hem gathered slightly in one hand, while his jacket hangs around your shoulders.

You should worry about the mud, the whispers, your father, the fact that Jake Sim’s jacket is currently covering your gown in a way that feels too intimate for something so practical. But you haven’t cared even though the vintage and expensive dress you wear is dirty. Instead, you laugh again when your heel sinks slightly into the damp ground. Your heels click against the marble as you step back into the hallway, the sound suddenly too clean after the wet grass and stone path outside. You can already hear the faint swell of conversation beyond the ballroom doors waiting at the end like a mouth full of gold light and noise; the clinking glasses, the polite laughter, the entire world you are supposed to return to with your posture fixed and your expression arranged.

You reach for his jacket before you can think too much about it. He takes it carefully, his fingers brushing the fabric where your hands had been. You smooth the front of your gown, trying to rebuild yourself enough to step back inside. “If you tell anyone what happened...”

“I won’t,” he says, before you even finish. “I won’t.” he repeats, softer.

For some reason, you believe him immediately. So you nod once, gathering yourself before pushing the doors open. The warmth and noise rushes back in at once, golden light spilling over your face as you step into the room again. 

It takes less than a minute for your father to find you, and once he does, his eyes move over you, first your hair, then the faint mud near your dress, then your shoes. His brows draw together. “What happened to you?”

Normally, you would straighten, explain and apologize, but this time, you only shrug. “I had a bit too much champagne,” you say lightly.

By the time you returned to your room that night, the mud had already dried along the hem of your gown, your hair had loosened almost completely from its pins, and even though Jake Sim’s jacket had been returned before either of you stepped back into the ballroom, the warmth of it still seemed to sit stubbornly across your shoulders — surreal until beneath the covers.

That was the irritating part, really. Things were supposed to end when they ended. Jackets were returned, doors were opened, conversations were folded away with the rest of the evening, but the garden did not leave with the night, nor did the memory of him sitting across from you on the bench, careful with the distance, looking at you like he had seen the worst parts and somehow decided they were not enough to scare him away.

Neither of you talked about it after. Not properly.

There were moments where it almost happened, which was perhaps worse than if nothing had happened at all, because the next morning at school, when you saw him across the courtyard with Riki and the others, laughing at something Jay said, his eyes found yours through the movement of students and sunlight, and for one strange second, the entire campus seemed to narrow into the space between you — before Riki shoved his shoulder like a dumbass.

Jake learns fairly quickly that he is feeling (concerned, of course, that’s all) for you. And it’s inconvenient.

At first, that is the only word he lets himself use, because it sounds harmless enough. It is easier to call you inconvenient than admit that somewhere between a porch light, a bookstore cat, and a garden bench, his original reason for approaching you has started to rot quietly in the back of his conscience.

Riki had paid him.

Not in a serious way, or in a way any adult would consider legally binding or morally sophisticated, but still enough that Jake sometimes thinks about the crumpled bills and feels something unpleasant crawl under his skin. At the beginning, it had meant a task, this whole idea of keeping you occupied so Riki could have room to breathe. You were a challenge then, a sharp-tongued older sister with a reputation, a schedule, a glare that could salt the earth, and a list of rules for a brother who needed to survive for his benefit.

It was getting harder to think of you as a job when you showed him what you thought were the ugliest parts of yourself, and he could only think you still looked pretty. 

He is also actively trying not to think about it on the pavement when his phone buzzes in his pocket. 

“Bro,” Riki says the second Jake answers, voice low and hurried. “I need you to take my sister out tonight.”

He pauses with one hand still on Layla’s leash, standing on the sidewalk outside his house while the dog sniffs a bush. Jake’s starting to think that Riki’s a bit more insane than you are, because he always asks the most unhinged favors. “What?”

“You know,” Riki says quickly, then seems to think about it. “Our deal. I need it badly tonight. I have plans.”

Jake’s expression flattens. “What plans?”

“A date.”

There is silence — one awkward silence.

Layla tugs at the leash and Jake lets himself be pulled two steps forward before asking, very carefully, “Does your sister know?”

“No, obviously not.”

“Riki.”

“It’s not bad,” Riki insists immediately. “I’m just going out with this girl from school, and I’ll be home early, but if my sister’s home and I’m not, she’s gonna start calling people and asking questions again. It’s part of her rules that I’m not allowed to date ‘til I’m eighteen.”

Jake rubs a hand over his face, already feeling the shape of the problem and disliking how familiar it has become. Especially not when he was just trying to control his little growing trouble that made up of you and your pretty eyes and adorable smile. “So your solution is to make me distract her.”

“I pay a hundred bucks a week for that!”

Jake almost laughs, because three weeks ago he might have been amused enough to play along with the joke, but now the whole thing sits differently in his chest. There is the old agreement, of course, the stupid one made at a party over drinks and Riki’s desperation, but there is also the garden, your face under the lights, your voice beside the fountain, your hand taking his jacket before you stepped back into the ballroom, and the way you had looked at him like you did not know whether to trust him but might have wanted to.

“I’m not doing this because you asked,” Jake says.

Riki makes a confused sound. “But I did ask.”

“I know.” Jake says, watching Layla sit neatly at his feet and look up as if even she understands this is going badly. “I’m saying if I take her somewhere, it’s because I want to.”

Then Riki says, with the kind of slow horror that proves he has begun realizing his plan may have developed organs and free will, “Oh.”

By the time evening settles over the city, you are in your room with your hair clipped back and a half-finished movie open in front of you when your phone lights up with Jake’s name, which is already annoying because he has apparently become someone whose name makes your attention trip over itself before you can discipline it with strict rules and bad parenting.

You stare at the screen for two rings. Then you answer. “What?”

There is a brief pause, and you can almost hear his smile through the phone. “Hi to you too.”

His voice slips through the speaker in a way that makes your room feel a little more warm than it did a second ago. You hate that he can do that now, that he can enter a space and rearrange the air without even being physically present, as though your life has become embarrassingly vulnerable to boys with good timing and probably bad intentions, because who calls at 9PM?

You lean back against your headboard. “Why are you calling me?”

“Because I’m going to the night market across town,” he says. “There are food trucks, stalls, probably overpriced shit,”

You cock a brow at relevance. “Okay?”

“Come with me.”

The sentence is too simple. Not do you want to come, or are you free, or any kind of question you can fold neatly into an excuse and return unopened. 

Your fingers tighten around your phone. “No.”

He doesn’t answer right away, and you expect him to push immediately, because that is usually what he does. He appears in hallways, sits at your library table, follows you through conversations until you leave, but now he only lets your answer sit there for a second.

Then he says, “Okay.”

You blink. The movie on your laptop continues playing in the background, but your attention has already abandoned it entirely.  “Then why are you still calling?” you ask.

On the other end, there is a small pause. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I guess I don’t really want to hang up yet.”

The movie keeps playing in front of you, bright colors moving across your laptop screen, but the sound has become nothing. You stare at the monitor instead, and try to ignore the way your face has warmed.

“That’s a terrible reason,” you say quietly.

“Yeah.” he laughs after. Neither of you speaks for a second until he breathes out softly. “I just thought you might like it.”

You smile down at your phone, suddenly brave because he can’t see your face. “You sound nervous.” 

He goes quiet for half a second before answering, softer, “I am nervous. A little.”

You press the phone closer to your ear without meaning to. “Why?”

Then, quieter, “Because I asked you to come with me and you said no.” he lets out a soft chuckle, like he can’t believe himself for what he’s about to say, “But I’m going to be there,” he says. “And I’d rather go with you.”

There it is again, that careless honesty of his, the kind that does not ask for anything too loudly. Despite the oddity of the situation, your brain is less of a shamble than it is mellowed out — which you should probably question and panic about. Later.

You stare at your laptop for a long second. And for reasons you cannot fathom, you wonder what’s so bad about going somewhere tonight. With Jake. “How far is it?”

He does not answer immediately, maybe busy weighing in what that means already. You can practically feel him trying not to sound pleased. “Across town,” he says carefully. “Twenty minutes, maybe.”

You still for a moment, playing with your blankets in between your fingers while you think this through. And like he can sense your hesitance, he helps you. “Give me one hour,” he says. “If you hate it, I’ll take you home.”

You shake your head, still smiling. “You’re very confident for someone I haven’t technically agreed to go out with.”

The silence that follows is immediate as your eyes open wide, just realizing it at the exact same time he does. You sit up straighter, heat rushing to your face because you didn’t mean it like that. “I mean go out to the market.”

“Yeah,” he says, voice quieter now. “I know.”

Fifteen minutes later, you step out of the house in comfortable clothes, locking the door behind you before you can think too hard about the fact that you came out at all. The night air hits your face immediately, cooler than expected, and you hug your arms loosely around yourself as your eyes find him near the curb.

Jake is leaning against his car with his hands in his pants pockets, head slightly lowered, looking unfairly casual in a hoodie layered beneath a jacket, his hair falling over his forehead like he did not spend even one second thinking about how he looked before coming here. Which is ridiculous, because some people look better when they try, but Jake Sim has apparently been designed by nature to look the most when he appears completely unaware of himself.

His gaze travels over you once, slow to take you in. You usually look like you’ve been assembled by clothing that make people feel underdressed by association, but tonight you’re in sweatpants and a fitted tank top beneath a jacket, hair loose, face bare. He looks at you like he is taking in the fact that you came downstairs for him.

“What?” you ask, already defensive.

He shakes his head, but the smile gets there before his denial does. “Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

He pushes himself off the car, one hand already reaching for the passenger door handle. “You look cute.”

You physically jerk to a stop and your face warms immediately. “You’re weird.”

“I’ve heard.”

“You can’t just say things like that.”

He opens the passenger door and looks at you, smiling in a way that is trying to be innocent and failing by a devastating margin. “Get in.”

You narrow your eyes. “You’re bossy tonight.”

“Please get in,” he corrects, still smiling.

You stare at him for another second, mostly because your pride requires a brief fight before surrender, then walk past him and slide into the passenger seat with as much dignity as possible. He closes the door once you are settled, and through the window, you catch the small smile he tries to hide as he circles around the front of the car. 

The ride’s quiet with the memory of Jake flirting with you in the gala garden — it makes you feel warm despite how cold the night is. You look out the window, watching streetlights slide over the glass, trying not to notice how different this feels from every other time you have been near him.  The night market appears before you in scattered pieces first, a line of cars, a spill of warm lights, people crossing the street in groups, then the whole thing opens up beyond the parking area in a bright, crowded stretch of stalls and food trucks and lanterns strung overhead.

You step out of the car and immediately pause, because it’s loud and crowded, which means it’s not your thing. There is smoke from grills twisting into the cold air, music blasting everywhere, laughter rising and falling in waves — which feels less like a market and more like a small fair.

You look at the crowd, then up at Jake. “This is busy.”

He closes his door and comes around the car, following your gaze. “Yeah.” He laughs, but softly, and when you look at him, he is already looking at you with that careful smile again, the one that does not make fun of you for being cautious. He looks at the crowd, then back at you, and for a second you think he might offer to leave, which would be considerate and therefore deeply inconvenient, but instead he reaches over and gives the sleeve of your jacket a small tug.

“Come on,” he says.

Before you can decide whether to argue, he starts walking, slow enough that you can follow without feeling dragged into the crowd. You hesitate for another second, but then the smell of something fried and warm cuts through the smoke, and your stomach chooses betrayal.

At first, you keep maneuvering to avoid everyone. You move through the crowd with shoulders turning at sharp angles, arms tucked close, stepping aside whenever someone comes too near. He notices after the third time you dodge a stranger by nearly stepping into a potted plant.

He laughs and you sigh without looking at him. “People have no spatial awareness.”

“People are walking.”

“Badly.”

Jake looks like he is trying very hard not to enjoy you, which makes the smile on his face even worse. You are halfway past a food truck with skewers smoking over a grill when you stop so abruptly that Jake nearly walks into you.

He catches himself at the last second. “What?”

You are staring at a small stall tucked between two larger ones, steam curling from bamboo baskets stacked in neat towers while a woman behind the counter folds dumplings quickly with practiced hands.

“I’ve been craving dumplings.”

The sentence leaves you softer than intended, and his expression changes in a way you do not have time to analyze because you are already in front of the stall. He follows without comment. A few minutes later, the two of you are walking again, slower this time, both eating from your trays with the market moving around you in bright, noisy pieces.

For a while, neither of you says anything, though it is not uncomfortable. You take another bite, then he glances at you. “Do you want a drink with that?”

You nod, mouth still full, and he’s already turning toward a nearby cooler display. He comes back with two cheap glass soda pops, the kind with bright labels and caps that need to be opened on the side of the stall counter, and hands one to you without making a thing of it.

You take it, fingers brushing condensation. “Thanks.”

“Was that gratitude?”

You look at him over the rim of the bottle. He lifts both hands in surrender, still holding his own drink. 

You walk with him after that, and slowly, your shoulders unintentionally begin to loosen. The crowd is still loud, still too close, still full of strangers with elbows and sauce and terrible directional instincts, but it becomes less unbearable now. He notices when your attention starts catching, but he never comments, which is the only reason you allow yourself to drift toward a booth crowded with little trinkets and charms. There are cats, dogs, bears, strawberries, cherries, tiny books, moons, stars, and one orange cat keychain with a round face and a deeply unimpressed expression.

You pretend your decision is practical, of course, like owning a tiny orange cat charm is somehow a necessary purchase. He watches quietly while you pay, your expression focused and pleased in a way that makes him look away for half a second because apparently he has some survival instincts left.

You attach it to your bag immediately. He looks at it, then at the rest of the display, and his mouth twitches. “That one looks like you.” You follow his gaze to a small cat charm with narrowed eyes, pointed ears, and an expression so deeply displeased it almost feels personally designed to insult you.

Your face flattens. “No, it does not.”

He picks it up. “It does.”

You glare at him and he smiles at the charm. “See? Same expression.” he says as he holds it up beside your face to compare.

“Put it back.”

Instead, he pays for it and you stare at him. “Why did you buy that?”

He looks at it once, and then pockets it without explanation. “Come on.”

“No, why did you buy it?”

“I liked it.” He keeps walking, and you have to follow because the crowd is moving again. For some reason the gesture bothers you more than the teasing does. 

The next booth that caught your attention is almost obnoxiously catered to your weaknesses, with neat stacks of sticker sheets, tiny memo pads, washi tape, highlighters in soft colors, planner tabs, bookmarks, stamps, and pens arranged in little acrylic containers. You stop so completely that Jake has to step aside to avoid blocking a passing couple.

For the next several minutes, you become very busy with the most random things, all as Jake stands slightly behind you, holding his soda and yours because at some point you handed it to him without looking, and he accepts this responsibility without saying anything. The two of you keep walking after, and you look more relaxed now than you did at the entrance, less like you are bracing for the world to touch you and more like you have forgotten that you disliked it. You stop at stalls, drift toward anything cute or useful, and Jake continues to follow at your side with no complaint, carrying your soda when you need both hands and slowing whenever you slow.

Then, just as you lean slightly toward a booth selling handmade bookmarks and tiny pressed-flower frames, a pair of kids comes rushing through the gap between stalls, chasing each other with glowing toys in their hands. He moves before thinking, his hand finds the space near your lower back, hovering as he shifts closer to keep the children from bumping into you. His other arm angles subtly between you and the crowd, and he looks over his shoulder just long enough to make sure they pass without catching your side.

You do not notice because you are too busy looking at a bookmark with a little painted cat on it. For some reason, that makes him smile to himself as he lets his hand fall away before you can feel the absence of it.

You turn to him a second later, holding up the bookmark. “This is cute.”

He looks at the bookmark, then at you, still smiling faintly. “Yeah.”

At some point, the crowd gets worse, which you didn’t even notice at first, but then the path in front of you disappears almost entirely, swallowed by families, couples, groups of students, people stopping without warning, people cutting through gaps that do not exist — just people. For a moment, both of you stand at the edge of the crowd, watching everyone press forward in a messy current of shoulders and laughter and swinging shopping bags.

You sigh. “This is ridiculous.”

He looks thoughtful for a second, then makes a decision you do not see coming at all. His arm lifts slightly, hovering behind your shoulders, and you immediately turn your head to look at him.

Jake, to his credit, only looks mildly nervous. “It’s practical.”

Your eyes narrow. “Is it?”

He glances toward the crowd like it might help him build a better defense. “There are a lot of people.”

He presses his lips together, fighting a smile, but his arm stays there, careful and waiting rather than assuming. It should not feel like such a big thing, but it does, mostly because he looks like he is giving you every chance to refuse. “You don’t have to,” he says after a second, already starting to lower his arm.

You hate that the consideration makes it worse. So before you can think too much about it, you roll your eyes and step closer, letting his arm settle around your shoulders like this is somehow the most casual thing in the world (it is not). Jake goes very still for half a second, like he did not actually expect you to allow it, and the brief pause is so obvious that your face warms immediately.

“This is practical,” you say, staring straight ahead.

“Yeah,” he answers, voice lower than before. “Very practical.”

You glance up at him despite yourself, and he is already looking away, but the corner of his mouth is lifted, and his ears have gone faintly pink beneath the market lights.

“Are you blushing?” you ask.

Jake looks at you then, and the smile finally breaks loose. “No.”

“You are.”

“It’s cold.”

You should move away after that because the path opens slightly, enough for you to walk without being separated, and there is no official reason for his arm to stay around your shoulders anymore. But he keeps it there, loose enough that you can step away anytime, steady enough that no one can push between you.

So you stay.

He walks half a step beside you, not dragging you, only guiding when the crowd tightens again. His shoulder angles gently through the busiest parts, his arm drawing you closer whenever someone cuts too near, and each time it happens, your side brushes against him.

You stare ahead and try to remember that this is for crowd navigation, nothing else. Then someone with a swinging tote bag steps backward without looking, and Jake reacts before you do, pulling you in carefully until your shoulder presses against his chest for one quick, breathless second.

“Sorry,” he says near your ear, already loosening his hold. “You okay?”

You nod too quickly. “Fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

You hate how much easier it becomes after that. Not the crowd, because the crowd is still awful, still shifting and pressing and stopping without warning, but moving through it with him is easier. He notices gaps before you do, and he shifts when people come too close. At some point, without asking, he takes the unfinished cake cup from your hand too, tucking the little wooden spoon beneath the lid and holding it in his free hand like carrying your dessert is normal.

You do not protest, and that is the truly alarming part. For once, your brain gets to go quiet. Not completely, of course, because you are still you, but some strict part of you loosens just enough to let him lead. It should bother you more. It does bother you. But it also feels good.

By the time you finally return to the car, the one hour has become more than one hour by a margin neither of you mentions — you both had stopped checking the time altogether. 

He only opens the passenger door for you, takes your bags long enough for you to get in comfortably, then hands them back once you are settled like this is all very normal. You start to think that’s the kind of person who knows where your hands are too full and fixes it without asking (which is bad because it detangles the wires in your brain). The drive back is quiet because you’re both tired, and the city slips past the windows in streaks of light while you sit with your head turned slightly toward the glass. He keeps one hand on the wheel and the other resting loosely near the gear shift, his posture relaxed now, his eyes on the road.

When he finally pulls up outside your house, you both sit there. Then Jake unbuckles first, getting out already, and by the time you open your door, he is already there with your things gathered carefully in his arms.

“I can carry my own stuff,”

“I know.”

He hands you the paper bag first, then the little pouch from the trinket stall, then your phone, which you had somehow left in the cup holder without realizing. With your things in your hands, you stand across the passenger door while he leans back against it, spine resting against the car, hands slipping into his pockets after he has nothing left to hand you. He is closer like this, enough that the porch light catches the tired softness around his eyes.

Jake looks at you for a moment, and for once, he does not seem like he is trying to come up with anything clever. Then his voice goes soft. “Did you have fun?”

You look down at the paper bag in your arms, thinking that you could say it was fine, or tolerable, or simply that dumplings were good. Instead, you think about his hand around yours in the crowd, his laugh when you dragged him away from the flowers, the way he never made you feel strange for relying on someone.

“A little,” you say.

His smile appears slowly, like he is trying not to let it happen too fast. “A little?”

“Don’t get greedy.”

“I feel greedy.”

Your face warms immediately, but he seems to hear himself a second later because his smile widens just slightly. “I had fun,” he says and you hold his gaze. 

Your fingers tighten around the handles of your bag. “You’re very easy to entertain then,” you say.

“Only tonight.”

“Because of the market?”

“Sure.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “What was it then?”

He leans his head back lightly against the window, still watching you through half-lidded eyes, his smile barely there now. “You really wanna know?” he asks.

You smile despite yourself, shaking your head before he can answer. “No.” because you know what he’ll say, and it feels dangerous to hear it out loud.

He laughs softly, head still leaned back against the window, the porch light catching the slope of his cheek and the tired softness in his eyes. For a second, he looks less like someone trying to win an argument and more like someone who would be perfectly fine just standing there with you until the night runs out. “I figured.”

You lift the paper bag in your hand. “The dumplings were good.”

He sighs, disbelieving but still completely okay with it anyway. “I’ll take it,” he says.  Then he straightens slowly, pushing himself off the car like he has finally accepted that the night has to end, but even after he says, “I should go,” he does not actually move.

You nod. “Yeah.”

Neither of you moves.

You should say goodnight, walk up the steps, unlock the door, and pretend the whole drive home had not gone quiet in a way that felt different from tiredness. But your feet stay planted near the passenger side, your bags looped awkwardly over your fingers, your phone pressed against the paper bag in your arms. The porch light spills softly over the driveway, catching the side of Jake’s face, and he looks tired in the gentlest way, hair slightly messy from the night air, hoodie sitting loose on his shoulders, eyes still on you like he is waiting for something without wanting to ask for it.

That is the worst part: he does not push, he does not tease, he does not make some stupid comment that would make it easier for you to roll your eyes and leave. He just stands there, patient in a way that makes your chest tighten.

“You should go,” you say, even though you are the one not stepping away.

His mouth curves faintly. “I know.”

“You’re not going.”

“Neither are you.”

You look away first, irritated by the truth of it. This is awful.

It is awful because you are used to handling things yourself, used to needing no one, used to being sharp enough that people stop trying. And then Jake Sim shows up, too warm, too persistent, too easy to like when he stops trying so hard, and suddenly your own brain feels like it has been rearranged.

He watches your face, his smile fading into something softer. “What is it?”

You shake your head. “Nothing.”

“Okay.”

He says it like he believes you have the right to keep it, and somehow that makes it harder to keep anything at all. You glance at him again, and he is still there, hands tucked into his pockets now, shoulders relaxed, giving you every chance to go inside.

You hate that. You hate him. You hate that you don’t hate him at all.

“You’re thinking really loud,” he says quietly.

You let out a small breath, almost a laugh, but not quite. “You’re very annoying.”

“I’ve heard.”

“No.” You look up at him properly this time, and your voice comes out softer than you meant it to. “You’ve been very inconvenient.”

He tilts his head, confusion crossing his face. “Inconvenient?”

You hate that he genuinely does not seem to understand. It makes the whole thing worse, somehow, because of course he would stand there looking at you like that, soft-eyed and patient, after spending the entire night making it harder and harder for you to pretend he was still just Riki’s friend.

“Yes,” you say, almost sharply. “Inconvenient.”

His mouth opens, probably to ask another stupid question, but you cannot handle another second of him being careful with you. So you drop your bags at your feet, step forward before you can change your mind, grab the front of his hoodie, and pull him down.

Then you kiss him. 

He goes completely still beneath your hands, so still that your heart drops almost immediately. The courage leaves you as quickly as it came, replaced by a sharp rush of embarrassment that burns all the way up your neck. You pull away before he can even react, fingers slipping from his hoodie as your eyes fall anywhere but his face.

“I —” You swallow, already stepping back. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have —”

But you’re already turning before you can finish. You barely make it half a step before his hand catches your wrist, gentle but certain. The next second, he turns you back toward him, and you stumble straight into his chest.

Jake is looking at you now like he has finally caught up with himself. His hands find your waist, careful for only a heartbeat before his grip firms, pulling you closer, and he kisses you back. It is warm and firm and breathless, like he is making up for the second he lost, like he cannot believe you almost walked away again. 

Your hands grab at his hoodie again, more out of surprise than anything, and he leans into you just enough that the whole world seems to narrow down to his chest against yours, his fingers at your waist, and the quiet night around you. He towers closer, holding you tighter when your knees buckle underneath you, especially when a gasp slips out of your lips and his tongue enters your mouth.

When he finally pulls back, he does not go far. For a moment, both of you just stand there, close and silent, breathing unevenly under the porch light. Then Jake lets out the smallest, stunned laugh, his forehead pressed against yours.

“You have no idea,” he says quietly with his hands steady at your waist. “How long I’ve wanted you to stop walking away from me.”

For once, there is no sharp answer on your tongue, no insult, no eye roll, no clean little exit you can use to save yourself from the way he is looking at you. There is only Jake and you.

“You froze,” you whisper, because it is the only thing your pride can still manage.

His laugh comes out breathless. “You surprised me.”

“That’s your excuse?”

His hands tighten at your waist, like even now he cannot believe you are still arguing with him. “That’s my apology.”

You lift your chin slightly. “It wasn’t very good.”

His eyes drop to your mouth for half a second before coming back to yours, and this time, the smile he gives you is softer than it is teasing.

“Then let me do better,”

You barely have time to pretend you are annoyed before he kisses you again. This one is slower at first, like he is giving you the chance to pull away, but your hands are already gripping his hoodie and pulling him closer before either of you can pretend otherwise. You feel him smile against your lips as he deepens the kiss.

When you part again, your face is warm, his hair is a little messed up from where your fingers had caught in it, and both of you are breathing like the night has tilted beneath your feet.

You look toward the door, then back at him, suddenly shy now that the night has become quiet again. “Do you want to come in?”

His gaze lifts to yours, and the look on his face changes so quickly it makes your breath catch. The teasing is gone now, the stunned smile from earlier fading into something quieter, heavier, like he understands exactly what you just asked and is trying very hard not to make you regret saying it.

For once, he does not say anything clever. He only looks at you and nods.

You unlock the front door carefully, as if the sound itself might become suspicious, then step inside with him following after you. The house is dim, only the soft light over the staircase left on, and for a second the two of you stand in the entryway like you have smuggled the whole night in with you.

He closes the door quietly behind him as you slip off your shoes. Neither of you says anything, but when you glance back, he is already looking at you. You step toward him first, his expression shifting like he has not fully learned what to do with you when you are the one closing the distance. For once, he does not move first. He only stands there, still and watching, as your fingers curl into the front of his hoodie. You pull him in and his breath catches softly, then you reach up and kiss him again. He responds after half a second of surprise, hands lifting to your waist, like even now he is keeping some part of himself gentle.

The kiss is still sweet, still careful, but there is less hesitation in it this time. Your hand stays fisted in his jacket, and when he leans closer, you feel his smile against your mouth before he kisses you back properly.

He pulls away just enough to breathe, his face still close, eyes warm and slightly dazed in a way that makes your stomach turn uselessly soft. “You’re getting very bold,” he whispers.

You glare at him, which is difficult when you are still holding onto him. “Are you complaining?”

His smile breaks wider. “No. I’m not.” Then he kisses you again before you can argue, which is unfair because arguing has been your only reliable defense against him and he has apparently discovered a much better strategy. His hands stay at your waist, warm and steady, not pushing, only holding you close enough that you forget to keep track of where the hallway ends and where he begins.

