pairing. jeon jungkook x fem!reader genre. yearner!jungkook. workaholic!jungkook. smut. established relationship. exes to lovers. toxic dynamics.
growing tired of your sexual needs being constantly neglected, you end things with your boyfriend. jungkook, however, is determined to convince you to give him a second chance — and promises to give you everything he's capable of this time. after all, a man who yearns is a man who earns.
FOR TEASER word count. 1.3k words warnings. light angst ? public breakup. jungkook begs. mentions of sex. pet names (baby, babe, honey). argument !! accusation of cheating.
Confrontation had always been something you avoided. You hated uncomfortable conversations, hated the way tension sat heavy in the air and turned everything fragile.
But enduring in silence was worse.
It starts small — swallowing your thoughts back, brushing off your feelings, convincing yourself it’s not a big enough deal to mention. Then suddenly, months pass, and boredom settles into places love is supposed to sit.
Jungkook sits across from you in the dimly lit restaurant, elbow propped against the table, his head resting heavily in his palm. Around you, the restaurant is lively — silverware clinking against porcelain, low laughter spilling between candlelit tables, soft conversations blending into the warm ambiance. Maybe even a quiet first love confession happening at a nearby booth, completely unbeknownst to you.
Still, none of it feels louder than Jungkook’s silence.
Because while everyone around you seems to be falling into each other, you and him sit in silent tension. Painfully distant, neither of you even looking at each other.
His glass of wine sits untouched and forgotten between you. Your fingers fidget anxiously in your lap, unsure of what to do with them. And somewhere between the appetizers and silence, a breakup waits patiently — only minutes away from happening.
As Jungkook sits there, quietly processing your admission, you feel the weight of months spent burying your truth begin to lift from your shoulders.
It’s bittersweet.
Relief settles in first. Your chest feels lighter now that you’ve finally said it all, now that you no longer have to force feelings or sidestep the conversations you were too afraid to have. For the first time in months, your conscience feels quieter.
But guilt settles beside it just as quickly, a lingering pang blooming in your gut when you see your boyfriend ex-boyfriend so visibly distressed.
You and Jungkook had been together for nearly a year. Not the longest relationship by any means, but long enough that loving him had become second nature. Long enough for him to know little things about you — like how you hated leaving your toothbrush in the bathroom or how you couldn’t sleep with socks on, no matter how cold it got. Long enough for spare clothes to accumulate each other’s apartments, for two robes to hang in your bathroom, and for his shoe rack to hold an extra pair of slippers despite the fact that he technically lived alone.
Long enough to feel settled. Long enough to already imagine eternity.
Jungkook had been painfully easy to love. Thoughtful. Dependable. Patient in ways that mattered. The kind of person who never raised his voice when he was upset, who noticed little habits you didn’t even realize you had, who showed up without hesitation even when life was heavy on his own shoulders. He checked every box you thought a good partner should have.
However, there was just one he didn’t quite complete.
Your heart is with him, but your body isn’t satisfied.
“Let me get this straight,” Jungkook says, elbows planted against the table, fingers intertwined tightly in front of him. His expression hardens with disbelief. “You want to leave me because we’re not having good sex?”
“Okay, maybe lower your voice,” you mumble quickly, embarrassingly glancing around the restaurant before looking back at him. “Kook, when’s the last time we actually had sex. And I don’t mean morning quickies right before work, I mean like… sex.”
Jungkook exhales through his nose, gaze dropping briefly to the table before reaching for your hand.
“Baby, you know how hard things have been,” he says quietly. “I work, you work. Whenever we have the time, we’re too exhausted. Half the time we barely even see each other.”
“I just don’t get it,” you say, pulling your hand back before he can fully take it. Frustration bleeds into your voice now, embarrassment fading away as something sharper takes its place. “It was never an issue before! We used to have sex all the time, Kook.”
Jungkook’s lip presses into a thin line as he watches you hesitate, like you’re standing on the edge of something you don’t wanna say — a word that feels almost forbidden on your tongue. But you’ve already gone this far.
So it comes out anyway.
“Do you just not love me anymore?”
Jungkook’s expression shifts in an instant.
“What?” he says quickly. “No. No, baby, don’t do that.” His voice softens, quieter now. “You know I love you. That'll never change. Why would you even think that?”
“Can you blame me?” Your eyes sting as you look down at the table. “You barely kiss me anymore, Jungkook. You barely touch me unless we’re leaving for work or going to bed. I feel like I’m constantly begging for your attention.”
“Honey…” He exhales, rubbing a hand over his face. “You know my hours have changed. My position at work is different now, there’s more responsibility and-”
“There you go,” you cut in, voice cracking despite yourself. “That’s exactly the problem.”
You shake your head, blinking hard.
“Every conversation somehow turns back to work. Every excuse is work.” Your chest tightens. “I get that you’re tired, Jungkook, I do. But it feels like your job gets all of you and I just get the short end of the stick.”
“Okay,” Jungkook says quickly, nodding like he’s already trying to solve it. “Okay, I get it. Look, I can take time off work, we can spend more time together and-”
“And then what?” you interrupt, brows knitting together. “We just go back to whatever this is?”
His mouth closes.
You shake your head.
“I don’t want you to fit me into your schedule. I should already be a part of it.”
“Babe, just…” He leans forward now, desperation and panic slipping into his expression. “Just tell me what you need, okay? Tell me what to do. I’ll fix it.”
And maybe months ago, hearing that would’ve been enough.
“I think…” You pause, looking down at your hands. “I think we need to take a break.”
The words land between you and settle into something ugly. The silence is thick and suffocating.
You don’t even have to look up to know Jungkook is staring at you now, eyes widened, nostrils flared slightly like the air had just been punched from his lungs. You can feel it — the disbelief, the panic, the hurt beginning to settle over him.
Because everybody knows what a break means.
At best, it’s the soft launch of an actual breakup — dragging things out before eventually never speaking again. At worst, it’s an excuse to sleep with other people while technically avoiding the guilt of calling it cheating.
Whichever one it is you’re offering, Jungkook won’t have it.
“No.”
He shakes his head immediately.
“Yes,” you say quietly, through your voice wavers. “I think it’s what’s best for right now.”
“What does this even mean?” he asks, pushing back in his seat slightly. “A break for what? So you can go find somebody else? Forget about me?”
The accusation stings, mostly because of how afraid he sounds.
You stand slowly, fingers reaching for your purse. “I need space, Jungkook.”
The words feel cruel leaving your mouth.
You turn toward the restaurant doors, exhaustion finally catching up to you. You just want to go home. Crawl into bed. Stop feeling everything at once.
But Jungkook isn’t ready to let the conversation end.
“Baby…”
His hand closes gently around your arm before you can make it far, enough to stop you but not enough to hurt — he would never. Before you can even turn back, he’s already standing in front of you.
“Please don’t do this,” he says, voice cracking around the edges now. His eyes search yours, glossy and pleading in a way that makes this harder than it already is. “Don’t leave me. We can fix this, okay? We’ll figure it out.”
You swallow hard.
“We will,” you say softly, forcing steadiness into your voice. “Just… not tonight, okay?”
just wanted to post this so yall know im still very much here and writing ^_^ this will prolly be posted in june if im quick enough !! obviously inspired by babys seven mv <3
god, you hated him. you hated him, you hated him, you hated him.
standing in the club alongside your closest friends as you watched your situationship drink with his own friends left a nasty taste in your mouth, something that resembled something awfully similar to bitterness. you had ended it not even a month ago, after a year long back and forth that rendered you exhausted, heartbroken beyond words and frankly, angry.
jungkook was everything. educated, good manners, handsome, ate you out like a man starved. when it came to commitment? he was pathetic.
you finally had enough, heart aching after you realised that you had wasted your time with a man for over a year that couldn’t even commit - what did that mean for you? to dedicate yourself entirely to someone who didn’t even have the character to claim you for himself.
the fact he was intensely jealous was something that fucked with your head, something that had him ploughing into you on your bed practically nightly. something that you secretly enjoyed, but you realised now, at what cost? he couldn’t stomach the sight of you even conversing friendly talk with another man, always said it would drive him insane to see the way they’d lean into you as if they had a chance, as though they could get you. all that, and still nothing?
seeing him now, small smile on his face, shaking his head at something taehyung animatedly shouted at him, had you seething.
1 month and he was already happy? had you really meant nothing to him? you felt sick to your stomach even thinking about coming out tonight, but your closest friends jimin and yejin had practically forced you, one dolling your makeup up and the other forcing a tight little dress on your body. you had been moping around after ending things, cringing at the memory of tears and ice cream for the past 31 days.
you had ended it by showing up at his place unannounced as you both tended to do, to which he had immediately gone to grab you, planting kisses all over your face only for you to push him away. that small action had his heart falling into his stomach, eyes narrowing, observing you.
you had blurted everything, nothing really making sense as you stuttered over your words, something about how you couldn’t do it anymore, and a bunch of excuses before practically running out of the place, leaving jungkook in his sweatpants, chest heaving against his t-shirt. you had made no sense, and quite frankly, the poor guy had no idea what you were talking about whatsoever before you had left.
it didn’t help that you immediately had blocked him on every single platform - even going so far as to remove him as a friend on spotify.
the problem, now? jungkook had no idea what the fuck was happening.
you were barely coherent when you came round, jumping from sentence to sentence without fully finishing anything, clearly disturbed by whatever you were thinking, a classic case of overthinking, causing him to tilt his head as he watched you escape. by the tine he realised you had completely removed him from your life, he spent hours banging at your door to get your attention, only to be ignored. that continued for a whole two weeks until his friend, namjoon, gently asked him to stop out of respect for you.
he had no idea what he had done. had he upset you? he was loyal to you, to a fault at times, and he knew that there was something on your mind but he figured you’d let him know with time, he never liked to push you, especially given you struggled with expressing yourself. had you met someone? were they better, more attractive, had more money? did they treat you good? fuck. it made him feel sick to even think about.
it didn’t help how obsessive he felt over you. your cheeks, your eyes, the curve of your back and the plumpness to your lips. you were his dream woman, and he thought you knew that, knew that he would do anything for you. for over a year, he had kept his nature away from you, letting it slip whenever you’d even mention another man with the way his shoulders would spike, jaw tightening and scoff building in his throat.
so when taehyung had asked him to come out, he had initially denied the offer, only to scroll through his instagram and find jimin’s story, watching you all pregame for the exact same club. he had never shot up out of his daze so fast, showering within the speed of light.
getting ready and accepting the invitation was easy, but pretending that he hadn’t noticed you here yet? now that was difficult.
he could see the steam blowing out of your ears every time you looked away, and it was driving him insane. good, he thought. he wanted you just as obsessive, wanted you bothered to the point he had no option but to coax himself back into your head to ease you out of this bullshit.
it didn’t take long.
you were at the bar, unable to enjoy yourself whatsoever, completely ignoring jungkook’s presence but it was so much easier said than done when he looked so good. you loved him in anything baggy, especially given he was so tall and broad, it sat on him so nicely. you were watching other women ogle at him and it was making you feel sick. this was so unfair.
the irony sat heavy in the air considering jungkook had already threatened a good 5 guys for merely staring at you, promising them a fight they wouldn’t be able to win. his blood was boiling by the point you ordered your drink, shoulders straining as he tried to keep a healthy distance, eyes watching you.
you downed your shot, wincing as your other drink sat in front of you, your friends dancing. you were being ridiculous, but it was hard. it was hard knowing the only thing you had ever wanted hadn’t chosen you despite giving all of yourself - you had given your body, your soul, your mind. you had given him your heart and yet it wasn’t enough.
you chased the pain away as you drank, eyes shutting tight for a moment as you tried to push the emotion out of your chest. with a deep sigh, you began to inch away from the bar, about to turn around but the feel of a heavy chest suddenly pressed itself to your back.
before you could even gasp, your body pressed against the bar counter whilst also standing completely flush to a rock hard body you knew all too well. you wanted nothing more than to ease into it, let the warmth overcome you as you had done for so long, but the rational of your brain forced you to wake up.
“drink.” jungkook’s voice was almost mean in your ear as he grabbed his glass of water, pushing your drink away with his other hand.
you huffed, slapping one of his arms before turning around in his death grip, your bodies now flushed in an even more intense way.
“what do you want?”
his jaw ticked, his head dropping down at you before grabbing his drink once more, pushing it against your lip. “drink.”
you rolled your eyes, childishly mumbling under your breath as you pathetically let the water touch your lip, feigning your action just to piss him off more. it did, and the way he was openly grunting at you with a look of anger only made the emotion in your stomach dissipate.
“now, if you don’t mind me, i’m here to have fun with my friends.” you grumbled, pushing at his chest as you began shuffling out of his arms only for him to grab at your arms, pushing your hands onto his chest just the way you both liked it.
“ghosted me for a whole month, and you think you can just walk away?” he scoffed at you openly, a look of genuine disbelief on his face. “why the fuck did you block me?”
your eyes narrowed even further at his words, it being your turn to scoff in his face. “are you serious?”
jungkook had little patience, but it ran even thinner at your display of pure brattiness. you managed to push his chest back enough to slip out of his grip, grumbling under your breath as you walked in the direction of the bathroom, hands shaking on either side of you.
how was this real? how was he so unaware despite the fact you had explained yourself? okay, you weren’t the most coherent but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what you were telling him - the dynamic was over, done and dusted. you weren’t waiting around for him anymore, and you deserved a whole lot better than a man who couldn’t even properly commit to you.
before you could utter another curse word in your head directed right at him, your body was all but pressed into the wall beside you, knocking the air out of your lungs as large arms began to cage you in, hiding you away from everyone.
big eyes shared a look.
yours, wondering up in confusion, in a betrayed sense of comfort that you had become accustomed to over the past year and a lingering anger that was ready to boil over.
his? utter, dismissal. he was annoyed beyond belief, and whatever you had just sprouted at him was already binned in his head, not enough explanation for your behaviour over the past few days.
“listen to me.” his voice sat heavy, despite it echoing only for you to hear. “you’re going to explain to me what is going on, and why you suddenly deleted me out of your life. no more bullshit, y/n.”
you wiggled in his grip. “i already told you, jungkook! i showed up at your place, i..i explained myself!”
“you call that explaining yourself?” he scoffed loudly. “you show up, say about three words that don’t make sense, run away, and then i’m suddenly blocked everywhere?”
his face was suddenly closer to yours, watching the way you gulped lightly, his presence still making you nervous despite all this time.
“is there someone else?” he finally asked, a sense of dread in his tone masked by his current annoyance but you knew him better than anyone. “what? no.” you huffed, shaking your head at the prosperous idea.
“then what, y/n?” he poked once more, causing you to shut your eyes. “you don’t want me no more? then just fucking say it. this shit isn’t normal.”
“you don’t want me anymore.” you blurted out in a shout, anger finally bubbling over. “you don’t want me. you’ve never wanted me, not in a way that makes sense, i’m just some girl you fuck whenever you need it because i’m readily accessible.”
your chest was heaving.
“this isn’t normal, jungkook. over a year and all i am to you is someone you can cum inside, and then you go about doing whatever the fuck you want to whilst i sit back thinking you’ll care for me properly one day. do you know shitty it feels when you come over, and we cuddle and you kiss me and tell me all these nice things but in the end it means nothing because you won’t even fucking claim me?”
your lip had began to quiver, your eyes filling up embarrassingly fast. jungkook always called you a cry baby with the way you were so prone to letting a tear or two drop, but in this very moment he couldn’t bring himself to do anything other than let out a very large, “huh?”
you met his gaze, wiping your eyes angrily at his reaction. “you’re such a dick.”
your body wiggled, your hands pushing against his chest harshly as you monopolised on the utter shock on his face, managing to slip free for almost a second before his hands clamped down on your waist, pushing you straight back against the wall.
“get off!” you hissed causing him to narrow his eyes at you, grabbing your hands with one of his own, harshly placing them above your head. the position was degrading considering you were in public, especially considering he knew how badly it ruined you from the inside out.
“listen to me, y/n.” he had a crazed sort of look in his eye. “i need you to make sense to me, because none of what you just said does. the fuck you mean claim?”
“are you trying to humiliate me? you know what i mean.” you wiggled, tears already beginning to stream.
“explain it to me. i’m being serious.”
his other hand that sat on your waist quickly wiped your eyes, removing any remnant of salty tears despite renewal freely leaking from your eyes. you felt embarassed, your lip quivering as you avoided his gaze, look dropping to your heeled feet.
“been waiting to be your girlfriend for a year and i realised that was never gonna happen so i’m moving on. i want someone who wants me in the same way.” you admitted in a broken tone. “not someone who’s gonna reap all the benefits and then throw me aside one day.”
jungkook’s face then was beyond any emotion you had ever, ever seen on him. pure bewilderment, as though what you had just said was a combination of words never even thought to be said. it made you self conscious, as though you were preparing for him to laugh at you or look at you completely different, something you couldn’t bring yourself to endure.
and so, you wiggled once more, just as your chest began to heave deeper, desperately trying to get away, which seemed to be a common theme between you whenever you were uncomfortable. his grip didn’t lessen, only tightened as he forced you to look at him by grabbing your face harsher than you’d ever felt it.
your eyes fluttered up, slightly confused as you bit down a sob, sniffing through salted beads.
“we are not on the same page.” he whispered quietly down at you, as though his words felt disgusting to even say. “the fuck you mean you’ve been waiting to be my girlfriend? you already are.”
it was your turn to let out a loud “huh” in response, eyes narrowing. was he trying to embarrass you again?
“jungkook, this isn’t funny to me, okay? so just leave me alone.”
“listen to me before i go fucking crazy. you are my girlfriend. you’ve been my girlfriend for the past year so what the fuck are you talking about?”
he sounded utterly exasperated, as though this being the reason for your forced silence for over a month was enough to have him pulling at his own hair.
he let you go for a moment as you stood completely still, eyes wide, still crying but body no longer fighting his as shock filtered through every one of your veins. you weee simply stood as he ran his hands harshly through his hair, his eyes shut for a moment or two before turning to you.
“i genuinely can’t tell if you’re being serious right now, y/n.” he admitted, voice strained.
“i’m..your girlfriend?”
“yes. yes you are. you have been for a whole year. we quite literally went out to celebrate our anniversary before you blocked me everywhere.” he grunted, annoyance at an all time high as he watched your lip quiver into a sob. “but..i thought..you never even call me that and you never asked and i had no idea that was for our anniversary, i thought..thought you were being mean and celebrating our situationship..”
“what the actual fuck is happening right now?” jungkook muttered to himself eyes wide as shook his head openly at you. “baby, i’d call you mine every two seconds. i tell you i love you every chance i get.”
“but..you’ve never asked me to be your girlfriend so i just..”
“you think i’ve been fucking you for a year without putting my name on you, y/n, are you serious?”
you felt humiliated beyond words, a level of shame creeping up your spine that had you wanting to throw up then and there. he would call you his girl constantly, but it would only ever ache your soul considering you thought you weren’t in a relationship, it only breaking your heart further when he would tell you he loved you. it was like stopping a race just before the finishing line, leaving you in a state of confusion and heartbreak. only to now find out you were wrong?
you had broken your heart over something that wasn’t even real.
“you are the smartest girl i know but fuck, you’re such an idiot. this is why you haven’t been speaking to me, y/n?” he asked exasperatedly, tucking a strand behind your ear. “i’ve been going out of my mind, thought you met someone new or something, guys had to drag me out tonight or i wouldn’t have even come.”
you sniffled, hiding your face in your hands as you nodded, letting out a quiet sound that resembled a sob. he melted, cursing under his breath as he kept his pure annoyance at bay.
you were stupid, his stupid baby and he hated how badly he wanted to do nothing more than wrap you up in his arms, ruin you, kiss you, cherish you - the thought of his girl not realising she was his girl was enough to put a man like him into cardiac arrest. he now had every intention of showing you his true emotions, especially the ones he had kept in and locked away in fears of scaring you due to their intensity.
no longer. you had to be reminded.
and so, he took a hold of your hands, pulling them away from your face before pressing his forehead to yours, breathing in your scent after being forced away from you for so long over nothing more than a stupid discrepancy between you.
“listen to me.” he whispered then, lips grazing your cheek. “i’m gonna take you to my place. gonna wash you up, get you fed, and then we’re gonna sit down and actually talk. you hear me?”
you nodded, hands on his chest, finally allowing yourself to relax in his hold despite the sniffles and hiccups.
“and then, we make up for the past fucking month.” his tone was harsh once more, as though referencing the past 31 days being away from you was enough to send the man to an early grave.
to that, you nodded once more, allowing jungkook to take a hold of you, lead you out of the club and into the night air, where within minutes, you sat in his arms, kissing and sniffling, in an uber to his home. he was nothing but efficient, taking care of you just as you had learned to crave, making quick work of your makeup, your outfit, stealing your underwear for his own pleasure, before submerging you to his wandering hands as he finally got you into his bed.
his girl. all his. he’d never let you doubt it again.
—
a little drabble for you guys, this came to me in a 15 minute nap break at work lol so please enjoy
if you liked this & wanna show some love & help me pay my awful london rent, here’s my kofi - love you guys bad!!!
summary: your boyfriend has always mixed his pleasure with pain.
word count: 4.3k
contains: explicit sexual content!!!!!! like that's the whole fic lmao 😵💫 established relationship, marathon sex, wrist restraints/bondage, cocky yet eager sub!jungkook 🥵, soft dom!reader but she can be a lil tough, clothed tit play, objectification, she calls him bunny which i think is cute 🥺, spitting, dick riding, unprotected sex, fingers in mouth, humping/grinding, jk has a nipple piercing 🙈, overstimulation/multiple orgasms - for both of them hehe, vibrator use, jungkook (and reader!) pushing himself to his limits bc..... he's jungkook, he cries 🥲, reader finds it hot 👀, a lottttt of sweat & cum lol, cum licking/eating, blowjob, maybe some subspace if you squint, winners never quit 💪, talk of coming dry at the end, jk is kind of a little shit lmaooooo - alright i think that's it 😩
A/N: not me barely managing to get this up before the ticket sales start 😅 happy hunger games to y'all who have codes!!! this fic is a birthday gift to my love, my angel, my cunning linguist @moni-logues 💜 HAPPY (yesterday) BIRTHDAY bb, can't wait to marry you on our first date, it is the joy of my life to build castles in the air with you~
and god bless jk for his lives the past few weeks bc they breathed so much life into this regular degular "sub!jk" fic idea. i'm v obsessed with his personality and the way he always pushes himself "just a little more", whether it's in staying up til 5 am singing karaoke on his couch or giving his absolute all in a workout. just so in love with our bunny tbh, so i hope you enjoy this spicy version of him too!! 🥰
read on AO3!
~*~
You know your boyfriend has always mixed his pleasure with pain.
He stays up late even when he’s exhausted, likes to do his workouts to failure, could spend hours in a tattoo session with the needle pressed to his skin and his bones humming from the buzz. Always holding out for as long as he can, always wanting just a little bit more before he calls it quits, even when it’s hard, even when it hurts. Because he wants to test his limits.
And today, you want to test them, too.
That’s why you text him to meet you in the bedroom, let him find you in nothing but one of his oversized Carhartt shirts, kneeling up on the bed as you affix a pair of purple silk restraints to the headboard.
There’s the soft creak of the mattress from Jungkook’s added weight, and you feel the heat of him as he crowds you from behind, hands dragging up the curve of your hips and taking the hem of your borrowed shirt with it.
“This was the emergency, huh?” The low murmur of his voice is chased by the cool touch of his lip ring as he drags his mouth up the nape of your neck. A blossom of arousal starts to unfurl in your core. “Wanted to use these?”
“Yeah,” you answer, feigning nonchalance as you give the silk a firm tug to test that it holds. Satisfied, you let yourself sink back into Jungkook’s touch, dropping your head against his shoulder and smiling when he leans down to brush his lips over yours. He hums a soft little sound into your mouth.
You cup your hand to the nape of his neck when you pull away to finish the thought. “Thought we could try them on you.”
The words are seemingly all your boyfriend needs to hear; he drops down onto the mattress so hard that he bounces a little. You can’t help but laugh at the way he scrambles to strip out of his sweatshirt, like he’s being timed, then hurriedly centers himself on the pillows, eyes glinting dark with desire.
When you first started talking to Jungkook, everything about him made you expect that he would be the one to call the shots. The good looks, the tattoos and piercings, the muscles— and definitely the motorcycle. But once you’d sat across from him at dinner on your first official date, only to watch him blush and fumble his way through a conversation, you started to suspect that maybe he preferred to follow rather than lead.
That thought was certainly confirmed the next time you saw him out in public: it’d been a full two weeks since your first date, with nothing but radio silence between you since. You were admittedly maybe a little too drunk when you spotted him out with his friends at the same bar you’d been dragged to by yours— drunk enough to have no problem walking right up to him to read him for filth, in front of all of his friends, for ghosting you.
Except he’d just blinked those big brown eyes up at you, mouth dropped open in disbelief, and quietly admitted that he’d been waiting all this time for you to text him.
One of his friends had clapped him on the back, laughing loudly as he corroborated Jungkook’s confession. “He’s been having midnight karaoke pity parties because he never heard from you. Please take this boy out again before his neighbors have him evicted!”
That night told you everything you needed to know about how the dynamics in your relationship would work out. That if you wanted something, there was a very good chance Jungkook wanted it, too.
Which is why it doesn’t surprise you that your boyfriend is already sprawled out half-naked on the bed beneath you, arms folded behind his head in a way that makes his biceps bulge, dangerously attractive.
His mouth pulls into a cocky, flirtatious grin. “Ah, so you wanna use me?”
“I do,” you murmur, straddling your thighs over his torso and leaning up to take the smooth purple silk between your fingers. He offers you one hand before you even have to ask for it, and takes advantage of the other’s last few minutes of freedom to paw at you over your shirt. His tattooed fingers seek out your breast and squeeze, his thumb flicking lazy strokes over your nipple.
You tug the knot of the restraint to tighten it, then look back just as Jungkook closes his lips around the clothed bud of your breast. The rough drag of cotton against your sensitive skin makes you hot all over, your nipple stiffening easily at the rub of his insistent tongue.
“How’s that? Too tight?”
He smirks with your tit still in his mouth, soaking a wet spot into your shirt, teeth scraping gently. “Could be tighter.”
“You are such a show-off,” you huff, more endeared than aggravated as you redo the knot, this time as tight as you can manage. Jungkook pulls against it teasingly, but it does actually seem to hold him in place, and you can feel a dull thud between your legs at the flex of his muscles on full display, the image of him already half-helpless beneath you.
“I’m Jeon Jungkook,” he says, as if in explanation, giving your breast a final playful jiggle before you tug his other hand off to tie it up, too.
“Well, Jeon Jungkook,” you retort with a smirk and a grunt of effort as you lean over him to tug the knot tight. You glance down to find him already using the leverage of his restraints to pull himself up so that he can continue to nuzzle his face into your shirt between your tits, abdominals shaking a little from the effort, undeterred despite the loss of both of his hands.
You take his jaw in your grip and scoot yourself further down his body, dipping in to plant a kiss on his soft lips.
“Are you gonna be a good little toy for me?”
“Uh-huh,” he grunts, and you enjoy the tease of hovering just past where he can reach, watching him strain up toward your mouth to seek another kiss and fall ever so short.
You can feel arousal already dripping from your folds as you slide further down the bed, slipping off from on top of Jungkook to easily rid him of his joggers and briefs. His dick smacks against his stomach, thick and hard; wet, too, at the pretty brown tip. You toss his clothes over the edge of the bed, then strip your own shirt to follow before lowering yourself between his spread legs.
The muscles in Jungkook’s thighs tighten with visible anticipation as you hover above his cock, letting the heat of your breath fan out over him, not unlike the warm afternoon air leaking in through the cracked bedroom window, the first taste of spring. You can hear the wet clicks of Jungkook’s tongue in his mouth.
“Easy, bunny,” you murmur, and then you work up a mouthful of saliva and spit it right onto the head of his dick.
He hisses in a breath at the splatter of it, then gasps a soft little sound when you take him in your hand to slip your fist down the length of him. That’s Jungkook all over; always so eager, always so sensitive.
“What do you think?” you muse, your mouth ticking up as you feel Jungkook’s hips roll into your grasp. “Think it’s ready for me, baby?”
“‘Sready,” he grunts, teeth clenched. “Use it, jagi.”
You waste no time, crawling back up Jungkook’s body to settle your hips over his, flattening your palms against his chest. He’s still squirming, thighs flexing against the bed as he rocks up in a desperate attempt to find the wet heat of your cunt, and you giggle as you work yourself backwards until the head of his dick catches on your entrance.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but you’re wet enough to take it. You bite down on a smug smile as you manage to seat yourself on him hands-free.
“Fuck, love when you do that.” Jungkook’s voice is a low growl, and you slide a hand up the firm definition in his chest and slowly start to rock yourself along his length. His cock fills you up like he was made for it; you can feel every detail of him drag against your ridges, trailing sparks of pleasure as you tilt your hips to drive him right into your sweet spot.
Jungkook’s head kicks back against the pillow as a groan rips through him. There’s a gentle crease in his brow, furrowed in the way that tells you it’s so good: the tight heat of your pussy, the slick stretch of it when you work it on him. You ride him rough, make him take it like a good boy.
Another noise stutters out of Jungkook, chased this time by a huff of breath that it takes you a second to realize is a laugh, the tone caught halfway between shy and horny. You watch the way he squirms, restless against his restraints, like he can’t help himself.
He answers before you can ask. “The way your tits— fuckin’ bounce— fuck, I wanna touch you.”
The feeling sinks in as you watch him writhe beneath you, as you shove your hips back harder to pull more desperate sounds out of him. It’s fun, not letting him have what he wants, makes you drip that much more down the length of him.
“You can’t.”
“I know,” he grunts, wrists tugging uselessly. “It’s hot— that I can’t.”
“It is,” you concede, feigning composure despite the hitch in your breath, the way you’re already close to the edge and pushed that much closer by having Jungkook like this. Tied up, all yours, free to do with as you please.
And still fighting against his fucking restraints.
“Think I could rip these?”
It’s like your body acts faster than your pleasure-driven mind can keep up with: all at once, you’re tracing the pouted curve of Jungkook’s bottom lip, then slipping two fingers past it into the heat of his mouth.
“Shh, bunny,” you murmur. He blinks up at you, glassy-eyed as you pet over his tongue, all lush and wet on your fingertips. “Toys don’t talk.”
You press down more firmly as if for emphasis, enjoying how his soft parts give so easily to your touch, and then Jungkook outright moans around your fingers in his mouth.
The needy little sound makes your pussy pulse hot between your thighs.
“Fuck,” you hiss as you take him to the hilt, changing the stroke of your hips to grind against your toy, used solely to get yourself off now. Humping, really, rubbing your clit over the smooth skin of his abdomen where he’s blooming feverglow, flushed with need. Jungkook’s eyes flicker back in his head at the way your pussy’s taking him, squeezed tight like a vice and gushing wet. Working raw sounds out of him, his jaw gone slack; you can feel the blunt edge of his teeth and his heavy, shaky breath on the palm of your hand.
Your thighs shift to spread wider and the next drag of your clit is at just the right angle that pleasure surges up in you, undeniable, overwhelming. It’s all you can do now to chase your release, to keep rocking yourself into it, Jungkook’s thick cock plugged up inside of you and drool slicking out of his mouth to drip down your wrist.
“Gonna make myself come on my pretty little toy,” you manage to gasp.
Jungkook’s eyes find yours, burning intensity, the way he gets, and then he closes his lips tight around your fingers in his mouth and sucks, as if he’s begging to be used, and it sends you over the edge all at once. Your head tips back as your orgasm kicks through you, white noise pleasure, enough to get lost in.
Hips still rolling, you grind yourself through it, the waves of your climax swelling and receding again, until you finally drop forward against Jungkook’s chest, breathless and buzzing all over.
You let your fingers slip out of his mouth, exhale a laugh as they skip over the defined ridges of his stomach when you wipe your hand dry, taking full advantage of the fact that he’s powerless to stop you.
“Shit, that was hot.”
Jungkook’s voice is hoarse with desire as you shift to find the curve of his neck under your mouth, trailing kisses until your lips brush over the pretty lines of ink just behind his ear. He’s still thick and stiff inside you, with a steady pulse-throb that tells you how badly he needs to come, how worked up he is from being used as your personal hump-toy.
“Yeah,” you echo, paired with a tentative rock of your hips that makes your cunt flutter, overstimulated, tugs a little whine out of Jungkook, too. Your tongue feels thick in your mouth as you breathe against his flushed skin.
“Think I— wanna keep using my toy. Kinda feel like being greedy.”
Jungkook’s cock twitches, shameless, at your admission, again when you flick a thumb over the silver jewelry studded through his nipple. There’s a part of you that wants to keep him like this, his leaking-hard dick filling you up while you purr nasty shit in his ear, just to see if he can come from it.
“Might ride it until I break it.” You scrape your teeth up his neck and he moans. “Gonna take all I can give you, bunny?”
His throat jumps visibly as he swallows, fights to gasp a desperate “uh-huh”. Answers with his body, too, arching up to press himself deeper into you, rubbing the slick, hot tip of his cock into your front wall in just the right way to melt pleasure down your spine. You reward his eager submission with a soft kiss, then lick along the seam of his lips, enjoying the sweet little noises that pour into your mouth when you open him up.
Still intertwined, his tongue stroking over yours, your hand goes fumbling for the nightstand, comes away with the slender cylinder of your vibrator, and switches it on before slipping it down to press between your bodies.
“Oh my god,” Jungkook groans as you nestle the shuddering bullet between your folds and find the bud of your clit. You know he can feel it too from the way his hips jerk beneath you, the steady buzz engulfing his cock as you squeeze your pussy around him, all lush sensitivity from your first orgasm. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come.”
“You can.” The words are hardly more than a warm exhale from your mouth to his, your lips brushing. “But I’m not gonna stop.”
You don’t give him time to respond or even heave in another gasp of air before your thumb finds the button at the base of your vibrator, clicks it once, then again.
“F— ahh!”
Jungkook’s body jolts like a live wire as he falls apart beneath you. You sit up to take in the whole of him, your free palm slipping to the jut of his hip, fingertips splayed out and pressed heavy to anchor.
Pinned down and helpless, he trembles through the hot rush of his release, dick buried deep and pulsing as it all comes spilling out of him.
“That’s it, baby,” you coo. Your nails scratch lovingly against his skin to coax him out of it— taking such good care of your toy. His breath is punching out of his chest in these ragged, overwhelmed gasps, sweat glittering at his temples while he whimpers through the comedown. So fucking beautiful like this.
The hum of the vibrator rolls through you, strong enough with the change in angle that your eyes drop shut to focus on the feeling.
Jungkook whines when you circle your hips with him still tucked up inside of you— it’s a wrecked little noise, high and sweet, underscored by the thick squelch of his cum starting to leak back down his shaft. Your thighs tense just right from the filthy sound of it, and then it’s all throbbing velvet glow in your core as you clench up and come on his cock again.
“Fuuuuuck, bunny,” you groan up to the ceiling, your head tipped back as it washes over you. “God, yeah.”
You flick the vibrator off when it gets to be too much, let it go rolling down the mattress— the bedroom feels bigger for the silence. Sweat slicks at the back of your knees, warm spring breeze still licking through the window to flutter the sheer-gauze curtains.
You’re fluttering too, all over: the kick of your heartbeat, the breath stuttering out of your lungs. The throb of your cunt, split open and drooling out juice, messy-wet fresh fruit.
The sound of the bedsheets shifting has your lashes flickering open again, and there’s Jungkook. Dark hair fanned out on the pillow, wrists bound, and that look in his eyes. Like he can take a little more. Like he’s waiting for your cue. Like there’s this whole-heart want brimming up inside of him, making his blood run hot.
He’s still hard between your legs.
“Go on then,” you tell him. “Give me another one.”
With a concentrated growl, Jungkook flattens his feet to the bed, grips tighter to his restraints for leverage, and starts to pound up into you. You can feel an overstimulated shudder in the stroke of his hips, how his cockhead twitches, sensitive, as it rubs over your g-spot. But he doesn’t stop; doesn’t even lose his rhythm.
He fucks you like a machine, and it’s all you can do to brace your palms against his chest and tip forward, rocking yourself down to meet him thrust for thrust.
The harsh slap of body on body is almost enough to drown out the rest: your open-mouthed panting, Jungkook’s groan when your nails dig crescent moon slivers into his tan skin, the gravel edge to your words, “Yeah, like that, fuck me just like that.”
It takes you a second to notice, the sound buried beneath it all, but then it floats through— Jungkook’s sucking his breath in through his teeth now, his jaw tight. You can see the jump of a muscle working there.
“Does it hurt, baby?” you gasp, more air than voice.
Jungkook’s head drops back against the pillow, brow pinched from the focus of keeping his pace steady. He’s breathless, too, when he answers: “Feels good.”
“Feels good because it hurts, huh? Is that how you like it?”
A strangled noise tears out of his throat, and he shoves up even harder, like he wants to fuck you into the shape of him. You splay one hand over the column of his throat and watch his pretty brown eyes blink-blink back at you, and then you have to bury your moans in the crook of his neck as you come hard.
The world around you returns a little at a time. First, the tremble of your tired thighs, the dull ache that’s already started to bloom at the bend of your knees. Then, Jungkook’s body curved up against yours, hips still slow-rolling as you exhale in hot, jagged bursts against his skin. There’s the distinct drip of his cum sliding out of you, and all the sticky-wet places where it’s slicked up the swell of your ass.
“Shit,” you laugh when you manage to find the breath for it. “That was crazy.”
Jungkook shifts a little, but doesn’t respond, and then he makes this wet, soft gasp. You realize he’s shaking beneath you.
You sit up so fast the room spins; your tether is Jungkook’s face, cupped lovingly now between your palms.
“Oh, baby.”
A fat teardrop traces a path down his cheek. Another threatens the dark border of his lashes. He can’t wipe them away with his wrists tied up, but you can see him trying to hold back even as a sob shudders through him, his chest heaving.
“You okay, my love?” you murmur, swiping a thumb across his face. He sniffles, nods, hiccups a little. The tip of his nose is flushed pink. “Shoulda told me to stop, if it was too much.”
“It feels good,” he insists, and his voice cracks around the words. “It’s just a lot. But ‘m not— don’t wanna stop.”
“No? You sure?”
Jungkook sucks his lip ring into his mouth as he nods again, sniffs again. That sends a bolt of something through you.
“You’ve been so good to me,” you praise, and you tip your ass back until his softening cock slips out, smeared glossy-white with your shared release. Jungkook’s still wound-up, pulled so tight inside himself that he flinches when you slip a hand down to ease his legs apart, sliding lower on the bed to slot yourself between them.
“Can I take care of you, bun?” The question’s posed sweetly, chased with a flutter of your lashes and kisses dropped down on the flat plane of his abdomen. “I’ll be gentle.”
He whimpers— answers in the way his hips lift up to meet your mouth.
Your hands press flat to Jungkook’s broad thighs, and you can feel the overwhelmed static-shiver beneath your palms, little tremors that jolt through his muscles. Head dipped low, you drag your tongue up his length and it punches a thick sob out of him, hips stirring like he’s trying to crawl up the bed. But you just keep going, pin him down and make him take it, working broad flat stripes over the whole of his shaft, root to tip. Tasting him, salt and slick and your own heady flavor; you lick him clean.
Jungkook comes quietly this time, feet flexing restless on the bed as you tongue it all out of him. You swipe two fingers through the mess on his stomach and suck that up, too.
Humming around the digits in your mouth, you surface from between Jungkook’s legs to take him in: eyes closed, face wet with tears. You can see the rise and fall of his chest as he gasps for air, shaky, coming down from it.
“Alright baby,” you soothe, shifting up to straddle his chest, knees sinking into the sheets. “All done now, just breathe. Gonna untie you.”
Reaching up, you gently tug open the knot on one restraint, then the other, easing Jungkook’s limp arms to the mattress. Your thumbs find his wrists to massage soft love-circles in case he’s gone numb there, gently coaxing him back to earth.
“Did so good for me, bunny.”
There’s a whimper, and then Jungkook’s surging up to kiss you, forceful enough that you give a little hum of surprise against his lips.
His hands are all over you, all at once, tugging at your legs to drag them forward until you’re flat on your back on the mattress. Your sore thighs shake when he shoves them up and apart, and then a sharp buzz rolls right over the bud of your clit and you keen. Fuck, when did he even grab the vibrator?
“Wanna make you come again,” he pants, and you smile even as your spine arches off the bed. Of course. You should’ve known.
It’s Jungkook all over, you think, hyper-focused on your pleasure even when he’s out of commission, and then you feel the head of his cock push inside and you both gasp. Your cunt aches, so swollen that it’s like he’s stretching you out all over again when you take him to the hilt.
“Oh my god,” you breathe. Jungkook’s hips snap, punctuated by a strangled grunt of effort, but he keeps going, making soft little sweet-pain whines with every thrust, brow scrunched as he brute-forces his way well past overstimulation.
He’s still crying, you realize.
Tears roll down his face and drip onto your collarbone, and everything’s somehow hotter for it. His length is slick, painted in the stored-up remnants of his cum, and you can hear the squish of your folds at the base of his cock each time he fucks it all back into you, so dirty it makes your head spin.
“J-just like that, baby,” you groan, overwhelmed; you can barely get the words out. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come.”
Jungkook buries his face in the crook of your neck, and you can feel him shaking, dripping, still rabbiting his hips into you, and then the hum of pleasure reverberating through your body explodes. Your clit throbs with an orgasm that feels endless, dizzying, divine. Jungkook outright sobs as your walls pulse pulse pulse around him, begging for every last drop.
When it’s all too much, you swat at his hand, mumbling shapes that aren’t words until the vibrator’s switched off and tossed away. He pulls out with a thick wet sound and the hiss of his breath between his teeth.
Together, you come down slow. Exhaling staccato, limbs tangled, bodies flushed and sweat-sticking.
Jungkook moves first: flops onto the mattress next to you, entirely exhausted, the way you’ve seen him get after a particularly rough workout. Scrubs at his face with one hand, this shy laugh fluttering out of him. “Can’t believe I cried. Ah, so embarrassing.”
You turn onto your side, tugging his hand away so you can press a kiss to his open palm. “Don’t ask me why but… in the moment? Very hot, actually.” A flush colors his cheeks and you giggle. “My perfect little crybaby.”
He flashes you his signature cocky grin, eyes squeezing shut as it morphs into something nearer to a wince. “Fuck, I’m so sweaty.” A breathless gasp, again. “And my dick hurts. I think I came dry that last time.”
“Poor baby,” you coo, not quite sincere. “You really could’ve stopped at… what, three?”
Eyes closed and still smirking, he shakes his head, damp hair falling in his face. “No I couldn’t have— I’m Jeon Jungkook.”
summary: in which maybe you and jungkook get married one day, but who knows?
idol!jk x afab!reader / fluffy fluff with a dash of angst / word count: 2.4k
warnings/content: suggestive, butt mentions lmaoaoao, talks of marriage and breaking up <3/3 oc cries :,(
> in which masterlist!
note: hi here’s some surprise self-indulgent fluff written in one sitting in pure art fashion because i couldn’t sleep :,( i have a lot of plot focused drabbles lined up (oc has too much lore t_t) and a fic !! planned out though so hopefully i get to work on them in the summer <3 + comment/send an ask to be added to the taglist!
—
your playlist softly plays in the background from your phone, left untouched for the past couple hours since you became occupied with your kindle. the music gets lost every now and then because your dear boyfriend is a big fan of hilarious clips and dance challenges on the internet. he laughs, and he sings, and you can’t get mad because you will miss his different forms of noises once he has to leave. besides, he respects your reading time by instead sending you the tiktoks he wants to show you so he doesn’t break your focus.
however, the heartbreaking book has captured you and your mind has flown too far away.
“jungkook?”
he lifts his chin to meet your gaze. “mhmm?”
“what do we do if we break up?”
his smile quickly morphs into a frown, face illuminated by the screen of his phone.
along with his namjoon-hyung, jungkook trusts your judgment more than anyone else. he admits that you’re the more logical person between the two of you. you view life as a matter of survival. you’re not afraid to make sacrifices along the way if it means safeguarding your security. a pro at defense, a seasoned thief of hearts. he’s lucky enough to have become an extension of your heart, because you’re protective of him as much as you are protective of yourself.
though, sometimes, he wishes you weren’t so mindful of the future.
because his first instinct is to say that he will cry a river. beg on his knees. wait for you at the door every night. profess his love in every possible way. maybe even accidentally make the world collapse. print out your photos so he doesn’t forget your face. suffer for eternity because he has a memory of you attached in every little thing in every corner of his life. make a heartbreak album then follow the footsteps of his taeyang-sunbaenim. as much he wants to appear cool, he’s too far gone to refuse to admit to himself that he’s quite pathetic when it comes to you.
five years. five birthdays. six christmases. six new years. three years living together. he cried at your graduation day. you cried when they got their first grammy nomination. he knows you even just by the sound of your breathing and the weight of your step. he knows he wants to spend the rest of his life with you.