Somehow, between one kiss and the next, your back meets the front door. You do not notice right away because all you notice is him, the warmth of his mouth, the careful way he keeps slowing down like he is reminding himself to let you breathe, the way his thumb shifts at your waist when your fingers tighten in his jacket. The whole house is quiet around you, but your heart is being so loud it feels impossible that he cannot hear it.

Then he pulls back just enough for his words to brush against your mouth. “I want to be your boyfriend.”

You go still, and his eyes open, searching your face. You look at him for a second, breath still uneven, then whisper, “Think you can wait a little bit more?”

His expression softens immediately. The shift is quick; the want in his face makes room for patience again, how fast he understands. He nods once, small and serious, his hands loosening at your waist like he would let go the second you asked him to. “I can wait,” he says quietly.

And he looks like he means it. Like he would stand there in your hallway with your lipstick slightly smudged on his mouth, with his heart in his hands, and let you kiss him while still waiting for you to decide what to do with it. Like he would take every almost, every maybe, every not yet, and still look at you like you are not being cruel for needing time.

Your hands slide up from his jacket to his hair, fingers threading carefully through the soft strands at the back of his head, and his eyes flutter like that small touch just ruined whatever patience he had left. You lean in again and he goes still for one startled breath before he melts into it, a quiet laugh slipping against your mouth as he realizes, too late, that you were not saying no. Your hands stay curled in his jacket, keeping him close, and this kiss feels different from the others, still soft, still careful, but warmer now, more certain, like an answer you are not ready to say out loud.

When you pull away (barely), he is smiling so openly that you almost regret letting him have this much evidence. His smile turns stupidly happy. “That sounds like a yes.”

“It sounds like you should kiss me again before I change my mind.”

He laughs, quiet and breathless, and does exactly that. Somewhere between the hallway and the kiss after that, the two of you become very bad at making responsible decisions. 

In whispered laughs and careful footsteps up the stairs, with your hand around his wrist and him following behind you like he is trying not to smile too loudly. The house stays dim around you, every creak in the floorboards suddenly dramatic enough. By the time you reach your room, your heart is doing something ridiculous again. You open the door slowly, letting the faint light from the hallway spill over your bed, your desk, the half-finished planner still open from earlier, the ordinary pieces of your life that suddenly feel less ordinary with him stepping into them behind you. He looks around for half a second, not nosy, just quietly taking it in.

You step toward him before he can say anything worse, catching the front of his jacket again, and he lets you pull him down with an ease that makes your stomach turn soft. The kiss starts as a way to shut him up, or at least that is what you tell yourself, but then his hands find the small of your back to steady you, careful and familiar now, and suddenly the room feels smaller.

You back up without thinking, until the backs of your legs meet the edge of the bed, and he stops immediately. He pulls away just enough to look at you. “Okay?”

You hate that he asks. You love that he asks.

Instead of answering, you sit down on the edge of the mattress and tug him gently. He follows, careful even when he looks like every bit of caution in him is being tested. The bed dips beneath both of you, your knees brushing first, then your hands finding his jacket again, pulling him close enough that he has no choice but to lean over you when you lie back against the pillows.

For a second, he just looks at you. It is almost funny, how still he goes, hands planted beside your shoulder like he has forgotten what to do with himself now that you are the one inviting him closer. His eyes move over your face, not rushing anywhere else, and something about that makes your chest feel warmer.

“You’re overthinking,” you whisper.

Jake lets out a quiet laugh, but it sounds strained in the softest way. “Yeah.”

“You usually have more to say.”

His smile appears, small and helpless, before he leans down and kisses you again. It is still gentle and careful, but being this close makes everything feel bigger. The quiet room, the faint light from the hallway, the warmth of him above you and being in between your legs, the way his breath catches when your fingers slip to the back of his neck. 

He pulls away, not far, just enough to look at you properly, his eyes searching yours. “Still okay?” he whispers.

You nod, but he does not move immediately, like he wants the answer to be something you choose twice. So you smile, softer than you mean to. “I’m okay.” The relief on his face is quiet, but obvious.

“You’re very careful.”

His mouth lifts faintly. “With you? Yeah.”

You look away for half a second, because that is a terrible sentence to hear while he is this close. He sees it, the way the gears turn inside your head, the way you’re suddenly pushing his jacket off him and your knees are tightening against his waist. He swallows, struggling as he keeps himself over you, trying not to dive into something he’s not sure you want.

Except, you do. And it is very obvious.

You pull him down again, kissing until you know you’ve bruised his plump lips, until his tongue finally slips into your warm mouth as you make a sound against him. You gasp when you feel his hips press in between your thighs and his breath hitches, like he’s in between behaving and giving in. He pulls away abruptly, mouths detaching with a pop, and you visibly grow annoyed.

“God,” he lets out an airy and startled laugh, “What the fuck.”

He hates that he really likes the way his growing bulge is pressing against your ass. The warmth of his body makes you so needy, embarrassingly enough, though you only pull him closer. “Why are you so far away?” you whine.

“We should probably stop,” he says, but it comes out more like a breathless laugh, his forehead dropping for a second.

But you frown. You grind your ass against his hips, feeling the imprint of his cock. “Your dick says otherwise,” God, you are so mean, and he loves it. 

A hand lifts from the mattress and slips towards your bare thigh that’s pressed against his waist, squeezing the soft fat there. You practically melt at the sight of veiny hand smoothing over the skin, until the tips of his fingers carefully disappear into the fabric of your shorts. You squirm against him and he shoots his eyes back up at you, eyebrows furrowed down to his lids. 

 “I don’t have a condom,” he says lowly, voice made of velvet and restraint.

You smile, evil and insatiable. “I don’t care.”

He sighs, disbelieving of how you’ve completely turned to a 180. “I’m trying to be good,” he says. “You’re making it impossible.” Yet he slips his shirt off his body, exposing the toned muscles of his abs, the deep grooves carved. His chest is flat and broad, expanding to the sculpted arms that are solid without looking heavy, just all quiet strength.

“Tell me to stop,” he says quietly, “And I will.” right before he bows down to kiss you again. His tongue brushes into your mouth, meeting yours as your hands find the privilege of slithering down his exposed skin, fingers grazing against the muscles that twitch from your soft touch.

He kisses your cheek next, then your jaw, until his lips reach the soft skin of your neck. He sucks there, until it’s littered with hickeys. “This isn’t good, baby,” he whispers, contradicting himself when he continues to bite the flesh above your pulse. You can only smile and moan, fascinated with the way he’s quickly losing composure.

He helps you out of your sweater next, carefully lifting your upper body up. “Arms up,” you follow, staring into his eyes once he takes it off you. His hand slides to your back, leaning down a little where his lips ghosts above your forehead, then presses a kiss there as he unclasps your bra, the black material slipping off you. You grow a little shy, lips pressing to a line while your own arms curl around yourself. He chuckles softly, then reaches for your wrists with careful fingers and gently uncrosses them. “Where did all that attitude go now, hm?” he murmurs before leaning down to press a kiss to the inside of your wrist, then another just above it, slow enough to make your breath catch.

He circles your arms back around his neck and you pull him closer to you, so he presses a soft kiss to your lips right before he bends down to your chest. “You’re making this too easy,” he whispers. “I thought you liked arguing with me.” You can only bite down on your bottom lip when he takes your perked nipple into his mouth, all wet and warm, before he sucks and bites down gently. 

“Shut up.” you somehow still manage, and you can feel him smile against your breast.

His tongue swirls around the bud before he pulls away, then takes the other one into his mouth next. After he fondles your breasts, caressing you gently but firmly, he moves down your belly, his soft tongue trailing down your skin slowly. He presses kisses on the swell of it, smiling when you tense against him. His large, veiny hands tightens on your waist, attempting to memorize the way the dip feels under his palms. They find your hips next, thumb teasing the hem of your thin shorts, slipping into the fabric just to feel how soft you can get underneath.

“Miss Attitude is so fucking soft,” he murmurs. “They have no idea.” 

He hooks his fingers over the hem of your shorts and slides it off you along with your panties. You’re already feverish when his face meets your cunt after, his breath fanning your folds, large hands holding your thighs so tightly you know it’d mark. 

He can smell how sweet you are, your wetness glistening with so much arousal. He looks over you, sharp eyes through the hoods, like he wants to make sure you’re watching him. “I’ve got you.” Then, because he’s so cruel and careful at the same time, he presses soft kisses on your folds first. Then he kisses your clit next, a deep breath spilling out of you, your hands locking through his hair, attempting to pull him closer. 

He licks a stripe this time, from your hole to your clit, your sensitivity reaching an all time high. “Fuck, Jake, come on,” you practically whimper.

With a prideful grin, he pins your thighs back against the bed. Then he buries his face into your cunt, his tongue laps inside your folds like you’re his favorite meal. He kisses the flesh, then sucks on it like he’s mad, sounds so wet and frenzy.

“Oh my God — Jake, fuck —” Your eyes shoot to your ceiling before your eyelids shut. He groans against you, sending vibrations through your pussy, his moans muffled while yours echo in your bedroom. He stuffs his face in, tongue slurping your entrance before his lips latch onto your clit next, sucking it dry. Your fingers tug at his roots, while your thighs threaten to clench around his head. 

He pushes his long tongue into your hole next, the tip of his nose nuzzling your clip as he buries himself deeper, making sure to coat his face with your sweetness and his saliva. He thinks he can do this until the sun sets again and again, just latching his lips around your clit and holding your shivering thighs around his head. 

He shakes his head slightly, just drinking your juices and moaning into your cunt, not being able to have enough of you. When he pulls away, he’s breathing heavily and you’re pouting, unsure why he’s stopping. Though the sight’s going to kill you still anyway, black hair soaked in sweat, brushing over his eyes while his plump pink lips and chin glisten with your juices.

“I want more, please…” you sigh, attempting to reach for him.

His hand lowers from your thigh to your cunt now, thumb gently grazing over your clit before spreading the folds apart. Practically glimmering with how drenched you are, he teases by pushing his thumb in and pulling back right after. He watches your face, at the way your brows knit together and how you flush into a puddle for him.

He smiles, all of his teeth showing, before he leans back down. “Prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.” Then he inserts his middle finger in, impossibly longer than yours, stealing a gasp from your throat when he pushes his digits so deep inside, reaching his pink knuckles. 

The squelch of your walls squeezing around him should be sin, as he feels just how soft you are. He sneaks another one in, two fingers buried deep into your pussy that you clench so tightly. “S-shit — s-so fucking good…”

“Fuck,” he huffs a chuckle. “So tight. How would my cock fit you?” 

He licks his lips, swallowing the remnants of you from his mouth. Then he dives back down, open mouth attaching on your clit while his thick fingers pull, push, and curl inside you. Your legs spread for him while you whine his name as if in a desperate prayer.

He continues to retract his digits before pushing it all back inside, carefully picking up the pace with the thrusts. He sucks on your clit hard, the sheer overstimulation of both his mouth and hand working on your pussy makes you a whining mess, loud and fucked, that you have to cover your mouth with your palm.

Though it’s no use, your brother definitely knows now just who’s fucking you with just his fingers and tongue. After a few more thrusts, the tips of his fingers touches that spot that makes your cunt clench tighter and your spine curve against your sheets. 

“I-I’m gonna cum — Jake, c-cumming —” He drinks up all your liquid but then abruptly pulls back, fingers leaving your entrance and his mouth detaching with a wet pop, leaving you so bare.

You feel empty without him filling you up, that you’ve got to open your eyes and look over your breasts and belly, where he sits up, adjusting his weight on his knees while his face and fingers are sopping with your arousal, somehow still making you embarrassed. He licks it off clean, making sure not to waste any of you that you’ve given to him, and you sheepishly curl a little in your bed.

He leans forward now, propping himself on his hands as he hovers over you. Your hands reach up to soothe over the muscles of his traps, warm and bulky under your palms, before you find his hair again, stroking through the black locks. “You’re such a fucking tease,” you mumble, soft and spent.

Jake only has to bite his bottom lip to keep from grinning, eyes soft with the kind of fondness that makes you want to look away. Your gaze falls on the veins protruding from his arms, trailing up to his elbows that you just have to turn away again because is his dick just as veiny? When you look back up at him, there’s something unbearably gentle in his eyes, like he’s looking at the prettiest thing he’s ever been allowed to keep close. Without any words, he leans down, kissing you again, soft but firm, but he presses you deeper into the bed. 

He lifts your leg again, spreading you wider than your dignity lets you, taking your thigh against his hip before he jerks forward, pushing his clothed bulge against your exposed pussy. Your kiss stutters and he pauses a little, pulling away suddenly to let out a shaky breath. “S-shit…”

You whine, weak but pitched. “Take it out, Jake, please,” You buck into his cock, feeling the heavy outline of it slide into your folds.

He doesn’t even argue this time, he just nods, breath uneven, eyes fixed on yours like whatever fight he had left in him disappeared the second you said his name. His hand finds your waist like he’s been waiting for permission all night, squeezing you tightly.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, voice low and completely gone. “Okay.”

He lets go of you for a bit to push his sweatpants off, revealing his boner so prominent and practically hanging in his boxers. You can see his hands shaking a little as he takes his boxers off next, before throwing them into a corner of the room.

His cock practically springs forward to you, desperate and leaking. He’s thick, long, veiny. And pink at the tip.

You don’t even pretend you’re not staring anymore, and you don’t notice the tips of his ears flushing pink this time, a little hint of sheepishness. You’ve never really considered yourself a sex addict, much less even lustful, but the way your pussy throbs at the sight of his pretty cock makes you think maybe you’ve been wrong about yourself in many ways. You want nothing more but to see how he tastes, or how it’d slap against your tongue. He strokes himself, thumb playing with his own slit, spreading his pre around his thick head.

“No condom, baby, I’m so sorry,” His mouth twists into a pout before he can stop it, eyes wide and miserably apologetic. “I’ll pull out, I promise.”

“I don’t give a fuck, Jake,” you urge him closer to you, hands roaming down his abs. “I need you inside me, please — “

If his cock wasn’t twitching in hand, begging to be inside you, he’d probably let out a chuckle at how cute and eager you look right now, practically squirming and begging underneath him. But he’s no better than you, so he adjusts himself forward, leaning once again before aligning the head against your pussy. He nudges your clit, a gasp tumbling from his mouth at the contact. 

“It will only hurt for a second,” he warns and you swallow, staring at his dick as you wonder if it will even fit at all. “Breathe, baby, okay?” You nod, biting down your lip. 

You lift your hips slightly with the help of his hand against your hip, letting the tip nuzzle against your entrance. He’s breathing heavily, taking one final inhale before he pushes forward and lets the head of his cocks slide past your folds, meeting your gummy walls. You gasp as the stretch, making you tense up and clench around him.

“Fuck, t-that’s so tight — ah —” Jake’s forehead rests against yours, the feeling of your pussy squeezing him in, practically sucking his cock inside until you feel him brushing your cervix. He finally sinks in fully, and all he can think about is trying not to fucking cum right now. Not even 10 seconds in and he’s gone like a horny loser, but seeing you so spread open just for him is undoing him anyway.

He sets a pace, slow to stretch you out, having to bury his head against your neck just to suppress his groans, shallow thrusts getting deeper and deeper. The way his member touches rubs on your walls draws the prettiest whines from you, his name coming out as uneasy breaths as his rhythm picks up. Your hands thread through his hair, pulling him down for another kiss, and so his veiny hand settles beside your head, balancing himself on top of you. You claw at his back when his tongue slips into your mouth, his thrusts growing faster.

“J-Jake,” you whimper, just as he pins your thighs down the bed. Your legs spreading wider pretty much heightens the feeling in your pussy, letting you feel his cock as he begins to pound into you. He shifts slightly, grinding on that soft spot that makes your eyes roll back and whine his name again.

“Y-you’re clenching — shit, you’re clenching too hard, baby —” he moans, sweat dripping down his neck to his chest. His hips snap forward harder and faster, breath coming in ragged gasps. 

Your brain is short-circuiting and your skin is on fire, hot coil tightening in your abdomen. He continues rutting into you, bodies warm and sweaty, while your nails dig deep into his back. “I-I’m coming, Jake — fuck, I’m — “

He steals your mouth for another kiss when you finish, your orgasm striking through you, pussy clenching tight around his dick as you feel white ropes spill into you, full and so fucking hot. “S-shit…” he breathes against your mouth, riding out the last few seconds of your pleasure. 

Jake rests his forehead against yours, catching his breath while his hand caresses your waist so firmly, soothing the skin up and down like a lover. His panting slow down, breathing matching yours as the height of your drives lower, his twitching cock coming to a stop inside you. He pulls out, drawing a wince from him, his cum oozing from your hole as he does. 

“Fuck,” he curses, licking the inside of his cheek. You can only laugh tiredly, wiping the sweat from your forehead.

“I did not fucking mean to,” he clears his throat before looking back up at you, “cum in you.”

You hit his arm without any real force, a tired smile etching on your face as you pull him back down. He kisses you, and you try not to melt at how slow he does it, at how much deeper it is compared to the others. When he pulls away, he presses a softer one on your forehead. He straightens on his knees, sharp yet weary eyes looking over your naked body, enjoying every dip and curve, hand somehow never separating from your thighs and hips. You get sheepish, despite it all, giving a quiet groan when he admires you shamelessly. “Stop staring,”

He can only smile, his hand reaching for yours in which you give. His thumb moving slowly over your knuckles, then he lifts it to his mouth and presses a quiet kiss to your fingers before leaning over to kiss your forehead. He kisses near your temple after, voice low when he speaks again. “I’m gonna go to the store.”

Your brows draw slightly, “Now?”

“Yeah,” he gives you a sly smile, “For Plan B.”

You give him a look, but it barely has any strength behind it. Then you laugh, shaking your head at how ridiculous it sounds. Jake gives you a look back, brows lifting slightly. “What?”

Before you can give a proper answer, you sit up and place your palms against his shoulders, pushing him down the bed. He follows obediently, eyes on yours as you find yourself climbing on top of him, legs bracketing either side of his hips once he’s laid down. His cock twitches against your pussy, slowly growing again.

“I’m trying to be a good boyfriend,” he says under his breath, uneven and clearly strained.

Your lips twitch before you can stop them. “Boyfriend, hm?” you hum as your hands feel his abs underneath your palms, taut at your touch.

Jake throws his head back, Adam's apple bobbing before he mutters a quiet curse. “Jesus Christ,” he whispers, almost laughing under his breath. “You’re gonna kill me.”

Your face heats, not being able to stop the smile that creeps to you. Your hands slide to his chest, and your ass rubs against his hardened length, a soft moan coming out of you when it slides against your wet folds. 

“Later, okay?” is all you say before you manage to slide his cock back inside you, stealing a startled gasp from his throat. 

The next few days have been… a turn.

Not an immediate one, because you are not the kind of person who wakes up one morning and becomes soft just because a boy fucked you to make your thoughts trip over themselves. It starts with stupid things, like letting Jake carry the heavier paper bag when you leave the convenience store instead of wrestling it back from him on principle, or handing him your empty cup before you can think too hard about why your fingers already moved toward him, or looking up from your phone in a parking lot and realizing he has already stepped to the side closest to the road.

The first few times, you still fight it, naturally, and there are moments when you hear your own voice sharpen before you can stop it, asking him whether he thinks you are incapable of holding a bag, opening a door, ordering your own drink, or to even function as a person, but Jake never flinches when your tone gets mean. He never waits for you to become easier. He only looks at you with that patience of his, and says, “I know you can,” like your competence was never in question, and the entire point is not that you cannot do it yourself, but that someone else can do it for you too.

You are used to being needed, to people looking at you when something breaks, when Riki disappears, when your father needs something handled, and you are used to stepping in so quickly. Needing someone has always felt too close to failing, and depending on someone has always felt like handing them a knife and hoping they do not use it on you, but Jake does not treat your reliance like victory, does not look smug when you finally stop arguing, does not make a monument out of every time you let him help. He just helps, and it gives you nothing to push against.

The hot stuff hasn’t ended either. At first, you both did try to be normal for the sake of your upheld pride of refusing to be easy, even to your own boyfriend, and his respect for your decision. It does come to an end right after 4 days it happened, when he comes over again and your father’s never home and Riki’s somewhere you don’t know, having a hot boyfriend in your room would always mean he’d end up pounding into you. Or that you graciously ride him so well that he has to run to the store for Plan B again.

Jake never ever made you feel like you have to do things for him, nor did he ever urge you to have sex with him. There were a few occasions though, when you two might have went against your own moral code when he fucked you in his car in the school parking lot — did you regret it? No. Would it happen again? You hope not.

You might have had a hidden trait that’s been opened after a few nights together. There were a lot of moments when Jake had to take a pause because he genuinely gets scared at how you look at his cock, all excited and famished (sorry for the lack of better term). And his nose, just before he lies down on your bed and lets you sit his face.

You never have prioritized sex, nor did you think there was anything good about having a wet pussy 24/7 other than it was pure lust. You did, however, also find out that you really liked being pushed against Jake’s desk and fucked at the back.

After that, things get a little more cliche, of course. You start expecting his hand at the small of your back when a hallway gets crowded, start assuming he will keep track of where you left your phone, when you start sending him photos of readings with a single question mark and receive back highlighted screenshots, voice notes, and brief explanations. You start asking him to pick you up without building a whole argument on why it’s practical. You start trusting him with the ugly middle parts of your day, not only the polished version you usually hand people.

Then, because you are still princess-y, petty you, you also start getting annoyed when he does not anticipate things fast enough. 

One evening he sits beside you at a café and does not immediately take the extra books from your arms because he is answering Sunghoon’s text, and you feel offended — makes no sense, of course. Now you stand there with your books pressing into your chest, glaring at the side of his head until he finally looks up and pauses. “What?”

“Nothing.”

His gaze drops to the books, then returns to your face, and the slow realization that crosses his expression is so unbearable. Jake reaches for them anyway, careful enough to give you time to refuse, smug enough that you want to kick him, and when you let him take the stack from your arms, he murmurs, “My bad, baby. I’ll be faster next time.”

With Riki, the change makes him jump quietly (of course) in glee. You do not stop worrying, because that would require medical intervention, but you stop overthinking every hour. Sometimes you don’t ask where he is until he tells you first. Riki starts texting more because the texts no longer feel like constant interrogation, and you start responding less as you remember that seventeen is not the same as helpless.

Then one day passes without you talking to him at all. You do not realize it until you are brushing your teeth and your phone lights up with a message from Riki that only says, alive btw. You stare at it for a long second, toothpaste foaming at your mouth, and the first thing you feel is panic because how did you go an entire day without checking — someone will kill you, for sure, right? Then the panic fades into the shape of relief. He is fine, he told you, comfortably at that too.

When you tell Jake later, expecting him to make some joke, he only nods and says, “That’s good.” then reaches for your hand like it is the easiest thing in the world. “You did good.”

You don’t have to be soft all at once, nor do you have to surrender your sharpness just to wake up as some easier version of yourself because someone decided to stay. Embarrassingly, it makes your brain turn off when your boyfriend takes the problem from your hands and solves it before you can turn it into another reason to hate yourself. You can still be competent, still be difficult, still be the girl who knows what to do in a crisis, while also being the girl who lets Jake highlight her readings, carry her books, order her coffee, pull her away, and hold her against his chest when she finally remembers it’s okay to be tired.

He does not make you less capable, he just makes you less alone with it. Most importantly, he does not act like the softer version of you is the only one worth liking.

Jake and Riki manage to convince you to go to a house party on a Friday night, which doesn’t take much, weirdly enough.

Riki starts first, of course, he says you never do anything fun, which makes you refuse again. Jake, unfairly, does not argue the same way, who only leans against your kitchen counter with one hand curled around a glass of water, watching you over the rim with that calm expression he gets when he knows you are already halfway annoyed. He tells you “it does not have to be a big thing, we can leave whenever you want. I’ll stay with you the whole time if you want me to”, and if you hate how kind he is. Which makes you say yes.

The house is already full by the time you get there, music pressing through the walls before Jake even parks. Cars line both sides of the street, voices spilling through the open windows, laughter breaking over the bass in uneven bursts — you’re not exactly uncomfortable, only uneasy in a way that this is not something you’re used to, not like how Riki and Jake soothes right in. 

Then Jake’s hand settles at the small of your back. “You okay?” he asks, voice low enough when he leans down to you.

You look at the room in front of you, then at Riki, who is already greeting someone. “This is loud.”

“Because that’s how parties usually work,” Jake’s mouth curves when you give him a look, before his hand rubs the small of your back up and down. “But we can leave.”

That is annoying, mostly because it is thoughtful, and you have learned there is very little to do with Jake’s thoughtfulness except either accept it or be a bitch about it and watch him keep being thoughtful anyway. You glance away before he can catch whatever your face is doing and mutter, “We’ll stay.”

He gets you a drink from the kitchen, not from one of the abandoned cups on the counter but from an unopened bottle in the cooler, twisting the cap and you take it without arguing. 

His friends find you almost immediately. Jungwon lifts his brows when he sees you beside Jake, then smiles. Sunoo says your name with delighted surprise, Jay gives you an exaggeratedly respectful nod that makes you narrow your eyes, and Sunghoon and Heeseung offers you a small, careful smile. They are nicer than you expected them to be, or maybe they have always been nice and you were too busy seeing them as Riki’s friends (with connotation, at that).

Jake does not leave your side at first, and tries to make sure not to make you feel tense. He notices when the kitchen gets too crowded and nudges you toward the living room without making you feel like he is moving you. He notices when someone you barely know tries to pull you into a conversation you clearly do not want and cuts in so smoothly that they don’t even realize. 

For a while, you stay like that, your back against his front, his mouth near your ear every now and then as he leans down to murmur things meant only for you. His eyes flick toward Jay guarding the snack table like a personal estate, toward some boy near the speakers dancing with more confidence than rhythm. You laugh quietly at first, then more openly later on, your head tipping back slightly against his shoulder for half a second as you both judge people’s tipsy decisions.

Someone nearby starts setting up beer pong on a long table, cups arranged into triangles, people crowding around with immediate excitement. You take one look at the cups, the ball bouncing once against the floor, the wet ring marks on the table, and the enthusiasm dies on your face so visibly that Jake folds forward against your shoulder with silent laughter. 

You stop paying attention to the shape of the night, and your guard lowers enough for the party to become just a party, not a list of potential disasters. With his hand on your hip, even when Riki’s off your field of view, you’re less anxious.

He brushes his fingers lightly against your wrist, making you turn to him slightly. “I’ll be quick,” he says. “I’ll just get another drink.”

For a minute, you stand alone near the edge of the living room, watching him disappear through the crowd. You decide to find his friends, partly because they are people you know now, partly because you are not yet the kind of girl who can stand alone in a house full of strangers. 

The hallway is too crowded, so you head for the front door instead, slipping past two people arguing over someone’s car keys and stepping out into the night air. The music dulls behind the walls as you walk down the porch steps and follow the narrow side path around the house. You only remember seeing Jungwon and the others near the backyard earlier, and going through the side seems easier than forcing yourself through the crowd. The side of the house is dim except for the spill of light coming from the backyard, and voices grow clearer the closer you get.

A voice says something you do not catch, followed by a louder laugh, and you stop before fully turning the corner, half-hidden behind the hedge lining the side yard. You do not mean to listen, but you hear Riki first. “Dude, I’m just saying,” he says, laughing carelessly. “I should’ve done this months ago.”

Someone snorts, Jay, probably. “You mean hiring Jake?”

Your steps slow before you fully reach them, deciding to still behind a stupid bush.

Riki laughs again. “I mean, clearly the money worked.”

“He really put those hundreds to use, huh?”

There is laughter, easy, stupid, and thoughtless laughter from boys who have no idea that the joke is standing right there, turning rigid again.

“Taming the lion,” someone says.

Your throat goes dry as the laughter grows again, freezing completely when someone says your name next.

The scary sister, the impossible girl, the controlling bitch with a curfew and a brother who apparently thought your entire life could be negotiated down to a payment and one patient boy you thought saw you differently — yet each memory with him reaches backward for a new shape, forming into one joke shared by teenage schemes.

Someone inside says, “Nah, but seriously, Jake deserves a raise. She actually smiles now.”

Riki says something you cannot fully make out, but it does not matter because your mind has already started blurring.

Then Jake’s voice cuts through, appearing through the patio door. “Hey, have you guys seen her?”

“There he is,” Jay says, too loud, too cheerful. “Man of the hour.”

“What?” Jake asks, distracted.

Then there is the sound of palms meeting, boys greeting him the way boys do, easy and stupid and physical. Someone daps him up, someone else claps his shoulder, someone mentions how great he did for convincing you to go to a party.

“Congrats, bro,” one of them says, laughing. “Hundreds well spent.”

Jake does not speak. Maybe he is processing, maybe his face has changed in some way you cannot see yet. Maybe, he would push the hand off his shoulder and tell them to shut up. But you do not get that far, because you turn a little to see him, and his eyes finally lift past them and land on you.

He sees you standing there, one hand around the bottle he opened for you, your face completely still. For one impossible second, you look at him and he looks back.

And it is awful, how quickly his expression breaks, because it isn’t confusion nor innocence, just the face of someone who knows. His eyes widen, his mouth parts slightly, and panic moves across his face so plainly that it feels like another admission you’re not supposed to hear.

Behind him, Riki turns and the color drains from his face when he sees you. Your name leaves Jake’s mouth once, low and ruined but you’re already stepping away.

You turn and walk.

Someone laughs from the inside, someone trying to go to the back bumps your shoulder and apologizes, but you do not answer. It’s a little shitty how your whole body feels strangely calm now, the way it does in emergencies, when adrenaline doesn’t need you moving your feet to handle something first.

You can hear Jake behind you, cursing under his breath, sharp and panicked, nothing like the careful voice he used when he told you to let him take care of you.

“Wait,” he calls, closer now. “Please, just wait.”

The front yard is crowded, so you shove through them and into the night air with your lungs burning and your hands cold around the bottle you forgot to leave behind. The street outside is quieter, only then do you realize how badly you needed it, how trapped you had been inside that house with all those walls and all that laughter and every memory of Jake rearranging itself into something ugly.

You make it halfway down the front path before his hand catches your wrist, not hard but you pull away like it burns.

He stops in front of you, breathing unevenly, hair messier than before, eyes wide in a way you used to love, but now it only makes something sharp twist in your chest. Behind him, Riki stumbles out onto the porch, face pale, panic written all over him like a child finally realizing the stove is hot after touching it, even after you told him no.

Jake takes half a step forward, then thinks better of it. “I can explain.” His jaw tightens. “It’s not what they made it sound like.”

“Really?” Your voice stays calm. “Because it sounded like my brother paid you to distract me, and your friends think you deserve congratulations for doing it well.”

Jake’s face goes white. Riki moves down one step. “It was my idea.”

You look at him then, not with the sharp little look you usually give him when he says something stupid, but actually look at him. For one strange second, he looks like the nine-year-old boy who used to stand in your doorway, the one who would deny crying even while his eyes were swollen, the one you learned how to comfort while you comforted yourself because mom is gone and dad is never home.

That is what does it, your eyes water before you can stop them. “You paid someone to get me out of the way?”

He shakes his head too quickly. “No. I just wanted you to have something else,” he says, and the words come out in a rush now, messy and panicked. “I thought if you were busy, if you were happy, maybe you’d stop worrying about me all the time. I didn’t know how else to get you to stop. You never listen to me. You never believe me.”

Your eyes return to Jake, and the worst thing is that part of you still wants him to fix it. Some pathetic, exhausted, newly softened part of you wants him to say the exact right thing, wants him to reach for the memory of every night you trusted him and pull it back from the edge. 

You hate that part of yourself instantly. You hate that it exists because of him.

“Is that true?” you ask.

His eyes flick down, then back to your face, desperate now. “At first,” he says, voice rough. “At first, yes, but it stopped being that.”

You stare at him.

“But I gave the money back,” he continues, voice rough. “I told him I was done. I told him I didn’t want any part of it anymore.”

Your throat tightens. “After I slept with you?”

He goes still.

That is the answer.

You stare at him, waiting for him to save it anyway, because some stupid part of you still wants him to. You wait for him to say no, to say you got it wrong, to say there was some other version of the story where he did not let you give him that much of yourself before telling you the truth. But Jake only looks at you with his mouth parted slightly, eyes wide and ruined, and every second he does not speak feels like another hand closing around your throat.

You shake your head once. “You let me think,” your voice is low and calm, “that for once, someone just wanted to be there. You let me trust you with the parts of myself I don’t even like,” you say. “And you knew. You knew what they didn’t.”

The gala. You see the memory land in him, the garden lights, the fountain, your stupid dress, the way you sat on the far end of a bench and told him things you barely knew how to tell yourself. Your mother being gone, your father being absent, Riki being more yours than he should have been. You remember how carefully he listened, how he stayed far enough not to scare you off, how safe his silence felt then, how you laughed with him because he saw you and didn’t think you were cruel at all.

He takes a step toward you. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice breaking around it. “I should have told you that night. I know I should have.”

“I thought you chose me,” you say.

“I did.” His eyes go red. “I did choose you.”

Your mouth trembles once, then stills. “For a hundred bucks?”

He looks like the words hit him somewhere physical.

“No,” he says, too quickly, too desperately. “No, not like that.”

You nod once, not because you believe him, but because your body needs to do something other than fall apart in front of them. “I want to go home.”

Jake straightens immediately. “Okay. I’ll take you home.”

You turn away from him and reach for your phone with shaking fingers. “No.”

His breath catches. “Please.”

You unlock your screen and open the app, feeling stupid because you can’t see through the blur as you type it in. 

“I can drive you,” he says, voice quieter now.

You keep your eyes on the street until the headlights appear at the end of the road, the car pulling toward the curb. You get inside and do not look back.

You hate men. Enough that you can prepare a presentation on the subject with credible sources, historical examples, and a conclusion about betrayal as a gendered epidemic. Evidence would be your absent father, your fraudulent ex-boyfriend, your seventeen year old brother, and his demonic friends.

Hating your brother is inconvenient because he lives in your house, eats your food, leaves his stuff everywhere, and now lives without you telling him what to do. For the first time in years, you do not ask what the hell he’s up to anymore. You simply sit at the kitchen island with your laptop open, spoon in hand, eating directly out of a tub of ice cream at seven in the morning. 

Historically, you have always cracked first when it comes to him. Historically, you cannot help yourself. Historically, your entire body starts to prepare for anything if it concerns Riki.

But history is dead. Men killed it.

Jake is hard to ignore only because he is not physically in the house, which means he tries to get creative. He texts first, of course, just once in the morning, once at night, and sometimes in the middle of the day — because he knows exactly how to overwhelm you. Then he leaves an iced latte with your name on top of your desk in one of your classes. You stare at it on your desk for a full minute, before you give it to your seatmate.

By the fourth day, you have finished the second tub of ice cream — not your proudest moment, but it is also not your worst, which says more about your week than your character. You have attended classes with perfect notes, no late submission, reorganized your planner, ignored messages from Jake, and pretended not to notice that Riki has started texting you when he arrives places without being asked.

On Friday night, Riki finds you on the couch in your oldest pajamas, hair tied messily back, third tub of ice cream open on the coffee table, watching a documentary about deep-sea creatures with the blank focus. 

“Jake’s been driving me from and to school,” he says carefully.

Your spoon pauses in the ice cream, before you resume. Onscreen, a glowing fish drifts through the dark, hideous and peaceful, which feels aspirational. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, then sets his bag down properly.

“I’m sorry,” he says but does not step closer. “I know sorry doesn’t fix it. I just wanted to say it.”

You keep staring at the television, where the ugly little fish continues glowing alone in the dark, refusing to pay him any mind. 

By Saturday morning, Riki had started acting like a ghost. He moves quietly around the house, closes cabinets softly, and pe picks up his shoes before you can even see them. At one point, you find him wiping the kitchen counter after making toast, which is very disturbing. 

At school, Jake looks worse than he ever did. He waits by your classroom once, but you walk past him without slowing down, your expression polished into something calm. He says your name but you keep walking, because you refuse to give pieces of yourself to men, more than you already have.

Riki has also learned that you are not going to pack his lunch, remind him about assignments, ask whether he has practice, or save him from his own time management. This would be liberating for him if freedom did not apparently require the ability to know where his own socks are.

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand, and your eyes slide toward the screen, just long enough to see Jake’s name there before the notification fades and the room goes dim again. A few seconds later, there is a knock on your door. It does not open but Riki’s voice breaks through. “Jake’s here,” he says. “He has food. He said he’ll wait ten minutes, and if you don’t come down, he’ll leave.”

Riki stays there for another second, clearly wanting to say something else, but maybe he has learned enough to know that pushing right now would only make you worse. For a while, you do not move and only tell yourself you are not thinking about it, that you do not care what food Jake brought, whether it is something you like, whether it’s because he’s making sure you ate.

At eight minutes, you sit up. At nine, your feet touch the floor. At ten, you stay where you are.

Then outside, his car starts. You sit at the edge of your bed with your hands curled into the blanket, listening until the sound disappears completely down the street.

The week passes, and you remain committed to silence. You do not speak to Jake. You do not speak to Riki unless it is absolutely necessary. 

That night, Riki knocks on your door. You do not answer, but unfortunately, he opens the door anyway and stops at the sight of you buried in bed, laptop balanced near your knees, looking at him like you have been for the past weeks: exasperated.

“What?”

He stays by the doorway, one hand still on the knob. “I’m hungry.”

You stare at him for a second, then look back at your screen. “Then order something.”

“I don’t want delivery.”

“Then make something.”

“I want to go out.”

You pause, because that is exactly the kind of sentence he used to say before you started the lectures about curfew, rides, locations, and whether he had enough sense to come home alive. This time, you only shrug against your pillows. “Then go out.”

Riki shifts his weight. “No,” he says, quieter. “With you.”

You keep your eyes on your laptop, even though the movie has become impossible to follow, because looking at him would mean seeing guilt, probably; hope, maybe. Both would be extremely inconvenient because you learned to soften when he used it.

“It’s late,” you say.

“I know.”

“And you have Jake, apparently.”

He flinches a little, and the guilt on his face finally becomes too obvious to ignore. You hate that it still gets to you, how young he looks when he is sorry, like some part of him has folded back into the boy who used to stand outside your room when he was scared and he had no one else but his older sister.

He swallows. “I don’t want Jake.”

You hate men. You hate your brother. You hate that the sentence works.

With a long, irritated sigh, you close your laptop. “Get your shoes.”

The drive is quiet, Riki sits in the passenger seat with his hands tucked into his hoodie pocket, looking out the window instead of at you. You keep both hands on the wheel and do not ask if he has eaten lunch, even though the question sits on your tongue the entire way there. The diner is still open when you pull up, its neon sign glowing red against the dark. 

When the food comes, the table fills with baskets and paper-lined plates, greasy burgers, fries, and mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce in a plastic cup between you. Riki burns his fingers because he has never once believed in waiting, and you call him an idiot before you can stop yourself. The two of you eat in silence after that — not the awful one from the house, but not comfortable either. It sits between you, filling the space while both of you act invested in fries and melted cheese.

Then Riki clears his throat. “I have a girlfriend.” Your hand freezes halfway to the basket.

For a second, the entire diner seems to mute itself around that one sentence. You look up slowly, genuinely caught off guard, and Riki looks terrified in the way only someone who has been hiding something huge.

“What?”

He shifts in his seat. “I have a girlfriend.”

You lean back against the red vinyl booth, trying to process this new piece of information without immediately becoming the girl who asks for her full name, address, grades, family background, and emergency contact. The questions rise anyway: Who is she? How long? Does she treat you well? Does she know you are stupid? Does she have standards? Does she encourage you to drink blue things at parties? Does she know about dad?

Riki looks down at his plate. “When Jake started taking you out, I was also taking her out.” His fingers pick at the edge of the paper liner. “That’s why I wanted more time and freedom. I know that doesn’t make what I did okay.”

You look at him, face unreadable.

“It was bad,” he says, before you can say it for him. “I know it was bad. But something good came out of it too. You were happier. I know you hate hearing that, but you were. You weren’t always watching me like something bad was about to happen. You went out and laughed and you had someone.”

You look down at the untouched mozzarella stick in front of you. “Right,” you say quietly. “So much for a hundred bucks.”

Riki’s face falls. “No,” he says, then stops himself because even he knows he cannot deny the beginning. “I know I can’t decide which parts hurt for you, but I thought I was helping both of us. That doesn’t make me right, I know that. But please don’t think that I wasn’t considering you along the way — because I did, I really did.”

The answer is too ready, too practiced, and for a moment you think that maybe he’s being foolish again. But now that you’re looking at him, you realize that he’s old enough to make cruel decisions, young enough to look shattered when he finally understands.

“I know you wanted me to stop controlling you,” you say. “I know I was too much.”

He exhales, miserable. “Okay. Sometimes. But not because you were bad. You raised me,” he says, quieter now. “And I hated it because I wanted you to just be my sister, but I also knew you were the only one checking. That’s why it felt so messed up all the time.” He wipes his palms on his hoodie. “I’m sorry I made you feel like something I had to escape.”

The waitress passes by with a coffee pot, and both of you sit there pretending you can steal breathe without feeling hot wax at the back of your throat. You reach for a mozzarella stick because your hands need something to do, and Riki pushes the marinara closer without thinking.

You dip the mozzarella stick and take a bite. “I’m still mad,” you say. “But I’d like to meet your girlfriend.”

For a second, he just stares at you, like he is not sure he heard you correctly. Then his face shifts, slowly, carefully, into the smallest smile. “Okay.”

For the first time all week, your mouth almost curves. The rest of dinner is still quiet, but not as sharp. He tells you her name eventually, softly, and you do not ask for details yet, only nodding. Outside, the air is colder than when you arrived. You make it three steps toward the car before Riki stops behind you.

“I really am sorry,” he says.

When you turn around, his eyes are red, standing there with his shoulders tight and his face crumpling despite how hard he is trying to hold it together. The sight pulls at something old and exhausted inside you, the same place that has always answered him before pride can interrupt.

“Riki,” you say, but it comes out cracking.

He shakes his head, wiping his face too fast. “I’m sorry. I know I ruined it. I know. I’m sorry.”

You cross the space before either of you can think too hard about it and pull him into a hug.

For a second, he is taller than you and somehow still the little boy from your doorway, the one who had no one else, the one you loved badly because nobody taught you how to do it gently. His arms come around you tight, and the first sob he lets out breaks something open in your chest.

“I hate you,” you whisper.

“Fuck you too,” he says, crying harder.

“You’re so stupid.”

“A dumbass, I know.”

You hold him tighter anyway. Eventually, he pulls back first, wiping his face with his sleeve. His nose is running slightly, and he looks so devastated that you almost call him gross just to make the moment easier.

“I don’t get to tell you what to do,” he says.

You look at him, already tired. “Great start.”

He lets out a shaky breath. “Especially not about Jake.”

Your face changes before you can stop it. He sees it and immediately raises both hands a little, like he is approaching an animal with a history of biting. “I’m not defending what happened. I’m not. But,” he continues carefully, “he did give the money back.”

Your eyes narrow at him.

“I know that doesn’t fix it,” he says quickly. “I know it doesn’t make the beginning less awful. I just… I was there, and I saw when it changed.”

The words sit there, too quiet and too heavy for the sidewalk outside a diner. You do not answer, only staring past him toward the parking lot, where your car waits under the lamppost.

He swallows. “At first, he was doing it because I asked him to. Then he started asking me things about you. What books you liked, where you went after school, if you were always that tired.” His voice gets smaller. “And then he stopped asking me altogether.”

Your throat tightens, which is infuriating.

“He didn’t need me anymore,” he says. “Not for you.”

“Riki.”

“I know. I’ll stop.” He wipes his face again, then nods like he is trying to obey before you even say anything mean. “I just wanted you to know that part.”

You stare at him for a long second.

“And what am I supposed to do with that?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Get mad — at me, at him, at dad too. Do nothing. Eat more ice cream. I just don’t want you to think every good part was fake. Because I know I messed it up, and he messed it up, but you were happy. And I don’t think that was fake.”

You hate him a little for saying it.

You hate him more because it makes you think.

The worst part has never been that Jake lied and everything after became nothing. The worst part is that it still feels real and they happened, regardless the truths and the lies, the half-truths and wrong intentions. All of it still sits somewhere inside you, refusing to rot properly no matter how badly the beginning wronged it. 

You wipe under your eye with your knuckle. “You’re very annoying.”

“I know.”

You sniff, looking away before your face can crumple again. “I’m not forgiving him just because you feel guilty.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“I’m not forgiving you either. Not yet.”

“I know.”

You look at him.

He looks back, eyes still wet, but this time he does not look like he expects you to fix it for him. He only stands there, accepting it, which feels new enough to hurt.

Then he says, quietly, “But can I still ride home with you?”

Your mouth almost curves.

“Unfortunately,” you say, walking toward the car.

That night, you cannot sleep.

It is annoying, because you are exhausted enough to sleep. Your body is tired, your eyes hurt, and your head has been heavy since you drove home from the diner. Still, you lie there staring at the ceiling, turning one thought over and over until it stops feeling like a thought and starts feeling like a pulse breathing beneath your weight — your brother’s words alive there.

You hate that Riki said it and that he might be right. You hate that all week, even through the anger, you still kept thinking about Jake when you made coffee, when you passed the hallway where he used to wait.

You are still in your sleep shorts, an old shirt, and house slippers when you grab your car keys. You do not bother changing, which should have been your first sign that you are not making a dignified decision at all. You only go downstairs without turning on too many lights, and leave before you can talk yourself into being a sensible woman.

The drive to Jake’s house feels longer than it should.

When you pull up near the curb, you keep your hands on the wheel for a second, staring at the front of his house like it might tell you what the hell you are doing here. Yet it only sits there, quiet and expensive and familiar.

The front door opens when you’re about to reverse. Jake steps out with his keys in one hand, dressed in sweats and a hoodie, his hair messy and soft around the mouth in the way you used to love. Still the boy who made you feel, for the first time in years. He locks the door behind him and turns toward his car, already halfway down the path when he sees you.

For a second, neither of you moves.

Then, because apparently you have already abandoned all pride tonight, you get out of your car. The cold hits your legs immediately, so you hug your arms around yourself and stand there on the sidewalk in slippers, trying to look like a person who’ll stand on this and not someone whose feelings drove her here.

“Where are you going?” you ask.

His hand tightens slightly around his keys. “Store.”

You nod once. “Right.”

“I was just going to buy something,” he adds, quieter, like even he knows that does not matter.

You nod again, because now that you are here, you have no idea what comes after arriving — which is excessively dumb. The whole thing suddenly feels ridiculous; you in your sleep clothes and him standing by his car. 

“Okay,” you say, then you turn back toward your car.

You barely make it one step before he says your name, not loud nor desperate, just in that Jake way that makes your knees buck and feet stop.

He takes one careful step forward. “What are you doing here?”

You keep your eyes on your car door. “I don’t know.” The answer is embarrassing because it is true, and you’re glad you can’t see his reaction.

“Okay.”

You almost laugh, but it gets stuck somewhere in your throat. You look back at him with enough courage. “Riki talked to me.”

He goes still.

“I’m not here because of that,” you say quickly.

“Okay.”

“I’m still mad.”

“I know.”

“And you still hurt me.”

His jaw tightens, but he nods. “I know.”

You look away, because his face is making this harder. “I don’t even know why I drove here.”

He’s quiet for a long second, still careful as to not step on a mine. Then he says, “I was hoping you would.” He looks almost embarrassed by the honesty, but he does not take it back, not even when you look back at him. “I just kept thinking maybe one day you’d show up, or text, or yell at me, or anything.” His mouth pulls faintly, but it is not really a smile. 

“That’s pathetic,” you say, but your voice has no bite.

He lets out a breath. “Yeah. I know.”

You hate how gentle the night feels around the two of you, how gentle he still is, how easier it is to stand here than it was to stay in your room while your throbbing heart gnaws on your ribcage. You hate that even now, after everything, being near him makes some part of you calm.

Your fingers curl against your own arms, holding yourself tighter, because if you don’t, you might do something worse. Like forgive too fast or maybe even slap him or admit the thing sitting in your chest that looks a lot like a picture of you two.

Jake moves slowly, just before he stops in front of you, close enough that you can see the tiredness beneath his eyes, the way his mouth parts slightly like he wants to say something and knows better than to crowd you with it.

“I tried,” you say, barely above a whisper. You blink hard, still looking down. “Not thinking about you.”

He does not answer.

“I tried being angry enough that it would cancel everything else out,” you continue, and the words start coming before you can stop them. “I tried making all of it ugly. I tried telling myself that every good thing only happened because of a bad reason.”

Your voice shakes, and you hate it, but you keep going. “But it didn’t work.” You finally look up at him, and his eyes are already on you, wide and quiet and so full of hope because that’s just who he is. Your own mouth trembles once before you still it.

“I can’t not be in love with you, Jake.”

For one terrifying second, he says nothing, and your face burns so badly that you almost step back. But then his expression breaks, not with panic this time, not like the party after you find out — just something like relief and careful in one.

He says your name so quietly it barely reaches you. He lifts his hand slightly, then stops.

“Can I?” he asks.

You know what he means and you should say no — but instead, you nod once. His hand closes around your elbow softly, barely a grip at first, before he pulls you toward him.

You step forward before you can decide not to, and then you are close enough to feel the warmth of him through the cold night air. His hand slides from your elbow to your arm, then pauses there, carefully first. His eyes search your face, and you hate that he still looks at you like that, like all that matters to him is not to hurt you.

“You can still be mad,” he says quietly. He swallows, his thumb moving once against your sleeve. “I don’t want you to think I’m asking you to stop being hurt just because you still love me.”

You look down, because that is the exact kind of thing that makes your chest go weak in a way you cannot afford. “Then what are you asking?”

He is quiet for a second, and when he answers, his voice is lower, rougher. “For whatever part of you drove here.”

Your eyes lift to his, just to see he’s nervous after saying it, knowing it’s too honest and too close to wanting too much. But he does not take it back, his hand still on your arm, gentle enough that you could pull away, firm enough that you know he does not want you to.

“I hate you,” you whisper.

His mouth barely moves, not quite a smile. “Good.”

“You’re unfair because you hurt me, and then you still know how to hold me like this.” Your voice turns softer, more frustrated than sharp. 

His face changes. “I don’t know how to hold you any other way.”

For a second, you just stare at him, feeling your anger and your want and your stupid, impossible love all sitting inside your chest together, refusing to separate into anything clean and correct. You reach for him first, your fingers curling into the front of his hoodie, but he goes still and his breath hitches.

Your fingers tighten. “I hate the way I don’t hate you.”

He lets out a quiet breath, almost a laugh, but it sounds too shaky to be amused. “Yeah,” he says, voice low. “I’ll take that.”

You blink. “What?”

He looks down at your hand, then back at you, and his mouth does this stupid little almost-smile that makes your chest hurt. “I mean, it’s not ideal,” he says carefully. “But it’s better than you hating me normally.”

You glare at him, but it barely has any strength. “You’re not funny.”

“I know.” His eyes stay on you. “I’m nervous.”

He swallows, his hand hovering near your arm like he wants to touch you and is trying very hard to behave. The silence after that is small, not empty. You can hear the faint sound of a car passing somewhere down the street, the soft buzz of the porch light, the uneven way he breathes when you still do not let go of his hoodie.

Then Jake says, quieter, “I kept thinking about what I’d say if you ever looked at me again.”

The smallest, most traitorous shift at the corner of your mouth. His eyes drop to your mouth, lasting half a second before he looks back up, but it is enough to make your face warm. You swallow, “And what did you come up with?”

He stares at you like the answer should be easy, but now that you are standing in front of him, hand still curled in his hoodie, it looks like every version he practiced has abandoned him. His mouth parts once, then he lets out a quiet breath. He tilts his head down, close enough that his nose brushes yours first, and your breath catches anyway.

“I want you,” he says.

He swallows, eyes still on yours, voice lower now. “No deal, no money, no Riki asking me to.” His mouth moves like he wants to smile, but he looks too nervous to fully let it happen.

For a second, you forget how to be angry properly.

Even after everything, he says things too simply, too honestly, like he does not know that a few words can walk straight past every wall you spent weeks rebuilding. You stare at him, close enough to see the way his lashes lower when his eyes flick to your mouth againe

“You’re very annoying,” you whisper, because anything softer would ruin you completely.

His mouth twitches, but his eyes do not leave yours. “Then be annoyed at me,” he says quietly.

His hand finally settles against your arm. “Be mad at me. Yell at me if you want. Look at me like you hate me.” His voice drops a little, and something in it turns almost helpless. His face is close enough now that you can see how badly he is trying not to look at your mouth again. “To my face,” he adds, voice barely above a whisper. “So at least I know you’re still there.”

You forget your slippers, your car parked badly by the curb, the fact that you drove here with no plan and no dignity. All you can focus on is the boy in front of you, looking at you as he says your anger is better than your absence, and even the worst version of you would be easier to survive than no version at all.

For a second, you only stare at him, and then, because your body has apparently lost all sense of loyalty to your anger, you laugh. Just something that slips out because Jake Sim is standing in front of you looking genuinely wrecked over the possibility of you never glaring at him again, and somehow that is the stupidest, most unfairly sweet thing he could have said.

His eyes flicker, like the sound surprises him. “What?”

“You’re very stupid,” you whisper.

His mouth softens. “Yeah.”

You shake your head, but your fingers are still curled in his hoodie. You hate that your whole body seems to understand him before your brain can decide what to do, because all week you have been telling yourself to stay angry, stay away, stay untouched, and then he says one stupid honest thing and you are standing here in slippers, holding onto him like you were always going to come back.

His hand shifts at your arm, careful still. “I won’t ask for more than you want to give me.”

You tug him down and then your mouth is on his.

The kiss is soft at first because he makes it soft, because even now, even with your fingers pulling at his hoodie and your face tilted up to his, he still kisses you like he is waiting for you to change your mind. Then his hand slips from your arm to your waist, warm and steady, and he kisses you back like he has been trying not to think about doing this for weeks and failing every single day. He does not rush, does not take too much, but the relief in him is obvious in the way his breath leaves against your mouth, in the way his fingers tighten just slightly at your side like he cannot believe you are letting him hold you again.

Then he takes one step forward without thinking, and you take one back because he is close and warm and kissing him is already making your brain fuzzy. Your slipper catches the edge of the curb before either of you notices and you stumble. A small gasp slips into the kiss, immediately followed by a laugh you try and fail to swallow. His arm tightens around your waist at once, pulling you back against him before you can lose your balance properly, and he breaks the kiss only enough to look down between you.

“Careful,” he breathes, like he has any right to sound concerned when he is the entire reason you forgot how sidewalks work.

He kisses you again before you can complain further, and this time it is less careful, tugging at his hoodie until he has to bend closer. The cold air slips around your legs, and your car is still parked badly by the curb.