“what do you mean? why would we break up?”
“uh, i don’t even know,” you shrug and turn on your side to face him. “but that’s not the question. if we break up, what happens? what do we do? how do we detach from each other?”
“baby, it’s 1am,” he whines. “i don’t like thinking about this kind of stuff.”
“but don’t you think it’s important to have this conversation too?”
“why? why?” his eyes nearly double in size as he demands for a reason. “we don’t have any problems, do we?”
“we’re perfectly fine, babe!” you chuckle. “it’s just, i don’t know… we’ve been together a while. our lives are so intertwined now. we live together. we have bam!”
“yes, i know, exactly,” he nods, casually dropping one of the most romantic lines you’ve ever heard from him. “it’s that way because i intend on marrying you. i’m building us a house. a real house!”
your breath still hitches every time he mentions marriage. it isn’t news, and realistically it’s far away, but it makes you excited all the same. the thought of it used to suffocate you when you were younger. your life is a fairytale in the ugly and beautiful ways.
“exactly, right? marriage is even a bigger deal. so many couples end up hating each other after marrying. this is why we need to talk about this. we need to be prepared so we don’t hurt each other a lot.”
“ah, i really understand what you mean, but…!” jungkook slides down on the bed, squeezing himself against your body. he cages you in a bone-crushing hug and you try your hardest not to laugh at his adorable protest. “we’re not breaking up, though.”
“of course, we’re not. it’s hypothetical,” you playfully mess with his hair. “but i’ll sign the prenup, of course, when we get married. and i’d probably be the one to move out if we break up, right? and no matter what happens, we still co-parent bam?”
“okay, i’ll humor you,” he rolls his eyes, but a smirk is already pulling at the corner of his lips because you just said technically said ‘yes’ to his marriage proposal. “hmm, if it happens when we already live in the house, then you can just come back here.”
“what?” you look at him like he just said the earth is flat. “why would i want to live here after we break up?”
“then sell it. do whatever you want. i don’t care.”
“i can’t just accept a house from you!”
“you can when we get married. and what if it’s my fault?”
“oh, that’s a good point…” you pause to think. “but doesn’t that mean i have to give you a house if it’s my fault?”
“eh, isn’t that blackmail now?”
the two of you make eye contact, and you simultaneously burst out laughing. jungkook didn’t expect to be sweating from laughter minutes after hearing that question from you, but maybe he should’ve. you’re so good at putting his nerves at ease. you make living so fun that he doesn’t want to sleep.
“shouldn’t we decide based on those terms then? if it was a mutual decision or not? something like that?”
his heart flutters when you plant a gentle kiss on his forehead. hard to miss with the cold and sticky lip mask you dilligently apply on your lips before hopping into bed.
“what do you think the reason would be?”
“i thought that wasn’t the question?”
“well, you opened it up.”
“i honestly don’t know,” he genuinely sounds clueless, not having considered it at all. not since he made that impulsive decision when he was young and stupid, anyways. “i trust you. and we’re pretty in love, aren’t we?”
“you know…” you trail off, as if you’re guessing if you should continue your sentence or not. “if you could only have one, i swear i won’t hate you if you choose your career over me. i think i’m over that. i’m so much more mature than i was.”
“babe…”
“in fact, i’d get angrier at you if you do the opposite.”
“but that’s not fair,” he pouts, not agreeing with you. he’s not mad, but maybe a little upset that you consider giving up on him, even if it’s only a made-up scenario. “it- it’s not that simple anymore. we’re not just dating. maybe in 2018, 2019… but we’re way, way past that. you’re a part of me at this point. i love you. i want to marry you. we have a dog! we have a family. you- you’re my family. my family sees you as family. you’re a reason for me to live as much as performing. and you know how performing is like breathing for me? loving you is like that, too. having to choose will be the worst thing to ever happen to me. i mean it, seriously. i can’t do that-”
jungkook’s passion-fueled rant is interrupted by the sound of your sniffles.
“baby, are you crying?”
“you just work so hard,” and the rest of your words become caught in between sobs and gasps for air. “and i want nothing more than for you to reach all your dreams, and it hurts when i see you doubting yourself and when people are being assholes and when the world isn’t fair to those who play fair. you’ve been doing this for so long and you’ve given your entire soul to it. i just- want you to be happy and fulfilled.”
“yah, shh- babe, there’s no need to cry,” he sits up in panic, sweeping you into his arms. he brushes away the strands of hair sticking on your wet skin and peppers your face with light kisses. “why are you crying so much?”
“it just breaks my heart when you’re having a hard time.”
jungkook also tethers at the edge of sobbing. you’re one of the few people who knows almost everything that happens behind the scenes, and it feels so good to hear himself be recognized with such a deep level of respect and admiration. you have a very unique way of saving ‘i love you’ back. you’re a selfless utilitarian who loves logically and he’s a greedy bastard who gets everything he wants.
“but okay, fight for me as much as you want. since you made a strong case.”
“you drive me insane, you know that?” he mumbles. “you still make my heart beat like crazy. i don’t understand it. and i’m too old to be saying shit like this.”
you snort at his last sentence. “you’re so dramatic. 26 is not old.”
“wait until you turn 26, then you’ll feel old,” he argues, reaching for some tissue on the nightstand. “sometimes i forget you’re two years younger than me.”
“we’re soooo young,” you marvel at the realization while your boyfriend wipes away your tears. it’s such an odd feeling. you wonder if it’s normal to feel like you’ve lived a hundred lives at this age. you started living off part-time jobs almost a decade ago and now you’re living comfortably with a stable job. you were so convinced that you would end up dropping out of college because of debt. you ate everything but your pride. “i can’t wait to turn 30, and 40. i’m going to be such a cool adult.”
“blow your nose-”
“i’ll do it,” you snatch the tissue away from his hands, discarding it in the bin under your nightstand afterwards. “crying made me sleepy.”
once you return to cuddling position, you begin melting under jungkook’s starry eyes.
“kiss?”
he nods like a puppy, swiftly crossing the distance between your lips. you share a few more lazy kisses before fully settling down under the covers. you put your kindle away. your playlist has ended many minutes ago. the bedside lamps have been turned off, making your bedroom finally pitch black.
“we totally lost the topic,” jungkook whispers.
“that’s so on-brand,” you comment with your eyes closed. “what do we do about our premium subscriptions?”
“i don’t mind sharing forever.”
“until we find someone new to share with?”
“i won’t fall in love again,” he grumbles. “i’ll grow old and die alone.”
“shut up, you’d probably move back in with your members.”
he giggles as he imagines himself sharing a dorm with his hyungs in their 60s. will they still fight over stupid things? probably. “i guess that’s not so bad.”
“no but, breaking up is a lot of work. my wallpapers, my gallery… do we unfollow or block each other everywhere? we’d have to change passwords too. your credit cards are saved on my phone.”
“true, and you’ve seen my asshole. we can’t possibly break up after that.”
the word came up so out of the blue that your eyes automatically peeled open. you can see jungkook’s body vibrating with laughter even in the dark.
“i have your personal details on my phone and that is your concern?”
“wow- wow! are you invalidating my concern?”
“it’s not like i have a picture of it!”
“you can probably draw it from memory!”
“w-what-”
“no, you’ve already seen too much. we need to be together forever,” he announces with finality. “i’m not showing another person my asshole. you’re the first and the last.”
“oh my god!” you hit his chest in shock upon hearing it again. “i cannot take this discussion seriously anymore! how the fuck did you come up with that?”
“i feel like you see me naked more than i see myself naked. no- i mean, like, not as often, but… but you see more of my body.”
“it’s the same with me,” you point out. “it’s only fair game.”
“i know, it’s amazing,” he sighs dreamily. “you’re amazing. you’re beautiful. me? i’m the luckiest person in the world.”
“aw, thanks, my love. i’m just as in awe of you.”
your sweet voice compels him to inch closer to your body, burying his face on your chest. it’s quiet again for a moment. he yawns, and you catch it only seconds after.
“sometimes, i’m little afraid that we’d eventually get bored of each other and fall out of love after being together for so long,” you quietly confess the worry that urged you to open up the conversation earlier. “do you ever think about that?”
“isn’t that a common concern for every married couple?”
his warm breathing tickles a little. you push his head slightly to escape from it.
“i guess so… maybe it’s kind of cool that that’s the type of problem i get worried about.”
“see, babe? i told you. nothing to be scared of. look at us— we met six years ago and we still stay up all night talking like this.”
“but can i take our pillows in the divorce? i like our pillows.”
“okay,” he hums, giving little kisses on the skin along your collarbone.
“and the oven, too?”
“u-huh…”
“i’m the one who bought the treadmill.”
he uses it more than you and he doesn’t seem to care at all. “whatever you want, baby,”
“aren’t you supposed to fight me?” your fingers curl and grip the duvet hanging over his shoulder as his lips reach the sensitive areas of your neck, nipping and sucking. it’s too late in the night to wake up the butterflies in your stomach. “fuck, are you leaving marks?”
“you had it coming— got me feeling all territorial.”
“you know that i just end up covering them with makeup, right?”
“okay,” his hold on your waist becomes tighter. “use my card to buy new makeup.”
jungkook’s fantasies are tragically shattered when you abruptly flip around and turn your back on him.
“you’re not seeing my butt tonight. we need to keep the mystery alive or whatever.”
“huh, is that so?” he huffs in offense, deciding to bite back. “then you’re not seeing mine for an entire week!”
“fine! then you won’t see and touch mine for two weeks!”
“fine by me!”
“fine! goodnight!”
“i feel that,” you say in a threatening tone.
jungkook sighs obnoxiously and moves back his boxers-covered crotch, yet he insists on tangling his legs with yours and hugging your torso close. you know he can’t sleep without his personal pillow, after all.
“i am in a very awkward sleeping position right now, i hope you’re happy.”
you giggle in satisfaction. “yeah, we’re never breaking up.”
looking at it now, it all seems so simple. your neighbour is burn-in stubborn, you’re no better, and somehow you become another fire he feels compelled to put out. but flames don’t just burn — they leave everything changed. jeongguk knows only how to run, never to let himself be consumed. you’re willing to see what happens if you stay in the heat.
pairing firefighter!jk x vet!fem reader
genre neighbours au, frenemies to lovers, fluff, angst, smut
contents slice of life, crack-ish rom-com energy, banter & bickering, lowkey grumpy x grumpy, Or sassy x sassy, dog dad! jk, hurt/comfort, healing process, dog seizure, panic attack, vet talk, mentions of weed and drugs, mentions of emotional abuse and manipulation, hints at sh, crybaby jk, burn scars, hints at minor character death, fluffiest sweetest glimpses of their life, jk wears glasses!!!!, subby jk if you squint, oral m&f receiving, nipple play, fingering, cum eating, protected & unprotected penetrative sex, handjob, happy ending hehe
word count 12.3k
author’s note i’m emotional !!! this beautiful journey comes to an end 🥹 ootw reawakened my passion for writing, especially about complex people who only need a little love after all. i’m proud of myself for finishing a series, never thought i’d have seen this day ! and i got another one planned too, so lovies wait for me… i’m sadly going to take a long writing hiatus because your girl is graduating in a few months and needs to lock in academically! but i’ll always be here more than happy to interact with you guys 🩷 i wanna thank Everyone who’s interacted and left feedback for ootw, every little comment has been so special and i’d love to hear more of your opinions … hopefully this has been a fun journey for you guys as it’s been for me!! thank u and enjoy 🫶🏻
beta read by my sweet lover @voyter who’s been supporting ootw couple and me through Everything, and my amazing best friend @missenu whom i have to thank so profusely and infinitely and profoundly for literally cowriting this chapter ! she’s been an immense source of help and wisdom and this whole fic has only seen its light because of her magic mind ᥫ᭡.
banner creds ⋆ masterlist ⋆ series playlist
prologue ⋆ one ⋆ two ⋆ three
Relearning life on the fifth floor without the oddly familiar uncertainty of your front-door neighbour is harder than you’d imagined.
It’s hard when every morning you pluck a pair of shoes from the rack he built for you in diligent silence, and Ratatouille sits unfinished in your recently watched list. Hard when you can’t bring yourself to give back his jacket, leaving it to hang behind your bedroom door like shed skin.
Hard when even hiding in Grandma Mimi’s living room, curled on her worn couch, doesn’t keep you away from thoughts of Jeongguk. Especially when the old woman sits in the armchair facing you, but her eyes remain fixed on the calendar across the room.
Only a few days remain until the date marked with Jeongguk’s initials. You’d initially assumed it was his birthday, but the finality of the red ink and the contrast from the heart shape signaling her own anniversary suggest it might be something entirely different.
Grandma Mimi has been eerily quiet, you’ve noticed, a stark departure from the woman whose tongue is usually rolling with gossip or recipes.
Sitting straighter on her couch, you fiddle with the skin around your nails, and your frail voice has her slowly turning her head toward you.
“I feel like there’s something you know about Jeongguk that I should, too.”
She swallows hard, eyes looking to the side where her calendar resides and takes a moment to gather her words. Then, she offers a reassuring smile, the one she always uses to soothe your easily agitated nerves, though it doesn’t fully reach her eyes.
“What do you mean, dear?”
“It’s just…” her welcoming expression does little to calm your mounting anxiety as you reposition on the sofa, legs crossed. “I thought there was something. Then, the next second, he goes all cold on me. I… I don’t get him.”
Grandma Mimi looks unusually torn. Beneath the fond affection you’ve come to rely on, you find a new layer: restraint. It’d be unfair of you to ask for Grandma Mimi to pick sides; she wasn’t one of your girlfriends, though, she’s more. Which is an added layer of hurt knowing her loyalty to your front-door neighbour supersedes the bond you both shared in the time of your residency.
With resolution and a heavy sigh, she inhales. You lean in, eager to welcome a possible solution to all this uncertainty.
But she opts for a short explanation. “He’s been… hurt, in the past.”
“Grandma Mimi…” You’re truthfully sick of half-sincere reasons, and it filters through the exhaustion etched in your tone. Your eyes beg for honesty, and a dull ache that has started to feel familiar spreads through your chest. “I know you care about him. But … I’m hurting, too. I just want some clarity.”
Sad how you need to turn to another person instead of the direct source for said clarity.
The old woman purses her wrinkled lips into a smile. One that tells you her heart carries the same hurt now reaching your features. She reaches out and takes your hand in her cold one, lacing your fingers together.
Exhaling, she begins arranging pieces of the puzzle, yet the picture remains blurred. “There was this girl… their relationship was turbulent. She was messed up. Then, she cheated and left him.”
“Oh, that’s… that sounds rough.” You swallow, unconsciously nodding along with her bobbing chin.
But you know that can’t be all there is to this story. Right? It’s so clear across the lines of her face, how her eyes drop to your joined hands and drift toward somewhere distant, hauntingly mirroring the look Jeongguk wore in his kitchen.
Instead of closure, further confusion merges with a sudden indignation. “I still don’t get why I’m being treated like this.”
“You didn’t deserve that, sweetie,” she reaffirms, meeting your eyes again with fierce compassion, and her hand grips impossibly tighter around yours. “Look, dear… I care so much about you both, my angels. I don’t think it’s my place to tell this story. Jeongguk carries so much love, but that spark was stolen from him.”
You suddenly feel ridiculous. You’d spent weeks thinking the spark you saw in Jeongguk’s eyes — the one that seemed to burn wherever his skin brushed yours — was a shared flame. Turns out it’s just been a reflection of your own.
You thought you were both willing to stand in its light together, slowly swallowing everything around you and making the flare impossibly high. But when you turn around, you realize he’s left you alone to be consumed by your own making.
So much for a firefighter.
Teeth harsh on your bottom lip, you let Grandma Mimi’s next words sink into your growing resentment, aimed mostly at yourself for being so naive.
“He’s a boy with baggage. I get if you don’t wanna embark on this journey with him. You gotta take care of yourself, too. You don’t have to understand him, just… show him a little patience.”
Gulping down the bitter taste on your tongue, your brows knit together at the bridge of your nose. You, showing him patience. That’s all you’ve done.
The bitterness grows sour as it appears the one person who could understand the predicament with Jeongguk is inevitably showing him more compassion, even when he’s not around.
Will she do the same for you if Jeongguk comes to her for advice? You could only hope. Though small, you smile and nod at the older woman, ready to move on from the topic.
And days later, when resentment blends with acceptance, you think you could offer him patience.
You’ve been moving through the week on autopilot, finding refuge in the dog shelter where you often volunteer. You sit in silence with stray puppies and older mutts who only ask for so much patience and care when they softly whine the first time they feel the touch of a kind hand.
More often than not, your stomach grumbles by the end of your shifts, demands a patience of its own. You’ve rarely been feeding it properly: when you do, it’s with instant ramen or whatever processed food you can grab without thinking.
You find yourself asking your heart for that same patience, too, as your mind constantly runs on a loop of unanswered questions and stalled feelings. Peace only comes when you feel yourself finally drifting into sleep, but then the alarm always blares just as your body begins to relax, and the cycle repeats.
So, when his door happens to open just as you’re unlocking yours after work, his eyes resemble those of shelter puppies, and patience is supposedly all you’ve learned to give during the time spent apart.
You haven’t seen or heard from Jeongguk for almost two weeks. Gureum never once whined through the wall, so you’d presumed he was either locked inside or that you’d simply been lucky enough to never cross paths.
Jeongguk wears exhaustion on his face like patience hasn’t been his replacement as it’s been yours, and when he sees you he stops dead in his tracks, brows twitching upward in an expression that feels painfully akin to relief.
You tell yourself to stop presuming things you don’t know the clear answer to.
Gureum emerges from behind him, tail wagging, and he sniffs excitedly at your feet. You flash a small, instinctive smile at the dog, but when your gaze lifts back to Jeongguk’s, your lips tighten into a straight line.
You’re about to turn your back to him when he speaks your name, agitated, taking a tentative step toward you and letting his door fall shut behind him.
“Can we talk?”
Brows furrowed, you witness his face fall once again at your stunned silence. You hesitate, still carrying those flames within you, feeling them slowly merge with the patience you thought you’d mastered, and that you eventually manage to show him.
“Jeongguk, I think it’s best if we don’t.”
He nods, and you immediately recognize the compliance in his eyes, the one he’s always had ready for you, even when you’d asked him to get up for the third time after you’d finally settled on your couch for Ratatouille just to grab another blanket.
“I just need one minute, please. I’m sorry—”
“I’m not ready to talk yet.” Ironic how days ago you were wanting clarity and he’s willing to give it to you now. Still, your heart’s too fragile to hear him out.
“But–”
“You hurt me.” You stop him, words, heart and all. Your words burn — a first responder whose livelihood depends on saving and rescuing … is responsible for hurting now. Patience shaped acceptance, and made you realize you might simply not be the person he longs for, no matter how well you fit together. “I feel like we should keep our distance for a while.”
“I—”
“Goodbye, Jeongguk.”
Your own heart breaks at the finality in your tone, shatters when you see its effects on his face. He inhales sharply, extending a hand to stop you from disappearing into your apartment, though it never actually touches you.
“Is your ex boyfriend still bothering you?”
The mention of Mingyu has you stalling your reply for longer than you thought you’d have to think for it. You’ve been so deep in your own head that you hadn’t even noticed his constant texts ceasing — no calls, no accidental meetings. You study Jeongguk’s expectant face, blink to try and make sense of why he’d ask this now.
You can only shake your head no.
“Okay,” he licks his lips, nodding to himself as he tugs lightly on Gureum’s leash when he starts whining at the lack of attention. You desperately wish you could kneel and pet him like you usually would have done, but you’re held captive by the way your neighbour’s face morphs, expression suddenly loosening.
“That’s good. Be safe, okay? Please, come to me if you ever need any help.”
Patience has been a virtue you’d tried cultivating. But after knowing what it feels like to have looked for him, looked in his trembling orbs as you asked for something as essential as truth, only to find no one there, something inside you snaps at his words.
“Come to you?” You let out a short scoff, keys jangling in your shaking hand. “Only for you to disappear again? You know, Grandma Mimi said I don’t have to understand you, but—”
Suddenly, he moves, stepping closer, far over the boundaries of what’s now allowed, and Gureum lets out a low bark. “What did Halmeoni tell you?”
You instinctively step back, retreating beyond the threshold of your apartment where you won’t let him reach you. Disappointment etched into every line of your face as you shake your head slightly.
“Nothing that she wouldn’t want you to tell me first. She wouldn’t betray your trust like that.”
It’s a pang ringing simultaneously into both of your chests, vibrating with the silent implications. Jeongguk betrayed your trust the very moment after he’d asked you for it, and the reminder has his nose twitching in visible shame.
He swallows hard, withdrawing to an accepted distance as the surge of panic washes out of him. “Look, I just wanted to apologize—”
“And you did.” You finalize, gaze dropping to anywhere but him. Your worn out heels, Gureum’s panting mouth, your bitten nails. “I don’t think there’s anything else we should talk about. I’m tired of this back and forth.” You’re tired of never knowing where you stand with him.
Then, you offer him one last flash of dejection before stepping inside your space and letting the door shut, signal an erect wall between you, one that trembles under the pressure of the unsaid but that you both fight to keep standing.
Another week passes without a glimpse of his sleep-deprived eyes or a single sound from the fifth floor. Jeongguk asked you to look for him exactly when it comes to the kind of help he knows you struggle to accept.
You wish you could look for him simply because you get lonely on your walks, and the other day you found a jazz song in one of your dad’s vinyl compilations that you think he’d really like, and you baked too many cookies once again but you can’t knock on his door.
Time will mend the hurt. In a month, it’ll probably feel less awkward to say hello in passing instead of dodging him at the grocery store, the way you do the next week. In two months, you might even return to friendly terms, listen to what he wanted to say in the hallway, accept that he can only find solace in your friendship, not your lips on his.
And you’ll be okay with that. You’d take it over this abrupt loss, how the tide stripped him from you cold turkey. It’s been a brutal process relearning life on the fifth floor, relearning lunches at Grandma Mimi’s without him in the seat opposite of yours, relearning Pixar movies without him overanalyzing the animation.
You give yourself the grace to do it gradually.
Gradually, just like when you convince yourself none of your own jackets fit. So you wear his over a short dress you picked for drinks with friends — strictly because the oversized look pairs better with the leather of your boots, not because almond-and-pine-equals-shelter is still something you can’t unlearn.
Gradually, so that when you finally get to Ratatouille, you sniff and wipe at your cheeks as Remy combines strawberry and cheese, and the flavors merge with jazz instrumentals, and the colorful shapes on screen would have had him go off on one of his geeky animation tangents.
Gradually, like how you’ve been staying after hours at the clinic, offering to take on the mindless, end of day tasks. Your coworkers thank you when you confirm that, for the second week in a row, you’ll be the one preparing the clinic for the morning rush.
It’s a way for you to stall time, be here where it doesn’t truly feel like you’re alone, even as the clinic is dimmed and quiet. The pharmacy prep area becomes your sanctuary smelling of antiseptic.
The only sound heard is the repeated tink-tink-tink of the small plastic spatula as you move the yellow tablets across the counting tray. It’s a robotic motion, the one to count a massive prescription of heart medication for a regular patient, a Great Dane.
You’re hunched over the counter under a single pool of fluorescent light, and the silence might even be loud enough for you to become aware of the pace of your pulse — relaxed, echoing in your ears.
Tink, tink, tink. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub.
When a loud thump resounds from the lobby, you think you can feel your heart bursting against your ribs in perfect sync with the way the front door is slammed open.
You flinch, spatula jumping in your hand and sending a dozen pills skittering across the floor like marbles, mimicking the door bells chiming.
All of it gets drowned by a rough, panicked voice that has you standing up out of a sharp instinct. “Help, please!”
You bolt from the prep area, lab coat flapping behind you as you round the corner into the lobby. The voice was unrecognizable, a jagged, breathless wreck of a sound. But the sight in front of you is unmistakeable, stopping the air in your lungs.
Jeongguk is staggering toward one of the chairs of the waiting room, frame trembling so violently you almost miss the cause: Gureum is clutched to his chest, and his knuckles are white and slimy with the dog’s saliva. It’s the little maltese vibrating with him that sends you hurrying their way.
“Jeongguk, put him down!” You assert, professionalism surging through you and overriding the panic that rushed at the sight of him, voice sharp enough to pierce through his own fright. “What happened?”
You recognize the throes of a grand mal seizure, Gureum’s tiny body rigid, head arched back at an unnatural angle, his paws paddling the air. You still urge a response out of Jeongguk, whose wide eyes are bloodshot and fixed on the dog’s flickering eyelids.
“We were— we were on a walk, he— he fell,” his voice cracks, yet he doesn’t let Gureum go. “He started shaking, his eyes… he wouldn’t look at me. Please, I can’t— he’s dying—”
You drop to your knees in front of him, hands moving with practiced grace. “He’s not dying. It’s a seizure. You have to lay him down before you drop him.” You pry his shaky arms open, guiding him so that Gureum would be safe on the linoleum floor.
The heat radiating off the dog’s body is intense against your palms once you gently reposition him and check the pulse in his groin. Gureum’s breath comes in hot, wet gasps, and it almost matches his owner’s hysteria.
Jeongguk looks like he’s about to follow the dog into a collapse. He’s hyperventilating, fingers digging into his now empty thighs as he watches his dog shake with the last of the muscle tremors surging through his body.
“I’m sorry. Puh—please, help him,” Jeongguk hiccups, and your heart constricts. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him lose control, lose composure like this, let go completely the way he’s now breaking apart in front of you. You’re momentarily stuck, eyes flickering all over his shattered face.
His eyes are glossed over with succumbing as they follow your every shift, as you recover and reach over to grab Jeongguk’s wrist to pull his hand flat onto Gureum’s flank.
“Jeongguk. Gguk, hey. Look at me.”
He gasps, vision tunneling and drowning once he feels the dog’s beating heart beneath your warm hand, body unmoving save for his heaving chest and shaky fingers.
You beg, “Breathe with me.”
When his face snaps up at your wobbly voice, he’s a wreck of tears and exhaustion, his bangs matted to his forehead. His head twitches with a quick shake. “I’m sorry. I duh—don’t wanna lose him.”
You don’t break eye contact, don’t risk losing him to the void, and force strength in your tone. “You won’t, okay? Gureum is okay. Look.”
As he follows your gaze down, you both witness how Gureum’s tiny legs have stopped paddling. The dog blinks, head lifting a few inches, looking up at his owner with a dazed expression.
The seizure is over.
Jeongguk cracks a relieved smile, breath hitching, “Gureumie… My baby.” His large hand slides from your hold to gently cup the side of Gureum’s muzzle, eyes still wide and now blinking heavily.
You let them stay like that for a moment, allowing Jeongguk to catch his breath, unconsciously regulating with your own deep inhales, slow exhales. Batting away a pair of very unprofessional tears, you gently encircle Gureum’s weak body and lift him as you stand.
Looking up, Jeongguk sniffs and abruptly wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. “What— what’s going on?”
“It was a seizure,” you repeat, watching how his brows pinch like he’s just now letting the information filter through his padded ears and sink in. You’re quick to reassure him. “It’s over now. I just need to do a proper check-up, but he’s already coming around. Wanna come with us?”
You hold the dog closer to your chest, mindful to keep your grip gentle, as well as your tone when speaking to your neighbour, clearly still shaken up. He nods, hesitant, and stands to follow you into an exam room.
On the stainless steel table, Gureum shivers against the cold and unforgiving surface, a tiny tremor that sends a fresh wave of agony across Jeongguk’s face.
“He’s shaking again,” Jeongguk rasps, hands hovering near the table, twitching as if he wants to snatch the dog up but knows better. “Is he having another one? Is he—”
“No,” your voice is steady, settles low between the both of you. “It’s the post-ictical phase. He’s just disoriented.” A raised hand comes forward to halt his forward lean, keeping your expression stern but reassuring. “I know what I’m doing. I need you to be calm and stay where you are. Can you do that for me?”
His nod is frantic, as if he’s suddenly snapping out of a daze, and he takes a step back. He moves his eyes up at you with a desperate guilt that tells you it has nothing to do with the dog. “Yes. Sorry.”
Reaching into your lab coat, you pull out a small silver penlight, the beam cutting through Gureum’s dark, glassy stare.
“Pupils are equal and reactive,” you murmur, watching the irises contract. “That’s good. He’s coming out of the woods.”
You continue the examination in silence, moving expertly as you look for further signs of recovery. Checking his gums for that healthy flush of pink, monitoring his temperature. As expected, Gureum is burning up, little body still reeling. You remain collected, although the weight of Jeongguk’s eyes on you has your expression flickering.
After you’re finished scrubbing Gureum’s tiny paws and the thin skin of his ears with alcohol-soaked pads to regulate his temperature, the weary whine he gives into the medicinal-scented room has Jeongguk letting out a half-hiccup, morphing into a broken smile.
Gureum leans his head into your touch, his core temperature cooling down and his body readapting to his surroundings. Jeongguk grips the edge of the exam table so hard the metal groans.
Finally, you tuck your stethoscope back into your pocket after having checked for a rhythmic heartbeat, and you look up into the widened eyes in front of you. “He’s fine, Jeongguk. His heart is strong, this was a fluke. He just needs to rest.”
Jeongguk nods repeatedly, reaching out with hesitance to pet Gureum's fur. “Thank you, thank you so much.”
You hum, turning your back to him to wash your hands. The scent of alcohol evaporating from Gureum’s paws still waltzes in the air, mingling with a thick, regretful silence.
He’s the one to break through it, voice returning to its usual regulated tone, yet it’s pitched low with the realization of his complete loss of control dawning on the both of you. “I’m sorry for… Hell, I’ve a lot to be sorry for.”
“It’s okay,” you whisper. The exhaustion of the day, of these past weeks, sinks into your chest all at once. The familiar void begins taking up more than its allowed space, and with Jeongguk in the same room but nothing left on your tongue to say, you find yourself searching for an exit.
“No, it’s not,” Jeongguk lets out with a voice as frail as yours, and your brows twitch as you turn around. He sniffs, and there’s a sudden resolution across his features. “If you give me the chance, I… I think I’m ready to be honest with you, now.”
Gureum presses his face further into Jeongguk’s palm, and you’re both looking down at his timid tongue licking over his skin rather than witnessing the hurt tightening both your expressions.
You hesitate, inhale shaky, “Look, I’m still working, and…”
“I know, I know,” he nods, pointer finger sliding gently across the dog’s wet nose. “Whenever you want to, you can knock on my door. Just… consider it. Please.”
You do consider it. Let another week pass as you do.
Before work, when your leg bobs restlessly under the table and you forcefully wrap your mouth around a spoon of soggy cereal.
After work, spotting him from a distance in the park, sitting on your bench, while Gureum trots freely through the grass.
When you close your eyes, and all you can see behind your lids is his tear-streaked face and the tremor of his brows.
At the grocery store, when you’re buying apples and find yourself wishing Gureum would rip another of your plastic bags, and hoping the dog’s doing better.
Whenever you’re closing your door or opening it, and the vision in front of you is always his closed one.
Exactly one week later, coming back from another of your increasingly long walks, you finally hear sound coming from beyond the piece of wood separating you. You think you can distinguish Gureum’s nails clicking on the floor and Jeongguk’s small giggle resounding in the space.
And it’s as if your heart finally gives up the fight, longs for that melody to vibrate through it again. You clearly don’t think of it enough when your knuckles meet the wood.
Followed by an eager bark, you hear Jeongguk’s feet hastily making their way to the door. As it swings open, you wonder if he’s worn that same expectant expression every time someone has knocked over the past seven days.
Eyes large and sparkling, his lifted brows relax once he takes you in, standing in front of him, wearing the same baby blue set you had on during your very first walk together.
“Hi,” he breathes through a smile, and you think that vision alone might be enough, him looking at you like this is worth the risk of whatever rejection or truth follows.
“Hey,” in return, your smile is weak and doesn’t fully form. You spot Gureum behind him, tail wagging and tongue lolling. Returning your gaze to his owner, you ask, hesitant, “Is this a bad moment?”
“No, not at all.” Jeongguk is quick to step aside, pulling the door wide. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He says he’s been waiting for you — just as you’ve punished both of you by stalling this conversation, you suppose — yet, after the meaningless small talk has faded and you’ve acknowledged how much better Gureum is doing, his words desert him as he fiddles with his fingers on his lap.
His couch feels firmer than you remember, and you reposition yourself as you cross your legs and turn your front to fully face him, sitting next to you.
“You said you wanted to talk.”
Jeongguk nods, locking his gaze onto yours. “I do. I owe you an explanation.” It’s not long before his eyes drop back to his hands. “I’ve been such an asshole to you this whole time, and you’re still here willing to listen to me.”
You gulp, fighting the lump in your throat and trying to silence the anxiety whispering in the back of your mind, anticipating what he might say.
He licks his lips before inhaling, “I’ve been in a dark headspace for quite some time. The time apart from you… made me realize I’ve been pushing away the only person who made it all a bit brighter.”
Looking up, he lets his glossy eyes speak to your swollen pupils and the silence speak for his regret.
Jeongguk tells you about a girl named Nora who once occupied your apartment, long before the family of four. He explains how she’d always get into trouble, pair that with his unfortunate hero complex, he’d always mend the damage.
“I fell for her because she gave me purpose. I think I was Pavlov’ed into being her dog.” A humourless chuckle escapes him, but his face soon twitches back into hurt. He leans back onto the couch and looks up at you as if he’s trying to read your thoughts. “She was good to me only when I did things for her. I lost a lot in that relationship.” He sucks in a breath. “Money, time, dignity… love.”
His money was spent on her distractions, innocent enough at first. This is how you learn that Gureum wasn’t even his dog to begin with, but Nora’s emotional support animal. He doesn’t regret the money he spent on the Maltese. His face does twist with shame when he mentions buying weed just to comply and make her stay, paying for the city’s best therapist only for her to reject the help, emptying his wallet on hospital admissions and pills which she swore she needed in her healing process.
That’s similar to how his dignity got stripped from his hold, too. Especially when he recounts, with a visible shiver, how she convinced him to get high with her, claiming he didn’t really love her if he wouldn’t join her, and the sex almost resulted in him getting baby-trapped.
The words nearly hiccup on their way out of his throat, and your hand flies to hold his in comfort. Your breath hitches, “Gguk, oh god… I’m so sorry.”
When he snaps up from the spot he’d zoned out on, he sees your face wet with tears and his palm engulfs yours so tight it might have hurt if your chest wasn’t already constricted by the truths spilling from his mouth.
Jeongguk shakes his head and you notice his other hand twitching on his thigh, almost as if he wanted to reach for you but wasn’t sure if he could.
“After that, it got worse.” He gulps, face stiff as he skims through the wreckage of those years, but still pushes for the honesty he owes you. “She started really abusing drugs. Then harming herself, too… but, you know. I thought I could help her. Save her.”
His voice breaks on the last admission, and you slide closer on the couch until your knees are bumping, forcing him to look at your face, your lips as you whisper with assurance, “I’m sure you did more than enough, Gguk.”
“Not enough to keep her with me. She… she just left us. Me and Gureum.” His gaze falls to the dog laying at the feet of the couch. He sniffles, worrying at his bottom lip before shaking his head to clear the fog. “But, yeah. This— I’m not telling you this so you’ll pity me.”
You inhale, open your mouth to reassure him, but he interrupts. “I just want to apologize for projecting all that onto you. I shouldn’t have let my insecurities speak over what you were telling me. And what you were showing me.”
Jeongguk had been grieving you, anticipatorily. This whole time, looking into your eyes has felt like his last time doing so, and tasting your every baked good has felt like a privilege he was destined to lose. And he had tried his best to extend that time, prove to you he could be worth it.
You’ve been expecting him, anticipatorily. Willing to discover what being so close to the fire would do to your insides, whether it would melt you into ashes or forge you into something better. And you find ashes only provide the space for new and greater beginnings, after all.
Your thumb brushes over his knuckles as you lean closer, resting your side against the cushions. In the narrow space between you, you can clearly see the subtle twitch of his chin, how hard he’s fought through this conversation.
“You need to stop worrying so much about other people. Sometimes, they don’t wanna be saved.” Your whisper fans over his cheeks like cold air over the flames. “Save yourself, Gguk. Leave some life for yourself, too.”
Jeongguk swallows back words that refuse to come out without tears, and he isn’t ready to cry. He doesn’t want to.
But it’s so hard to stay composed when your other hand, shaky and uncertain, places itself gently against his cheek, touch so soft he lets his eyes flutter shut along with your tender words.
“I hope you know that if I’m here, it’s because I found so much more in you than a person willing to carry the world’s weight. And that is nothing to be ashamed of, either. Ever.” You punctuate with finality.
When your thumb strokes his cheek, it is to catch the tears that inevitably break loose. You speak sincerity into the inches between you.
“I wish you could’ve seen from the beginning that I would’ve stood by you even if you weren’t constantly trying to prove your worth. You are worth it, Gguk. The right person doesn’t need you to only give. I wish you could also learn how to take.”
For the weeks that follow, you both truly relearn life on the fifth floor with no barriers between you — no emotional walls, at least, just two wooden doors and cracking hesitance.
You’ve confirmed your belief that loss is not just absence. What’s empty leaves space for something else, and losing Jeongguk had only prepared you to welcome him back properly, in a way. Grief led you to blooming patience and understanding, so that when you found yourself facing Jeongguk’s glossy eyes, you simply gave him back what was already his — a permanent spot in your heart.
Jeongguk, in turn, learns that loss doesn’t always look like failure, that failing might just mean the same mistakes cannot be repeated, and he can still take from them. Failing is no longer a monster under the bed when you continue to smile up at him every day, regardless of whether he can be the strong one.
When he finally allows you to see the burn scars on his bare back, the marks of the moment he truly felt like he had failed, you don’t see weakness. You don’t see someone incapable. Instead, you’re there to wipe his tears and look at him with a deepening adoration in your eyes that he never thought possible.
You learn that Nora didn’t only leave him emotionally empty. That door shutting close behind her signalled the very last time he’d ever have the chance of seeing her again.
Because Nora also left a physically empty void in her departure. She was consumed by the same flames he dominates and saves people from. He blames himself for failing to save her, but as you trace the jagged lines of his scars, you whisper that they’re only a further proof of the courage he carries — and if that ever weighs him down, you tell him to topple onto you. You’ll be there to cradle him with the care he’s finally learning to allow and accept.
Jeongguk keeps giving. Constantly. Even more than he did when he was just your neighbour turned friend.
For starters, you discover the reason Mingyu’s constant texts finally ceased: Jeongguk. He doesn’t offer much detail, only that your ex boyfriend is no longer someone you should worry about. You jokingly ask if he’s murdered him, and he laughs like he doesn’t know the sound alone tugs at your heartstrings painfully, beautifully.
“God, no,” he chuckles, laughter dimming as if he still feels he hasn’t quite earned the right to let loose like that. “Just told him to leave you alone. For good.”
You bite on your smile, shrugging playfully. “I wouldn’t have snitched on you.”
When you also let out a giggle, he can’t help but join in, softly nudging your shoulder with his. “You’re so ridiculous.”
He attempts to bake cookies, just to return the sweetness, but you can’t suppress the huff of a chortle the moment you take a bite.
Furrowing his brows, he mimics your contained smile. “What?”
“No, it’s—” You mumble around a mouthful before swallowing hard. “It’s good.”
“Oh, I knew I got something wrong,” he shakes his head, turning back to the tray, grimacing at the cookies’ pale, wet appearance.
You raise your brows, shifting into comfort mode as you wrap yourself around his arm to recall his attention. “It’s probably just the oven settings, Gguk. They’re really not bad.”
He smiles sheepishly down at you, catching your sneaky, mischievous dimples. “Okay, finish the cookie, then.”
You inhale, slowly detaching from him, “Um…”
In a heartbeat, his fingers are digging into your sides. You shriek, doubling over in his hold as he tickles restlessly, and he’s also laughing right against your ear, “You liar!”
The next time he tries, the cookies are considerably better. Perhaps it’s the determination in his eyes, the kind that says failure is no longer a reason to stop. Either way, you end the night crashing on his couch, full-tummied and high on sugar.
Almost every weekend, he cooks dinner for the two of you, and while he does the dishes you’re rambling into his ear about work. By now, he’s so invested that the times he drives you to the clinic he’s tempted to stay through your shift — can’t wait for the evening to hear the latest developments.
It’s a series of silent actions: having already the couch prepped with your favourite blankets for movie nights even as the warm spring weather approaches; carrying your every heavy grocery bag on his wide shoulders; heating up your water bottle when you’re on your period.
He even lets you drag him out for drinks with your friends, staying by your side despite his drowsiness, and he never once complains. Always has his eyes on you, attuned to your every shift.
If you want to dance, he’ll let you grind against him and guide your hips even as he shivers from the contact, restraining himself from placing his lips where he’d really want to. If you want to drink, he’ll be by your side for a glass or two before he begins monitoring your alcohol-intake.
One night, sitting together on the bar stools, when the techno-house music begins to blare too loudly against your temple, you let your head slip onto his shoulder. He runs a warm palm up and down your back and you turn sheepish at the contact, burrowing closer into his side.
He leans in, speaks into your ear, “You wanna go home, Oompie?”
Nodding into his chest, he chuckles softly. And he moves just as carefully, straightening you up so he can stand. “Okay, I’ll go grab our stuff from the table. Don’t move.”
You watch him go with a lazy, unconscious smile on your lips. Once he disappears into the crowd, your palm replaces his shoulder as you rest your cheek on it, elbow propped up the counter.
When you hear the stool beside you scratching against the floor, you turn your head with a light in your eyes ready to welcome Jeongguk back, tell him about this face mask you should try once you’re home, until the flicker dims at the sight of a stranger.
The man is buff, not in the lean way Jeongguk is. His beard makes him look rougher than he already appears, and he acknowledges you with a nod of his chin and a slimy smile. “What’s a doll like you doing alone?”
You immediately straighten up your slugged position, head spinning slightly from the drinks. “Huh, I—”
“Let me get you a drink.” He’s already waving for the bartender, but you stop him quickly.
“No, I— I’m about to leave with my boyfriend, sorry.” The word slips naturally over your tongue, whether it comes as a handy excuse or a subconscious wish.
Scoffing, the man shakes his head at the bartender, who looks on with confusion. “Right. Boyfriend. You females always use that one, huh? How come every time you say you have a boyfriend, he’s never actually there?”
Furrowing your brows, you inhale, alcohol fueling a sudden spark of anger. “Have you considered that the only way males stop bothering us is once we mention another ma—”
“Hey sweets, ready to go?”
Both you and the entitled stranger turn around at the sound of Jeongguk’s voice, standing right behind you with raised brows. They pinch together the moment he takes in the guy sitting in his previous spot, and he’s immediately wrapping a firm hand around your waist once you hurriedly step off the stool.
“My bad, bro. I ain’t mean anything,” the man mutters, lifting his hands in defeat before vanishing back into the crowd, just as you imagined he would’ve once he saw Jeongguk.
Tall, buff, tattooed and scary-looking Jeongguk, who looks down at you alarmedly, his palm traveling up your side. “Did he try anything?”
“No, no,” you shake your head, leading the way toward the exit as he follows closely. “He offered a drink, and I told him I have a boyfriend. And then he started going off about how women lie about it, like—”
You stop mid-sentence when, looking up, you see Jeongguk biting back a grin while his eyes are fixed on the ground, making sure you don’t trip on the sidewalk. Then, noticing the silence, he turns to you expectantly.
You narrow your eyes, curling into his chest as the chilly night air hits your skin. “Why are you smiling like that?”
Jeongguk shrugs, guiding you both toward his car. “Nothing, just wasn’t aware you had a boyfriend.”
Rolling your eyes, you swat at his stomach and try to detach yourself, but he just tugs you back in. You keep up the banter, only because there’s nothing you love more than playful and relaxed Jeongguk.
“Yeah, well… I would’ve told you eventually.”
“Oh, really?” He opens the passenger door and eases you into the seat before rounding the car. He gets inside, doesn’t start the engine, just shifts to look at you. Noticing your tight shoulders, he pulls his jacket off and drapes it over your exposed legs. “What’s he like?”
Your fingers curl into the leather, and you let the side of your head rest back against the seat, looking at him through heavy lids. “He’s the perfect guy to scare other men away. He’s tall, has lots of tattoos…”
Humming around a smile, Jeongguk reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear, hand staying to cup around your cheek. “And is he really that scary?”
Jeongguk is also learning how to take. Take in how your words sink straight into his heart, no intrusive thoughts of selfishness, simply basking into the feeling of being taken care of. Being seen, heard, understood. Being allowed to trip and finding your extended hand ready to lift him up and mend his wounds.
Ever so attentive, you read every wave of emotion washing over his face without the need for words. You have enough for the both of you, and you use them to tame the flames into a nice, warm bonfire.
You shake your head against his palm, turning your face just slightly so you can leave a faint, warm peck on his wrist. “No… he has the kindest, biggest heart.”
The next night, while thumbing through his vinyls, your fingers stumble onto a sleeve that feels unfamiliar. On the turntable, The Sky Is a Landfill by Jeff Buckley nears its end, but the record you pull from the shelf is a limited edition Radiohead. Karma Police, to be exact. The song you were born to.