When you pull away, barely, Jake follows for half a second before stopping himself. His eyes open slowly, and the look on his face is so dazed and soft that your own face heats.

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

You blink. “Right now?”

“Yeah.” His thumb moves once at your waist. “I mean, not as a date if you don’t want it to be a date. Or it can be. Or it can be something else. I don’t know.” He winces slightly. “I’m doing badly again.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, trying not to smile. “Very badly.”

For a second, he only looks at you, still smiling a little, then he tilts his head like he has decided to be brave in the worst possible way. “I’m buying. I have cash.” he says. “Got it from some dumb seventeen-year-old who asked me to take his sister out.”

Your jaw drops. He starts laughing before you can even form a sentence, and that makes it worse. “Oh my God.” You immediately turn away from him, deeply offended, and manage half a step before his hand catches your wrist, enough to stop you before you can escape with what little dignity you have left.

“Okay, sorry,” he says, but he is still laughing.

Your back meets his chest, his arm slips around your waist again, and his laugh drops into something softer near your ear.

“I’m sorry,” he says, quieter now. “Bad joke.”

His hand slides down from your wrist to your fingers, and before you can say anything else, he lifts your hand. His lips press softly against your knuckles, and every insult waiting on your tongue disappears like it never had a chance.

You hate him. You hate him a lot.

You sigh, like this is a great sacrifice and not exactly what you want. “Fine.” His smile grows. “But if you mention the money again, I’m breaking up with you. Again.”

He nods seriously. “Okay. No more money jokes. I can’t afford to lose my girlfriend twice.”

“Jake.”

“Sorry. Done. No more.”

short sequel

[arelyvn]

☆ﾟ.･ ── MAKING PROGRESS ⋆ LHS

You pride yourself upon being perfect, whether its your grades, your hair, your outfit, but most of all—your reputation. so what happens when a single bad grade tilts you off that perfect axis? or rather, the boy introduced into your life because of it..

配对 ࿔ . . lee heeseung 𝔁 𝒻!reader

⌗ content warnings: college au , smut , slight angst , nerd! heeseung , he is into gaming-hes also working on his own game , hes obsessed with toy story (as we know) , hes absolutely pathetic , awkward moments , overthinking , reader is prideful and a little manipulative , corruption kink (ish??) , mentions of drinking (smoking in like one scene), jealousy issues , reader can be mean sometimes , heeseung is a sweetheart but a little gullible ✧ inexperienced hee , hand jobs , big dick hee (nerds are packing) , kinda sub hee , lowkey bulge kink , unprotected sex, pussy eating , face sitting (we’re bringing the freak out) , fingering , overstimulation , heeseung can stay hard after cumming multiple times , featuring: hyung line, sunoo, yunjin , let me know if i missed anything !

⌗ word count: 28.7k (yeah…)

Lee Heeseung was a nerd.

He wasn't unattractive by any means, just…overlooked. Didn't even fully grow into his features until his Senior year of high school. But before that, he was a full on loser, still is honestly.

He was the type of guy who stayed up until 3am coding just because he felt like it. Who had a specific shelf just for Marvel comics, and a separate one for DC, along with an area specifically for his character figure collection. All lined up in his room of the apartment he shared with his bestfriend, Jake–who also shared similar interests, except he tends to be more..normal about it. 

You on the other hand were the complete opposite. Gorgeous, like actually striking. You were popular, at least according to Heeseung you had a “shit ton of friends” he doesn't even know how you remember the names of that many people.  

But the first time Heeseung met you was the first day of classes in fall semester, Econ to be exact. Your low rise jeans paired with a fitted long sleeve. Hair styled perfectly, yet you made it seem effortless. You tend to do that actually, act completely normal without knowing how much of an effect you have on the people around you. 

He had both of his earbuds in, like always–scrolling mindlessly through a twitter thread that was debating on whether League of Legends was a good game or not, spoiler alert it is. Anyone else who differs can argue with the wall. 

“Is anyone sitting here?” You had asked, when he didn't answer the first time you tapped his shoulder once. He remembers the moment his eyes landed on your face vividly, because fuck–you were pretty. 

“Is anyone sitting here?” You repeat, already half annoyed with the fact that this was one of the three seats left in the lecture hall, and you weren't sitting in the front. He looks down at the seat next to him, “Oh no– I mean yes, well not anymore– so no, You can sit, not like I'm forcing you or anything. But uh, it's not taken.”

You nod slowly “Um, Okay..” Before sitting down, your light pink bag hanging from your chair. He now has both of his earbuds out, phone clutched in his hand– because no way was he letting you see that he scrolls through twitter threads for fun.

You look over at him, the way he's sitting up perfectly in his chair, fingers twisting the wire of his earbuds. “Do you always do that?” You ask, eyes trailing along the side of his face. Observing the slope of his nose. “Do..what?” He asks, thankful his voice didn't crack. 

“Talk like your brain is still loading.” He lets out a laugh, “Pretty much everyday.” He says, watching your face for a reaction. You smile, it's small–but he notices it.

He lets out a breath when the professor enters, half relieved, but also half annoyed that he can’t delve deeper into conversation with a pretty girl like you. Even if it is only by convenience. 

You don't miss the looks, you never do. His gaze shifting from the professor discussing things from the syllabus, to you–a literal goddess sitting next to him, as he would say. 

You caught him once, but he thought he was smooth with the quick way he averted his eyes. After that first class he cursed himself for being so damn obvious– God, you probably think he's some perverted freak. Yet you still sat beside him the next day, and the day after that– actually for the rest of the semester.

You didn't talk to him unless it was necessary, like asking him if he wrote down a slide of notes you missed, or that one time you dropped your pen on the ground just under his chair. 

He remembers having to bend down slightly, face nearly in your lap just to pick it up. Forcing himself not to look at your bare legs before handing it back to you.

Your casual smile and “Thanks” before acting completely normal again, like you didn't just make his insides to a full 360 from just a smile– no teeth either! 

When that class ended just before winter break, he couldn't help how disappointed he was. What do you mean he wouldn't be able to see your face anymore?—or smell your vanilla perfume every time you shifted in your seat!

He remembers Jakes roll of his eyes having to hear him talk about what a tragedy it was. “Dude– it's not like you won’t see her again, remember you still go to the same university?” Yeah you attend the same school, but the closest he ever got to you was sitting next to you in that class. Other than that—you wouldn't even look his way. 

“...earth to Heeseung?” Jake's voice cuts through his train of thought, and his line of sight as his eyes stray away from you, laughing and talking with your friends at a table outside. Jake looks back, spotting you through the window of the campus dining haul. “Seriously dude?” Jake sighs, running a hand through his hair. 

“What were you saying?” Heeseung asks, taking another bite of his food. “I was saying that I finished episode six of that anime you put me on– man that fight scene was actually crazy, I literally–” He watches Heeseung's eyes stray away from him, landing on you again for like the 10th time in the last 20 minutes.

“Alright there's something seriously wrong with you” Jake says—or more like interrupts. “What? I'm fine.” Heeseung claims defensively, “No– you've been staring in the same direction for the past 20 minutes like a creep. I'm honestly surprised she hasn't felt you looking at her this whole time.” Jake states, “I was not staring at her like a creep–”

“No you definitely were.” 

“Whatever dude, it's not like she’d notice anyway.” Heeseung pokes at his food with the plastic fork. “Yeah, she's too busy being Miss. Perfect..” Jake exaggerates. “She really is perfect, isn't she..” Heeseung says, glancing over at you once again.

Little did they know that was far from the truth, yeah you made sure you at least looked good, but your grades were faltering. Specifically in Physics– and especially with your annoying ass professor. 

“She literally called on me in the middle of class today, I couldn’t even think of an answer which made me look even more stupid than guessing.” You groan, careful not to wipe at the mascara on your eyes. “That's Professor Kim for you.” Yunjin says, taking one of your fruits from your tray. “It was pretty embarrassing.. But the “It's so obvious” comment from her wasn’t necessary.” Sunoo adds with a face. 

“Oh and it gets worse.” You say, looking at the both of them. “You know how she made me stay after class right?” You look at Sunoo who nods, “Yeah, well she full on printed a paper for me to turn into the tutoring center, stating everything I'm struggling with and told me that I was going to need to find help as soon as possible or I was going to fail her class.” You finish in one breath, 

“So, you’re going to have to get a tutor then..” Yunjin clarifies warily, looking down at the paper you place on the table.

“Yeah because apparently my performance in her class is "Concerning" and she even said I was lucky to have this opportunity! You know– I would never hit someone but God her face was really slappable in that moment–” 

Sunoo interrupts before you can go any further, reading off the list of things “Difficulty with free body diagrams, inconsistent use of formulas, lack of problem-solving structure..Damn, she really has it out for you.” He says, putting the paper down.

“I mean half the time she rambles on like she knows something, and her equations all blend together anyway!” You groan in frustration, both Sunoo and Yunjin looking at each other. “I mean.. Maybe tutoring wouldn't be so bad..” Yunjin suggests, sipping her water. “Just give it a chance, it really can’t hurt y/n.” Sunoo adds, “It hurts my ego, my pride– hell, even my reputation.” You snatch the paper back, shoving it in your bag.

“Not everyone is perfect, including you babe.” Yunjin says, trying to be reassuring. “No, but I need to be.” You frown, standing up. “Where are you going–” Sunoo starts

“Turning in this damn tutoring paper to the library. I need to get this over with, like now–before I change my mind.” 

And that's exactly what you did, handing the paper to the woman at the front desk, “You’ll get a message sent when we’ve found your tutor, along with a time and date.” She says, typing on her comically large computer. “Wait, I don't get to choose the day?” You ask, twisting the ring on your finger. 

She looks up at that “No, since it's the tutors time you're using.” She says, looking back down– you almost open your mouth to say something like “My time is just as valuable.” But ultimately decide not to, before smiling and walking away. 

—

“He’s on me—Fuck!” Heeseung yells into his headset, watching as his video game character dies yet again.

“Jake, dude im literally going to lose my rank–what the fuck man.” He says, ripping off his headset, not wanting to hear the excuses his best friend has to give for playing like shit, even if he is right down the hall. 

Heeseung nearly presses the power off button on his monitor before a notification pops up, the loud sound overpowering the faint background music of the video game lobby. 

Gmail: Tutoring Lab Information

Fuck— he had forgotten all about that, signing up to tutor for some extra credits. There goes at least a few hours of trying to level up his rank on League.

He runs a hand through his already messy hair before clicking the notification to expand it.  Reading through it quickly– “We are aware you’ve gotten a 90 or higher in this class–blah blah blah– good choice okay whatever..” Heeseung stills as his eyes land on the next few words.

Selected Student: Y/n L/n

“No fucking way.” He rubs his eyes once—twice, just to make sure he's not seeing things. Then he laughs, disbelieving, because this has to be a typo, there's no actual way you need tutoring.

He scrolls back up in the email– ah, Professor Kim, Physics. Now that makes sense. He scrolls down again, just to re-read your name plastered in bold on his screen. And better yet, your phone number, right underneath it.

He could fall to his knees right now, seriously–Thanking the universe for this spectacular moment. Almost immediately he picks up his phone, fumbling over the disorganized apps–mostly just games, before finding messages. Typing your number in the add on box, he pauses– how the hell does he even go about this. 

“Hey, I know I stared at you all of econ last semester and it was probably totally obvious, oh and also, I still do because it's kind of hard to look away. So now I'm tutoring you–oh and I have a massive crush on you too that makes me feel like a pathetic middle schooler.” 

Yeah absolutely not.

You pick up your phone, drying your wet hair with your towel but pause when the notification slides down at the top. 

Maybe: Lee Heeseung: Hey, I saw that you needed a tutor for Physics. The tutoring lab assigned me to you, does Thursday at 4:00 work for you?

Great, they weren't kidding about how it's on their schedule. But that name—Lee Heeseung. Where do you know it from.. You open the message, typing out a bland reply.

You: Yeah that's fine.

Lee Heeseung: Great, ill see you there

Heeseung re-reads over the message he sent multiple times, maybe he's over thinking it but you sound upset. It’s just words on a screen and he's no empath, so maybe he's just overthinking right? Haha, right?

“Bro—obviously she’s going to be fucking pissed, she literally prides herself upon being perfect. But honestly if it's Professor Kim and her Physics lessons on top of that, I understand why she needs it.” Jake says, handing Heeseung's phone back to him. “I honestly don't even know how you got a 96 in that class either.” He adds. 

“But still, isn’t the universe kind of on my side with this? I mean out of all people– she gets assigned to me.” Heeseung says, looking at the messages one more time. “I dunno’ man, all I have to say is don’t do that weird staring thing.” Jake says, standing up.

“What weird staring thing?” He asks, genuinely confused. “The one where you try to undress someone mentally and physically with your eyes.” Jake states like it's obvious

“I don’t even do that–?” Heeseung says defensively, leaning against his gaming chair. “Yeah alright, just whatever you’re planning, don’t be weird about it.” Jake mutters before walking out of his room, shutting the door behind him.

“I wasn't even going to do anything weird..” Heeseung mumbles under his breath. 

-

“Wait—you said Lee Heeseung?” Sunoo asks, leaning over your phone to get a closer look. “Uh– yeah?” you eye him, turning to Yunjin who looks just as confused.

“He’s literally in my Computer science class, and don’t you remember he was in your econ one last semester?” He adds, raising a brow.

“Wait– the guy who stared at her all the time right?” Yunjin sits up straight, “Yeah, the guy with the nice nose.” Sunoo clarifies, watching the realization dawn.

“No—wait no, this isn't good—no, no, no. Because in that class I acted like some know it all, which I mean it was easy but now I'm going to him for tutoring.” You snatch your phone from Sunoo

“He probably thinks im some like—poser!” Sunoo and Yunjin watch you, “Who cares what he thinks—what are you doing?” Yunjin looks down at your phone “I'm cancelling." 

“No the fuck you’re not.” Sunoo says, taking your phone back. “You know what will happen to your perfect grades if you fail?” He asks, already knowing the answer. “Exactly, plus this guy is smart as hell, trust me.” He sets your phone back down on the table. “Just go y/n, what's the worst that could happen?” Yunjin adds.

Oh, I don’t know, maybe he’ll mansplain everything to me just like every other guy at this university tries to—or worse, make me feel like a complete and utter idiot.

But yet here you are anyway, denim shorts with a fitted top in all your glory since of course, today decided to be the day the cold weather breaks.

You really could be tanning right now, the smell of sunscreen filling your senses, but instead you’re hit with the scent of dry erase markers and stress.

The library door shuts behind you, a few students scattered around, you make your way up to the second floor where the study sessions are held, so it's not as quiet. 

“Oh–hey” he says, looking up at you–maybe trying to stop himself from staring too hard. You shouldn't even be surprised he’s already here, considering he was somehow always earlier than you for Econ last semester. 

You look down at the table he's seated at, notebook already open, pencil spinning between his fingers like he can't keep his hands still for more than five seconds. You hesitate for a second before walking over, “You’re early.” You say, looking at him.

“You’re late.” He says, you check the time on your phone. “It’s 3:58..?” You look down at his outfit, some random graphic tee, with jeans.

“And you were always five minutes early for Econ last semester, so it’s late for you.” He states like it's a fact. “Do you just want me to leave?” You cross your arms, annoyed already. “What–no, sorry. I just–hi.” His Adam's apple visibly bobs up and down as the words spill out. “..Hi.” 

You set your bag on the table, taking the seat next to him–completely normal for a tutoring session. Obviously you pull out your notebook with your failed attempts in copying down Professor Kim's problems from the board.

He doesn't miss the way you act like you’ve done this before, knowing very well you haven't. Mainly because you’re always too stubborn to ask for help.

He tries to ignore the vanilla smell radiating from you. “So, what are we struggling with then?” You exhale, already done with this. “Pretty much everything according to my professor.” He chuckles and you shoot him a glare.

“Sorry–I'm not laughing at you, it’s just– I know how professor Kim gets so I understand.” He clarifies quickly. “But let's try narrowing it down?” He suggests, “Fine.” 

“Okay, show me what you were doing on the last assignment.” You flip your light pink notebook open to the most recent page of what looks like scribbles before facing it towards him. He leans in, shoulder nearly touching yours. 

His hair looks soft…..Why are you thinking about his hair.

He scans the page from top to bottom, really looking– not trying to judge, but trying to understand, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. “Hm, Alright.” He says, looking at you. “I see what the problem is.” 

You sit up straighter, “Is it that bad?” You ask warily, “No–” He says quickly, reassuringly “It’s not, it’s just the set up.”

You cross your arms over your chest, “The whole page is the set up.” You state defensively.

“Not really,” He runs a hand through his hair, “You’re just starting the wrong way.” He reaches for your pencil—

“May I?” You nod, handing it to him. His fingers brushing yours in the process. He tries to ignore how that made him feel. That small singular touch of your finger– God, maybe he is a loser.

“Okay, let's start simple.” He says, drawing a wonky looking box. You tilt your head, “A box?” you ask curiously. “In physics, everything is a box.” He says casually, you let out a huff of a laugh despite the situation. 

He glances up, eyes falling to your mouth briefly before turning back to the page. He swallows once again. “Now the way Professor Kim does it, she assumes everyone just gets it– but I would say to not start with an equation.”

He goes on, looking at you once to make sure you’re paying attention. And you are, because you really do need this.

“These arrows–” he says, attempting to draw some “Are the forces acting on it.” You nod, “So.. I would draw this every time instead.” You ask, trying to understand. He nods, “Yup. It pretty much tells you what's happening before you try to solve it.” 

“No one’s ever really explained it that way..” you mutter under your breath, “Like I said, she thinks everyone just automatically understands the bs’ she writes on the board.” He shrugs

“Yeah well, some of us don't." He leans back, watching you look over the page. “Hey, that’s why we’re here y/n.” You turn to look at him, eyes roaming over his face in the way a pretty girl like you can, no questions asked. 

“Okay then,” You lean closer, “Do another one.” His eyebrows lift slightly at that “Bossy.” He notes outloud, “Get used to it,” You say with a smile, he huffs out a breath of amusement before flipping onto the next page, setting up another problem–leaning over a bit closer than necessary, but you don’t pull back.

-

“Okay so…what— you were flirting with him?” Sunoo asks, laying against the headboard of your bed.

“I mean, not like ‘I want you so bad’ flirting but kind of..?” You bite your lip in thought, holding another outfit up to your body, earning two head shakes from both Sunoo and Yunjin. 

“He gets nervous so quickly, it's kind of cute.” You say, roaming through your closet. “I said he was a good teacher and his ears got all red” You try not to laugh at the memory. 

“So, do you like him or something..?” Yunjin asks, scrolling on her phone. “What– no. I mean he’s like fun to tease and stuff.” You chuckle awkwardly, toying with the hem of a black halter top.

Sunoo raises a brow at that, “Is this one of your superior complex things, except this time it's the loser-nerd who's never felt the touch of a woman?” 

You throw the top in his direction “Sunoo!” Yunjin laughs, sitting up. “It’s just–none of the guys here actually like show it. You know what I mean? They try to be all nonchalant and stuff, but Heeseung– I don’t know, he's different.” You say, sitting on the bed beside Sunoo. 

“So like he’s an ego booster then?” you shoot Yunjin a glare “Well no–I just like how different his attention feels.” You murmur, picking up the halter top beside Sunoo and holding it up to you. The nod from both of them brings a smile to your face.

“Just be careful y/n.” Sunoo looks at you, “What? Is he one of those undercover playboys or something–” You say through a laugh

“No–God, definitely not. It’s just.. you don’t always realize the effect you have on people, and I don’t think he’d take it lightly..” You let out a quiet laugh, “Come on, he doesn't like me that much.” You say before standing up to find a skirt that would work perfectly with your top. You ignore the “Right..” that leaves his lips.

You were far from wrong though–because no, he likes you even more. Probably too much for yesterday evening being the first time he’s actually had a full conversation with you, even if it was for school.

“I mean that has to be flirting right?” Heeseung asks, completely distracted from the code he's almost done completing for this class. “Isn’t flirting like her second language though?” Jake questions, cursing under his breath when his code doesn't run smoothly. 

“What—no, right? She doesn't flirt with everyone.” Heeseung says, trying to convince Jake, or maybe even himself. “I dunno’ dude she has one of those personalities.” 

“Are you saying I'm reading into it too much?” Heeseung asks, fingers fidgeting with the string of his hoodie. “I just never see girls like that actually going for well— you know..” Jake starts “What? Guys like me?” Heeseung finishes, running a hand through his already messy hair. Jake opens his mouth to speak again but closes it—“Hey, Heeseung?” The feminine voice cutting through there conversation, drawing both of their attention.

“Oh hey, what's up Clair?” He says casually, “Are you guys doing anything tonight?” She asks, biting her lip nervously, “Shit– we have that league ranked thing–” Jake kicks his foot under the desk,

“No! We’re not!” Jake says cheerfully, practically beaming, earning a side eye from Heeseung. 

“Oh– Okay, cool.. Well there's this party, apparently everyone's going. Are you guys gonna be there?” she asks, specifically looking at Heeseung “I don't really do parties–” 

“Ow!” Heeseung seethes when Jake kicks his leg again. “Yeah, we'll be there!” Jake says through a smile

“Okay, I can text you guys the details!” She gives a small wave before walking back to her seat on the far end of the class. “What the fuck dude?” Heeseung whisper-yells. 

“See now that was flirting, and do you even remember the last time you went to a party– let alone got invited to one by a girl.” Jake says through a hushed whisper “Yeah and there's a reason I haven't been to one since.” Heeseung replies through the same tone. 

Jake tries not to laugh at the memory, “Yeah well, plus Clair is totally hot, and she was definitely making ‘fuck me’ eyes at you.” Jake shrugs, leaning back in the uncomfortably hard computer lab chair. 

“Those definitely werent ‘fuck me’ eyes, and I only have eyes for one girl anyway.” Heeseung says proudly. “Whatever, we're still going.” Jake says, focusing back on his code.

Heeseung chuckles before doing the same, knowing damn well he's going to end up playing League in his room for hours on end–just like every other night where he doesn't have a shit ton of work to do.

“Im still not going–” Heeseung says, rolling his eyes as Jake walks into his room and flops on the edge of his bed.

“Dude– come on. You’ve quite literally been in your room every free chance you get.” He sits up, “I mean, how can you expect a girl like y/n to actually like you when all you do is rot in that fucking gaming chair?”

Heeseung side eyes him before continuing to scroll on his phone– “I really don’t care, frankly those frat parties aren't even enjoyable unless you’re drunk—nevermind we’re going.” 

Jake opens his mouth to make a point but closes it when he realizes what words just came out. “Wait, what?” 

“I said we’re going.” Heeseung says, looking down at your instagram story where you’re very much going to said party.

He turns the phone to Jake with a smirk on his face. “I mean you said it yourself, she won’t want someone who rots in a gaming chair right?” 

“Okay but what the hell are you even going to say to her? Oh hey it’s me your tutor, yeah just came here to stare at you the whole time with club soda in my solo cup.” Jake mocks, standing up.

“No, I'm actually going to talk to her. I did kind of fine when we were at the library, what could even go wrong?” Heeseung shrugs, slipping on his converse. 

“Well first of all, you’re not wearing a fucking toy story 2 shirt.” Jake says, looking down at his outfit.

“What's wrong with Toy story 2?” Heeseung mumbles, “I know for a fact that it’s not getting you any pussy.” Jake says, standing up and tossing him some jeans and a red band shirt instead.

“What would you know about getting pussy?” Heeseung says through a laugh. “Definently more than you.”

Heeseung raises a brow at that “Are you saying you’ve been getting some?” Jake holds back a laugh, “Just put the damn clothes on.” He chuckles before walking out. 

-

The second he walks in the smell of alcohol, sweat mixed with sweet perfume and probably smoke hits his senses.

The speakers blaring some overrated rap song too loud. It's not surprising that the place is packed either. He already regrets coming. “Nope–this was definitely a mistake.” Jake laughs “Dude you literally insisted on us going.”

Heeseung runs a hand through his hair, which was sort of styled a few minutes prior. “I changed my mind, it's not worth it.” Jake smirks, “You weren't saying that when you saw her post.” 

He doesn't respond, instead letting his eyes scan the room– until they land on you. Black halter top, probably too short jean skirt, laughing, talking– smiling at the people around you like they're actually worth your time.

You look like you belong here, “Yeah.. you’re definitely not talking to her.” Jake says, pulling him from his thoughts, “I am.” He raises a brow, “You’re going to overthink it and want to leave.” Jake says, eyeing him.

Heeseung lets out a breath, scanning the surfaces around him before picking up a drink. “Liquid courage, right?” He smiles weakly before downing the contents inside of it, immediately regretting it with the burn that travels down his throat, he grimaces before drinking the rest, letting it settle. 

“Well damn.” Jake says, grabbing a drink for himself. “It's fine, everything is fine– I can talk to her, I mean look how she’s talking to everyone else–” before he can continue over thinking, he starts walking towards the end of the house you’re at, he's barely across when– 

“Heeseung, You came!” He stops, Clair, standing right in front of him, smiling like she’s actually happy to see him. “Yeah–” He says, “I honestly didn't think you were going to, you seemed like you were gonna say no.” she laughs. 

“I was just– considering it.” Heeseung says quickly, “Mmm, well I'm glad you came.” She smiles, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Stepping closer into his personal bubble, like this is normal. “Are you having fun?” He looks around, eyes landing on you for a split second, mid laugh. God– you’re so pretty when you laugh.

“Yeah, it's uh–great.” Jake chokes out a laugh behind him, a smile spreads across Clair’s face “You don’t have to lie” He sighs “Im trying” 

“You don’t have to, you can just hang out with me. I’ll make it better.” She says easily, Heeseung glances at you one more time before looking down at Clair, “Yeah—that would help.” He admits, rubbing the back of his neck.

And that's when you spot him, freezing mid conversation with a few guys, leaning into Sunoo. “Is that who I fucking think it is?” His eyes follow yours to exactly who you’re looking at. 

Lee Heeseung, at a party. “How much did I drink–” Sunoo says, looking at the cup in his hand. “I thought he was one of those losers who never even left the house?” You whisper to Sunoo, “Yeah I thought so too–” Your eyes trail down the girl talking to him, her body language clearly indicating she has some sort of attraction to him. 

“Do you even know that girl?” You ask Sunoo who shakes his head. You down the rest of your drink before setting it down on some random side table. “Um–what do you think you’re doing?” He asks, looking you up and down. “Im…saying hi.” You smile sweetly. Bullshit.

He sighs, “I can’t stop you.” You fix your hair in the mirror behind him quickly before confidently making your way over.

“Wow.” You say, the girl's eyes land on you, Heeseung turns to look at you. First thing his eyes land on is your face, lips, and just for a split second, your chest—which you don’t miss. Your expression isn't easy to decipher, “Who knew Lee Heeseung was a party person.” 

“I'm not—” He replies quickly, “Oh, really?” You look behind him at the girl. “Could’ve fooled me.” She smiles politely “Hi, Im Clair–” 

“Yeah, hi.” You say, already focused back on him. “I didn't know you came to things like this.” You look him up and down, he swallows underneath your stare

“I mean—I don't usually.” Jake tries to hold a laugh at the interaction he's watching from a few feet away. “Made an exception though, right?” 

Yeah it was actually, you.

But the way you say it– there's something underneath your tone. Maybe he's reading into it too much like he does with everything else.  “Yeah,” He says slowly, your eyes fall on this Clair girl again, then back to him– making it known you were looking just to see the nervous look on his face.

He has no clue why he's even nervous. Actually that's a lie, it’s completely your fault he's like this. “Are you having fun then?” You step closer, friendly—but there's something else in your eyes.

Maybe it's the alcohol,  whatever he drank out of that cup is probably making him see things..right? “I just got here.” You hum in response, unconvinced. 

The girl beside him decides to open her mouth, voice annoyingly high. “We were just–” You cut her off “Oh, I'm sure you were.” You don’t bother looking at her, eyes trained on the boy before you instead. Would it be wrong to say you’re enjoying this?

He swallows, Adams' apple visibly bobbing, “..am I doing something wrong?” He asks, genuinely. You laugh, almost surprised at the question “No, why do you think that?” You tilt your head, doing that thing that usually makes guys swoon. “Because you’re–” He stops himself, looking back at Clair “Never mind.” 

You watch him for a second longer, the way he shifts on his feet like your stare affects him too much. You smile— that sweet, almost performative one. “Have fun,” You say before turning and walking away, leaving him confused, and definitely even more curious. 

Jake comes up beside him, clapping him on the shoulder “Okay, so that was actually fucking insane.” He says through a chuckle “..shut up.” Heeseung mutters. “She was so jealous.” Jake smirks, “She was not–” Heeseung starts.

“She definitely was, and you’re blind if you don’t see it—which you should considering your obsession with her.” Heeseung looks past his shoulder in the direction you walked in.

“I’ll be right back” Jake grabs his arm “Uh no– you’re not about to leave the girl who very clearly likes you.” He says, nodding towards Clair who's now talking to one of her friends. Heeseung pulls his arm away “I'm not leaving anyone.” Jake sighs “You kinda are.” 

“I just– I need to talk to her.” Heeseung bites his lip in thought, Jake pauses before a small grin spreads on his face

“Yeah, that's what I thought.” Before he can say anything else, Heeseung is already moving after you. Not even sure what’s going to come out– but he needs to know what the actual fuck just happened.

“Y/n–” You turn, trying to hide your knowing smile as Heeseung approaches you, just like you anticipated. “Oh? What happened to your friend?” You ask, looking behind him briefly. “I mean—you kind of scared her off..” He swallows when you tilt your head “Not that you meant to or anything, I'm not saying that was your intention..” 

It definitely was, but okay.

“..or anything, it’s just–what was that?” He asks, your eyes scan over his face before falling to his mouth for a split second– almost unnoticeable. “What was what?” You ask cluelessly.

“I don’t know y/n, that whole..,thing–” You tilt your head “I was just saying hi? Should I have not?” You ask, he swallows at the way you bat your eyelashes at him.

“No– of course not, I mean I'm glad you did.” You step closer, he doesn't step back. “Really?”

He nods too quickly.

“Hm, cute.” You mumble almost to yourself, watching his face. “You should probably go back to your little friend though, Chloe was it?” You look back, where that girl from earlier keeps glancing at him every few seconds by the makeshift bar. “Clair.” He clears his throat. 

Oh? Name correction, interesting. 

“Yeah, Clair.” You resist the urge to roll your eyes.

“I’ll see you next Thursday, Heeseung, you know– for tutoring.” You smile one more time before turning and walking back to your friends, Heeseung just stands there for a moment, trying to process—probably too hard. 

But the way you said it, actually the way you said everything.. He watches you for a split second longer, his eyes can’t help but fall to the sway of your hips especially in that skirt. He turns, walking back to Chloe– or Clair, whatever–he can’t even think straight anymore. 

“So what the fuck was that?” Yunjin asks, “I don’t know what you’re talking about” You shrug, taking the cup she offers from her hand and sipping whatever is in it, Sunoo chuckles beside her– unconvinced. She gives you a look, "I'm just having fun” You say through a laugh, they both roll their eyes, even more unconvinced than before. 

-

You’re late, for real this time. Seven minutes to be exact, not that he’s counting or anything. He’s just been reviewing the material from the practice test you sent him via messages, with the words “Im so failing this class :(“ written underneath.

He remembers letting a laugh slip before replying with a “You’ll understand it after Thursday, don’t worry.” 

And now he’s watching as you approach the same table from last week, sunglasses perched on top of your head, Jeans low on your hips, tank top tight on your figure–you would say it’s necessary for the warm weather, but also what’s wrong with provoking a reaction from your totally cute tutor?

“Y/n–” You settle for the seat across from him with a smile on your face. “Heeseung,” You say, pulling out your notebook from your bag. His eyes drop to your lips, the pinkish gloss coating them. 

He clears his throat before looking back down at his own notebook, “Right– so I actually looked over the problems you sent me–” He starts, you tilt your head. “Wait, you actually went over those.” He pauses, looking at you again 

“Well, yeah..” He chuckles like it was supposed to be obvious “..It's kind of my job– I mean, as your tutor. I'm here to help you pass.” His lip quirks up, a ghost of a smile coating his face. Job, huh? “Hm, I see.”

He continues “So I re-did the equations but in a way I think you’d understand better.” He flips the notebook towards you, trying to ignore the way you lean forward, giving him a very clear view of what color your bra is.

Your eyebrow lifts, “Is this just dumbed down?” His eyes widen for a split second “What–No, of course not. This just helps people understand better–Trust me I know you’re not dumb, actually you’re really smart.” 

You can’t help the smile that slips at his urgency to clear those thoughts from your head, “Actually smart?” You look down at the paper again

“Were you not expecting me to be smart or something?” Something close to panic flashes across his features, pride across yours.

Maybe you are enjoying this too much.

“Of course not..” He swallows, slightly avoiding your lingering gaze, his ears turning a shade of pink. “..Well, actually I wasn’t– it’s just, you’re really popular and social and stuff–like parties every weekend. And you’re really pretty.” You bite the inside of your cheek to avoid smiling. 

“Not that pretty people can’t be smart of course, because you definitely are– like really pretty.” His face is a shade of red now, hand rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Sorry, I know I talk too much, I’m not trying to be rude, or creepy or anything like that.” He shifts in his seat, your silence making his heart race even faster. “I don’t think it's creepy.” You shrug casually. “It’s actually kind of cute.” Your eyes drop to his nose, then to his lips–

“Um–thanks..?” You hum in response, looking back down at his notebook, his eyes follow yours “Right, um– we should definitely get started.”

“Okay, see, 87% is not bad at all, you’re doing good,” His eyes locked on your computer screen, scrolling through the results of your 2nd attempt at the practice test for your exam. You roll your eyes,

“I seriously don’t know how many more of these stupid tests I can do, and I don't need an 87, I need a 100.” He bites his lip in thought “No, you need to stop being hard on yourself.” You look up at him, slightly surprised with his determined tone.

“You're smart, it’s normal to not understand the material the second you see it. It takes practice–I understand you want it to be perfect, trust me, I'm the same way.” 

“Okay then, I want to do it again.” He nods, restarting it and turning the computer towards you. “Im patient.” He says, watching the concern glint over your face. You no longer struggle to ask him a question when you need help on a problem like you did the first time you took the practice test, he smiles and nods every time you ask too. 

“92.” You say, looking down at the score on your computer. “Not bad at all, your brain is starting to recognize the material.” He states, “Ugh, Why can’t you just be there beside me when I take the exam..” You frown. 

“Trust me, if I could, I would.” He says through a chuckle. When your frown remains on your face, he speaks up again “Look, If you need me too– I’d be more than happy to look over the notes she gave you, I can try and summarize it and send a video explaining it.” 

“You’d really do that for me?” You ask, sitting up straighter. “It’s my goal to help you pass y/n, and of course I’d do it for you– how could I not..” He goes on “You're pretty irresistible honestly, it’s kind of hard to say no to someone like you. But I’d do it willingly of course.”

He swallows at the way your leg grazes his under the table, the touch burning even through his jeans. “That’s really sweet Heeseung..”

“Yeah– of  course, anything for you,” Your mouth twitches, shy of a smirk. 

“Anything for me?” You ask, your foot tracing his calf over his jeans. He nods, trying so– so hard to ignore the heat that courses through him at your touch, fuck– why did he have to wear these jeans today. 

Please go down, please, please..

“Are you okay Heeseung?” you tilt your head, almost genuine concern in your eyes. “Yeah um, I just–” He checks the time on his phone, “I kind of have to get going, it's a– coding thing.” He picks up his notebook, shoving it inside of his bag, standing up abruptly. Praying that you don’t look down. “I’ll send you that video, bye!” 

You try not to laugh at the way he can’t even make direct eye contact with you, because the second he stands up your eyes fall to the bulge in his jeans. This time you swallow because either you’re really tired or Lee Heeseung might be... Big? 

“Heeseung,” You call out before he can go around the corner, he turns, “Thanks for your help.” You smile innocently, like you’re not the very reason he has to leave so abruptly to get rid of his raging hard on.

He nods before turning the corner. You take your time packing up your stuff, not even aware of the small smile that coats your face, which hasn’t disappeared. 

-

He has to be reading into it too much, because that's something he's good at; overanalyzing, coming to insane conclusions…There’s no way you might actually like him back? Right? No he has to be going crazy.

He looks down at the messages on his phone one more time.

Heeseung: [video attachment] 

Heeseung: i went over the notes and tried to explain them better for you in this, let me know if it helps

You: oh my gosh?

You: Thank you so much Heeseung this is insane

Heeseung: of course, im just happy I can help you

You: I feel kind of bad though.. :( 

Heeseung: why would you feel bad?

You: you’re doing all this for me and I haven't really done much in return.. with the tutoring lessons being free and all

Heeseung: please don’t worry about it y/n

Heeseung: If anything you’re helping me 

You: ughh

You: I still feel bad..

You: how about this, if I pass my exam on Thursday, instead of tutoring me you can come to my place so we can celebrate! :)

He's been staring at the message for the past five minutes, part of him debating going to Jake and asking for advice, but something about this feels different? Like a shared secret between the two of you.

Heeseung: I’d love to

Heeseung: do you want me to bring some food over then?

You: No silly, im going to cook

Heeseung: wait you can cook?

You: a pretty girl whos smart and can cook, are you shocked? :0

Heeseung: thats not what I meant

Heeseung: Sorry 

Heeseung: I'm sure you can cook

Heeseung: whatever you make is probably amazing

You: Im just teasing you Hee

You: ill see you around mk?

Oh my God, you’re going to kill him, like actually kill him. Sure it's just messages but something about you giving him a nickname like that– yeah his heart definitely just stopped for a second. Fuck— Jake's right, he is pathetic. 

Heeseung: yeah sorry again

Heeseung: I'll see you

He cringes looking down at the part where he actually stumbled over his words on fucking i-messages, turning off his phone before he can do anything else stupid. 

“..and why are you smiling at your phone like that?” Yunjin asks, raising her brow while painting her nails. “What? I'm not smiling.” You say, putting your phone face down on her bed.

“Nope, you definitely were– like cheesing ear to ear.” She adds, blowing on her nails to dry them. 

“Let me guess, Heeseung?” She says, teasing glint in her eyes. “Uh–no, what? Why would you think it's him? He’s like just my tutor, and plus he's a total nerd, and a loser.” She blinks once, then she laughs. “W-why are you laughing?” You ask, sitting up in her bed.

“You like him don’t you? Like actually–” She starts, “No! I don’t– why would I like him? No–” You stammer over your words.

“Calm down, I'm not hating on you for it or anything, I honestly just thought you were giving him the time of day because of how down bad he is for you, you know?” She watches you closely

“I'm serious, I thought you just liked teasing him at first, but no– you genuinely like Lee Heeseung–” 

You stand up to put your hand over her mouth, “My nails!–” She says through a laugh, “Do not finish that sentence–” You say, trying to cover your own smiling face with a serious one, failing miserably. “Fine, fine.” She says, hands raised innocently, checking to make sure her nails are still good. You roll your eyes, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Just be careful y/n, okay?” you pick up your phone, nodding “Yeah, yeah whatever.” You say through a small laugh.

-

Your fingers are literally crossed under the table as Professor Kim hands out the graded exam papers. You bite your lip as she comes closer to you, she looks down at the paper than at you before smiling.

“Good job Y/n, I'm glad to see the tutoring is helping.” She says before placing the paper on the table. 

96%.

You’re seeing things right, because Professor Kim doesn't just hand out A+ grades like that.

The first thing that comes to your mind; Heeseung. You’re thankful when she ends her lecture early. 

You remember going to the computer science building a few times when you and Sunoo met up after his class, and obviously now you know that Heeseung happens to have the same class, why not surprise him, he’s obviously going to be proud!

“Y/n?” Sunoo questions, walking out of the computer lab, mint green bag hung on his shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” He asks through a chuckle. “Is uh.. Heeseung in there?” He raises a brow “Yeah.. pretty sure he’s staying for some club meeting– Gaming development or something.”

You nearly laugh, because of course someone like him would be in a fucking Gaming Developemnt club. You peek behind him to get a look inside the lab, “I’ll see you later Sunoo,” he shakes his head before disappearing down the hall

You open the door to the lab and spot the back of his head immediately, even if it is covered in a grey beanie.

Your eyes drift to the left side of him. Fucking hell. Can this girl not catch a hint? You don’t even care about the heads turning as you make your way further into the room. Surprised that a girl like you is walking into the middle of a club like this. 

“You definitely know a lot about this stuff, Heeseung, it’s really impressive–” Clair starts, but stops when Heeseung's eyes drift to you, a slightly shocked expression on his face “Y/n– what are you doing here?” You roll your eyes. 

“Everyone keeps asking me that.” You cross your arms over your chest, ignoring the way his friends' eyes switch to you and Heeseung like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. 

“I have something to show you.” You say, not even caring how it sounds. “We were busy working on something and this is a private club meeting actually, so im not sure how you even–” Clair starts, tone clearly bitter. 

“Okay well good thing it’s only for him to see, and not you.” You interrupt, finally look at her.

“You’re not even supposed to be in here though–” Her hand leaves the back of Heeseung's chair as he stands up. “It’s fine, I can talk to her outside if I have to,” he says, moving past Clair, you tilt your head sweetly at her before walking with Heeseung out into the hallway. 

“Okay Y/n, what–” You pull out the folded paper from your bag, biting your lip eagerly.

“Go on, open it.” You say, he looks at you, eyes falling to your lips before opening the paper. “Holy shit—96?” He exclaims, a smile coming to his face almost immediately. You nod, humming in response

“I knew you could do it, and I mean… this is a lot, even for Professor Kim, god—you’re amazing.” He says looking down at the paper. “It’s because of your help y’know” You say, stepping closer.

His eyes flick up to yours, “I mean—it was really all you, truly. I just helped a little–” He says, chuckling. “We’re still on for tonight though, right? I still have to repay you for helping me” You smile sweetly. “Repay me?” He asks, eyes falling to your low cut top for a split second—almost unnoticeable.

“Yeah, I'm cooking too, remember?” You bring your hand up, picking at an invisible piece of lint from the collar of his shirt. Thank God he wore a beanie today, or else you would have seen the embarrassing shade of pink his ears just turned.

“You really don’t have to do that for me y/n– seeing your score was honestly rewarding enough, truly—I don’t want to make you feel like you have to do something for me..” he says, hand coming up to the back of his neck. “I know, but I want to. So let me,”

“Okay– but seriously if you change your mind–” 

“I won’t, Hee,” You say through a laugh, the nickname shoots heat straight through him “I’ll see you later m’kay?” You smile, feigning innocence. 

You stand up on your tip toes to press a small kiss to his cheek before giving him one last wave “Bye Hee,”

He presses his hand to his cheek, why is he burning up right now? No way that actually just happened–

He makes his way back into the computer lab, mind still replaying the interaction over and over again, the softness of your lips– hell, even the way you were looking at him. Jake shoots him a side eye 

“Dude, are you good?” He asks, trying to hold in a laugh. “What—huh?” Heeseung questions, fixing his beanie. “You look a little.. Flushed.” He says through a smirk, eyeing the light pink gloss mark on the side of his face.

“Im not flushed–” Jake points to the mark on his face, making Heeseung touch his own.

He turns an even more embarrassing shade at the light pink glossy residue coating his finger tips, earning a laugh from his best friend,

-

So what if you made sure to clean up extra good before he came over, and it’s not like he's going to even know you looked up a recipe online for how to make pasta. At least it tastes decent.

You bite your lip anxiously, fixing your hair in the reflection of your microwave before moving to open the door for Heeseung. 

“I know what you’re going to say– but I figured we could fit some studying in..” He says, watching as you chuckle before inviting him in and closing the door behind him.

“I shouldn’t even be surprised” You say through a laugh. He takes off his shoes, something he's always done growing up. He looks around your apartment, the light pink walls that you managed to convince your landlord to let you paint, everything is very you.

A faint sweet smell lingering in the air, slightly clashing with the rich scent of the pasta you made. His eyes fall to the pan, “Wow– it looks..” “Edible?” You finish, eyebrow raised.

He laughs, “I was going to say amazing” He gives you a look as if to ask if he can put his bag down, “Make yourself comfortable Hee, I don’t bite” You smile as he places his bag down on your couch.

He walks back over to the kitchen, watching as you grab two plates from the upper cabinet. “Let me help you,” He says, taking the plate from you. “Heeseung, I'm the one who invited you–” You say, rolling your eyes. “Fine, fine”

You place the plates on the center table in the small living room. He tries so, so hard to not let his eyes wander but you make it hard for them not too. 

“..want a drink?”

“Huh?” He asks, running a hand through his hair. “I was asking if you wanted a drink” You say through a laugh, placing two glasses on the counter. “Oh– yeah, thanks” He says, sipping the dark red wine yunjin got you for your birthday last year.

“Good right?” You ask, tilting your head. “I don’t really drink much but anything you’d give me is good,” He pauses “Like any food– or drink” You chuckle

“I know, just try the food,” You say, sitting down on the couch beside him. He takes the first bite, slight surprise washing over his features before he looks at you.

Your eyes are curious watching for his reaction. “That's– that's really good y/n” He says, taking another bite. You smile proudly before doing the same. 

You two have been there for a while, glasses empty. Too lazy to get up for a refill—“What are you doing?” You ask, watching him stand up.

“I meant what I said about extra practice–” He grabs his bag “You cannot be serious right now Hee.” 

That nickname again, the one that makes him feel things he probably shouldn't from just words. But he needs to do something, anything to take his mind off the fact that he's here alone, with a pretty girl like you..studying is obviously the only ethical option. 

He grabs the notebook from his bag, along with his laptop. “Im very serious, isn’t your next exam coming up soon?” He asks, opening his laptop and sitting on the couch.

“In like a month..” You say, rolling your eyes and settling next to him. He swallows at how close the proximity is, you’re just so warm next to him. 

“All you do is help me study.. I still feel bad about it, and now we're about to do it again.” You frown, and he finally turns to look at you.

Regrets it immediately, because his eyes drop to the way you push your breasts together almost unnoticeably before flicking back up to yours. “I already said, it's my job and–” You shut the laptop. 

“A job you don’t even get anything for.” You say, sliding the laptop off his lap and onto the coffee table. “Its really the credits– I also like helping you, even though you’re already pretty smart, I really don’t mind–” He continues on.

“Fine–” You say, leaning back against the couch. “Okay—yeah, perfect, it makes me feel better if we’re ahead anyway.” He says with a smile. 

For the past 30 minutes, everything has been going in one ear and out the other, because hearing about physics sure as hell wasn't how you were planning to thank him tonight.

“..and that's how you get from point A to point B in this equation–” 

“Heeseung.” You interrupt, he stops explaining, pencil hovering over the notebook, turning to look at you. “I can start from the beginning, I don’t mind–” 

“No, God– no, I’m just..” You look down at the paper, “I don’t wanna study anymore.” He puts the pencil down, “But the extra practice is good–” You lean in closer, probably too close, 

“Studying is all we do, I invited you here so we could take a break from that, you know? Celebrate where that studying got us, and properly thank you.” He looks at you with wide eyes when you face him on the couch, legs curled beneath you. 

“I though the uh, I thought the food was the thank you..” you spot the small bead of sweat near his eyebrow and nearly laugh. “Do I make you nervous or something?” You ask, his ears turn that pathetic shade of pink.

He nods, “Y-yeah.” Unable to even form a proper lie or excuse for the way his skin is probably burning with anticipation. “Why?” You ask, tilting your head curiously.

“Well I mean– how could I not, you’re really pretty, and really intimidating..” He pauses

“..I didn’t even think it was possible for a girl like you to be into someone like me– not saying that you’re into me or anything, I wouldn't object to you being into me obviously, I mean I'm clearly in you– I mean, into you. It’s hard not to be honestly—” You watch the way his mouth moves before his brain processes what he's saying.

“—I was hoping it wasn’t obvious, is it obvious? Okay now im just rambling im sorry, I can’t help it– you just make me really nervous” He's breathing hard now, sitting up completely straight.

“Cute.” You smile, watching the confusion on his face. “If I wasn’t mistaken, I’d think you have a crush on me.” You scoot closer, probably invading his personal space.

As if he’d complain.

“Do you have a crush on me, Lee Heeseung?” Your eyes fall to his lips “I– well.. No?…” He shuts his eyes for a moment, trying to calm the rapid beating of his heart

“…sorry, that's a lie. I mean, How could I not.. I like– I like you, which is probably not professional for a tutor and student relationship but I–” You shut him up immediately when your lips press against his.

Your lips are soft, when you pull back a few seconds later his tongue darts out to lick his own lips, the faint strawberry taste of your lipgloss remaining, his expression is almost comedic.

He doesn't think twice before closing the distance again, needing to feel your lips on his, you let out a sound into his mouth, your hand trailing up to rest on his shoulder, he grips your waist, tugging you closer. 

You swing your leg over his, allowing you to straddle his lap, deepening the kiss further, you wrap your hands around his neck, tangling your hands in his hair, a light tug making him groan into your mouth pathetically.

His hands are unsure at your hips, still in shock that he’s actually here right now, in your home, touching you– kissing you. When you slip your tongue in his mouth, his fingers dig into the flesh of your hips, you roll them softly and his breath hitches. 

“P-please do that again..” he breathes out, looking down when you roll your hips again, you feel him growing hard, demanding beneath you—and undoubtedly big. “Touch me Hee–” You whisper, nipping at his bottom lip.

One hand slips under your shirt, feeling the softness of your back, the other trailing down to rest on your ass gently, offering a squeeze. 

“Like this?” He asks, voice rough—needy. “Mhm” You nod, rolling your hips forward against his, he thrusts up once from the friction,

“S-shit– sorry, I'm sorry–” You lower your lips, kissing just below his jaw, "Don’t apologize" This time when you grind against him, he reciprocates it, the hard line of his cock grinding perfectly between your legs.

“You’re so pretty” He mumbles, both hands cupping your ass through your pants, you smile against his neck before pressing one more delicate kiss to his jaw.

When your lips leave his skin a sound breaks from him. “What–” He watches as you slide off his lap.

“I wanna suck you off.” You say bluntly, his heart beat picks up even faster than before. 

His hands sit awkwardly at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do– which quite frankly, he doesn't. You lick your lips before reaching for his jeans. Heeseung stops your hand, gripping onto your wrist.

“Wait” You pause, looking up at him. “I just want to make it clear that uh– this..” he looks down at the very visible bulge in his jeans. “..this isn’t why I came here– you don’t have to..” You rest your hand on his thigh. 

“I know I don’t have to. But I want to.” You clarify. He bites down on his lip, his cock aching to be set free from its confinement. “I wanna repay you, like I said.” You smile as his grip on your wrist loosens.

Unbuttoning his pants, fingers hooking around the waistband, he lifts his hips allowing you to pull down his jeans and boxers in one go.

“Holy shit–” You say, gaping at the sheer size of him. Flushed pink at the mushroom tip, and so fucking wet.

Your eyes trail along the prominent vein on the underside before looking up at him. He looks nervous as hell right now, “Is it– is there something wrong with it?” he asks, gulping. 

You shake your head immediately, now you’re the one swallowing with the sudden dryness in your throat. “No– definitely not. It's just.. like” You lick your lips “Really big.”

“Do you normally get this..wet?” You ask, wrapping your hand– or attempting to wrap it around the base. 

He winces at the feeling of your soft palm before nodding. “Is that a—fuck.. Is that a bad thing?” He asks, tone utterly pathetic.

You answer with a long lick from the base to the tip, gathering what you can of his leaking pre cum, the saltiness coating your tastebuds in the best way possible.

He lets out a wrecked sound, the feeling of a tongue on him so new–

“Not at all.” You mumble, running your tongue along the underside of his tip. His hips buck at the sensation, mouth hanging open, watching you.

This time he doesn't say sorry. You smile against him before wrapping your mouth around him, trying to take as much as you can, you brace one of your hands on his thigh, the other one wrapping around the base of his cock.

It's so worth it once the most pathetic moan escapes past his lips and he makes no move to hide it. 

“I-its so warm–” He groans, hand coming up to tangle in your hair purely on instinct. You hum and the vibration makes his hips jerk instantly, forcing more of himself in the warm column of your throat. “Y/n– I can’t..” He says, biting his lip–trying to watch you but it's so hard to with the way his eyes flutter shut.

His sounds give you even more motivation as you bob your head faster, squeezing the base of his cock. “W-wait, slow down–” He tries to pull your head back, but you stay put as his warm cum spills down your throat, his grip on your hair falters as you milk him dry.

You pull off of him, cum coating your lips, looking up at his face, the sweat beside his eyebrow, to his glazed eyes, then back down to his still hard dick.

“You’re..” You breathe out, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand and blinking once “You’re still hard–” You say, watching as a small bead of cum dribbles down his cock along the thick vein. “I should have said something– Once it gets like this..” He looks down at his dick, standing proud “..it takes um, a few tries to get it down.” He swallows.

He moves to pull his boxers back up to tuck it back but you stop him. “Have you ever had a handjob?” You ask, standing up and sitting next to him. He shakes his head shyly. “Ive never really had anyone– you know.” You smile at that,

“Good, I wanna make you cum again.” His cheeks flush at that, but he nods because who is he to say no to such an offer?  

-

It doesn’t stop there. What used to be a dream– a fantasy in Heeseung's mind is actually actively coming true.

Who would have thought innocent tutoring lessons would turn into something like this? A shared secret between the two of you that your friends are definitely picking up on. 

Based on the way you walk around even more confidently than before, and the way you actually look for Heeseung in a room—only to find him already staring at you.

To be completely honest, you don’t know what it is you have going on, but the attention feels so fucking good—especially after what happened just a few days ago,

“So what did you need help with?” You had asked, following him into the computer lab, which was empty due to it being after hours. “Nothing,” He said, Your brow lifting immediately, “You literally asked me to come here,”

“I just need to check something.” He mumbles, you cross your arms over your chest, “That sounds suspicious.”

He looks up at you, loading in his work in progress of a game, “It’s not.” You roll your eyes, “Yeah will it sound like it.”

He exhales, trying to sound as least suspicious as possible, “Can you just–stand there for a second.” You blink once, “What?” 

“Just a second,” You tap your finger against your crossed arm, “Why?” He continues clicking stuff on his computer, “Because I asked,” He says simply, “That’s not a reason.”

He looks up at you again, almost pleading look in his eyes. “Fine, even though this is weird.” You say, giving in.

He turns his monitor away from you, and you shift slightly. His eyes flick between his screen and you–not awkwardly, just with extreme focus, like he’s studying you. “..what are you doing?” you finally ask, “Nothing.” He mutters, “you’re staring.”

“No, im observing,” He says confidently, the sound of his mouse clicking and keyboard typing filling the space between the two of you. “That's worse.”,

“Can you just turn a little to the left..” He asks with a vague gesture. “Why?” 