You stand up from your crouched position, eyes raking over the autographed cover. Turning to Jeongguk, he’s still on the couch, glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose as he scrolls through next month’s work schedule.
You quip, loud enough over the drums of Everybody Here Wants You. “When did you get this, Gguk?”
Looking up at the sound of your voice, he adjusts his glasses only for his eyes to widen once they land on the record in your hands. He sits up straighter, “I, huh…” sighing, he admits. “That was supposed to be your gift.”
“What?” It’s your eyes dilating, glancing between the gift and the gifter. A thirty-two-teeth smile stretches across your mouth. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you…”
Phone discarded, he strides his way toward you, a shy dimple hollowing his cheek. “I’m sorry…”
Once he’s in front of you, looking so pretty and vulnerable under the amber hues of the lamp reflecting off his glasses, your gaze drops back to the vinyl. Shaking your head, you slide the record back into its place and finally allow yourself to take him in.
“Can we both agree on not apologizing anymore?”
He nods sheepishly, but whatever agreement was on his tongue turns into a yelp as you throw yourself into his chest. Your arms lock around his neck and he instinctively lifts you off the carpet.
“Thank you, Ggukkie.” Squealing, you kick your legs in the air before he’s setting you back down, giggling against your ear.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it!” You pull back just enough to better express the sentiment, eyes locked onto his blown-wide pupils.
Your smiles linger, but they morph into something easier, lazier. You’re both playing the toughest ping-pong match between eyes and lips, and Jeongguk admits defeat first, straightening slightly and loosening his grip on your waist.
“Sorry.”
You hum, eyes narrowing as you tug him back into your space with a hand splayed over his nape. “What did I just say?”
“I know, I know,” he grumbles, gaze falling onto your mouth as he swallows hard, almost as if it’s painful to look anywhere else. “I just wanna give you your space. I know that I still don’t have your full trust.”
Your brows twitch. “Gguk… You do.”
Fingers traveling up, you cradle his jaw and let your thumb brush the corner of his mouth, parted and breathing out a trembling exhale. It’s like you can see the fight slowly leaving his body, how his lids droop and his palms settle on your hips.
With your other hand, you fix his glasses and ruffle his hair — getting a little too long now — with a gentle touch. “I’ve had enough space. I can’t stay away from you.”
There never really was space between you, and there never needed to be. You’re magnets that have tried to reject one another for far too long, but when you’re face to face the pull is stronger and undeniable.
Jeongguk can only drop his forehead against yours, breathing in the sweet merge of cotton candy and almond. You speak the assurance you know he needs in the puff of air left between you.
“I wanna be there for you. With you. Through everything. I just need you to let me in.”
The flames engulf you once again, but this time you’re both standing in the heat together. You’ve decided it’s worth being consumed, and he realizes that all the times he’s ran, he only deprived himself of this comfortable warmth.
You whisper, “Do you trust me?”
Jeongguk, ever so responsive, nods his head against your forehead. “I do.”
It’s all the permission you need. You lean in, pressing your mouth to his in a kiss that has you both sighing through your nose, limbs instantly locking tighter around one another. When he lets one hand drag lower around the curve of your hips, you whimper against his lips and he wastes no time finding your tongue with his.
You don’t think you’ll ever need air to fill your lungs again, because oxygen still flows through the kiss directly to your heart. And you don’t care if it’s messy, if Jeongguk’s glasses are slipping further down his nose, if your teeth clash the more you push against each other — because when you hear him whine, it only spurs you further.
You detach just enough to trail kisses along his chin, following the line of his jaw down to his throat, causing him to throw his head back, unable to keep his moan trapped behind his teeth. Your hand buried in the hair at the nape of his neck tugs him backward, giving yourself more space to suck and nip at the expanse of his neck.
“Baby, oh shit,” he groans as you push him against the furniture, the impact hard enough to have Jeff Buckley’s voice startle and skip on the still-spinning vinyl. You release his skin with a wet smack, looking up at him through your dazed fog and swollen lips.
Jeongguk moans from the vision alone, trying to conceal it by colliding your mouths together once again, his hands firming on your waist to guide the slow but sharp grinds against his already embarrassingly, clothed and hard length.
It throbs beneath his thin sweats when you press your hand on it, pulling him lightly by his hair so you can whisper against his flushed-pink ear. “Do you trust me with your pleasure?”
He nods, moans so loud around a yeah, and watches in awe as you drop to your knees in front of him, lowering his pants along with you. You look up through your lashes and flash a wicked smile before mouthing at his cock, licking over the wet spot on his white boxers.
Jeongguk quite literally wails, messily pushes his glasses back against the bridge of his nose, then bucks his hips up in search of more friction. “Please, sweets.”
“Hm? What?” You let your lips drag over his incredibly hard girth, placing your hands on his muscular thighs and causing him to whimper. Batting your lashes, you tilt your head. “What do you want?”
“I want you to do whatever you want to me, please,” words so compliant and vulnerable clash with the way his wide palm comes to cup your jaw, fingers extending to the rest of your face and digging in desperate need of restraint.
You turn for a quick kiss on his wrist before wrapping your hand around it, shaking your head as you let his arm drop at his side. “If you want me to suck your cock, you need to keep your hands to yourself. Okay?”
“O–okay,” he stutters and wraps his fingers tight around the edge of the cabinet, knuckles turning white.
“Not a punishment, Ggukkie,” you reassure as you slowly pull his boxers down, cock springing free and brushing your nose. He hisses, tries pushing forward but your palms are back on his thighs, digging. “I just wanna take care of you tonight. Would you like that?”
Whimpering, he breathes, “Yeah, fuck, I’d love that.”
You look between his length and his face, both pretty and blushing pink. His tip throbs and leaks, begs to be welcomed in your warm mouth. His brows twitch, too, angled upwards and only accentuating his wide eyes behind the glasses.
Your tongue runs from his base to his tip before you’re wrapping your lips around it, humming along with his dragged moan. The dresser rustles once again, this time with the force of his constraint, and you start bobbing your head as your fist pumps the parts you can’t reach.
“Shit, you feel suh—so, mmph—good,” his stutter syncs with the way his own hips slip, pushing his cock further inside your mouth and hitting the back of your throat while your fist is still wrapped around his base, causing you to gag.
He gasps, hand hovering the side of your face but, ever so obedient, he doesn’t touch you. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
You retreat with a wet sound, length bouncing straight in front of you and keeping your vision of his face obstructed. “Yeah, Ggukkie. Did you like that?”
His fingers curl into a fist beside your head, and you can see his throat bob around a hard swallow. He hums, head nodding slightly.
You decide he’s been good enough. Guide his hand with your own on top of your head, where his fingers sneak into your hair and you let yourself be held as you’re wrapped around his cock again and he slowly bucks his hips into your warmth, your tongue coming out to swirl around his tip.
Jeongguk is long, and he feels even thicker in your mouth. You choke at the intrusion, but nonetheless press yourself further — anything it takes to hear his pretty, wailed sounds.
Knees numb from his hardwood floors, your panties grow wetter as you imagine what he’d feel like inside you, and the thought alone has you moaning around him, nodding your head at a faster pace while your hand keeps flicking at his base.
That’s when you look up at him, meet the flushed mess on his cheeks, how his glasses are close to slipping off his nose and his furrowed brows threaten to leave a premature wrinkle.
He opens his mouth around a moan when he takes in your glossy eyes staring up at his through your drawn up brows, and his thrusts stammer. “Baby, I’m gonna cum.”
You hum, hollowing your cheeks around his tip while your other hand lowers to tease his balls, and then you truly hear him cry.
His hand slips to your jaw so he can angle your gaze on his, glasses only heightening the twinkle in his dazed, swollen pupils. And it must be the same look mirrored in your eyes that leaves him empty of words, of any warning, before he’s choking around a moan and painting your throat white.
You cease your movement, allowing him to thrust lazily into your mouth however he wants to ride through his well-deserved orgasm. He pulls his softening cock out of your warm cavern, fucked-out gaze matching yours before he helps you up to your feet. Lips crashed to yours, he thrust his tongue into your mouth, relishing the mix of his salted taste with your saliva.
“You’re so good to me.” He pants against your lips. “How’d I get this lucky?”
You whimper in his embrace, too overwhelmed by his touch to verbalize your retort of how good he’s been to you.
Hours later, when he’s found it hard to stop kissing you and you’ve found it hard to keep your sneaky hands off him, Jeongguk has you sprawled on his bed, tugging your shorts down along with your uncomfortably slicked panties.
You support yourself on your forearms, can’t miss the look on his face when he spreads your legs wider and pants at the sight of your soaked lips, swollen clit.
“Fuck, baby,” his hands hover, overwhelmed at the sight of you from above, even more when you pull at the neck of your tee and take it off in one swift move.
He almost wanted to fuck you with that shirt on, the one you stole from his drawer nights ago, only because it felt good to see you entirely bathed in him.
But the sight of your tits shuts his every other thought out. Glasses thrown somewhere on his nightstand, he isn’t a bit phased at the sudden change in vision. You’re so close to him — so close where he can see the tiny freckles and marks you’d consider imperfections. They all look the same to him: home to his lips and touch.
He sighs, lowering his face in between your spread thighs, “Can I taste you?”
Although he still gives you the illusion of being in charge, you’re putty under his hazed, hungry eyes, nodding expectantly and pushing your chest forward to welcome his warm and wide palm around your boob, thumb brushing the nipple.
His other hand grips the side of your thigh as he softly blows on your clit and makes you whimper. Not louder than when he wraps his lips around it, suctioning the bud in his wet mouth and making your eyes roll to the back of your head.
“Gguk, oh my god,” you don’t care about how pathetic you sound, not when he lets his tongue slide between your puffy folds, his groan vibrating right through you. He still circles shapes around your nipple, and you fall on your back as you spasm under him.
You let out a particularly loud cry when you feel the tip of his tongue teasing your entrance, only to lick up where he slurps around your clit and speaks against it. “Taste so sweet. The sweetest.”
When your hand flies into his hair for support, your gazes meet before you shut your eyes at the overwhelming sensations. You feel yourself clench around nothing when his sliced eyes lock back with your wide and teary ones as he dives deep into you, humming incomprehensible praises.
You’re left whimpering at the intensity of his stare, and he sucks on your clit avidly as his grip on your boob tightens. You jolt forward when you feel one of his thick digits taunt your hole before slipping inside, and he’s instantly groaning when he feels your gushy walls squeeze.
Your fingers grip his locks tighter as he pumps the finger in and out a few times before curling inside, only to be joined by a second digit. You wail, panting and bucking your hips forward as he leaves your nub alone in favour of tracing sweet kisses along the inside of your thigh.
He’s evidently determined to ruin you when he adds a third finger, and you’re mewling loudly, mouth agape and brows raised as you shake under his ministrations.
The stretch is mind-numbing as he thrusts his thick digits at a rapid pace. You bite down on your forearm to muffle the lewd sounds, and it only motivates him more to work you through your impending orgasm.
“Jeongguk—” You cry. “I—I’m cumming, shit, baby, I’m cumming.” Your back arches against his mattress, cunt pulsating around his fingers as you let yourself go. His mouth finds home around your clit again, ignoring your sobs as he suctions harder around you.
He knows what you need — knows he needs to give back just as much as you’ve given him.
Jeongguk is quick to come up to your face and leave comforting pecks over your jaw, his other hand keeping you firm by your waist.
When he kisses you and lets your tastes mix together, tongue slicing against yours in a wet and slicked exchange just as he angles his fingers into a particular spot, you keen and squeeze around him so tight he feels lightheaded thinking of how well his cock would fit in you.
“Did so good for me, sugar,” he whispers sweet nothings against your lips as you come down, mouth traveling up to peck your temple as his fingers slowly ease their way out of your gaping hole.
Your hand reaches down and engulfs his wrist, bringing it to your face. Mouth wrapping around his fingers, you lick and suck your essence off his digits. His lips part, wishing he had been the one to taste more of you.
“How’d you taste, hm?” He presses his mouth to yours.
Your tongue massages against his, a breathy giggle escaping as you whisper your answer, “Sweet.”
You had been too drowsy for anything more in the aftermath, no matter how much you wanted it. Jeongguk gently shushed your dozy whines with small, repeated pecks on the corner of your mouth until the warm pattern he traced over your arm and the prospect of his morning pancakes lulled you to sleep.
And you find waking up beside him has been worth every wait, especially rewarding when your smaller frame is curled into his broad chest, embracing you from behind with an arm draped over your front.
Shuffling closer into him only has you gasping in more delight when you feel how his hard length pokes your soft ass, and how the friction immediately has him stirring behind you. You go still when he groans groggily in your ear, and his hand splays warm over your stomach.
“Baby,” he mumbles, the word barely leaving his lips but having your legs pressed together, only tightening the tension between your meeting middles.
You hum and try a tentative push, his hot breath fanning against your lobe as it escapes his lips paired with a growl. In response, he attempts a more decisive grind, pinning you into him with his spread hand over your womb, his hardness melting into the tender skin of your cheeks.
It doesn’t take long for his hand to slide lower, for him to sneak his fingers between your already soaked folds, impatiently prepare you with one digit in before the lazy circles of his thumb on your clit have you spasming messily. He then grinds against your covered heat, wetness soaking through your panties as his movement grows quicker.
“Please, Gguk.” Your mouth falls open. “I need to feel you inside me.”
He groans, breath coming out harsh as he continues rubbing his hard cock between your folds, enjoying the wet, slick sounds just a little more before he gives into your pleas. Your arm reaches back, hand sprawled over his ass as you hold him in place, tucking him just enough where the tip of his cock catches your entrance.
He hisses, restraint going out the door as you angle your ass to tease the possibility of sinking into your warmth.
And it doesn’t take long after that for his thick cock to find its rightful place inside your snug walls, though not without a condom wrapped around it.
The stretch is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, and you’re unable to stop the breathy sounds you let out in the quiet of his bedroom, your sloppy grip also rendering him incapable of keeping increasingly louder moans in — a combo which probably explains why you let go together, in no time, with a few lazy thrusts.
Doesn’t take long to figure out why you have sex almost every day after that, after being stuffed full by him and tightening so hard around his length you swear you’d have kept him locked there forever.
You never protest against the condom. You understand the boundaries he still needs to keep, even as you find yourself wishing to feel him bare once he finally feels secure enough. Condom or not, you’ve been on cloud nine ever since discovering what orgasms that aren’t results of your own, pathetic efforts feel like.
There’s not a single corner of either apartment that hasn’t witnessed the two of you breaking apart in pleasure.
You jerk him off on his stiff couch, he eats you out in your shower, then fucks you on the kitchen counter as you wait for brownies in the oven. You suck him off in his bed, and he bends you over with your face next to his record player as he thrusts deep into you from behind.
Then, another night, you’re on your soft couch while Netflix patiently asks if you’re still watching.
“Wanna ride you,” you say through a sheepish smile, straddling him with both knees at either side of him as you press your warm and soaked core on his throbbing length, squished between you and his toned stomach.
“Shit, baby.” He can’t help but buck his hips forward and you both moan at the slippery friction, his hand traveling up to find the curve of your breast. “You do?”
“Yeah,” nodding, you take his cock in your hand and slowly tug at it. “Condom?”
He bites his lips harshly at your strokes, moaning when your thumb brushes his slit. With vulnerable honesty, he whispers, “I— I wanna feel you, please.”
His shaky plea has your movements faltering, brows furrowing as you search his eyes. There is nothing you want more, but you need him to be sure. You need him to feel secure, never doubting the space you’ve built together.
“Are you sure, Gguk?”
He nods all too quickly, “Yeah. I trust you.”
It’s impossible to bite back your grin — impossible when a wider one stretches over his features, impossible when your eyes water with the confession.
You bend down for a messy kiss, lining his tip with your entrance before you’re sinking down his length with a loud moan that breaks through your mouth.
His fingers dig in your skin, and you can tell that even through his constant, whispered praises, he’s trying his hardest to contain himself from pushing up.
You straighten yourself once again and he groans at the vision of you, warm walls snuggling his cock all the way in, chest out and nipples hard, bottom lip caught beneath your teeth as you meet his hardened gaze, softening once you whimper.
He takes one erect nub between his slicked lips and looks up at you devilishly. “You’re so beautiful.”
And there’s no going back after experiencing bare skin against bare skin, feeling his every vein throb, spasming around the feeling of fullness and welcoming his own release, his expression contorting into pure animalistic pleasure.
There’s no going back once you’ve learned the comfort of falling asleep engulfed in his embrace every night, and no matter who heads to work first, the warmth lingers and etches a smile onto your faces for the rest of the day.
Sunday means you’re waking up first as the early morning light filters through your curtains. You grumble, letting your eyes adjust to your surroundings before landing on the figure beside you, the man who makes sure your bed is never empty, never cold.
Jeongguk is lying with his broad and defined back to you, and as you blink the sleep away, you put all details into focus. Scars run along the ridges of his muscles, blend with small moles you could kiss and trace a map with. His shoulder blades shift with the slow and deep rhythm of his breathing, and you slide closer where his warmth reaches you even if you’re not directly touching.
Still, you take your finger and lightly follow a path through his marks, soft enough where it’d only feel like a mere tickle. The sight of these burns up close makes the corner of your eyes prickle; for a moment, the memory of his tear-streaked face flashes behind your lids.
You can’t go back, can’t reach into the past and prevent nor fix all the series of events that convinced him of his own unworthiness. But you’re determined to be the anchor of his present and, hopefully, future. Where you can only see comfort in the shape of his smile and your laughter. Where scars become a proof of strength and never weakness.
When you feel him stir beneath your hand, you realize just how close you crept, palm flattened against his spine and your plush thigh sneakily slotting itself between his.
Jeongguk grunts, reaching behind him, catching your hand and pulling it around his side to rest against his stomach.
“Why are you awake, hm?”
His rumbled tone has you squirming closer into him, propping your chin on his shoulder. “It’s Sunday.”
“Exactly, baby,” he murmurs, shuffling backward until he’s tucked firmly into your embrace. “It’s rest day.”
“Grandma Mimi is probably already cooking lunch.” You speculate.
Pressing a kiss to his cheek, you giggle when, as soon as you try to pull back, he groans in protest. His fingers now wrap around your forearm, tugging you in place.
You hum, nipping playfully at his earlobe. “Is my Ggukkie still sleepy?”
He scoffs, turning his face enough to glare at you with narrowed eyes, still puffy from sleep. Even as you laugh, he talks through a growing pout. “Stop calling me that.”
“Or else?” Wiggling your brows, you keep pecking wet smacks along his jaw, then down his shoulder, moving further so that you can kiss the large and deep scar along his nape, where your lips place with sudden delicacy.
He whimpers, a sound you know he didn’t mean to let out when you feel his fingertips dig harsher into the skin of your arm.
You speak against his spine, the tight space making your voice sound muffled. “Do they hurt?”
Jeongguk loosens his grip and strokes comforting tickles on your wrist, before lacing your hand with his. “Hm, no.”
His answer spurs you to leave more kisses over his wounds, and with each one he’s holding your hand tighter. “No? But you’re so sensitive.”
“You get muh—me like that,” he stutters, letting out a low whine when you keep peppering his skin.
“Yeah?” You leave his hand only so you can press your palm flat against his toned abdomen, making it spasm under you. “Are you hard, Ggukkie?”
“I said don’t— oh, fuck,” he can only pretend he doesn’t like not being in control for so long when your fingers slide lower, under the hem of his briefs where he’d already been growing hard from your delicate, loving mouth.
Your hand wraps around his length and he startles, moaning your name and throwing his head back against you. He’s heavy in your hold, twitching when you squeeze ever so gently. You lick a path along a scar, making him shiver and buck his hips into your wrist. You clamber your body closer to his, front pressed flushed against his back where you leave more of your wet kisses across the expanse of his broad back.
“Can I leave my mark here, Gguk?” You nip at the edge of his shoulder, and he nods, groans around an agreement.
You begin faster strokes on his girth, giving extra attention to his sensitive, pink tip. Speaking around your suctioning, you hear him whine from the stimulations. “So pretty. Your scars make you the prettiest. Strongest.”
Jeongguk keens, can’t help but grind into your grip, and moans particularly loud when you move your kisses back to his nape. His large hand covers yours, not in an attempt to take control, just wants to feel you and your efforts. Peering down, the blanket covering his lower half moves feverishly from your jerking motions, and his eyes slam shut at the heavy sensations pooling at his balls.
“You’re gonna make me cum, fuck.”
“Cum, please,” you whisper against his neck, and he desperately turns his face in search of your mouth, to which you eagerly comply as you slide higher. Your lips meet in a messy, hushed kiss that has him spilling warm drops into his boxers and over your fingers.
Jeongguk usually takes longer to let go, makes sex a lasting experience that puts your pleasure on a pedestal. He doesn’t come unless you do first, and even then he likes to take his time, whether he has to fight against restraint.
That’s why, as he keeps searching your tongue with his, he rolls around so that you’re laying on your back and he’s hovering over you, until your kiss is broken by his sheepish smile. He hides his face in the crook of your neck, where he keeps working his mouth around small, shy pecks.
“Thank you,” he whispers, and you run a comforting hand through his hair.
His sex rules stand. Your pleasure is always his priority. Can’t let you go if you’re not letting go over his hand first. Minutes later, you’re pathetically grinding over his warm palm, with one of his thick digits twitching inside you.
“Such a perfect girl. Made for me,” always knowing what to say, he speaks sweet affection against your ear as you pant and grip his forearm, moaning louder when your hips buckle primally against his hand as you ride through your orgasm.
Once your breath regulates, you seek refuge with your cheek flat on his chest, and he’s quick to engulf you in his arms, whispering reassurance of how good you’ve been for him. You remain like that for what feels like eternity, a timeline you wouldn’t mind at all.
“We need to shower,” you whisper with your forehead snug against the curve of his shoulder.
He hums, fingers tracing lazy patterns on your arm wrapped around his torso. “Yeah. I’m so hungry, though.”
Looking up, you leave a lingering peck under his jaw before your eyes meet. “What should we eat?”
Jeongguk bites his smile, raising his brows. “Cookies?”
Giggling, you only slide closer into him, until your faces are level. “Okay, but I’ll make them this time.”
He narrows his eyes at you and you feel his fingertips threatening to tickle against your ribs. “And what exactly are you trying to say?”
You squirm, laughing as his face slides closer on the pillow. “Just that baking… maybe it’s not your calling.”
Jeongguk lets out a mock gasp and strikes, tickling fingers making you squeal and fight playfully against his hold. In between gasps, a sharp bark echoes through the room as Gureum trots toward the bed. The dog has become fiercely protective over you, even if it means going against his owner.