“I just need to see something,” You huff, “Why are we doing this Heeseung?” he hesitates for a split second, “It’s for my game.” he admits.

“The one you’ve been working on?” He nods, looking up at you again, then back to the screen.

“So what does that have to do with me?” You narrow your eyes slightly, “I needed a reference,” He says, biting his lip nervously, waiting for you to call him a creep– a weirdo, obsessive freak maybe?

But when you smile, he can’t help but mirror the action, quickly going back to focusing when you do eventually turn for him.

Heeseung's cute, attractive in a way the guys you've been with before weren't.

The first time you walked into his room a little bit over a week ago for tutoring–which ultimately led to a very heated makeout session, and you learning that he really likes kissing.

His room didn't even surprise you, hell– he even had a whole section dedicated to Toy Story figures.

You also learned that he’s a pretty big gamer, and takes it very seriously– probably why he’s in that Gaming development club or whatever the fuck.

Your favorite part is how shy he gets, especially when you say the most out of pocket things.

“So you’ve never eaten a girl out before?” You ask, sitting up straight on his bed.

His face turns an embarrassing shade of red. “I–No..” he says, shifting in his gaming chair, thankful the notebook in his lap covers the way his cock is already half hard from the words alone. 

You tilt your head, smiling. “Do you even know where the clit is?” You ask through a chuckle.

“What– Why are you..” He looks down at his notebook, then at the physics papers scattered across his bed where you sit.

“…We should be focusing on studying right now y/n–” You roll your eyes, gathering the papers together in one stack. “Just answer the question Hee.” That nickname again. The one that really gets him, and you know it.

“I did a human anatomy study for one of my classes last semester—very detailed, so, kind of? I think.” Your brow raises at that. “Yeah? So you think you’re some expert now?” You ask, leaning back on your palms.

He finally removes the notebook from his lap, setting it on the cluttered table behind him. Your eyes immediately fall to the very clear bulge in his sweatpants that he makes no move to hide anymore. 

“Is this you trying to distract me from studying again?” He asks, standing up. “Is it working?” You question, biting your lip.

“I had to lie to the tutoring lab administrators the other day, about the tutoring hours y’know. I couldn’t just tell them the pretty girl I got assigned to, spent half the time sucking me off instead of actually doing her work” He says, not exactly sure where this newfound confidence of his is coming from—but from the way your cheeks flush that perfect shade of pink, he must be doing something right. 

“Couldn’t tell them she wears these little tops that seem to get smaller every session, these shorts that get tighter– absolutely kills me,” he admits, looking down at your bare legs.

“I did tell them that you’re a great student, good at comprehending the material, always focused on the task at hand.” He climbs on the bed with you until you're laying flat on your back.

“Kind of lied about the focus part though, you’re more of a distraction– a really good one at that.” He clarifies, dipping his head to kiss the sensitive spot below your ear he just discovered the other day.   

“Hee–” You breathe out, running a hand through his hair, he pulls back looking down at you. Humming in response, already lost in you.

“Are you going to eat me out or not?” You ask bluntly, you don't miss the pink shade that covers his ears. “You should know by now that I'll do anything you ask me too,” He says, licking his lips. 

He pulls back, looking down at you. “Ive been thinking about this you know, can I admit that?” he asks, smoothing both of his hands down your bare thighs—testing.

You nod, hooking your fingers around the waistband of your jeans shorts, but he stops your hand. “I want to look at you like this for a little—“

“I think about you a lot actually, probably more than I should.” He adds, lowering himself to the soft carpet of his bedroom floor.

“Ever since that first day of Econ too, remember when you tapped my shoulder?” He smiles, you nod. “I swear I couldn't get you out of my head– not in a creepy way, but you just–” He presses a gentle kiss to your calf— not quite sure if this is what he's supposed to be doing, but it feels right. 

“You have an effect on people y/n, I don’t even think you realize it.” He whispers, looking up at you.

“Heeseung..”

“I know, it's a lot– there's so much more I have to say too.” He chuckles, still unbelieving that you’re right here in front of him.

“But I really—really want to do this right now.” He admits, fingers finally hooking around the waistband of your shorts.

He pulls them down slowly, the movement intimate, like he's treasuring each reaction– studying it harder than he does his schoolwork, or whatever video game he plays. 

You sit up on your elbows to get a better view, and it's so worth it.

He looks up once, and when you nod his fingers move to pull your underwear down as well, and he moans—actually moans at the sight of you.

“Even your pussy is perfect–” He says, licking his lips. The words cause even more arousal to drip out of you. He swipes his finger through your folds once, gathering some– the touch makes your hips jolt.

“After, we can finish Toy Story 2 right?” He asks, looking up at you—eyes practically sparkling. You nod immediately “Yes– fuck, Heeseung..” You breathe out, watching him lick the juices from his fingers.

“Just need your mouth on me– now.” You demand, he smiles “Still bossy as ever.” Before mirroring the same action of his finger, licking a stripe up your pussy, because this is what he’s supposed to do right?

He tries making out with your pussy, and from the moans that leave your lips he must be doing something right. There's something messy about the way he does it,

“Just like that– are you..fuck” You moan when his nose bumps your clit, “..are you sure you’ve never done this?” You ask, breaths coming in heavy pants as he hums against you, your hips bucking against his face. 

He discovers a rhythm, alternating between teasing your aching hole with the tip of his tongue, and flicking it over your throbbing clit– the sensitive bud craving the touch.

He pulls back for a moment, admiring the mess he's made before gathering some spit in his mouth and letting it drop right onto your pussy. 

Where the fuck did he learn that from. 

He looks up at you, the way your mouth hangs open before latching his lips onto your clit, taking it into his mouth and swirling his tongue around it.

“Oh my God– Hee, I can’t..” You give up on holding yourself up with your arms as your fingers tangle through his soft locks, pulling him even closer to you. He groans into the heat of you, the sounds of him eating you out filthy– 

“I need–” You say, trying to get your words out, he parts from your clit, looking up at you, the bottom half of his face completely covered in your slick, but he could care less about that right now—if anything it's rewarding.

“I need your fingers, Heeseung..” You whimper, he brings his middle finger to your entrance, teasing it subtly,

“Like this?” he asks, watching your face for approval. You nod, he pushes the tip of his finger in, your hole welcoming him in with ease

“It’s so wet–so warm” he observes, pushing it in deeper, you hold onto his wrist. “Mmm– Hee..” You cry out as his finger curls experimentally. 

He watches your reaction before doing it once more, noting how you tighten around him at the movement.

“You’re so pretty—seriously, I can’t get enough of you..” He whispers, the words easily falling out, your eyes flutter shut.

He moves your hand from his wrist, setting it on top of his head.

“Pull it—I don’t care, it feels good” He admits, curling his finger deeper, using his other hand to prevent your legs from closing around his head. 

And you’re thankful he did because the second his tongue is back on you, you’re tugging at the strands, his finger curling and uncurling inside of you, mixed with the way he slurps at your clit

This has to be the best head you’ve ever gotten—hands down. Inexperienced guys really do eat pussy the best. 

“F-fuck Hee, I– Im close..” You warn, but it only makes him more determined—the thought of you actually cumming, and even better, him being the one to give you that pleasure fuels him even more.

His finger repeatedly brushing a spot inside of you that you can’t reach and his tongue flicking your clit through his pursed lips has you completely undone—reaching your high with his name on your tongue, pulling at his hair– not sure if you want him off or even closer—definitely closer.

He moans against your pussy like he's the one getting pleasure, in all fairness—he probably is. 

Your back arches off the bed as your juices coat his face, he doesn't even care if it drips down his chin, wetting the sheets below you, he still tries to greedily lap up what he can, finger never leaving inside of you until the rise and fall of your chest slows.

Only then does he lift his head from between your legs, looking up at you for approval. “T-theres no way that was you’re first time” You say, watching as he stands up, licking his lips.

“So you would let me do it again?” He asks, picking up your underwear from the floor, “Is that a serious question Heeseung?” He chuckles,

“Good, because I think I maybe– kind of got the hang of it.” He says, moving to put on your underwear for you. And you let him, “I might need to do it a few more times to make sure– for research purposes.. And stuff.”

He clears his throat, you can’t help but laugh, wincing at the way the cloth of your underwear feels on your sensitive pussy. He presses a kiss just above your waistband. You swallow at the action– how genuine it felt, how genuine the boy before you is.

You watch as he lays against the headboard of the bed, cock clearly hard in his pants before raising your brow. “What?” he says through a chuckle, flipping through the apps on his TV looking for the Toy Story 2 movie.

“You’re just going to sit here, with that?” You ask, still laid down on his bed. “You said we could watch Toy Story 2– I thought..” He shifts when you sit up, crawling to lay next to him. 

“God– you really are a nerd.” You say through a laugh, “Hey– the plot is a lot deeper than they make it out to be, I think you’re really underestimating the whole thing–” He starts,

“Heeseung, just put the movie on.” You shake your head, he presses a sloppy kiss to your forehead before doing just that.

But its safe to say you didn’t let him deal with his little (big) problem for much longer after that.

-

“Why are you doing that?” Jake asks, side eyeing Heeseung as he works on the code before him– while also smiling.

“Huh? Doing what?” He questions, looking at his friend for a split second.

“That smiling thing.”

Heeseung scoffs, “I’m not doing any type of smiling thing.” Jake's eyes fully leave his monitor to really look at him.

“Y’know, you’re absolutely shit at lying.” Jake says, “I’m not even– what,”

“It’s y/n huh?” Jake says for him. “Shut up–” Heeseung mutters, tone a hushed whisper.

“Holy shit– no fucking way she actually..” Heeseung's ears go that pathetic shade of pink, “Don’t be so loud okay? I– she doesn’t want anyone knowing anything” Heeseung says, seriously.

Jake raises a brow at that “What is she embarrassed or something?”

“No– it’s just, I– It doesn’t matter, okay?” Heeseung says, voice low. “I dunno man, you really like her, right?—are you sure..” 

“Heeseung?” That familiar voice cuts through, Clair.

Part of him thankful for taking him away from this conversation with his best friend. “Hey, what's up?” He immediately says, ignoring Jake's annoyed huff.

“We’re going to the dining hall to get something– the others are really hungry, especially with the deadline coming up.” She says, biting her lip anxiously.

“Do you wanna come with– you too, Jake.” She adds, looking behind him for a split second. 

He looks back down at his computer, the half finished code nowhere near ready, “I can’t. I have to finish this.” Heeseung says, cursing himself for being so distracted.

“Oh, um—okay, want us to bring something back–”

Jake interrupts immediately. “Yeah, pretty sure they're doing that good ramen today, thanks Clair.” She shoots him a look before glancing back at Heeseung, who is in fact back to working on the code.

“Yeah, sure.” She replies, both of the boys missing the tone of her voice. 

“I seriously don’t understand his obsession with her.” Clair says, making her way to the dining haul. “I mean she's like really pretty.” Her friend says quietly.

“Not that pretty—I don’t get why someone like her would even go for someone like Heeseung, I mean they are like the complete opposite!” She says through a whine. 

“Not to mention she's a total bitch.” Her friend side eyes her “I don’t get why you even like Heeseung in the first place, yeah he's cute and all but if you’re actually in competition with Y/n I fear–” 

“Shut up– She's probably just using him anyway.” Clair mumbles, stepping into the line,

“Using Heeseung?” Her friend questions through a laugh “Yeah, I mean, she's known for being a slut. Wouldn’t doubt if none of those frat guys wanted her anymore so she had to move for him out of all people.” Her friend shakes her head “lm gonna get the fruits, try not to explode while im gone.” Clair rolls her eyes at the comment.

“I really can’t.. I promised him.” You say, looking down at your phone. “Are you serious Y/n? Last month you were like begging to go to party after party and now you don’t want to? Is the dick that good?” Sunoo asks, earning a laugh from Yunjin beside him.

“They can’t reschedule for next Saturday instead?” You ask, biting your lip while looking past the line of people waiting for food– guess this is what you get for coming when everyone was on a break. 

“I mean, I wouldn't doubt if one of those frat guys would cancel it if you asked,” Yunjin says with a smirk. “I’m not going, end of story– I promised Heeseung and I can’t break it.” You say proudly,

“Okay, fine, why don’t you just bring him then?” Sunoo suggests, You look at him like he's crazy. “Are you kidding?” You ask, looking at the both of them. “Uh– no babe, dead serious. I mean he's clearly down bad for you, and by the looks of it you’re pretty damn close.” Yunjin states.

“Hes–” You chuckle, “hes not even the party type. like seriously, he hates them.”

They look at each other, “You sure it’s not something else.. Like maybe the concept of hard launching with someone like him?” Sunoo asks, tilting his head. “What– you guys are ridiculous.” You mutter. 

“Plus, the only reason why he was at that one party was because he saw that story I posted” You smile at the memory,

“Told me himself the otherday.” You say proudly. You miss the way the girl in front of you stills.

“So he literally admitted to stalking you.” Sunoo says, brow raised. “He so was, and you love it too.” Yunjin adds through a laugh

“So what if it feels good? Am I not allowed to have fun?” You ask, rolling your eyes. “I think you’re having a little more than fun..” Sunoo mumbles.

You tighten your lips to hide your smile before looking past the line of people, “This is exactly why we don’t come here during peak hours.” 

“Heeseung–” Clair says first thing as she walks back into the computer lab, He lifts his head, acknowledging.

“I–” She pauses, Jake raises a brow beside him. “There's something you should know” She says quickly.

“Is it about the development? If you need help on something I can..” He starts “It's not about anything with the club– it's about that girl.” She says, shifting on her feet. 

Heeseung looks behind him at his best friend before turning back to Clair,

“Y/n?” He questions, because who else could she be talking about..

“Yes.”

“Look, if it's about how she can sometimes be a little.. intimidating..” he pauses, trying to think of the right word, "That's just how she is, don’t take it personal–” 

"It's not about that!” She says louder than intended, causing a few eyes to look her way and Jake to make a noise beside him.

“Look– can we talk outside?” She asks with an almost nervous tone. “Oh, um..” He looks down at his monitor before looking back up

“..yeah– um, yeah sure.” He mumbles before standing up and following her out into the empty hallway.

“So what's up–”

“She’s using you.” Clair says flatly. He pauses–what? 

“Shes– who?” He swallows, eyebrows furrowing in confusion at the girl in front of him. “Y/n, she’s using you,” He looks down at his feet,

“Why would she use me?” He questions almost to himself, a dry chuckle leaving his throat. 

Clair looks at him, trying to bite back another emotion from rising.

“I overheard her talking with her friends in the dining hall.” Clair starts, his eyes are back on her, “They were pretty much talking about how you were just an ego booster for her—because she was bored.” She says, not even caring if she's twisting the conversation into something that will hopefully benefit her. 

“W-what–” Heeseung searches her eyes for something—anything, amusement maybe? To say this is just some fucked up joke?

“No– that doesn’t make any sense, she wouldn't do something like that..” 

He bites his lip and thought, trying to replay your moments together— those moments in private.

The ones no one knows about except the two of you– your shared secret.

“It’s true Heeseung, I heard them” 

He shakes his head, unbelieving– because you wouldn't do that, no you wouldn't. You said you cared about him,

Clair is lying, she has to be. 

“Are you lying to me?” Heeseung asks, looking her dead in the eye.

She swallows, “No– Heeseung, why would I lie about this? I'm telling you what I heard, she’s using you for her own benefit, that's how girls like her are..”

He scoffs “Girls like her? What does that mean?” she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, “You know what I'm talking about.. Those attention whores–” 

“Don’t.” He interrupts, "Don't speak about her like that– she’s not,”

He sighs "That's not what she is, okay?” He breathes out

“But im trying to tell you–” She starts

“Why? Why would you be telling me this? What's the point of it?” He asks, trying to contain the fear in his chest right now. The doubt starting to cloud his judgement.

“Because you deserve someone better, Heeseung—someone who actually appreciates you, not someone who's trying to use you!” She says, reaching out for his arm.

He steps back, out of her grasp. “I– I don’t believe you.” He whispers, lips in a tight line.

“But I heard her–” She says, voice stern, forcing him to believe it, or even herself.

“No, you– you don’t know her like I do, you don’t.” He states, hand already on the door knob of the computer lab. 

“So stay out of it.” He says, tone completely different to how he normally is, that defensive wall coming up, shielding him from this– this accusation.

She opens her mouth to speak but closes it when he opens the door to the lab, moving past her. 

“Yo—are you good?” Jake asks, watching as Heeseung powers off the computer, tossing his stuff in his bag.

“Im fine. Something came up.” he says, not bothering to look up.

“Heeseung–” Jake starts, confused as his friend walks out without saying another word.

-

There's no way any of it is true, I mean– you out of all people, using him, Heeseung, the guy who is described as some loser-nerd who plays video games all day and apparently “can’t get any pussy” according to Jake. At least that's who he's known as to everyone else, but with you it felt different. 

So It can’t be true. Why would you even use someone like him! It makes no sense, you wouldn’t do that– not for your own benefit, not to make yourself feel better, not because you were bored or needed an ego boost from a guy who would clearly do anything for you. Including spending extra hours way past the limit making sure you passed one of the most challenging classes. 

You were the first girl to give him a blowjob for fucks sake!

First girl who even let him get close enough to actually eat your pussy– which he still can’t believe happened and replays constantly in his mind.

You care about him, you do!– or is he imaging it all? 

Is this really just some sick mind game– are you playing him? Is what Clair said really true?

No– he can’t let these thoughts cloud his mind, because he likes you, probably more than like honestly, but you like him too right?

I mean, how could you let someone get so close to you without actually liking them, right? 

He's spiraling, like actually going insane. Now that these thoughts are in his head he cant get them out–

Is this the reason why everything between you two is in private?

No, don’t connect the dots, don’t assume. God– why is he here right now, and why is he so damn nervous. 

No, right tutoring—that's his purpose right now, being your tutor.

His hand hovers over your door before knocking.

“Hey—come in, I just got back from Yunjin’s, and I picked up a little something on my way back,” You say, opening the door and walking back to your kitchen.

He nods before removing his shoes and following you, setting his bag on the island stool.

“It smells really good, are you cooking?” He asks, watching as you squat down to look inside of your oven, trying hard not to watch the way your shorts easily ride up, your ass slightly peaking out from the movement.

He swallows before looking away, eyes landing on the bag on the counter. 

“Mhm, I've been trying new stuff ever since I made that pasta for you, I made something for Sunoo the other day and he actually said it was good, like no bullshit.” You say, still looking at what's in the oven.

“This time, I tried making these like red velvet cheesecake cookies,” 

He nods, but speaks up “Well uh, it smells good”

You turn around to look at him, tilting your head “Yeah, you said that” he swallows sudden dryness in his throat.

“Right..” You shake your head before turning off the timer and taking the cookies out of the oven,

“Okay, they have to cool down and stuff for like..” You check your phone, scrolling, “..only ten minutes,” You look up at him, smiling. 

His eyes fall to the bag on the counter, and yours follow his.

“Right! Okay, so I know you really like Toy Story and all that but also Ramen– like I saw your ramen cabinet at your place and was honestly shocked, but..”

He tilts his head curiously watching as you pull the packets out of the bag,

“Apparently it's some seasonal thing, but I just thought you would like it because buzz lightyears face is literally on it–” You say through a laugh, showing him the Ramen pack. 

He smiles—genuinely, something close to guilt pinging in his chest as he takes it from you.

“T-this, this is really nice of you” He mutters, looking at you. “It's nothing, really” You say, knowing damn well you nearly chased a worker down at the store in order to get the last pack of them from the back. 

“Thank you,” He whispers, wrapping his arms around you, pulling you close.

You pause for a moment, before wrapping your own arms around him, one of your hands running through his hair.

“Okay, okay– weren't you the one who insisted that we actually study this time.” You say, peeling back.

He chuckles, hand rubbing the back of his neck, “Right– um, sorry.” 

“It’s okay Hee, I'm just glad you like it..” You say, hand pulling him closer by his waistband, his breath catches in his throat.

“Want a cookie?” you ask, tilting your head, batting your eyelashes innocently at him, in that way you were just looking at him the last time you got on your knees for him.

“Cookie?” He questions, voice shaky– “Yes, the cookies I just made” You add, as if you’re not the very reason his brain is short circuiting. 

He makes a noise when your hand trails lower, lightly cupping the half hard length of him inside of his sweatpants.

He nods and you offer a squeeze before peeling your hand back.

He whimpers at the loss, hand reaching out to steady himself on the counter. 

“Okay,” You say sweetly, moving back towards the oven. He shakes his head, trying to get rid of any irrational thoughts right now–

he's here to study, and study only.

And he's not going to let those feelings of doubt cloud his mind either, because it's not true, nothing Clair said is true

…right?

“..and they just kept on asking, but I told them I couldn’t– and that you literally hate parties.” You continue, not paying attention to the work in front of you at all.

He just nods, sort of regretting agreeing to your 10 minute “brain break” idea.

He’s tried to avoid looking at you this whole time– because fuck–you look good. 

“I mean, I don’t hate them..” He mumbles, picking at the eraser of his pencil.

“Okay, but you don’t want to go to one, right?” You ask, legs swung over his lap.

“I wouldn’t mind if it was with you though– I like spending time with you..” He clears his throat “..so I’d be willing to go through that if it means I can be with you” He says, looking at you. 

“Thats cute,” You note, watching the way his ears flush– still the same as when he first met you.

“I like spending time with you too, Hee” You smile, sitting up.

“But I really don’t feel like studying right now..” You whisper, leaning in close, lips ghosting just over his.

“Maybe..” He visibly swallows, “Maybe we can..extend the break then?” 

You hum in response, swinging one of your legs over his to straddle his thigh, his hands settle on your hips, grabbing onto the soft flesh.

“Y/n–” You silence his words in a kiss, hands resting on his chest, pulling the fabric of his shirt closer.

He moans into your mouth, you take the opportunity to slip your tongue in, him mirroring the action the same way he tried to do last time, but better—you pull back to catch your breath but he doesn't let that last for long, his hand coming up to cup the back of your neck, pulling you back onto his lips, earning a surprised gasp from you. 

You experimentally roll your hips against his thigh, the friction of his sweatpants against your shorts making you even wetter.

His hands roam up and down your back, wanting to feel all at once. You take the opportunity to slip your hand from his chest, palming him over his sweatpants– his cock already hard, desperate, and craving your touch. 

“Y/n..” He breathes against your lips, you move your hand to slip it into his waistband—

“Wait– y/n.. Hold on–” He whispers, even as his body leans into the touch.

You respond by kissing just below his jaw, he tilts his head giving you more access,

“Hmm?” you hum in response, “I need–” He lets out a low sound when you suck on the most sensitive part of his neck—his adams apple. 

“I need to ask you something..” He breathes out “...first–” You bring your hand lower, just under the elastic of his briefs before his hand leaves your hip and stops it.

“It– it’s important, I just need to say it–” your lips ghost over his neck, “It’s something Clair told me I–” You pause over his neck, pulling back to look down at him, 

“Clair?” You question, retracting your hand from his waistband to rest back on his chest.

He nods, “Yeah– you met her at that party, she’s one of my…friends”

You roll your eyes, “What did she say?” You question, licking your lips. 

“I just need to know that it’s not true—I told her it was ridiculous and that she was lying, but I need you to tell me–” he blinks once, trying to gather the words.

“Okay..” You say, an anxious feeling bubbling in your chest. 

He breathes out once, “She—she told me you were um.. Using me? Which I don’t know what you would use me for I mean– look at you, what could you possibly use me for you know?..”

He continues, not quite looking at you, “She uh said.. That she overheard you talking with your friends– that it was some ego boosting game?” He questions, “I don’t know– I just, it can’t be true right? You wouldn’t use the way I feel to feed into that–” You swallow, your breath catching in your throat

“Y-you wouldn't do that, you wouldn't play me–we have something, right? Y/n–” His chest rises and falls, waiting for you to respond– waiting for you to deny it, fuck just say something, anything. 

But that's not true– is it? Is that what you were doing the whole time and you were completely unaware, or maybe a part of you was aware of it– liked it even.

But Heeseung cares about you, he likes you, not just the front you put up, but he likes you.

This Clair girl– she completely is twisting your words, putting these thoughts in Heeseungs mind– you knew she liked him, but doing this, fuck you can’t even think straight because a part of it almost does feel real

“Y/n?” He questions, voice shaky. “T-thats not what this is right?” He asks, searching your face for something to tell him that Clair was lying.

You open your mouth to speak– but close it when nothing comes out.

“Please tell me it’s not true..” He breathes out, throat dry.

“Hee–” You start but his hands fall from your hips, he shifts to stand up, leaving you sitting on the couch, legs draped in an awkward position, shorts ridden up–  

“I can’t believe I let myself actually think–” He runs a hand through his hair “..that a girl like you could like me– fuck, im pathetic.” he whispers to himself, he can’t even bring himself to look at you.

“Y-you’re not pathetic Heeseung–” Your voice cracks

“No, I am–im an idiot for actually– I should have known.” He reaches down, grabbing his notebook and pencils from the coffee table.

“Let me explain Hee.. s-she’s not telling the..” He shoves his stuff in his bag, ears ringing– he needs to get out of here right now.

He's already humiliated, crying in front of you would just make it worse.

“No. because you couldn’t even deny it when I asked y/n– you couldn’t even make up a lie or anything.” He says, now fully looking at you. 

“I..I can’t do this. I can’t be here right now” He says, voice breaking. You stand up, reaching out for him but he steps back.

because if you touch him right now, he'll completely break, right here on your living room floor.

“Don’t go Hee– don’t.. let me explain,” You don’t even care for the way your eyes blur from the tears threatening to fall

He looks away, he can’t see you like this.

“You don’t have to worry about your reputation or what people think anymore…I—don’t make me feel any more stupid then I already do..please.” He whispers, lips trembling, you lower your hand to your side, watching him as he walks out, not even slamming the door behind him—instead, shutting it gently, and somehow it feels even worse.

-

He's avoiding you.

He's been avoiding you for the past few days–like actually, no staring at you when you two happen to be in the same room, no random pictures from him showing you the newest addition to his figure collection, nothing.

Just radio silence. 

Sunoo and Yunjin both give each other a look as you pick at your food with your fork,

“Babes..you haven’t actually eaten your food this whole time.” Yunjin says, drawing your eyes up to her.

You blink once, pushing your designer sunglasses up your nose– a weak attempt in masking how puffy your eyes are. 

“Not hungry” You mumble, continuing to poke at your food. “You just said you were craving it–” Sunoo says, watching you with an almost unbelieving look.

“Guess I was wrong” You sigh, picking up the tray. “Where are you going?” Yunjin asks, brow raised. “I’m just going to find something at home. I’ll see you guys later” You say, attempting to offer that smile of yours before leaving.

You open your small pantry, looking for something, when your eyes land on it, the ramen– the specifically designed buzz light year ones that you got for him. Sitting on the shelf, unopened.

Oh he's pathetic huh? You reach in, grabbing it to make something you’ll actually eat. 

Don’t do it.

Don’t open the messages app. Don’t click on his contact, and definitely do not type a message to send.

You: Hey, are we still on for tutoring tomorrow?

This is probably why you should have stayed with Yunjin and Sunoo. You swipe out of the messages, pretending to scroll through social media as you wait for a reply, taking another bite of the surprisingly good ramen. Fuck—he really does know his stuff.

You swipe back into the messages, watching as the bubbles show up, just to disappear, then show up again.