That’s why he hops up and begins digging his way between the two of you, forcing Jeongguk to detach and groan. “Gureumie, your mom is so mean.”
Your giggles turn sheepish at his words, your breathing evening out as your hand finds its home in the dog’s white fur. Jeongguk’s fingers lace through yours, and the dog happily rolls onto his side, belly up, satisfied that he’s successfully neutralized any threatening attack.
“Mommy’s gonna shower,” you tease, immediately laughing at his grimace.
“Don’t ever call yourself that again,” he furrows his brows even as a snicker breaks through. “Are you soft launching a new kink?”
You chuckle, sitting up and arching a brow as you look back at him. “Is daddy gonna tag along?”
He scoffs, shakes his head to conceal his grin as you keep giggling. “You actually disgust me.”
You tug at his wrist so he’s lifting his back off the mattress, but when he teasingly topples lazily onto your figure, both of you flop back into the soft bed.
You groan, attempt pushing him off even though being separated from him in any capacity is the last thing you want. He must know — he’s finally realized, you sigh contently — because he only wraps an arm around your torso tighter, nose nuzzling your hair.
In the narrow space, he mumbles, “I think girlfriend fits you more.”
Your heart skips a beat in your ribcage. You’re sure he’s felt it, too, because his fingers dig into the skin of your hip and he timidly peers up from his hiding spot.
You bite on a smile, raising your brows. “Does it, boyfriend?”
He hums around a widening grin, tenderly finding your lips with his to seal the promise.
Shower takes much longer than expected — though, you should’ve expected it would have been impossible to keep your hands to yourself.
You end up baking too many cookies, but that morning none are left. The only remaining traces settle in the corner of your lips, and as Jeongguk makes sure to kiss them away, he thinks love and trust have never tasted quite this sweet.
no one will ever know how much i love this story. it’s everything ive ever wanted in a fanfic: complex characters, Hot and Loving smut, and just pure full circle-ness (is this even a word? anyway) for the characters and story. i’ve dreamt of reading stories like this and lovie worked tirelessly to put something as amazing as this out. i’m so lucky to have been part of the makings of this fic 🥺🫂 it’s not her first series, but it’s the first series of 2026 and i’m so proud of her. i can’t wait to see what she has in store for us in the future after her lil break ♡
give her all your flowers!!! OR ELSE!!!
also this song is so ootw!couple coded (and ‘oooh’ is their national anthem for the morning after)
i love my hyperpigmentation ah cookie couple!!!!!!
looking at it now, it all seems so simple. your neighbour is burn-in stubborn, you’re no better, and somehow you become another fire he feels compelled to put out. but flames don’t just burn — they leave everything changed. jeongguk knows only how to run, never to let himself be consumed. you’re willing to see what happens if you stay in the heat.
pairing firefighter!jk x vet!fem reader
genre neighbours au, frenemies to lovers, fluff, angst, smut
contents slice of life, rom-com energy, banter & bickering, lowkey grumpy x grumpy, dog!dad jk, use of nicknames, pov switch, feelings of shame, emotional constipation, people pleaser jk, he jerks off, then feels sexual guilt, jealousy from both sides, mentions of smoke and alcohol, brief depiction of harassment, making out, hints at past trauma, flashback of trauma, sexy massage, sexual tension, miscommunication, ANGST
word count 16.4k
author’s note thank u guys for your patience 🩷 this is not the final chappie!! a part three is coming, and i promise it’s gonna take way less time oki 🫶🏻 feedback is always appreciated !!!
beta read by @missenu & @voyter, with me and ootw couple every step of the way … i love u both infinitely ⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢
banner creds ⋆ masterlist ⋆ series playlist
prologue ⋆ one ⋆ two ⋆ three
Jeongguk has never been selfish. Halmeoni would argue the opposite problem exists entirely. That his lack of self-care is actually frustrating at times. It turns Jeongguk into a noisy shoulder angel, one far too toned and heavy to be sitting on Halmeoni’s frail back. And no matter how many times the old woman tries to swat him away, Jeongguk plops right back into place. Though as overbearing as Jeongguk may be, Halmeoni always welcomed his doting presence.
Jeongguk has never been selfish. Becoming a firefighter was simply a natural byproduct of everything he’s ever known. As someone whose profession relies heavily on saving others, if he can’t help, he’s failed. And if he has to be helped, he’s failed too.
Jeongguk has never been selfish, and that is exactly why he can’t let himself be now. Not while you’re just a few feet away beyond his locked bathroom door, sprawled on his couch, panties smeared with wetness he’d caused. Fuck.
Thinking of Halmeoni and her wrinkly hands kneading dough had helped exceptionally until his mind inevitably circled back to you. Jeongguk is not selfish — not self-indulgent, but you’re insanely close to making him.
Knowing you, you’d probably let him make your special day all about him, too. Your hand, the same one that’s also done so much saving, pressed down on his stiff middle nearly had him breaking his morals. And he knows he can’t possibly deserve something good — can’t let himself believe he deserves someone good, only to ruin and be ruined by that good thing.
One hand grips the wall, the other twitches at his side, fingers curling into a tight fist so his nails can dig into the calloused skin of his palm. He forces himself to draw in a deep inhale, exhaling just as slowly. His thoughts scramble for anything else — near-misses and what-ifs he keeps tucked away for moments like this, when his body gets ahead of him and his control slips.
When an inconvenient boner strains against constricted layers and a pretty lady waits for him in his living room.
Usually, he wouldn’t make her wait. In fact, he’d make sure not a single minute was wasted. It’s partly a serious issue with compulsive pleasing, and partly because he’s too fucked up to let anything last longer than the accepted window for a hookup.
But Jeongguk makes you wait, and stay over the unspoken time limit. Because you weren’t a planned hookup or even a spontaneous one night stand. You’re his neighbour, and there’s no way to make you disappear without disappearing himself. Plus, there’s a stirring uneasiness in his gut, a nagging sense that he’s not entirely sure he wants his mind associating you with something so fleeting.
The strategy works. His thought process isn’t tragic enough to ruin his night entirely, just enough to make him feel wretched for even considering touching himself through his clothes after revisiting those memories.
Like when Gureum was supposed to be put down, only to start acting the healthiest and brightest he’d ever been that same morning, granting them four more years so far. Or the time Jeongguk almost crashed the firetruck during an aimless ride he took his mom on after she’d visited the station.
When he feels himself soften, he sighs in relief. Does his best to not think of you and your tits in that lacy corset. How your pretty face contorted in pleasure when you finally let yourself go. How your slender fingers slid down…
Okay, maybe it isn’t his absolute best, but he can at least cling to his morals, especially when he pictures you alone on his uselessly big couch. Alone after he made you come so unexpectedly and unplanned. Alone on your birthday. Well, a little past it.
Jeongguk just can’t bring himself to jerk off to the thought of you, at least not while you’re still in his house. Because, again, Jeongguk is not selfish. And so, he does what he can to preserve and salvage the barely-restored relationship he has with you.
With his vision clearing of the haze of alcohol and lust, he returns to the living room with your promised glass of water, and finds you just as he’d imagined: your cheek squished onto the backrest, sleepy eyes lazily following his figure, and a stubborn attempt at biting back your smile.
“I know you’re a firefighter and all, but did you personally go and collect the water for me?” You do a weak job of concealing your once-over, your eyes lingering on his crotch. Not throbbing anymore, but uncomfortably close to getting tight again.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” Jeongguk plops down next to you and hands you the glass. Plump lips pressed around the rim, a single drop spills from the side of your mouth and runs down the curve of your jaw, then over your throat, before disappearing beneath your thin top.
Well, shit. All that pep-talk and visualization work he did in the bathroom just now goes down the drain as he hardens pathetically for you again. Jeongguk coughs, abruptly looks to the side from where he can hear Gureum’s nails clicking on the floor.
The teeth digging into his lower lip are close to bruising and smudging blood all over the lingering taste of you, but the sharp sting is almost a relief. The twinge of pain deters him from overthinking what a total loser he’s being, especially when he can’t follow his scoff with anything to fill the sudden quiet. Silence forces his instinct to take over — which, naturally, only makes things more awkward.
“You okay? You need anything else?” He asks.
You exhale after your last deep gulp, bending forward to set the empty glass on the coffee table. Gureum takes advantage of the shift and swiftly hops onto the couch, wedging his tiny frame into the gap between you and his owner.
Smiling at the dog, you simply shake your head. “I’m okay. Thank you.”
Right. Because asking a girl he just made come if she’s okay is easily the sexiest thing he could have followed up with.
The words hang in the air, clinical and dry, like he’s on the job and checking on you after an intervention instead of recalling the way you were just arched against him. He sounds so painfully un-cool. The tips of his ears burn, similar to the heat he feels when he’s in a burning house looking to rescue; though, it appears he’s the one needing saving at this very moment.
Jeongguk’s fingers immediately seek out Gureum for comfort, scratching the familiar spot behind his ears. He’s grateful to the little dog for a thousand reasons, but now, he’s mostly thankful to him for having put the needed physical distance from his neighbour. Distance that has stretched far beyond your doors facing each other, or the simple act of crossing a threshold to spend time together.
That’s all his selfishness should have ever allowed. Your company around a dinner table, your fingers easing a vinyl onto the record player, your shorter steps trying to keep up with his longer strides while Gureum races you both. There should have always been something in between you, a buffer to remind him not to take more than he could give back.
Tonight, he’s been extra greedy. Extra hungry. And he feels a biting guilt that even with all barriers crumbling, his confidence with them, he badly wants to fight against his every belief just to have more.
Jeongguk has never been selfish, but as he looks at you he wonders what his life would look like if his walls weren’t so high, and if a single brick falling might mean the rest of them would follow.
He finds your gaze lost somewhere between his scratching motion and the void. One that he can see being filled with similar thoughts to the ones overcrowding in his brain, emptied of the alcohol that gave you any confidence to cross lines in the first place. You’re hovering awkwardly, back stiff and away from the cushions, hands at either side of you as your fingers dig into the firm material of his couch.
He can also see the exact moment you shake off the sudden daze, a starkly different fog from the one that had consumed you both while you were desperately grinding against each other.
You inhale, finally meeting his eyes, “I should probably go now.”
Jeongguk nods out of pure habit, agreeing simply to appease the other.
If he were selfish, he would have kept you here a little longer. Would have told you to wait just a moment more with your eyes closed while he rushed to his vinyl collection stacked in a cube shelf, retrieving the one he got for you. A limited edition of Karma Police, signed sleeve and the texture of authenticity beneath fingertips. He would have basked in your eyes filling with joy, filling his own stomach with a selfish need for your approval.
Instead, he stands first, ignoring the way your eyebrows twitch and betray your resolution for a small fraction. He begins his slow stride towards the door, with Gureum following close behind and you begrudgingly rising to join them.
This is exactly how it goes with his sporadic dates, exactly how it’s supposed to go with you, too. And like clockwork, he tells himself it must be a relief to detach from the rigid surface and from the sudden switch in his demeanour, once so confident and practiced and now reduced to an awkward, silent hesitance.
Still, for a fleeting second his thoughts detour, and he imagines that if you both had stayed long enough on that couch, it might have finally morphed under the shared weight of his and your body, adjusting and growing comfortable with your added warmth.
But you’re on your feet and beside him before he can allow himself to change his mind, or object to your request to leave. Why would he, when the script is followed so faithfully? The boy opens the door, and the girl steps stiffly outside.
Except, you’re not just another girl. Gureum proves it the moment he follows you over the threshold, sniffing at your feet in a blatant search for ear scratches. Your absorbed haze melts under Gureum’s irresistible charm, and with a giggle you kneel to comply with the dog’s needs.
Jeongguk huffs at the sight of your fingers curling into the fur, and wishes he could be as casually selfish as his dog. When you look up at him through your lashes with the remnants of your silly giggle on your lips, he gulps. Only manages a weak hum in return.
If Gureum had managed to thaw some of the awkwardness, Jeongguk freezes it right back, as the script would demand. You slowly stand, offering him a tight-lipped smile.
Clearly, there is no script in your head. Jeongguk has one for his hookups. Yours, no matter how carefully curated, is constantly being scribbled over, rewritten and ripped to shreds.
With no script in mind, you go full-rogue into improv. You hesitate, but eventually you speak with far more bravery than your ever-too-buff-too-tall neighbour Jeongguk has.
“By the way, I really enjoyed spending time with you and… what we did.”
Jeongguk licks his lips, eyes subconsciously flickering down to your own swollen mouth at the mention of what you did. He nods again, this time not only out of habit. He agrees wholeheartedly, wishes he’d told you on the couch before the night ended so abruptly.
He makes space for Gureum to slip back inside once the dog gives up on your attention. Then, he leans against the doorframe, half to keep the dog from changing his mind and going with you, half to extend the time he gets to have you.
Jeongguk has never been selfish, but when you bite your lip sheepishly he can’t help the urge to vocalise his agreement. “Me too. Glad I could be of help tonight.”
You scoff, but it sounds more like a breath of relief with the way Jeongguk’s mouth stretches into a wider smirk. With the way he finally lets his voice break through the heavy quiet that had settled between you, right where chaos should have been booming.
“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Mister Hit-it-and-Quit-it.”
The comment is meant to lighten the air, land like your jabs usually do, blunt and bickerish — but Jeongguk’s brows twitch and your name slips his mouth in a low, warning tone. Head tilting, his smile follows along.
“I don’t… You’re not…”
“It’s okay.”
Your lips stay parted for a stretched second after the reassurance, as if you wanted to add something else but ultimately decided against it. Jeongguk’s mimic that same hesitance, morphing into a grimace when you turn your back to him. Chaos really does boom in his head now, creating a disarray string of thoughts.
What can he say to remedy this misunderstanding? That you’re not a hit-it-and-quit-it thing? You can’t possibly be, if only for the simple fact that you’re just a door away. Could he give you another reason?
He doesn’t think there’s any space left for that sort of reflection in his mind, not when all his thinking-cells actually process your three syllable response. Are you really fine with him being Mister Hit-it-and-Quit-it? Were you giving him an exit? Were you giving yourself one?
There are no answers to any of these questions, no answer as to why he’d even let himself have any over something that shouldn’t have this much control over him. He should be the one in control. He should be able to stop his mind from spiraling uselessly, especially when you’ve already unlocked your door and look ready to disappear behind it.
You turn to him, small smile still playing on your lips. Jeongguk is entirely unaware of how starkly his own expression contrasts with yours. You’re seemingly calm and collected, he’s clearly stiff and disoriented.
“Goodnight, Jeongguk. See you later.”
He must look like a fish out of water with the way he lets his mouth hang open, trying and failing to close around a single word. But you close the door before he can find his voice, and he’s left to stare at the only barrier left between you: a futile piece of wood he should’ve made sure stayed shut in the first place.
The next time it swings open for him, you’re in a ponytail and an oversized tee that hits you mid-thigh.
Jeongguk shouldn’t stare, but the way you’re pressed up against the door pushes your breasts together, and he’s a monster for allowing his gaze to flit even lower, to where your bare toes wiggle on the cold floor.
Luckily for him, you seem distracted. Though, his luck sours when he realizes you’d opened the door to just anyone without even checking who it was, his brows furrowing. And you’re not giving him your immediate attention, either.
Your eyes are momentarily fixed on something happening behind you, that he can’t see beyond the threshold, before they finally snap back to him. It looks like you’d rather get back at that something — or someone, the possibility of the latter having his jaw tick and his nose twitch with an unearned, childish feeling.
When your focus lands on Jeongguk, he’s staring directly into your eyes, praying he doesn’t look like he’s physically straining to keep his line of sight ahead.
Turns out it’s an easy task, because as your face softens into a smile, cheeks puffing and faint dimples appearing, he realizes the days he spent avoiding you — and acting so unlike the man he showcases himself as — were a total waste. And he thinks even if you did hate him for it, he’d only need one second of your lips stretching wide to feel better about life, infinitely worse about himself.
Unless you’re impeccable at concealing your true emotions, the way you beam up at Jeongguk doesn’t seem like you hate him. It should be a calming vision, but it stirs awake the side of his brain that archives his every insecurity and doubt, makes him think you must be truly, genuinely okay with him hitting-and-quitting.
It’s exactly what the script would want, isn’t it?
“Hey,” you’re fidgety, a different kind of concern than the one you wore when he first helped you with your burn. This one has your limbs jittery and your eyes sparkling as they take him in from head to toe. He’s not sure the spark has anything to do with seeing him, but he allows himself to bask in it anyway.
“Hi,” he breathes back, glancing down to where your gaze has also snagged. He pushes the focus of both your attention toward you. “Just wanted to give you this back.”
Your cookie container is held between you, empty and immaculate. Jeongguk figured he’d use it as a truce. For leaving things uncertain with you. And an excuse to see you.
Or, if you hadn’t been thinking of this as deeply as he has, it was simply a way to return what was yours to begin with.
One single cookie had been sitting in that box for days, lonely and dry. He couldn’t bring himself to eat it, no matter how much he’d wanted to — they were even better than Halmeoni’s, a truth she’ll never know and one he’d never admit to you.
Jeongguk had spent ten minutes in a staring contest with that last cookie before finally knocking at your door, leaving the treat behind in the bin. He’d felt even worse seeing it in the trash, surrounded by empty milk bottles and cola cans, than he would have if he’d just forced himself to stomach it.
He couldn’t. Couldn’t possibly bear the sweet taste of it on his tongue, a flavor that resembled yours so closely it would have held him back from seeing you even longer than he already had.
When you take the container from him, propping the door open with one foot, your fingers brush against his knuckles. It’s a killer combination with how you raise your brows teasingly.
“Took you long enough to finish them,” stepping back from the threshold, you grant him just enough space to enter, and he doesn’t need to be told twice.
The second he’s welcomed by the homey scent of baking dough and your own cotton candy fragrance as you skim past him with a grin, he feels his shoulders finally drop. His inhale pulls deeper, his exhale moves slower. None of the life-ending scenarios Jeongguk cataloged are actually taking place; there’s no someone keeping your attention off him. He’s in your apartment like he’s always been, and you’re giving him no reason to deviate from the script he’s set for you.
Friendly. Helpful. Arm’s length.
He’s suddenly unsure about that last directive. In fact, he’s already looking for a way to negotiate an alternative. To be unguarded but shielded, closer but removed.
He chuckles lowly, “Yeah. Wanted to take my time with each one.”
Jeongguk follows your retreating figure into the kitchen, a sarcastic scoff trailing after you as you bounce back to your work. The smell of dough is overwhelming once he steps into the space, and the state of your counter explains the emergency that had been waiting for you — the one that would have had you leave the door wide open too if Jeongguk hadn’t closed it firmly behind him. And locked it.
It’s a disaster of flour, chocolate chips, egg shells pooling their sticky trails and unwrapped butter half sweating in its packet. You hurriedly grasp a wooden spoon and resume your ministrations, one finger swiping a dollop of batter and bringing it to your mouth.
Humming around your digit, you lift your chin at Jeongguk, “Did you like them, then?”
He thinks it must be the way blood immediately rushes to his center that he feels lightheaded. His breath hitches, eyes ping-ponging between your raised brows and your pursed lips, finger coming out slicked. You have to be doing this on purpose. To test if it all can really be ignored. If he can stand in your kitchen like nothing changed, Mister Hit-it-and-Quit-it.
If he really isn’t selfish.
But his firefighter instincts kick in, his mind grounds him back to the first gruesome weeks of basic training in resilience.
And just like that, Jeongguk recovers from the make-believe test with a nod, approval stuttering in his throat. His gaze falls to the mixture, then to a smeared drop of chocolate on your forearm. He clears his throat, “Is this a bad moment?”
“Not at all,” you’re quick with your reply, though the back of your hand swiping a stray hair from your face and leaving a white streak of flour across your cheek tells a different story. “I’m making another stash for Grandma Mimi.”
He hums, walking closer to the counter until his palms are supporting his leaning weight against it. You’re directly opposite of him, tongue poking out in concentration as you beat the mix.
The question, though innate and routine, always seems to slip his mouth when he’s around you, “You need help?”
There is nothing that comes more naturally to him than helping. After all, it’s the only way he knows how to be available without shredding himself open, without giving too many parts of his own away but still feel like he’s needed.
You hesitate. You always do when he offers. Ultimately, you look up at him with a sheepish smile and a shrug of your shoulders, the neckline of your shirt sliding even further off one side.
“I guess. You know anything about baking?”
Jeongguk has his sleeves rolled up and his hands under the running water of your sink in seconds, at your side before you can even finish the sentence.
Truth is, he knows nothing about baking. The countless days spent in Halmeoni’s company were evidently never utilized to their full potential.
He admits as much, and soon you’re ordering him around for oven duties. He preps the tray exactly as you instruct, and all the while he’s juggling one side of his brain focusing on the task and the other completely inebriated by your sugary scent and the maddening itch to swipe the flour off your cheek.
Finished with his relatively easy and short job, Jeongguk yields to his instincts, but not before taking a lingering once-over of the kitchen, and you. He wonders if you truly consider him incapable of anything else. He might just be, if he’s already forgotten how to speak at the simple sight of your bare legs and the way you’re stretching on your tiptoes.
Tilting his head out of habit, as if the motion might knock some sense back into him, he reaches for banter. “How come Halmeoni never gets this messy, but you do?”
The comment is his key. Perfect access to your face, turning to him with furrowed brows and a stubborn pout. He lifts his thumb and lets it drag across your skin, brushing the white powder off. Whatever snarky retort was about to leave your lips dies there; wouldn’t be believable anyway, not with the dust blooming where his fingertip just grazed you.
You simply nudge him aside with your hip and take his place in front of the baking sheet he’d perfectly buttered, pouring the mixture in steady circles. “Grandma Mimi has years of practice and patience on her side.” The small compliment to Halmeoni aims to uplift, though in return, it only insinuates all the qualities you lack as a result.
In an attempt to test that supposedly short patience, he dips a thick digit into the dense batter, then wraps his lips around it much like you did, and his careful expression soon melts into a smirk when you narrow your eyes at him.
From the corner of his eye, he catches the brownish liquid beginning to overspill, and he’s fast — hand snapping to your wrist, his slicked finger digging into your skin to prevent a further mess.
You step back startled, surprise turning into hopelessness as you look down at the newfound mess on the tray. Beside you, Jeongguk bursts into a genuine giggle, this time nudging you aside with his own hips swaying.
You bite back a smile, concealing it with a roll of your eyes. “Your fault.”
The next five minutes pass in comfortable silence, with him replacing you at the counter and finishing the batch with attentive motions while you lean back, stealing glances at him. Once the stash is in the oven, he straightens up to meet your eyes for approval.
You nod, patting his shoulder as you walk past him to wash your hands. Jeongguk feels like a virgin again with the way he shivers under your brief touch, which is still not more embarrassing than how he’s suddenly too awkward to fill the quiet with anything.
He sighs, starting to accept that this specific brand of tension will have a permanent seat at the table from now on. Unless, of course, he decides to do something about it — and your thin white shirt, chocolate stains waiting to be licked clean.
Disgusting, sure. He would do it if you asked.
But he can’t. He’s not selfish, remember? Can’t allow himself to slip again, not if it means gaining the kind of access that leads to disappointing you, or making your spine even more rigid than it looks like right now, your back a straight, tense line turned toward him.
So, he finds something else to apologize for. “Sorry I couldn’t be there for Halmeoni’s birthday cake.”
You hum something that sounds like reassurance, but by the time you turn around your phone has found its way between your slender fingers, and your brows knit together at the bridge of your nose. You’re absorbed, eyes rapidly ping-ponging left to right.
Jeongguk is relieved that whatever is on your screen distracted you from his lame attempt at conversation; he’s significantly less relieved when he notices it has your bottom lip beginning to wobble and your next inhale trembling. Sirens definitely go off in his head when you abruptly click the device off and mindlessly toss it onto the counter.
He takes in your expression and naturally floats to his alarmed nature, by your side before he can talk himself out of it. “Is everything okay?”
You have a hard time meeting his sharp, concerned stare, either because of its sheer intensity or because too much vulnerability would be found in your own stiffened one.
Sighing, your orbs end up falling to your feet, still bare and cold against the tile. “My ex keeps texting me and it’s…”
“He’s harassing you.” He fills in the gap.
“…Yeah.”
The way your reply tilts into a shameful chuckle leaves him with an uncomfortable ache in his chest. In his head, he’s already reached for your phone and hurled it over the balcony to tumble down five floors.
Instead, he gives voice to the anger clogging his throat. “What a motherfucker. Do you need me to do something about him?”
It’s that simple question which gets your head to flit up, your clouded eyes instantly finding his, staring down at you. You’re baring your soul to him, and he wonders if it’s just as easy for you to read him, just from the way his pupils swell.
Head tilting, your voice is a fragile breath. “You would?”
No hesitation, Jeongguk nods. And he means it. “Of course I would.”
Evidently, there are many things Jeongguk would do if you asked. He would build your Ikea shoe rack from scratch. He would tend to your scars and pain. He would also lick your shirt clean, or beat an ex to a pulp without barely even remembering the man’s face.
There are just as many things written in your eyes that he can’t do. Even if you asked. Like explaining why he’s willing to stain his hands with blood for you, yet is unable to acknowledge the heavy and fat elephant in the room when it comes to where you both stand now.
“I… Thank you,” you let your gaze wander toward the oven, absentmindedly checking on the cookies. Then, swallowing hard, you take a tentative step back. “But I can handle it.”
And Jeongguk doesn’t usually push boundaries, mostly because he never lets anyone push his own, but he tells himself this is just making sure. “You know you don’t have to do it alone, right?”
Your head only shakes slightly before your arms wrap around your torso, as if you’ve suddenly realized how exposed you are. “It’s complicated, Gguk.”
You call it complicated, but for the first time Jeongguk sees a simple solution to a problem: you tell him what’s bothering you and he takes care of it. Complicated is how one of those bricks in his wall wobbles, yet Jeongguk still isn’t looking for a way to run.
He figures he only needs to push it back into place with enough force, and comply with the period you’ve put on the conversation offering a nod.
But he still can’t stomach your sour mood. If the cookies are meant to be a sweetener, he makes sure to sugar the taste further with anything that comes to mind to distract you. Like how he playfully nudges your elbow and swipes the chocolate from your arm, or how he makes you laugh when his finger finds a sneaky way to tickle your side.
Jeongguk then catches you up on worth-mentioning details of these past days you’ve missed while you were apart — because he’s a coward, though he omits that part. He tells you how Gureum nearly ripped another plastic bag out of an old lady’s hand. You playfully scold him for not properly putting the dog in training, and he replies with a scoff. Though he refers to Gureum as his baby, he returns the banter by asking you to lay off the old man.
Jeongguk continues with his musings and how he went vinyl shopping because he needed more jazz flowing in his apartment. He also carefully omits that the only reason he needed jazz at all was because you were the one who had introduced him to it.
What matters is that whatever he’s babbling about, you’re hanging on every word. Smiling again, giggling freely like nothing ever happened. No drunk grinding, no awkward separation, no ex-boyfriend hovering. He thinks he can mend every one of those slips, seeing how easily you fall back into your usual rhythm. He wants everything with you to always look exactly like this.
Friendly. Helpful. Arms brushing.
The cookie container is packed high again, as if it were never meant to remain empty for long. You’ve washed up and traded the oversized tee for a clean shirt and a pair of sweats. Jeongguk had waited on your couch, fingers itching to trace the pictures on the opposite wall — a carefully composed gallery of you and your loved ones. Your space speaks of you; it’s never entirely tidy, but it feels deeply lived.
Jingling your keys to call for his attention, you grin. “Let’s go, big guy.”
He scoffs and stands to join you, and as he gets closer the nickname fits him perfectly. With the way you’re looking up at him from your shorter stance, he notices the dusting of blush on your cheeks and the gloss highlighting your lips. You narrow your eyes at him as if you’ve been caught and he keeps a grin tucked away.
Though, his amusement shifts into a slight frown when he wonders if you felt the need to retouch your bare face in the first place. To him, you looked beautiful either way.
And Halmeoni tells you as much the moment she greets you both at the door. “Oh, my pretty young lady and my handsome boy! To what do I owe the visit?”
“Happy Diamond Anniversary, Grandma Mimi!”
Halmeoni’s full and gravelly laugh is the last thing to echo in the hallway before the door clicks shut, sealing you both inside.
Your feet are tucked into fluffy slippers while his find their designated slides. The lid of your box is off and the scent of freshly baked cookies waltzes through the small space of the living room that has smelled like the same unwavering love for sixty years. A scent that now mixes with your own sweetness.
Jeongguk would have visited at some point during the day, just as he does every year. But this time, he gets to do it with you. Gets to witness how you manage to slot perfectly, perhaps with an ease that was entirely foreign to Jeongguk his first year living here. You soothe the loving grief that fills Halmeoni’s eyes, the one you come to understand like it’s instinctual, like Jeongguk’s never truly been able to.
He and Halmeoni have unspoken rituals for this day, traditions that have stood strong for a few years now, but there’s one that has him playfully rolling his eyes when the old lady stands and makes her way to the digital record player. The vinyl is already set, otherwise Halmeoni would have huffed for Jeongguk’s help. He’d gifted her the player a while back after the original, a rusty relic that had sat on her cabinet longer than he’d lived in the complex, finally gave up. That old box was no less respectable for its deserved silence, though. It had hummed through countless songs.
The one that begins spinning now is lived-in and just as weathered, but perfectly preserved — perhaps held in stasis just for this exact moment, every single year.
“C’mon Jeonggukkie, stand up,” Halmeoni gestures at him, but Jeongguk’s eyes land on you. You’re looking between them as though you’re also waiting for an instruction, and he can read it in the soft lines of your face — that you feel like an outsider to a tradition you’re still more than ready to witness, and welcome.
This year, Jeongguk gets to let out a breath of genuine relief. With you here, the bittersweetness shifts, melts into purely sweet. You’re like the fourth spoon of sugar Halmeoni uses to stir her tea, the only way the beverage can be served in this house.
He didn’t even have to nudge his dear Halmeoni to her feet. She stood first, and now there’s a lively intention playing across her features. This year, his heart feels lighter, beats along with your excited claps as you begin to puzzle the pieces.
At last, my love has come along. My lonely days are over, and life is like a song.
The tradition unfolding in the tight intimacy of Halmeoni’s living room calls for Jeongguk’s hand to rest flat against the old lady’s back, while her own fingers grip his broad shoulder; their free hands lace together and sway with the slow dance.
A union intended to replicate the delicacy of a wedding’s first dance, the very first time newlyleds get to stare at one another without the need for more words, having just promised to hold each other exactly like this through good and bad. Health and sickness.
Halmeoni beams up at Jeongguk like the sight of smooth skin and the absence of wrinkles means there’s still a canvas for love to leave its trace on. Jeongguk grins back like the sight of lines and creases means the ones that love leaves on you will only melt together beautifully in the end.
And there’s a pull he can’t ignore, an instinct telling him he cannot miss the look on your face. Like the sight of your pressed, curved smile and your taut eyebrows, drawn up dreamily as your hands knot together on your lap, might mean you can still see that there’s good in Jeongguk, as much as there’s been bad.
When your eyes flit up to meet his from your seat at the round table, his own brows are raised as if he’d ask you directly, and his lips stretch into a mirror of your own. The slight roll of your eyes does little to conceal the thin sheen coating them, especially when the light catches its shine.
Jeongguk believes that no matter the bad that lives in him, he doesn’t deserve to be met with such an aching, pretty sight — not if he’s too paralysed to do anything about it.
Though, Halmeoni might just want her shoulder angel to attempt it. And, nudging his shoulder, she detaches from him with a weakly voiced excuse, “Jeonggukkie, I’m too old for this. Ask the young lady to dance, will you?”
Jeongguk is suddenly the center of gravity between two expectant ladies: to his left, the old one lifts her chin up beyond him, which takes him to his right, where the young one sits with dimpled cheeks and a straight back. He chuckles, taking the time to look in between you both.
The smile lingers when he lets the moment sink. Halmeoni would be the onlooker to a humble rendition of her own great love; you would be stepping delicately into such a precious ritual — perhaps kicking off one of your own.
And Jeongguk wistfully hopes that one year from now it will go as follows: with hesitant steps your way, one hand extended while the other is tucked behind his back; your giggle resounding against the walls before you wrap your warmth around his, letting yourself be hoisted up and pulled into his chest with a surprised yelp; one palm resting on the small of your back, the other still lacing through yours, while your free hand cups his bicep; your teeth bared for him to bask in as he unconsciously reflects the same joy on you.
You smiled, you smiled. Oh, and then the spell was cast.
You beam up at Jeongguk like the sight of swollen pupils and bunny teeth worrying at his bottom lip might speak all the words he hasn’t said. Jeongguk offers you a half-smile like the sight of pure integrity in the gloss of your eyes might make this enactment a tangible reality.
And he can’t get enough of it when you raise your brows teasingly at him. “Wasn’t expecting a fireman to dance like such a gentleman.”
His smile is pursed, but it slips through his low voice. “Yeah, well… I’ve had a pretty demanding teacher.”
Your giggle is contagious: it trickles its way up Jeongguk’s throat and resounds in Halmeoni’s chest, too, when you both turn to her and she’s still standing, looking at you both dreamily. When your gazes lock again, the line between dream and reality truly begins to blur.
The swaying motion has the room spinning, the rest of the world dimming into a soft hum. It builds a growing sickness in his stomach, a dizzy vertigo that only heightens when you seem unable to hold the weight of his stare any longer, resting the side of your face on his chest with a soft breath.
Warmth threatens to melt your skin together where you touch, and his palm on your waist only slides lower, then up again, then back down. His eyes trace the way your hand fits into the wider expanse of his, and how your grip on his arm brushes up to the sensitive base of his neck. And when you come back around from a slow spin and your breath hitches in your throat, so attuned to your every reaction, he follows your line of sight.
In the center of the living room, Halmeoni holds the air as her dance partner, eyelids fluttering shut and the hint of a peaceful smile playing on her lips. She sways almost perfectly in sync with the two of you, and Jeongguk wonders if the ghost might be buzzing with the same electric energy surging through his own veins.
Looking down, he finds you already staring up at him. The stars in your eyes have multiplied, and your drawn up brows act like a tent, shielding the soft twinkling from the moon, the swelling intensity of his own orbs.
Your slender fingers cup around his shoulder, and your chin brushes the top of his chest. “A love like that… it must be a one-in-a-million thing.”
He sighs, breath fanning over your lashes. “And she’s truly convinced I’ll find something like that, too.”
Your chuckle is laced with sentiment, head tilting just to make the ache in his abdomen more pronounced. “I’m positive you will, Gguk.”
Will he? The cookie he managed to stomach earlier rises in his throat, but it’s words that he vomits before he can feel truly sick.
“Are we okay, Oomps?”
Jeongguk feels your tensing muscles beneath his hand, and your steps falter before it all washes over your face with an imperceptible twitch of your brows.
You seemingly recover with a nod and a tight smile. “Yes, we are. Why wouldn’t we be?”
It should feel relieving, hearing those whispered words from your pretty lips. But those are the same pretty lips he’s kissed, the ones he knows taste as sweet as chocolate chips. And the fact that you don’t seem to see a single reason why you shouldn’t be okay with him not getting to try them again makes him question if he truly wants this for the both of you.
Later, when you’ve slipped back into your apartment for a work call and Jeongguk has watched you go, Halmeoni sits beside him on the couch, holding two cups. The overly-sugary tea for her, the sour one handed to him — an exception she makes just for her handsome boy.
“There’s something on your mind, hm?” She talks around the rim, sipping the hot beverage.
Jeongguk swallows the liquid in one large gulp, the ceramic hiding everything but his furrowed brows and wide eyes. Leaning forward to set the cup down on the low coffee table, he shakes his head as he sinks back into the cushions.
“Like what?”
Halmeoni takes her time with her tea. The cup clinks softly against its matching saucer as she, too, settles into the soft sofa. “I think it has to do with your front-door neighbour.”
Jeongguk scoffs, a telling sound he makes when she catches him red-handed. He avoids her scrutinising stare, gaze landing on the spot where you sat before the dance, and left his embrace to fall into another routine with Halmeoni, between her groggy laugh and your light giggles.
And she lets him know he’s been caught, tone calm. She might be too old to dance now, but the older you grow, the wiser you get. “Don’t lie to me, Jeonggukkie.”
He sighs, shifting forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “I’m not lying. She’s a nice friend, that’s all.”
“It’s worth it,” her voice drops an octave, followed by a faint cough that forces Jeongguk to look at her. A sudden, heavy solemnity is painted across her features. “Giving yourself the chance to feel something. To have something. You deserve it.”
Jeongguk wants to believe her. Let the air clogging his chest break free and take in the words of the woman who’s cared for him, mended the hurt, seen the fear behind his eyelids. But that fear speaks louder, and it tells him he doesn’t deserve to take up more space on the fifth floor of this complex — not when he’s already a weight on Halmeoni’s curving back, not when he’s witnessed how easily pain transfers from one body to the other. Not when he knows letting himself feel something, have something, might consume him.
He shrugs as if the hurt could simply topple down his shoulders. “There’s nothing between us.”
“Don’t lead the girl on, then.”
Halmeoni’s finished with her tea, and Jeongguk instinctively reaches for her cup to set it aside. When he turns back, she’s wearing a warm smile. It’s meant to thank him and lessen the blow of her words.
“I’m not—”
“I know you’d hate hurting another more than you’d hate hurting yourself. I just want you to free yourself and move on, my handsome boy.”
As if guided by a natural consequence of her delicate words, Halmeoni looks to the side. More specifically, her narrow eyes land on the wrinkled paper calendar hanging on the wall, in the same spot every calendar has been for the past seven years.
Today marks a significant date, a memorable moment that gave space for a long love story to unfold. There’s a heart drawn in its correspondence, crooked and red inked. A few spots below it, in the same red ink, Halmeoni marks a J and a K.
It’s not his birthday, nor is it a special day worth celebrating. Every year, Halmeoni reminds herself to give Jeongguk just a bit more love on that day. Show just a bit more understanding, delicacy. She does it so she never has to see her Jeonggukkie’s face turn that porcelain white again, wet with tears, red eyes a haunting contrast.
Does the ink remind her of that? Or of how love can be both a consuming fire and a consumed fuel?
Her voice resounds from his side, and he grips to it with all his wistful hope. “Letting someone in comes with opening old and fresh wounds. It might also just be what finally heals them.”
This month always leaves him spiraling, gets him thinking of all the things that keep him away from what Halmeoni swears he deserves, from you. He tries to push through. Still, even walking into your space can feed the fire at times.
You truly make it seem like it’s okay. Like everything is exactly as it should be.
There are still nights spent at his place, or yours. Though Gureum, or whatever cushion is available, finds its spot between you — and ends up nearly crushed in your subtle attempt to slide closer on the couch.
You still let him pick from your vinyl collection, teasing him for always choosing the mainstream option, the safe choice. Tell him you wish he’d risk more, maybe pick that forgotten French record your dad had passed down to you.
There are still spontaneous walks in the park behind the building, where your designated bench and the morphing clouds always get you compliant and vulnerable.
“It took me burning myself to break through you,” you reminisce in the nearing-spring air and the remark sits bitter on Jeongguk’s tongue. “I’m almost glad for my clumsiness in moments like these.”
He manages a smile, melting into a genuine laugh when he turns to you. “You sure you didn’t do it on purpose, hm?”
You still drag him into Pixar marathons and sniffle quietly by the end of every single movie, especially when you watch Up and ask Jeongguk if Grandpa Mimi was similar to Carl. “This could be them in another universe.”
There’s still the thread of texts when work keeps you apart, too busy to even stumble into one another in the hallway. You send pictures of brave puppies getting their first vaccines; he sends back selfies with Gureum saying hi and wishing them luck.
And you still make it hard for him not to stare, as if he could easily pretend he’s unaffected by your mere presence. He can’t swear he doesn’t still think of you coming undone on top of him, entirely still dressed, and he can’t ignore the way he gets hard the minute he’s left alone in silence. Your moans are the only sound he wishes the walls of his living room could echo again.
In the suffocating quiet of his apartment, the only stifled sounds are his own as he shamefully allows selfishness to win. To make his hand travel down, beneath his sweats, thumb swiping the top of his slit where his arousal drips at the mere contact of his hand — at the mere thought of you. He thinks of you and how your smile lights up a room. How your fingers delicately thread through Gureum’s fur. How you’ve picked up the habit of grabbing his forearm when you ask for something, for help you’re usually too stubborn to receive openly.
On his couch, firm and uncomfortable, he spreads his legs just as he had to welcome you further against him, hand applying just enough pressure to maintain the illusion of you until he’s spilling into his boxers. He gasps into the silence of his living room, shame filling his entire being, but he doesn’t stop there. His selfish act only morphs into punishment, palming himself until he’s too sensitive to feel good after his orgasm. Until he feels disgusting for even daring to look at you — for thinking of you that way.
It’s been a few days since you’ve seen each other, and since he’s been dry in your chat thread to overcompensate for feeling like a guilty bastard. And the next time he sees you, it’s under the blue lights of a club, the one his friends dragged him to after he ran out of too-tired-from-work excuses.
Blue is exactly how he’s been feeling lately, but it’s never looked prettier as the light traces your cheeks and the slope of your nose, the curve of your ass. His twisted and wrecked mind spins, convinces him you might merge well together after all.
You’re with a few of the girls he recognises from your birthday, though he only notices them because they’re laced close to you, dancing to the house music booming from the DJ console. There are also masculine faces he doesn’t think he’s seen before around you, and those he notices because of a green, wicked monster crawling up his throat.
You aren’t paying them much attention, though a thin, blond one is hovering particularly close to your side, hands occasionally brushing your back. Jeongguk doesn’t realise his entire body is tensing, fighting against the green gremlin now whispering in his ear, until his arm twitches and he’s bumping hard into someone.
The girl immediately apologises, despite having no reason to. Jeongguk nods, and under the morphing-to-red lights of the bar, he recognises her as one of the girls Taehyung introduced to the group during their pregame. Julie, if he was paying enough attention. Brunette, tall, green eyes.
It’s been a while since Jeongguk has done any of this. The last time he was at a pregame, he was twenty-two. Five years later, things unfolded differently. Nobody threw up before even getting to the actual game, nor mixed dubious liquids together into one cup. It had felt more like a gathering, a civilized catching up. He’d passed on Yoongi’s offer to smoke, earning only a casual shrug, and could barely down two glasses of gin before he was grimacing from the mere smell of alcohol.
Julie looks up at him the same way she did when her hand was first extended toward him in Taehyung’s living room. Shy, the kind of bashfulness that made Jeongguk think she wouldn’t have uttered a single other word to him but her own name. And just as he prepares to turn back to the crowd to localise you, she steps closer, lips brushing the shell of his ear.
“You look like you’re not enjoying yourself,” her voice is barely a thread against the booming bass, and that’s exactly why she must make sure to press her mouth to his lobe, and her chest flush against his. No other reason, he hopes.
He chuckles humorlessly, his own lips hovering near her hair. His eyes scan the floor, seeking the only person who has the power to make him feel exactly what a girl he’s met less than two hours ago senses he’s not.
And he finds you. His neighbour, the girl he’s known for a little over a year, finally beginning to get along with. Made him feel blue unconsciously, green greedily, red avidly — damn near all colors of the rainbow. You’ve painted his life in so many shades in the short span of time, each encounter morphing into another color like how the fluorescent lights change once again the moment you enter his line of sight, painting you in the shade you bring whenever you’re with him, shining rays on a cloudy day.
Under the yellow glow, your eyes finally lock onto his. Even with the swarm of bodies in between you, your perceptive eyes zero in on Julie’s figure practically draped over his own.
When you stare directly at him, you lift your chin in recognition. He replicates the gesture, and his own hardened gaze takes in how you’ve let the blond guy wrap a lazy arm around your front, his nose nuzzled in your hair, mouth moving around something that makes you laugh.
Eyes snapping back to yours, Jeongguk pokes his tongue against the inside of his cheek before he speaks back into Julie’s ear. “Are you?”
The girl seems to have never heard something funnier, leaving her weight anchored to his chest, one hand splayed across his stomach for support. And he swears he sees your jaw tick, almost at the same time his teeth clench at a foreign hand expanding across your lace-covered torso.
Julie, seemingly shy and sheepish Julie, lets a manicured hand slide up his front, to his neck, until her fingers are pressing against his cheek to force his face down, meeting her own yellow-flashed face. It blends differently over her features, makes them feline and sharp, a harsh contrast to how your wide eyes turn soft and droopy under the same glow.
“Could be if you dance with me,” his gaze falls to Julie’s lips to read the words smoothly flowing out, and they stretch into a smile that feels nothing like yours. Her palm snaking around his waist is alien compared to your warmth, how it led his hips up to meet yours. Her face is too close, and it feels fundamentally wrong from how you have to crane your neck up instead.
Jeongguk is searching for a familiarity he reluctantly accepts he’s found in you. And his face fights against the soft hold on it, a rejection he wouldn’t have dreamt of two months ago when his search aimed for anything to fill the void. He thinks he’s found a new brick for his wall, and his eyes desperately scan the room for it.