Hee: I can’t, but I’ll set you up with someone else instead

Someone else? Is he serious right now?

You: Is this a joke?

Hee: Im sorry

Hee: I have things to work on myself

There he goes, still apologizing.

You: you can’t even face me? Heeseung seriously?

You: can we meet up?

You: let me explain

Hee: Im sorry y/n, im busy

Hee: You’ll get an email of who you will be assigned to

You: I don’t want to be assigned to anyone else

You: I’m not going I don’t care

Hee: How will you keep your grade up then?

You: maybe with you tutoring me?

Hee: Y/n, I can’t. 

Hee: I’m sorry but I just can’t be around you right now

You: Im not going unless its you

Hee: I have to go

Hee: I'm sorry, good luck

“Fucking hell–” You whisper to yourself, setting your phone face down on the counter. Why does it feel like someone is squeezing your heart right now– A dry laugh leaves your throat, void of any amusement.

You swore to yourself, you swore you wouldn't let a boy out of all things make you feel this way.

But low and behold, Lee fucking Heeseung is the one to have you feeling like this on a Wednesday afternoon.

Or maybe it's yourself, maybe it really is your fault, maybe you even deserve this. 

-

“Uh– what are you doing here?” Jake asks, walking into his and Heeseung's shared apartment.

“Working on the code for my game,” Heeseung answers, not bothering to look up.

“Oh so you’re not watching porn?” Jake asks sarcastically, grabbing water from the fridge. 

Heeseung looks up, “Dude– what?”

Jake rolls his eyes, “Im fucking with you, but seriously you’ve been acting weird for the past week. It’s starting to freak me out.” He says, coming around the kitchen counter to look at Heeseung's computer. 

“And for the first time in like–forever, you’re here on a Thursday, aren’t you supposed to be tutoring too–” Jake starts,

"I'm not doing it anymore.” This time Jake actually pauses, “Like, not tutoring y/n– The y/n, like the sane girl you’re obsessed with?” He questions, unbelieving.

“Everyone was right about her. A girl like her wouldn't actually be interested in me. I should have listened but I was stupid, and.. And greedy.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “And I treated Clair like shit over it– I called her a liar, Im an asshole.” Heeseung swears, shutting his computer and rubbing his hand over his face. 

“Clair huh?” Jake says, sitting down. “Y’know, she actually asked me if you were going to that party tomorrow.”

Heeseung looks up, “What’d you say?” 

“I said you hated parties, but I’d still mention it because I know damn well being in here, sulking isn’t going to help at all.” Jake admits, standing up.

“And you kind of look like shit right now– how many hours of sleep did you get last night anyway–” he starts, observing his face.

Heeseung looks away, “Fine, ill go. But the second I hate it I'm leaving and coming back here to play league.” He says, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, yeah– I'll just make sure you don’t hate it.” He says, a too proud smirk on his face.

- 

Jake claps him on the shoulder too hard, “Loosen up man, it’s friday–” Heeseung runs a hand through his hair, looking around at the sea of bodies all together in some frat house.

“Yeah, a friday I could be spending getting my rank in league higher. y’know people actually get paid sometimes for it–” Jake gapes at him,

“See, this is why we needed to get you out. Look–I love that game and all, but you need to live a little, especially after the shit that went down with you know who.” He makes a face at the last words. 

Heeseung pauses, “Wait– you don’t think she's gonna be here tonight.. Right?” He swallows, looking around–scanning the crowd.

“Don’t worry about her, just get a drink– plus, im pretty sure Clair was looking for you..”

Panic bubbles in his chest, “I feel like I shouldn’t talk to her– I mean she probably doesn't even want to talk to me.” Heeseung says, rambling on as Jake guides him to the makeshift bar in the kitchen.

Jake just nods along, pouring himself and Heeseung a drink and handing it to him.

“Whats this?” Heesueng asks, smelling the contents in the cup. “Something that will make you a whole lot less anxious,” Jake says through a laugh. 

Heeseung swallows, throat dry– maybe this is what he needs, a break. Something to help him disassociate from his brain for a little bit, get away from the overthinking.

He takes the cup without another word, downing whatever his friend put together. “Alright– that works too.” Jake says, sipping his own drink.  

And that's how Heeseung got here now, oversized hoodie discarded somewhere in the house, laughing with Jake and some guys he introduced him to.

Actually sort of fitting in, and this time he doesn’t feel like some outsider. What would you think though? Seeing him like this– in a world you're so familiar with. 

Even though the music is loud, the room a bit crowded, the crisp night air from outside lingering in, doing little to mask the smell of alcohol and sweat, they looked..relaxed.

“You ever smoked before?” Sunghoon, the tall guy who he can now put a name to says, taking the joint from Jakes fingers. 

He hesitates for a second, Jake glancing at him giving him that questioning look, “Not really.” Heeseung admits, Sunghoon nods,

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He says casually, “This shits pretty strong—my boy Jay got it for us,” Sunghoon says, nudging his friend's shoulder. 

Heeseung exhales, looking around the room once again, this is his choice– “Nah, its fine” Heeseung says, reaching out for it “I’ll try it.”

Jake's eyebrows raise at that “Hell yeah, this is what I meant by loosening up man,” 

“Just don’t–” Jake says too late, the first inhale is a mistake, his throat burns, he turns away immediately as his friends start laughing “-rush.”

“Im fine–” Heeseung manages to say in between coughs “Im good– it’s good.” 

“You sure? You look like you’re dying–” Jay says with a grin on his face. “I’m not dying– it’s just, strong.” Heeseung says, “That's how y’know it's good.” Jay adds, He hands it back to Sunghoon, shaking his head to reset himself. 

He takes another sip of his drink, the alcohol already helping with making things feel lighter, “..I don’t really feel anything.” He says, leaning over to Jake. “Give it a second,” His friend says with a smirk. 

And then he feels the shift, not all at once– but just enough to know that they weren't lying when they said it was strong.

The loud rap song on the speaker fades, like it's further away now. His shoulders relax as he exhales slowly, “..damn.” Heeseung mutters, “What?” Jake whispers.

Heeseung cracks a smile, subtle. “Nothing. I just– it–” He blinks once, he can’t put it into words, but somehow everything does feel lighter. Like the tension that's been in his body for the past week is just..gone.

“You good?” Sunghoon asks, an amused grin on his face. “Yeah,” Heeseung nods, leaning back against the wall. “I’m good.” 

“Heeseung?” His eyes follow the voice, Clair.

“Oh, hey–” He says, turning his attention towards her rather than the group, earning a side eye from Jake before he goes back to talking.

“You made it..” She says, almost sounding relieved. “Yeah, I uh– look,” He breathes, “I wanted to apologize for how I acted the other day, because you–” He looks down at his feet, “I think you were right, and I shouldn't have–”

She interrupts him “Its fine Heeseung, I forgive you.” Something flashes in her eyes, “I’m just glad we don’t have to worry about her anymore,” She says, smiling up at him.

Worry about her? He questions to himself, but shakes his head–mind already fuzzy.

“Babe, you don’t have to worry. Use tonight to finally relax, you love parties remember?” Yunjin says, smile bright on her face. Sunoo checks his reflection in his phone camera as you three approach said party.

“I don’t know– I really feel like I need to think about the stuff with Heeseung, he's probably sitting at home alone, I just feel bad and I never got the chance to tell him–” You continue on as you enter the house. 

Sunoo cuts you off, “I don’t think you have much to worry about.” Your eyes follow his, landing on Heeseung.

Laughing with a group, drink in hand, and none other than that fucking girl who can’t keep your name out of her mouth–practially glued to his side. You feel the heat rush to your face, “Shit–” Yunjin says, giving Sunoo a look, he shrugs. 

“Y/n, we can leave now if you want–” She starts, giving you a worried look,

“No,” You say bluntly, grabbing yourself a drink. “I’d seriously rather not,” You watch as he runs a hand through his hair, laughing at something Sunghoon said. 

“We should say Hi,” You look at Sunoo and Yunjin, smiling. Except it doesn't quite meet your eyes. “Are you sure that's a good idea–” Sunoo says through a laugh, “Okay, nevermind she's going.”

“Look who finally decided to show her pretty face,” One of the guys says, you don’t even know who it is, because all you’re focused on is Heeseung’s face when he sees you.

Yunjin and Sunoo come behind you, greeting everyone else. You haven't even looked at Clair once, no point in wasting time on a liar like her.

Your eyes land on the joint in between his fingers that Sunghoon just passed him, “You smoke now?” You ask, tilting your head. His eyes travel back up to your face immediately, not even aware of how obvious he was with it.

“I– No–” You look down at his hand, he swallows, “I just–” You hum in response, lifting his hand on your own, bringing it to your mouth.

His lips fall open slightly as you inhale, slow, practiced, even though you haven't smoked in forever. 

“Damn,” One of the guys–presumebly Jay says, watching the scene. Sunoo chuckles, shaking his head knowingly.

“So you like parties now?” You ask, he looks down at your lips, watching as they move– fuck he’s not even listenting right now. 

“Huh?” He asks, blinking once. “I asked if you like parties now,” You repeat, ignoring the glare the girl beside him is giving you.

“I mean, I don’t– Jake dragged me here.” He says, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. You watch as Clair tugs on the short sleeve of his plain white shirt, you mask the surprise at that–normally it would be some band or animated character on it.

He looks at her for a split second and she leans up to whisper something in his ear.

“What was that?” You ask, “Y/n–” Heeseung starts but Clair interrupts him. “I was saying, you need to leave him alone.” She says, and you scoff– looking at her, Jake's eyes look between the three of you like he can’t believe what's going on. You don’t even care who's looking at this point either.

“He’s a big boy, he can speak for himself.” You say, not sparing her a glance.

“Can you not be such a bitch for like five seconds–” This time he looks at her, already taking a step back,

“Oh, I’m the bitch? I’m not the one who twisted my words into something just so you could be on his good side.” You say, the accusation makes her freeze.

“You don’t deserve him–” She starts,

“Please, stop.” Heeseung says, you look at him–the anxiousness in his slightly red eyes. She still continues, “Stop!” He nearly yells, way louder than intended, his ears going red at the heads that turn. 

“Y/n– can we please just..talk outside, maybe?” He asks, you shake your head, a dry chuckle leaving your throat. “You seem pretty occupied Heeseung.” He opens his mouth to speak but closes it when you walk away, disappearing down the same hall your friends wandered off to a little bit before that. 

“Fuck..” He whispers to himself, regretting whatever amount he drank, and most of all whatever the fuck he smoked. “I need to–” He pauses, closing his eyes for a second, “-I need to go talk to her, I cant–” He looks down at the girl beside him,

“Is it true?” He asks, genuine hurt in his expression, “Is what true?” She swallows, “You, twisting her words– did you lie to me?” He asks, searching her face for something honest. “I–”

The hesitation is enough. 

The next words that leave her mouth are muffled by the sound of the insufferable music playing on the speakers, and overlapping voices of people talking and shouting. He doesn’t even know where he's going, he doesn’t know what he's doing–what he's going to say to you when he sees you, “Y/n?” He shouts, knocking on a closed door, when no one replies he moves on, 

He's said the words “Excuse me” and “Sorry” over ten times in the last five minutes, pulling his phone out of his pocket, texting you would make total sense right—dead. Of course his phone is dead right now, out of any time.

This is what he gets for playing geometry dash for the first 30 minutes here. 

Who the hell can even afford a house this big anyway while also being a college student. He doesn’t even bother knocking anymore, immediately regretting it when he walks in on a guy who, if he's not mistaken, had two girls in the bed with him, his face going red immediately before yelling a “Shit I-im– Sorry!” and slamming the door shut.

You check yourself in the mirror one more time before opening the door, only to see none other than Lee Heeseung already standing there. Hand reached out to open the door, he brings it back to his side awkwardly, “Hi–” You raise a brow, “Hi.” 

Why didn’t he fucking rehearse this? “Did you um– How was the tutoring?” He asks, shifting on his feet.

You chuckle dryly, “I didn’t go.” You say plainly, his face changes to concern. “You need the tutoring though– your grade..” 

“And you’re seriously talking to me about tutoring right now?” He shakes his head “Sorry– I’m just..” He sighs, "I'm really nervous right now, I can’t–” He breathes out, “I don’t like how we left things– how I left things.” 

“You’ve been avoiding me for days.” You state, trying to keep your voice that steady tone. “I know, I know– it was stupid of me, I shouldn't have–where are you going?” You move past him, “I’m not talking about this in the middle of a house party.” 

“Please Y/n–”

“So are you coming or not?” He doesn't hesitate before following after you, looking down at your phone as you send your friends a text he doesn’t have enough time to read. You ignore the looks as you and Heeseung make your way to the front door, 

“I shouldn’t have avoided you like that.” He says, falling into step beside you. Cursing himself for forgetting his hoodie, but no way was he going back in there when he had you right here. 

When you don’t say anything he continues, “I just– I was confused when you hesitated, when I asked you about the whole thing..” He says quieter, looking at your side profile under the streetlights.

“About me using you?” His steps falter for a moment, “Yeah, that.”

“I honestly think I was an idiot–I mean, expecting you out of all people to actually like a guy like me.” He chuckles at the thought, “Hee–” You pause on the sidewalk, “I–” You look up at him, “I should have been honest with you– I shouldn't have hesitated when I knew it wasn’t true– but I did say some things..”

You watch his face for a reaction “It's just, your attention felt different to me, like you actually liked me, not just the surface level either and I just– I guess I thrived off of it in a way?” You cringe at the idea,

“And I regret it.. I regret it so much Heeseung.” You don’t even register the first tear that slips out until his hand comes up to your face immediately to wipe it away, “Shhh, don’t cry–don’t,” He breaths, retracting his hand– because he doesn’t deserve to touch you.

“I don’t regret anything we did though,” You clarify, looking up at him, he turns away, continuing to walk beside you, “I’m sorry,” He whispers, you look at him confused, "I'm sorry for being a coward, f-for walking out on you.” 

“Im sorry for not being honest with you Heeseung– because I like you, a lot. Probably way more than I should, and definitely more than I thought.” You say, a dry chuckle leaving your throat.

“I like your stupidly perfect hair even after you run your hands through it every second– I like how you’re so open about your interests even if some people think it’s weird, I think your toy story fascination is really funny and cute actually, and I like that I can actually be myself around you..” 

“I hate that I made you doubt any of that.”

He pauses in front of you, looking past your shoulder at your apartment complex. “Y/n–” He starts, but you shake your head, “You don’t have to reply to me now– ” He takes a step forward

“Look y/n– I really, really want you in my life– I know it might be selfish but I just.. I can’t let you go.” He takes a surprising step closer, “And I understand if you don’t want to–but, can we at least be friends?” 

What the fuck? 

Friends? Seriously? You just practically poured your heart out, and he’s talking about friends! Did you mis-read the situation?

“Friends?” You ask, searching his face, He nods, waiting for an answer. You close your eyes for a moment before looking at him again, “Okay, friends.”

He lets out a relieved sound before pulling you into an embrace, you’re caught off guard, hands awkwardly at your sides before you lift them slowly to wrap around his body. 

“We can put the..stuff that happened in the past too–”

No! A part of you wants to scream, push him back, tell him that's not what you want–that you don’t get jealous over something as stupid as a guy, and yet here you are. 

“I.. Okay” You nod against his chest, he pulls back, hands braced on your shoulders, and he’s smiling–actually fucking smiling. “I can walk you up to your apartment–” he starts,

“No,” You quickly say, and yes– because you need a moment to think about what the fuck you’re doing, and because you don’t know what you’ll do if you’re in his presence for another five minutes. 

You chuckle awkwardly, “No–Like, I’m fine–really, I can do it myself,” His hands come to his sides, “Okay! um, great” He nods, “Text me when you’re up there then–shit nevermind, my phone kind of died at the party, I was playing geometry dash for like the first thirty–”

He watches your expression “-Sorry, im rambling again– I should probably go.” He rubs the back of his neck, “Heeseung.” You say,  bringing his attention back to you, “You’re not going back to the party right?”

He shakes his head immediately, “I was just going to go back to my place anyways– I think I've had enough of the ‘party life’ for one night,” He says through a laugh. you nod, slightly relieved before offering a tight smile, “Good,” he lifts his hand to wave– that awkward one that used to make you cringe, but now, you can’t help but find it adorable. He doesn’t leave until you’re inside of the building.

-

“..No fucking way–” Jake says mid laugh, right in Heeseungs face. “I just– I didn’t know what to do, or say, so that's why I did it.” Heeseung murmurs, running through the code for his game once again. 

“Yeah, well it was a stupid move–I mean, you, out of all people, being friends with Y/n.” He laughs again, “Seriously its fucking comedic” Heeseung finally looks up, “Whats that supposed to mean?” 

“Dude, im just saying– she’s not the kind of girl you can just be friends with, especially you.” His eyes fall to Heeseung's monitor, “Holy shit– it’s turning out good, you think it’ll be ready by Saturday?” He says, changing the topic. 

Heeseung shakes his head, “Yeah I just have to run through it a few more times, It’s still a bit choppy.” Jake chuckles, “Alright, let me know if you need any help– I know im not participating in it professionally and all but I still do this for fun y’know.” Heeseung nods, mind still replaying his other words. 

He can totally be friends with you! Who cares if he has had a crush on you for months, who cares if he almost actually had you– like really had you. Friends make sense, obviously. No complicated feelings just–normal, like nothing happened..right?

“Wait,” Jake says, leaning in closer–watching as a new screen pops up, a character model loading in. A little rough around the edges, but it’s the most detailed one he's shown so far.

Heeseung pauses, finger hovering over his mouse, “What–” , “Why does she look familiar?” Jake asks, brow raised.

Heeseung stills for a moment before shrugging, “Nah, she doesn’t” He resorts casually–at least attempting to. “She does.” Jake counters back,

“She’s quite literally just a character,” Heeseung says through a chuckle. “Yeah, with a specific attitude, face—body.” Heeseung rolls his eyes, “You’re reaching right now.”

Jake laughs, standing up, “The hair, really? Pink?” Heeseung looks at his screen again, “It’s just a design choice.” He simply says. “You sure it’s not just a distraction, so people don’t recognize who it actually looks like?”

Heeseung scoffs, “It’s not even based on anyone.” Jake nods, unconvinced, “Right..totally random.” Heeseung squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, “..It’s just a lot easier to design a character when you have a reference,” he mutters quietly.

Jake smirks, “Yeah, and you picked her.” He doesn’t answer that. 

“Does she know?” Jake asks skeptically. “Of course she knows!” Heeseung says defensively,

“It was just before the whole..thing happened.” He says, fidgeting with the scroll wheel on his mouse. “Well shit, you can’t change it now–”

Heeseung groans, “Yeah, I gathered that.” He waits for Jake to leave his room before picking up his phone immediately.

Heeseung: hey, sorry if this is random

You: It’s not 

Hee: Oh, okay

Hee: Well it's about my game

You: ???

Heeseung: I understand if you don’t feel comfortable with me using you as a model for one of the characters

You: What?

You: Heeseung, I don’t mind

Hee: Are you sure? I don’t want it to be weird or anything

You: Why would it be weird?

You: didn’t we agree on being friends

You: Friends help each other out, yk

Hee: Sorry

Hee: I'm just really tired

Hee: I've been working on this for hours already today

You: :(

You: Can I help in any way

Hee: you still want to help me?

You: Yes lol

Hee: Actually, if you’re not busy right now could you send me a picture of yourself

Hee: Sorry that sounds creepy

Hee: Its for the game, I want to get your features right

God he's pathetic– he has plenty of pictures of you on his phone already. He bites his lip, watching as the bubbles show up, then disappear. 

“Fuck–” He whispers, opening the image you sent him. It’s nothing explicit or revealing, its just you– a real time selfie, lying in bed, the warm lighting in your room casting subtle shadows on  your face.

You: Is that okay?

Heeseung: Its perfect

Heeseung: the picture is 

Heeseung: I mean you are too sorry

Heeseung: but it works

You can’t help the laugh that escapes your throat, imagining his face right now. God–imagine how he’d react to nudes.

You: haha thanks

Hee: would u be okay stopping by the computer lab tmrw? Not for long or anything I don't want to bore you, just because I want to get the finishing touches

You: yeah sure i don’t mind :)

Hee: Thanks y/n, i really appreciate it

You like the message before you say anything stupid–resisting the urge turning the conversation into something you’d probably regret in the morning. Friends, right– that's it. You’re totally fine with that, this is what friends do!

-

This is seriously the one place where you can’t seem to fit in. And of course, it's exactly where Heeseung thrives. You walk down the narrow aisle, once again trying to ignore the looks you get. Heeseung knows you finally came from the way Jake stops speaking and looks behind him slightly shocked. 

“Hey,” You smile–or at least attempt to. “Hi,” He says, looking up at you. Band t-shirt, and jeans baggy on his frame in an intentional way.

You stare at each other for a moment, he blinks– “Right– um, you can sit here,” He says, pulling out the empty seat next to him. You nod, setting your bag on the ground.

Jake shakes his head, a smug smile on his face as he continues working. “I didn’t interrupt anything right–”

“No!” Heeseung says a little too loud. “I mean– no, you came perfectly– here, like you came on time.” Jake attempts to stifle a laugh beside him.

He clears his throat, “Sorry, I'm just..stressed, I’ve been preparing this for months and I really don’t want to mess it up.” You nod, “It’s okay Hee, you're like really good at this stuff so im sure its amazing already.” He smiles, genuinely, “Its– I..thanks,” 

“I can show you what it looks like so far?” He clicks some buttons you’re not quite sure what they do– “Holy shit,” You watch his screen,

“Heeseung, you made this?” He nods, rubbing the back of his neck, “Yeah, like I said it still needs some more work but I have a few more days.” 

“This is like one of those professional games– I honestly don’t really know much about this stuff but this is—legit.” He bites his lip, smile peaking through. “You mean it?” He asks, watching you’re face as you look at his monitor, “Yeah–yeah, I really do,”

“Can I see the character inspired by me?” You ask, nudging his leg with your foot, an action he still can’t find himself getting used to. His finger hovers over the mouse, “Not yet..” You tilt your head,

“I was actually hoping you would–maybe want to come to the event on Saturday?” He visibly swallows, “I just– you don’t have to or anything, I understand if you’re busy but I do really want you there and um, your support means a lot to me,” He says, the last words fading into something only you can hear.

“I’ll be there,” You say, hand coming down to rest on his knee- casually, like it’s normal, which it should be since your uh..friends?

He looks down at your hand, before making eye contact again, “Are you sure– like positive? I don’t want you to feel forced, and you can bring your friends if you want to– actually I don’t know, I don’t want to make a fool of myself..” He rambles on, doing that thing where his words come out faster than his brain can process it.

You laugh, a small sound–he pauses, looking at you again, “I’ll ask them if they can, okay?” He nods, “Don’t stress so much, those gaming CEO guys would be stupid not to invest in something like this,” You say, gesturing to his screen, your hand absent mindedly rubbing small circles on his leg.

His hand comes down to rest on yours, squeezing gently. And in that moment where his skin meets yours– you swear the whole room disappears.

The looks you can sense you’re getting from Clair, the sounds of the other students talking about whatever code–thingy they’re working on. “Thank you, it– it really means a lot to me.” 

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, once–twice. “I should probably go, my uh class it’s, yeah.” He retracts his hand quickly, nodding three times,

“Right– yeah, sorry.. I don’t want you to be late or anything.” He chuckles, almost nervously. “Yeah that would be bad huh?” You say, quirking a smile.

“I’ll um, I’ll text you more details about it,” Heeseung mutters, watching you pick up your bag.

“I’ll answer,” You say pushing in the chair, “Y-yeah, see you later y/n–” You smile one more time before leaving, heart racing at a concerning speed- not only because of the interaction but because it was with Heeseung, the guy you told yourself was your friend– the one you were trying so hard to convince over.

“Okay what the hell was that–” Jake says, eyeing his friend, “What was what?” Heeseung questions, chuckling,

“That whole..pathetic act thing.” He says, gesturing to Heeseung. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jake laughs, “Man—it’s just both of you huh?” Heeseung shakes his head before turning back to his monitor.

Yeah, whatever that means, anyways what he really needs to focus on is finishing this up– after all this is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. 

-

Heeseungs been busy all week, specifically with finishing up the programming dynamics– or whatever it was he said.

Yet he still offered to make you a video explaining what was happening in your physics class, mostly because you refused to be tutored by anyone else besides him. A part of him felt prideful when you admitted that actually.

The event was being held in the nicer part of the University, a sort of auditorium type of building.

And yet here he is, in the dimly lit computer lab, trying to make sure everything runs perfectly once again. He can’t afford a fuck up, not when hes been waiting for this for so long. 

Jake: dude where are u

Jake: profs looking for u

Jake: u better not be second guessing this

Heeseung: i just wanted to make sure it ran smoothly

Heeseung: im coming back

Jake: hurry up

Jake: y/ns here

Jake: shes asking where you are

Jake: shes walking towards me

Jake: oh shit

“Where's Heeseung?” you ask the boy who you know as Jake, Heeseung's best friend. “Hes uh–” You raise a brow,

“He's in the computer lab, he’s nervous as shit right now and he thinks going through it again is going to help.” You nod, of course he would be. 

Jake looks back down at his phone before typing a quick message

Jake: Good luck

You open the door to the computer lab quietly, the only screen on being towards the front of the room, bright in the dim lighting.

Hes standing up, leaning against the desk, wearing a..suit jacket? “Hee?” You question, walking down the row, he turns to you, surprise etched across his features. 

“Y/n– you came..” He says, looking down at your outfit for a split second, a short summer dress that compliments you a bit too well, he swallows, hand hovering over the mouse.

“Of course I did,” You reply, now standing in front of him. “You’re..pretty dressed up,” You note with a smile. He looks down at his outfit, “Is it too much? I wanted to wear something that would make them take me seriously– y’know what I mean?” He says, smoothing down the black blazer. “Heeseung.” 

His eyes fall on you again, “Yes?” he says quietly. “You look good, okay?” He nods, “Maybe just lose the blazer..” He stifles a laugh “See, I knew it was too much,”

He shakes his head, smile on his face as he unbuttons it, leaving him with a white button up instead. “Better?” He asks, looking for your approval, “Much better.”

His eyes search yours for a moment, “I'm really glad you showed up,” He says, biting his lip out of pure nervous habit, yet you can’t help the way your eyes fall to the action.

You clear your throat, “I brought something for you– I was going to wait till after but maybe it would help cool your nerves.” You say, pulling something out of your bag.

“Okay before you say anything– Sunoo is like really good at finding all this underground stuff and this guy was selling these and I know you were talking about it a few weeks ago..” He tilts his head, amusement spread across his features,

“Who's rambling now?” You roll your eyes, “Shut up and close your eyes or I'm not giving it to you.” He raises his hands instantly, “Alright– alright, sorry,” You grab his hand, placing the box in it. 

He chuckles “What is this–” , “Open,” You watch his face, the surprise spreading, “Holy–” He smiles, “Y/n, how did you–” You attempt to hide your own smile, biting your lip.

He looks at the limited addition Toy Story figurine closer, “Do you– do you know how rare this is? Only 500 were made in 1999–”

Right.. Because of course he would know that. He laughs, disbelieving “You’re incredible, seriously–y/n I..” He doesn’t think twice before wrapping his arms around you, you’re caught off guard at first, one of your hands trailing up to run through the back of his hair, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

You don’t know if you’re just feeling things but you swear he planted a small kiss just between your shoulder blade and neck, He pulls back, "I'm really happy you’re here,” He says, turning off the monitor and falling into step beside you.

You watch Heeseung from the crowd, hand clutched tight around the strap of your bag as he talks off to the side–with Clair. Why the hell is she touching his arm– He looks past her shoulder, spotting you in the crowd, a small smile quirking on his lips before he waves. Your face softens before waving back, 

“I was talking to the developers and they were describing the concepts they were looking for–Heeseung, your game fits right into it.” Jake says, Clair opens her mouth to say something but Heeseung doesn’t even realize he's blocking it out. “Okay– I can do this.” He nods, smoothing down the front of his button up.

He looks around the room at the people sitting down, a mix of students, professors, people from the Gaming development club. Jake watches the worried expression on his face as his eyes land on the front row, the developers– big time CEO’s with their notebooks out, laptops open. “Hey–you’re good..just don’t pass out,” Jake says with a laugh

“That’s helpful.” Heeseungs mutters, wiping his sweat clad hands on his jeans before stepping onto the wide stage, standing behind the podium.

He takes a deep breath, signaling Jake to put the game on the large screen behind him. “Hi everyone– my name is Heeseung, so..this is my game I developed.” 

He tries not to cringe at his own voice, “So, it’s actually more narrative driven rather than pre set choices,” He pauses for a moment, “Whatever decisions the player makes– that's what would affect the character in real time,” He says, his voice carrying a tad bit more enthusiasm.

This is what he knows, this is what he's good at, he picks up the remote on the podium moving onto the next slide, showing the actual game play, the code, what he created on his laptop now being shared in front of a room full of people. “I programmed the system to keep track of the patterns and players choices,” 

He's using his hands to exaggerate now–a thing he does when he's truly passionate about something. You can’t help the smile that plays on your face.

He continues, talking about how the games programming, the code, and a few of the developers lean forward, he swallows, trying not to think too deeply.

His character designs come on the screen next, hushed whispers around you, “How does someone even design that–” A guy next to you says, “Look how detailed the one on the left is–” A girl whispers. 

He looks at the screen before searching the crowd for you, clearing his throat, “The character designs are actually still in progress but I wanted to focus on them feeling real– throughout the gameplay especially, whether it's a fight scene, a task, you name it.” 

Your eyes fall to the developers at the front of the room, nodding, taking notes. It’s silent for a moment until a voice cuts through, one of the developers speaks up, “Walk us through the character tracking system again,” He says– Heeseung nods, this means they're interested, 

“Yeah–okay,” You watch Heeseung get into his element, it’s like the room loosens up as he continues, some people from the crowd raising their hands to ask questions, even compliments directly from the developers. But there's still a tightening feeling in your chest, in the way you’re here supporting him–but as nothing more than a friend.

It’s places like these that you’re not really sure what to do, you watch as Heeseung talks to a few other students, low and behold–with Clair by his side. He searches the room for a moment, but is interrupted when a man in a very nice suit comes up to him, 

“Lee Heeseung?” He questions, Heeseung nods, “Yes sir, that would be me,” He says with an almost nervous smile on his face, “I wanted to give you my card, your game has potential– I mean that truly, and I think you could go places with creativity like that,” The man says, Heeseung reaches out for the card, looking down at it for a moment, “Wait– EN Capital? This– you’re one of the biggest developers in the country–” Heesueng states, eyes wide,

The man nods, “It’s not everyday we scout someone like this Heeseung, so please, take into consideration giving us a call,”

Heeseung nods, “Sir– yes, I’ll definitely be calling–” He says through a disbelieving chuckle. The man nods with a smile on his face before reaching out to shake Heeseung's hand, “I’m excited to see how you progress.”

Heeseung looks around the large room again, “..fucking genius dude, I swear.” Jake says, the words completely blanking in Heeseung's mind,

“Where's y/n?” He says outloud, Jake raises a brow, “One of the most prestigious gaming developers in the country just told you to quote ‘give him a call’ and you’re wondering where the girl who pretty much broke your heart is?” Jake questions, 

Heeseung opens his mouth to speak, but shakes his head, “I need to find her– I invited her,” Heeseung mutters, “She went outside” Jake says, nodding towards the door. Heeseung's eyes follow the motion. “I’ll um.. I’ll be right back” Heeseung mumbles, moving past Jake, “Dude what about–” 

Heeseung makes his way out the room, looking around for you“Y/n–” He calls out, you let go of the door you were just about to walk out of, turning towards him,

“Hey,” You say with a smile, “Where are you going?” He asks, walking up to you. “I was going to head back, I didn’t want to like interrupt or anything,”

“You could never,” He says, watching your face, “You seemed pretty occupied though, not just with the developers..” He tilts his head, “Occupied with who?” He tests, searching your eyes,

“I dunno’.. Clair” He smiles, “What?” You say defensively, “No– nothing, nothing,” He says, a laugh escaping his lips.

“It’s just—are you jealous?” He asks, “I..what?” He nods, humming in response. “I’m not—stop laughing!” You say, slapping his arm lightly. 

“Heeseung–” You nearly roll your eyes, actually no, you do roll your eyes as Clair approaches him. You watch as people begin to file out of the auditorium. Her eyes land on you for a split second, “We were all gonna go hang out at my place to celebrate and everything, do you wanna–” 

“No–” He says too quickly, “I mean– I just, I’m really tired and uh..” He looks at you for a moment, “Im busy” you watch the disappointment across her face.

“Heeseung, if you want to you can..” You say, low enough for him to hear. “No, I want to be with you tonight– I mean right now, like I want to spend time with you” He runs a hand through his hair,

“Look, maybe some other time,” He says to Clair, she scoffs before walking past the both of you. Jake comes up a few moments later, “We’re doing something after if you wanna join, ill text the address,” He says, giving Heeseung his bag, “I’ll let y’know,” Jake shrugs before walking out. 

Heeseung turns his full focus back to you “I can walk you back to your place if you would like?” He says, clearing his throat. You nod, “I would like that,”

He smiles before falling into step beside you. “Y’know, I’m really happy you came tonight– I know I said it already but you probably don’t go to things like that for fun,” He says through a chuckle

You nod, "I've seen how hard you’ve worked on it Hee, plus its the least I can do for you tutoring me and all,” He glances down at you,

“I think you repaid me enough for the lessons” He pauses, “Like- with your kindness not the–” He closes his eyes for a moment, ”Not the other thing– even though yes it was definitely good, I mean I still think about..” He stops, “Sorry—fuck, Y/n please just tell me to shut up.” He cringes at his words,

You can’t help the smile that plays on your face, “Why? It’s kind of cute” 

Thank god you don’t look up to notice the embarrassing shade of red his ears are right now. He pauses once he gets in front of your building, hands awkwardly in the pockets of his jeans. “So….”

“Do you want to come in?” You ask abruptly, catching him off guard. “L-like inside your apartment?” He asks, unsure.

You nod once, “Just like—I have that ramen, the one with buzz lightyear on it.” 

Your hand tightens around the strap of your bag. “..I honestly thought you would have gotten rid of that” He says, searching your face. You shake your head, “I couldn't," You say quietly, and a little bit more shy than intended. “Okay– um, yeah I would love to come in then,” He nods, following you. 

And he means it when he says he’ll never get over the way it smells exactly like you in here. He takes off his dress shoes, placing them neatly against your wall by the front door, next to your platformed sandals that you kicked off casually. 

He leans against your counter as you reach up into your cabinet, his eyes trying to avoid the way your already short dress rides up even higher on your exposed legs. Your hand pauses mid air before you bring it back down to your side, “Do you need help–”

“Heeseung.” You turn to fully face him, he pauses mid sentence, “Yea–Yeah?” He questions, clearing his throat. “Are we seriously about to make ramen right now?” He rubs the back of his neck “I mean-I thought that's what we were doing..” His words catch in his throat when you close the distance.

His eyes fall to your lips and you smirk, “What are you thinking about right now then?” He visibly swallows, licking his own lips instinctively

“Just how good they would taste–” He blinks once, “..The ramen—how good the ramen would taste.” He says, clearing his throat. You hum in response, eyes dropping just below his waistband, he catches that easily. “Yeah? Just the ramen huh?” You say, that familiar teasing tone in your voice that he hasn’t heard for far too long.

“I– What are you doing..” He breathes out, trying to calm the rapid pace of his heartbeat even as you step closer, “You haven’t thought about this– about us recently?” You tilt your head, watching his face for a reaction.

“Of course I have!” He says quickly, “I– y/n it’s all I could fucking think about, just you, touching me, talking to me–like actually telling me about things..” He lets out a chuckle, almost disbelieving, like he wasn’t planning on admitting this, which to be fair he wasn't. 

“Do you know how long I've wanted you?” He asks, you nod “Since the tutoring–” He shakes his head, a small smile on his lips,

“No, econ, 4th row. You were wearing that long sleeve and jeans that fit you perfectly, and I remember you had asked me if I always talk like my brain moved too fast,” He laughs at the memory, “...and you had said almost every day,” you finish for him.

“I know you try to be perfect y/n– I know the expectations you have for yourself, and I know that it leaves no room to actually breathe,” He doesn’t know where this is coming from– but then again, he always talks before his brain processes what he's saying,

“because I have those same expectations for myself– I mean, I'm not as good at it as you but I do.” He sighs, “But when I'm with you– it's different and I guess I was hoping it was the same for you–”

His words are immediately cut off when your lips press against his, your right hand pulling at the collar of his shirt. His eyes flutter shut, melting into you completely, his hands are hesitant–unsure as they come to rest on your waist. You don't pull back far, just enough to whisper “it is the same for me Hee– I always felt it I just.. I guess I didn’t think I deserved it.”

He presses a small kiss to the corner of your lips, “Well if it means something– I think you do..” you laugh softly, raking your other hand through his soft hair. 

“You still want that ramen?” You ask teasingly, he shakes his head quickly “No–no definitely not I want this, here,” He says confidently, you tilt your head, your hand that was on his collar moving lower skimming over his toned chest, cupping the firm bulge of him through his jeans. His eyebrows furrow together at the contact, “Hee, don’t tell me you’re hard just from a little kiss?” You say with a smirk,

He shakes his head, eyes shutting for a moment, “I can’t help it–” He whispers pathetically. You squeeze the bulge and his mouth falls open,

“Gosh.. I seriously don’t understand how you just walk around with a dick this big everyday like it’s nothing,” his face reddens at how filthy your words are.

“Feel how bad I want you right now,” You say, grabbing his hand from your waist, he complies, letting you guide his hand between your legs, he lets out a broken sound when his palm fully cups you. 

You grind down on his palm once, his dick throbs at the contact–the way he can feel you soaking through the thin fabric of your underwear. You hike your dress up so you can move  your underwear to the side, exposing yourself to him completely, “Fuck–” He curses, his finger tips brushing through your folds experimentally. You moan at the contact– uncontrolled and all for him,

“Just like that– Hee..” You brace your hands on his shoulders when his fingertip grazes your clit, “Right there?” He asks curiously, a part of him needing to get this right because he needs to make you feel good.

You nod, biting your lip when he experimentally squeezes your clit between his index and middle finger, making you even more wet,

He chuckles, “It's– it’s kind of hard because it's so wet” He notes, the pad of his finger tips teasing your hole unknowingly.

Your cheeks heat in embarrassment, he notices “I like it” He says, watching your face morph into pleasure, “Why—why are you so good at this?” You breathe out,

“I use my fingers a lot—for like typing and stuff, coding y’know?” You moan when the tip of his middle finger enters your hole cautiously, his eyebrows raise. “Y-yeah right” 

He repeats the motion, this time using the opportunity to push deeper, you clench around his fingers and he feels his cock throb inside of his jeans, “its so…warm” He notes, “Try curling your finger–” Your words fade into a whimper when he does exactly that,

“Hee..Heeseung–wait,” He repeats the motion again, brushing inside of you with each curl of his slender finger. 

“Not here–” You breathe out, your grip tightening on his shoulder. “Your room?” He questions, inching his finger out, you nod,

“…you’re so pretty” He says sitting on the edge of your bed, “Yeah?” You ask, watching him move back until he's against your pillows. “What do you want, Heeseung?” He swallows, "Whatever you give me honestly–” 

“Ever had a girl ride you?” You ask, climbing on the bed with him, legs tucked under you as you settle between his legs. He shakes his head a bead of sweat forming just above his eyebrow.

“I kind of like that I'm the only one who's seen you like this,” You say, finger tracing innocent circles on his thigh. “I like it that way” He admits, avoiding looking down at the embarrassing way his dick twitches at the featherlight touches his thigh.

“Cute,” You say with a sweet smile, opposite of the way your fingers make contact with the buttons on his shirt. You remove it with ease, the slightly sharp tip of your nail sending heat straight to his dick as you trace his abdomen.

You lean down, pressing a kiss to the center of his chest, his hands grip into the sheets of his bed when your tongue ghosts over his nipple, “Fuck– y/n..I can’t–” His hips buck forward, searching for any form of friction

“Ive been wanting you inside me for so long Hee,” His eyes roll when your hand comes in contact with his cock, even through the jeans you can feel the heat of him. “Wanna feel you so bad– I need it..I can’t–” He whines, you sit up, watching as he frantically works to take off his jeans. 

You move from between his legs, pulling the straps of your dress down, letting it fall limply to the floor. His own hand palms his cock through his boxers when he sees you’re not even wearing a fucking bra.

“Please–can I?” He asks, watching as you climb back on top of him. You chuckle “Acting like you’ve never seen my tits before Heeseung,” 

“Been too long–” He says desperately, his hand hesitating, looking at you for approval before he touches you. You nod and both of his hands immediately cup your breasts. He’s almost massaging them in his hands, “I- I can’t believe you’re letting me do this..” He whispers, thumb swiping over your nipples, you grind down once against him and his movements falter–

“I’ll cum if you keep doing t-that” He regrets admitting that when you do it again, drawing a wrecked sound from him. His ears heat up in embarrassment at how loud he is, Your hand comes up to his cheek, “Don’t be embarrassed Hee– I love when you’re vocal for me,” He leans into the way you touch his face, the action making you feel even more warm inside.

His eyes don’t leave yours as he presses a kiss directly to your nipple, his thumb working the other one. He’s not quite sure what he's doing– this just feels right. His tongue darts out, slightly unsure, licking just around the sensitive bud. “H-Hee..” Your hand moves to his hair, raking through the soft strands, pulling him closer. 

“I want this so bad..” He whispers, eyes fluttering shut when he sucks on your nipple. You hiss when his teeth graze it, tugging his hair, he groans at the pull. He alternates to the other side, not wanting to leave a single part of your body untouched. “I could do this forever– I swear I could,” You grind your hips down harder against him, “D-don’t–” He whimpers, looking up at you. 

Instead, you lean down to kiss him, moving your hips in a back and forward motion, the tip of his dick hitting you perfectly through the thin fabric of your underwear. “Gonna cum?” You ask between kisses, he nods frantically, tongue darting out, begging for entry back into your mouth. 

You pull away and he whines, hand glued to your chest. You shake your head with a smile before reaching for the waistband of his boxers, you peel them off, revealing his flushed cock, now resting heavy on his pelvis, precum already drooling down. You lick your lips, already moving to slide off your own underwear. 

He's watching in awe– because you are actually in front of him right now– naked, practically fucking glowing. When you wrap your hand around the base, he automatically thrusts up, easy to do with how wet it is. “Needy much?” You tease, moving your hand up slowly, thumb swiping over the tip, causing another drop of precum to leak, making a further mess on your hand. 

“I c-can’t help it..” He mutters out, cheeks flushed, hair sticking to his forehead, chest glistening with a thin layer of sweat already. You hover over him, angling the tip of his cock, you swipe it through your folds once–twice, mixing both of your arousal together, the warmth already draws a moan from him. “W-wait..” He says, hand reaching for your wrist.

You pause, looking at him, “Don’t we need a– um.. Condom?” You tilt your head, amusement on your face, “I’m on the pill Hee, plus I want you to cum inside of me.” You’re going to kill him, like he’s actually going to pass out right now. 

You position his tip just before your entrance, before sinking down. The stretch is almost immediate, your pussy greedily sucking him in. “Oh my God–” His eyes flutter shut, hands reaching out to hold onto your hips. “Y-you’re so big Heeseung–” You’re already clenching around him, his hips involuntarily thrust up and you whimper,

“Shit–sorry, y/n..oh—” You sink down further, completely enveloping his thick cock inside of you. Your hands are braced against his chest now, “A-are you okay?” He asks, voice rough. You laugh lightly causing you to clench tightly around him. You experimentally grind your hips forward, both of your moans mixing together. 

His hands wander, squeezing the soft flesh of your ass as you grind against him. He nearly chokes on air when you lift yourself up halfway just to slam back down against him, his finger digging deeper into your hips– “Y/n– wait!” You repeat the movement and thats when you feel it– warmth inside of you. 

His eyes are wide in worry– “I-Im sorry.. Im sorry–please” a whimper leaving his lips as cum leaks from his still hard dick. “Shhh.. it’s okay Hee,” He shakes his head, “I promise I can go longer– I just need to practice more” He tries to convince you, but you’re already set on making him cum again.

You lean back, spreading your legs wider, hands splayed behind you on his thighs to support yourself. You lift your hips, causing his cum to leak out of you and trickle down his length, making an even bigger mess. It’s so messy but he could care less,

His cum acts as lube, allowing you to move even more smoothly, the sounds coming from the both of you are borderline pornographic, the wet skin on skin every time you slam your hips back down against his. 

Your mouth hangs open, desperate moans escaping as you bounce on his dick, “Heeseung–” You cry out, grinding against him, the tip of his cock hitting just right inside of you, “You look so pretty right now–” He says through a needy whine, his eyes don’t know what to focus on– the way your tits move each time you grind forward, your face, or where you two connect right now.

He tries something– moving his finger from your hip, applying pressure to your puffy clit instead, your hips jerk forward, pussy clamping tight around him. The rhythm you had moments ago falters, replaced by desperate grinds against him as you chase your orgasm, his thumb rubs small circles on your sensitive bud, “I’m gonna cum Hee– I can’t” You cry out, leaning forward again, bracing your hands on his chest “Yes– fuck, please use me–” His thumb still works, his own hips attempting to thrust up, your nails scratch at his chest as a new wave of pleasure crashes over you.

He pulls you closer, pressing a kiss to your jaw, his dick throbbing inside of your warmth, your juices leaking down, covering his balls and making a mess on your sheets. His hands travel from your hair, smoothing it down to your back, “I’m gonna’ cum again–please?” He says, looking up at you. His dick twitches inside of you when you nod, his hands cup your ass in his hands, lifting you slightly– again, he’s trying to find his rhythm here too, contemplating if this is right, but it feels amazing.

He thrusts up once, earning a surprised gasp from you, he could fucking explode with the way your tits bounce in his face, the wet sounds filling your room contrast with both of your moans, his fading into whimpers as his hips move faster, almost using your hole as his own fuck toy. He captures one of your nipples in his mouth, his sounds muffled around the sensitive bud, the vibration sending shockwaves straight to your core.

“S-slow down–Hee.. Shit!” He's practically drilling into you, completely lost in the feeling of you, the sounds you're making–your face driving him even more. He pulls you down against him each time his hips lift forward, his tongue licking at your chest desperately. His grip on you is bruising as he delivers one final thrust–deep, the feeling of his cum spilling inside of you, driving your second orgasm, your pussy milking him dry as your own juices mix with his. 

His hands move from your ass to your waist, resting gently, soothing your sides as you both catch your breath. “That–that was..” Heeseung says, “Yeah,” You breathe, fingers running lazily through his soft hair. 

Eventually you two muster the strength to get up, your sensitive bodies still tingling with the nerves of pretty much the best sex you’ve ever had. 

You watch him closely as he reaches for a soft tissue from the pink box on your nightstand, he may be inexperienced in this field but he's not an idiot. “Is this okay?” He asks, cleaning you up– you nod,

“Are you okay?” He looks up at you for a second, “I–” he takes a deep breath before continuing “I don’t want this to be casual,” He says, eyes focused on gently swiping the tissue. Your face softens, “I don’t want it to be like before with the whole ‘favor for tutoring’ thing– I like you, really like you– if you couldn’t tell..” He bites his lip nervously,

“Is this your way of asking to be my boyfriend Lee Heeseung?” This time he looks up, “You would let me?” he asks, a sparkle of hope in his eyes, “I– this isn’t how I wanted to ask you, I need to get you flowers and—and a date,” He runs his hand through his slightly damp hair, you let out a small laugh,

“Calm down Hee, I really like you too,” You say through a smile. “..and yeah, I would let you..” He mirrors your smile, relief on his face as you pull him down—because being here, tangled with you, is exactly where he wants to be

-

Bonus

Heeseung would normally be spending his Friday night in his room, probably waiting for league to load in while he scrolls through the most random twitter threads. But being with you allows him to.. Step out of his shell more, even if it is involuntarily.

What was supposed to be a small hangout that consisted of a few of your friends and probably Jake to celebrate finals week ending, had turned into a big gathering at your local Korean BBQ place. Jake being Jake decided to invite nearly everyone from class after raving about how they “changed the menu”.   

His eyes stray to you, laughing at something that Sunoo said, Yunjin on the other side of him playfully shoving him. “..Hey, i’m headed out” Clair says, walking over to where Heeseung stands. You watch as she…hugs him. His hand awkwardly pats her back and you swear you could throw the chopsticks in your hand at her stupid face. “Bye everyone!” She says with a bright smile, you roll your eyes, watching as she leaves. 

Yunjin and Sunoo exchange a look, “Don’t kill her,” Sunoo says, laughing nervously. “Never said I would.” You mutter glancing at Heeseung, he offers a small wave, smile on his face. You scrunch your nose in a mocking way before turning back to your friends. 

Fuck.

“…yeah, well your face says it all,” Yunjin adds, amusement in her tone. “I don’t even care,” Sunoo laughs, earning a glare from you. “Yeah–right, are you gonna eat that?” He asks pointing to the three bites of food on your plate, you scoot it away from him, “Now I am,” You say with a smug smirk, earning a laugh from Yunjin.

You try– you really do, you know jealousy is something you need to work on, but no you’re not jealous right now, totally not at all!

Heeseung looks at you every few minutes– maybe seconds, there's no way you’re upset over a..farewell goodbye..right?

The walk back to his place is quiet. Not the comfortable silence you enjoy yourself in, but the kind where you can feel the tension. Specifically he can feel it–practically radiating off of you. “Is everything good?” He asks, watching you. When your eyes don't even find his, he swallows, lump in his throat. “It’s fine.”

Well shit, “fine” isn’t exactly what a guy wants to hear, why not “great”, or “fantastic” something so his brain can stop spiraling. You nearly scoff when he pulls out his phone. 

He’s pathetic–seriously, he winces before clicking the search bar on twitter: How to get your girlfriend to not be pissed at you

He doesn’t even say anything as you both enter his apartment, you roll your eyes as he walks to his bedroom, sitting at the edge of his bed. “Seriously Heeseung?” You ask, crossing your arms over your chest. He scrolls one more time before looking up at you with wide eyes, “Baby– hold on a second–” He mutters, 

“What are you even looking at?” You ask, attitude leaking through your tone. He shuts his eyes for a moment, “You’re mad at me,” he claims, avoiding eye contact. “And I– I was trying to figure out how to not make you mad at me– it’s stupid and I know it was because of..” , “Clair.” You finish his sentence for him. 

He nods, “I don’t even like her– seriously, like the only reason I have to be around her is because of the club and she’s in me and Jungwon's class–” You roll your eyes, “She’s literally obsessed with you– like it’s so fucking annoying everytime and she knows me and you are together.” His eyebrows furrow together, “I know, trust me I know–” He says, pulling you close, arms wrapping around the back of your thighs. 

“Well I'm not mad directly at you Hee..” You mumble quietly, he looks up at you, “But you’re still upset” He says, hands unintentionally gripping the back of your thighs. “And how exactly was the internet going to help fix that?” You ask lightly, hand running through his disheveled hair.

“I dunno’ it was stupid..” he mutters, reaching for his phone. He scrolls through the threads, angling it to show you. “Get on your knees and beg?” You chuckle, “I’d do it if you asked,” He says casually, “Flowers?” , “In a heartbeat,” His fingers freeze at the next words, Let her sit on your face. You know he's read it when he looks up at you. Your eyes fall to his lips, then to his nose– that perfect slope. He swallows, Adams apple bobbing. “We haven’t really tried it like…that–” He says, wetting his lips. 

“No, we haven't." He nods, slowly. “You said my nose was one of your favorite features about me, remember?” You chuckle lightly, “Of course I remember that.” His hands travel up slowly, casually in a way he’s gotten more comfortable doing ever since you two made it official, his hands ultimately resting on your ass. 

“..so, shouldn’t we put it to good use?” He questions, looking up at you expectantly. A smile spreads across your face, “Since when did Lee Heeseung become such a smooth talker?” He bites his lip through a smile, “it’s only for you pretty,”

He's watching you now, eyes zeroed in on your hands as they lift your shirt over your head. Your shorts are next, but he makes a sound when your underwear also comes off with them. Bare. You’re bare in front of him, your face flushing that adorable shade of pink he can’t get enough of. 

“C’mere,” You climb onto the bed with him until you're hovering just over his chest. “Heeseung– I don’t want to like… hurt you” His hands are already on your waist, attempting to tug you upwards. “You’re not– I want this” 

The look in his eyes is hungry, you hesitate for a moment before moving forward, until your knees are bracketed beside his head, your pussy right above his face. “Baby–” He breathes out, pulling you flush against his face. 

You gasp at the feeling, sure Heeseung's eaten you out before–plenty of times, but this– this is different. “Oh..fuck–Heeseung!” Your hands are in his hair, pulling the soft strands, he groans into your pussy, pure pleasure. 

His hands are gripping onto your ass, pulling you against him, He pulls off with a wet pop, “Ride my nose– come on, you know you want to,” He urges, giving a teasing lick to your clit. You hum out a response, eyes rolling when he nuzzles into your pussy, the bridge of his sharp nose hitting just right on your sensitive clit each time you move your hips forward slightly. His eyes are shut, completely lost in the feel– the smell of you so close to him. 

He pulls you back down, tongue prodding at your entrance, your hole desperately clenching–searching for fulfillment, and he gives it, he thrusts his tongue in and out of you the best he can, hands massaging your ass, nose applying pressure exactly where you need it. 

“I can–” He slurps once, the noise filthy in your bedroom, “I can never get enough of this–” His tongue flicks over your clit, alternating between sucking, teasing you through pursed lips. “Hee.. I–im gonna cum..” your plea encourages him more. He looks up at your face, your head thrown back, tits bouncing in that light pink bra, mouth hung open, face in pure pleasure.

There's no rhythm, just hunger as he devours you, your grip tightens in his hair as you reach your orgasm, your legs going weak, grinding on his mouth, he holds you there, not letting you up until every last drop of cum is drained out of you, his tongue moving in slow licks over your overstimulated clit, the feeling making your hips jerk. He kisses your pussy once, twice, gentle–completely different from the way he was just tongue deep inside of you.  

You settle on his stomach, still dripping, some getting onto his shirt but he could care less. “That was–” 

“Amazing.” He finishes for you, licking his lips. 

“You’re crazy.” You mumble, a shy smile already on your face.

“Only for you,” he whispers, hands traveling up your waist, your back, urging you to be even closer to him.

-

Nerd gamer heeseung come emp (Im not even joking)

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[yungistiny]

AT THE SAME DAMN TIME

[lemondrop-sunrise]

JEONG YUNHO ⟐ SAY MY NAME