But when he finds the blond guy — the one who looks like his polar opposite — you are no longer wrapped around him.
For a split second, relief washes over him. The green monster loosens its grip on his throat. But that leaves space for panic to rise when he realises he’s lost sight of you entirely. You’ve slipped through the crowd, vanishing much like you had on your own birthday night.
Julie becomes the least of his worries. He detaches himself from her clutching fingers, ignoring the confusion twitching across her face as he turns around and shoves his way through sweat and hormones. He can feel himself sweating too, and he’s certain his hormones spiked the second he spotted your swaying figure.
Jeongguk pictures you outside, pink lighter clutched in one hand, long cigarette in the other. And his primary mission becomes the one to pluck the stick from your fingers, just as he usually does when you’ve poured a bit too much of his whiskey and retreat to his balcony for a nicotine break that you explain is necessary after a little alcohol.
He hates you smoking. Hates the thought of your lungs filling up with toxic grey and your bubblegum shampoo fading beneath the linger of ash. Hates how your laugh sounds a little groggier afterward and how your tobacco-tainted breath still wouldn’t stop him from kissing you if you asked. Or if you even leaned closer.
When he steps out of the club, his lungs welcome the cold air with a sharp inhale. The sidewalk is a sea of people looking to dampen their house-music adrenaline with a smoke, or looking just as lost as he is.
He wonders if each lost-person is looking for their smoker, and if that would make all of them puzzle pieces waiting to click into place. His own smoker is nowhere in the proximity, and he scans every hand for a neon pink lighter, every shoe for a pair of brown pointed heels.
But it isn’t a visual that locates you; it’s your voice. Uncharacteristically high-pitched and characteristically vibrating with irritation, it booms from his right.
“Don’t fucking touch me, I swear to God,” the second the agitated and shaky tone reaches his ears, Jeongguk is pushing past groups of smokers until he finds a neon pink lighter clutched in a white-knuckled fist, brown heels taking a hurried, defensive step back and your trembling eyes fighting to maintain a flicker of authority.
The man looming over you resembles the same one you threatened with similar words on the night of your birthday, when Jeongguk had also felt that gut-punch of relief at finding you just in time.
It all flashes before him: your voice swearing you don’t need his help and that you could handle it on your own, the fear tensing your muscles, and how a single text on your screen could flip your chocolate stained lips into a frown.
Jeongguk doesn’t have to think more; he simply acts. Steps in because he cannot allow anything bad to happen to you, acts out of the pure instinct to protect you, because he knows he can’t fail at that.
He closes the distance in two large strides, palms slamming harshly against the guy’s chest before his fist cinches around the collar of his shirt, jerking him forward.
“Wasn’t clear the last time, man? She’s done talking to you.”
Beside him, he hears you gasp. “Jeongguk!”
Your ex scoffs in his face, twisting uselessly against his unyielding hold. Neither of them turns to look at you. Jeongguk, because he’s afraid the look on your face might make his knees buckle even more than the sound of his name on your lips already has. The shit-eating grin in front of him, because he’s too proud to lose a staring contest against another man.
Mingyu ignores Jeongguk, directing his jabs back at you — where he knows it’ll hurt. “I know you take care of dogs all day, didn’t know you found yourself a new pup”
“Oh, you think you’re so fucking funny, Mingyu.” You spit the name with venom, and Jeongguk hates the sound of it but relishes in the way you pronounce it with just as much hatred as he feels.
Mingyu sneers at you, then he turns back to Jeongguk, lips pursing around a lazy smile. “Your stray finds it funny, though.”
Jeongguk sports a lopsided smirk on his face. He does find it funny. Finds it funny how he doesn’t let go, not when Mingyu pathetically struggles, only when he feels your hand brush his bare forearm. Finds it funny because he never loses control, and this is unlike him, but he’s going to bruise your ex boyfriend’s asymmetrical jaw with his ringed fist if you so much as whisper the order. His loyalty to you is the only thing keeping him from acting out of line.
Jeongguk must truly be your puppy, after all.
Taking a step back, he allows himself the sight of you, and when he sees knitted brows and a jagged bottom lip, he feels his fingers twitch. They fight the urge to cradle your face, can’t resist the one to curl around your waist.
The last words he hopes to spit in Mingyu’s entitled face are forced through gritted teeth, “If you know what’s best for you, stay the fuck away from her.” He leaves out other potentially behind-the-bars worthy words in favour of taking you out of this situation.
No additional words are exchanged as Jeongguk leads you away from the crowd and crowds you against him, between his palm pressed firmly at the edge of your shoulder and his chest shielding you. He can feel you under his skin, can recognize the tension in your frame, knows you’re still unwilling to break in front of him.
But once he settles you into the passenger seat of his car and circles around to take his place beside you, before he can find his voice to promise you he’ll never let this happen to you — ever again — you find your own.
“I’m sorry.”
And Jeongguk has always struggled with putting together your script, trying to figure out what’s safe, which lines are off-limits and which ones he’s allowed to nudge. But in his head, he’s currently crouching down his desk and sweeping everything off, clearing the state as his face twitches with a flicker of worry and anger.
Worry, because he doesn’t think he could find a single thing you need to apologise for if he tried. Anger, because he wishes he could reach out and tug away whatever instilled fear led you to say sorry in the first place, more than your distraught face is pulling at his heartstrings.
“No, what?” His voice is barely a whisper, and his fingers instinctively come to brush the hair from your face, pinning the strands carefully behind your ears. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“But I do.” You shift in your seat, and even as you’re arguing that you’ve done something wrong, you still lean in his touch. The side of your face seeks the faint heat of his fingertips as you turn fully toward him. “I’m always somehow in these situations and you’re always somehow at my rescue.”
Jeongguk would argue back, tell you that’s the only thing he knows how to do. The line he’s allowed to cross, to show you he cares, more than he’d want to admit. Prove he’s worth having around, his presence’s worth your time. It’s the one thing he’ll be selfish for, no matter if you push his help away.
But he can’t get the words out, not when he’s finally in front of you again, and big eyes stare up at him in the dim light of the dashboard, and smoke doesn’t linger on you. His nostrils inhale cotton candy and vodka.
“I wish I could do something for you, too.”
His chest catches a heated spark at your eagerness to return his gesture. Though, he’s in no immediate danger other than the proximity you’ve decreased between your bodies.
“Please?” You peer at him through your lashes.
Your voice is the catalyst. It’s still scarred, and it tears Jeongguk’s wounds open. It burns beautifully, breath hitching when your eyes drop to his mouth. And it’s a pull he has no hope of fighting; he realizes far too late that you are simply too close.
It might be to prevent you from using your words to dig deeper into his scars, or so he tells himself. But he only needs the feel of your fingers curling around the base of his neck, and his own spanning your cheek and jaw until they curve into the hair behind your ear to accept your mouth on his.
He finds it’s the first time in weeks that his brain shuts down. Leaves space for a peaceful hum to block the constant static of his sabotaging thoughts out.
The only other sound that filters through is your relieved whimper, the one that gives him permission to deepen the kiss, to slice his tongue across yours. You’re tugging him closer, both arms coming to wrap around his shoulders, and his stomach digs uncomfortably in the center console dividing your bodies, but he doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care when he tastes traces of tobacco on your tongue. He doesn’t care when your nails catch against the expanse of his back and he lets out a pained, hungry moan on your slicked lips.
He does care when that seems to be what has you suddenly pulling back, creating a frantic distance between your mouths. Though, a shimmering trail of saliva and lip gloss keeps you tethered before you’re loosening your hold entirely, settling your hands in your lap and shifting straight against the passenger seat.
Jeongguk is left panting, elbow still propped on the console and mouth unconsciously seeking yours one more time before he snaps out of the daze, and noise comes flooding back in.
You swallow before exhaling, “Sorry.”
He blinks, licking the sweet taste of you from his lips. Even your lipgloss threatens to make his teeth rot, bubblegum on his tongue. And he speaks before he even processes that he remembers how to.
“There is something you can do for me.”
You quip. “What?”
“I want you to never apologise again.”
Your front teeth come out to bite onto your bottom lip, struggling to keep a smile at bay. Nodding, you settle further into your seat and reach for the belt.
Despite the raging battle in his head, Jeongguk remains enthralled by your every move, attuned to your every need, and reaches over to click the belt into place for you, knuckles brushing yours.
“Thank you,” you say, voice low. “For helping me.”
“Of course. I know you said you wanted to sort it out on your own,” Jeongguk sets his own belt and starts the engine. “But let me deal with him.”
You fall eerily silent after his offer. As he drives, he keeps glancing over, hand steady on the gearshift but itching to reach you, startle you with a palm on your knee, snatch your attention away from the passing city lights, force you to look at him. He needs to see your face to make sure you’re truly okay.
But his hand never makes the move, and instead he shifts his eyes back to the road ahead and lets his low voice fill the tight space. “Are you okay? Did he try anything?”
You seem to snap out of a daze, back lifting from the seat as you turn to him, shaking your head. “No, it’s just…”
Silence fills his ears again. To Jeongguk, it translates into a restless dissonance as his mind begins its usual routine of filling the voids for him.
It’s just… could be followed up with I don’t need your help or You’ve served your purpose on that couch already or, making his brows furrow tighter, I never needed you to save me.
And Jeongguk realizes, with a twinge of desperation, that he needs you to need him. Need his help, so that he’ll show you he can fulfill one more purpose.
“When I was with him,” you begin with none of Jeongguk’s predictions, yet his ears perk and his grip around the steering wheel tightens. A red light has him braking lightly, and in the stillness he gets to look at you and how the crimson shade bathes you in orange hues.
“I always felt small. It was like my every move was judged, scrutinised. Like he thought I wasn’t good on my own and I couldn’t choose for myself.”
Your face is washed in green, and Jeongguk doesn’t dare speak as he moves his eyes back to the road, the hum of the engine filling your pause. You inhale, “My every thought had to be approved by him. Felt soulless at some point. Pathetic, right?” You try to diffuse the heaviness of the conversation with a breathy chuckle.
Jeongguk knows you as anything but soulless. What drew him to you was how your world spun around so many planets, how you never hesitated to let your words out unfiltered and honest. But you’re wavering now, trembling over what to reveal.
“And the way I let myself fall into that… it scares me. Terrifies me. That I willingly stuck by him, just for a flicker of love.”
He’s not good with words the way you are; he wouldn’t trust himself to make sense of disjointed feelings. But it’s similar, the ache in his chest and your shaky exhale. So, he lets his hand cup your knee, thumb soon picking up a soothing motion over your bare skin.
Placing your own palm over his, you keep your gaze fixed on your grazing fingers and he steals glances at the way your teeth pick at the flesh of your bottom lip.
You release it the moment you’re ready to add more, “Receiving help is not so easy for me. It makes me feel useless, like I can’t do enough on my own.”
Like you’re not enough on your own.
He’s sure you can feel how his fingertips unconsciously dig into your thigh, and how he quickly releases the pressure when he hears you whimper. He’s not sure you also feel static in your ears, but the buzz is deafening in his.
Because useless is exactly how he feels when he’s not helping, not carrying additional weight on his shoulders. Save or else he’s failed.
And maybe the whir of that thought reaches the tips of his hand, maybe you feel it tensing his body, because you don’t finish without adding, “But I feel different around you. A good different.”
He stills at your confession.
Jeongguk is not good with words the way you are, but as he brakes at another red light, he turns to you and doesn’t feel like he’s forcing his smile. Doesn’t even feel it forming. It sticks naturally to his face when your eyes finally meet his, and he can breathe regularly when he finds there’s nothing but sincerity in yours, the same one reflected in his.
His hand moves but doesn’t leave you. It cups the side of your face, snakes through your hair, then slides down your neck and tickles there, just to hear your giggle as you flinch. He asks if you’ve eaten, and when you shake your head, his thumb traces the line dangerously close to your mouth.
“What do you wanna eat, hm?”
You hum, seeking the warmth of his palm with your cheek. “Cookies.”
Jeongguk is not good with words, but the moment you step out of the car he’s wrapping you in his jacket, although the walk to the building entrance is only a few steps. He’s not good with words, but his hand guides you by your waist as if you’re made of porcelain — delicate, precious.
And he’s not good with words, but after you’ve changed into mismatched pajamas and he’s helped remove your makeup, he doesn’t hesitate when you ask him not to leave you alone tonight through a mouthful of dough and chocolate chips, and he nods. Lets your head rest on his lap as he softly plays with your hair and you stretch out across the length of the couch.
He remains seated uncomfortably on the soft sofa, neck craned back in a way that will surely haunt him tomorrow. And as he drifts in and out of sleep, hand still tangled in your locks, the ache in his neck is sharper but his heart only grows fonder when he sees you’ve drooled just a little bit more over his thigh.
He thinks he’s fully stirring awake when the morning light filters through his cracked eyelids, although when he tries to move, the muscles running along his spine scream in protest. Jeongguk thinks he’s paralysed, but it doesn’t wholly register until he’s stuck in a limbo between dreamland and reality.
He sees your living room, the brownish coffee table at his feet. But on the wall opposite him there are no pictures of a smiling-you surrounded by golden retrievers.
No, there’s a wrinkled piece of paper with a messily jotted schedule, specific times for specific medications. And no sight of the flat-screen TV he’s helped you install either, just a blank wall and Gureum’s worn out bed at its feet.
When Jeongguk sees himself, he jolts. Fights with everything he has to move from the couch, force his neck to straighten and escape the vision. But then, the girl he’s spent years trying to erase from his mind steps into view, and she’s pushing at his chest. The other him’s chest.
“You can keep the dog, I don’t care,” she spits the crude words in his face, and Jeongguk flinches on your couch, trapped in the replay.
“Keep the dog? Nora, it’s your dog. You told me you wanted it. And I’m fucking allergic,” he watches his past self try to reason, wants to scream at that younger version of him to just give it up, realize Gureum is better off with him anyway.
“I don’t care, Jeongguk. Just do whatever the fuck you want with him.” Nora paces back and forth like she’s trying to keep her jagged anger at bay.
Jeongguk whimpers, his hand twitching to reach for her but she flinches away. He’s fully panting now, out of breath, and five years later he’s watching from the outside and still feels his eyes sting with the same panic.
“So, you’re just gonna leave us? Leave me?”
“Yes, god! I don’t need you anymore. You’ve served your purpose.” Her arms are wide in exasperation, as if there’s no other way to explain the obvious.
Jeongguk has served his purpose. He’s not needed anymore.
From his cramped, uncomfortable position on the couch, the moment he sees his brows twitch and his bottom lip wobble, he wants to yell that it’s no use. That searching for more answers will only make it worse for himself.
But the scene unfolds with the cold precision of back then.
Jeongguk takes a step closer, Nora takes a step back. And it shakes him to the core to see her look at him with fear. Like he’d ever given her a reason to be afraid of him.
“Served my purpose? The fuck is that supposed to mean? Are you seeing someone else?”
Nora scoffs, turning away, “It’s none of your business—”
“It is, for fuck’s sake!” The veins in his neck strain, and he can hear Gureum whining from behind the couch. “You’re my girlfriend, I’ve been by your side through hell and never complained. Because I love you, and I figured you’d—”
“And I never fucking asked you to do that. I never needed you to save me.”
Time stops. Jeongguk watches, dumbfounded, as Nora turns her back on him to stuff a bag with pills she needs for the day and hoists it up her shoulder.
When she’s back in his face, she warns. “Take Gureum and your ass out of my apartment. I’m staying at my dad’s tonight. Don’t look for me.”
A sob escapes his puffy lips, and he reaches for her one last time. “Bug, don’t do this. Don’t leave me, please,” Nora averts his touch, and the sight — the absence of her skin beneath his fingertips, sends him to a low he’d never reached before. “I forgive you. It’s fine, I don’t care if you cheated—”
“Stop, Jeongguk! I’m sick of you,” she screams like she wishes he’d disappear, fade into tiny shreds of a light that once shined, now flickers. “I’m finally getting better. I think I deserve more than this, no? More than you.”
“I don’t—” he’s rarely speechless, but as the weight of every sacrifice he made for the girl in front of him flashes behind his eyes, he feels his heart sink into his stomach. “I’m happy for you, Ora. I’ve always wanted this for you. Tell me what more I can do and I will—”
“Let me go. Take the dog with you and forget me.”
Jeongguk doesn’t think he’s ever let go. He’s let go of her, yes — not of the haunting sense of solitude and emptiness that reigned in his chest at that moment, still finds its way up at times. Especially as he watches powerless from the couch, and he’s aware the tear he sees spilling in the memory is also currently tracing his cheek.
Then, her shoulder bumps against his as she storms past, and the booming sound of the door slamming jolts him awake.
He’s wheezing for air, hands flying to his chest until the panic turns into a harsh cough. The sharp pain in his neck is unbearable, but it’s nothing compared to the dread rising from his feet as he takes in the space around him.
He has to remind himself that this is your space now, not Nora’s.
Opposite him, your nose scrunches in one of the photos on the wall, and he catches his own widened gaze in the reflection of your TV. Cotton candy reaches his nose, replacing the phantom smell of bleach that had been making him sick, the one he associated with the bathroom in his memories.
It’s your space. Not Nora’s. He’s safe.
But when he looks down at where you’d fallen asleep with your head on his thighs, you’re not there.
That’s when he feels like his head is truly fucking with him, and oxygen refuses to find a way in. He uselessly taps the cushions around him for help, comfort, anything tangible. When he finds empty fabric, the only instinct he has left is to run.
Away from this room, back into the hollow silence of his apartment, door shutting with a startled flinch of his shoulders.
It hurts more when he realizes it’s your comfort he needs. He’s fallen into the trap again.
The clinic is swamped. Your duties are piling up, and you can’t seem to gain any ground. You might have had the chance if your coworkers would stop pretending they can’t hear the phone ringing, leaving you to be stalled by ten different callers who vomit their pets’ entire medical histories into one single sentence — convinced you’re some sort of ubiquitous being who can diagnose a dog through a receiver.
Part of it is because you woke up late. By some miracle, your body had naturally stirred without an alarm. Or, more likely, it must have unconsciously captured the muffled buzz of your third one from the bag you’d abandoned somewhere in the room. You’d tensed, mind foggy, before realizing where your head was resting and whose hand was still cupping your cheek.
Shifting slowly from your awkward angle, you’d held your breath, turning around with painstaking care once you were seated to find Jeongguk lightly snoring with his mouth parted, and his neck stiffly lolling toward his shoulder.
You’d fought to keep a giggle in, opting instead to retrieve your phone and snap a close-up of his round, sleeping face. You didn’t care if it cost you a minute you didn’t have.
After that, you ran around the apartment like a maniac, trying not to go twenty minutes past your clock-in time, hopping into the first pair of jeans you could grab and a pastel yellow cardigan that was slowly fading to a dirty white.
You were certain the noise you made when you slammed your pinky toe against the kitchen table would have jolted him awake.
Instead, when you limped past the couch after applying the bruise cream Jeongguk had given you for the very same toe, he was still locked in the same position. You didn’t have the heart to wake him, so you left him there, typing quickly into your chat thread as you eased the door shut behind you.
You [8:39 a.m.] Attachment: 1 image
You [8:39 a.m.] lol you looked so silly
You [8:39 a.m.] i had to run to work sry.. see u later !!
You [8:40 a.m.] help yourself to the fridge :)
Your break is nearing, and your texts still sit unanswered, unread, delivered. You bite your lower lip as your mind automatically begins listing every possible reason for his silence.
He might have woken up with a paralyzed neck, or a hangover migraine. Perhaps a combination of the two.
Your unconscious smile falters when you consider that this might also be another repeat of the birthday-situation, hope and adrenaline surging high, only to simmer down once you realize you must have misread the signals again.
Maybe you shouldn’t have let him kiss you, hold you, but whenever you’re that close to him it feels like your lungs inhale a different kind of air. Clearer, lighter, air that doesn’t clog your chest.
Definitely not the one you welcome as you suck in the nicotine from your cigarette, hiding away from your coworkers in the designated spot you and Olivia found beyond the backdoor and baptised as your private, and legally punishable, smoking area.
Your phone pings. You reach for it so fast you don’t even get the time to tell yourself you’re being pathetic. Hope and adrenaline do simmer down when the name on the screen isn’t your neighbour’s.
In a way, you do still read about him through your notifications. It’s Mingyu, asking about the puppy. Saying something about how he looks like he has a tiny dick and can’t believe you’re settling for that now.
You sigh, pocketing the device and drawing in a longer pull of smoke. You should probably block him. That would be the reasonable thing to do.
There’s a part of your brain that fears it would only further feed his stalker-ish entitlement. Another voice tells you it’s best to keep receiving these weekly updates, at least that way you’ll know if he wakes up one day and decides he wants to murder you.
A chill runs down your spine at the macabre thought. Mingyu wouldn’t. Your overthinking is going beyond today.
You tap the ash from your cigarette and watch it topple to the ground, pulling in the last of the stick. It’s been more than a year since you’ve broken up with Mingyu, months since you’ve stopped whatever on and off thing you two still had, and a few weeks since he’s started being creepy through texts.
You could talk to Jeongguk about it. He’s already offered to help, and you’re pragmatic enough to know that a man willing to stand between you and a threat is often more effective than a woman trying to do the same alone.
Hours later, that’s the excuse you give yourself as you knock on his door. You’d just gulped down whatever leftover you had found in your fridge, frowning when you realized he hadn’t touched a thing. Could also be to check on him, since he finally read your texts but never bothered to reply.
Simpler truth is, you really want to see him. You’d missed his warmth the second you left him on your couch, thought about his lips on yours and the safe scent of almond lingering on his jacket.
You might get tired of the architecture of your walls soon, tired of pretending you don’t need help, don’t need the solid weight of a wide hand keeping you safe, when it’s all that gets your nerves to loosen and your shoulders to relax. A terrifying comfort, the one you find in simply being seen by him.
But you have to stay strong and maintain a pretence of those walls, keep them high enough to ensure you aren’t destroyed in the process. You’ve never made things clear with him, never established the what of this.
Friends, that’s for sure. Though, you don’t kiss your friends like you’ve kissed Jeongguk. None of your friends have ever made you cum. Hell, not even your past boyfriends managed that.
You’re not the type to navigate through things unlabeled, uncertain. You’re willing to walk into the fire that Jeon Jeongguk seems to ignite in everything he touches, you just want to make sure he’s worth the burns.
And you’re committed to finding out, right now.
When the door opens, your smile twitches slightly. Jeongguk only lets his head poke out, keeping the rest of his body shielded behind the piece of wood. It must be why his features pop differently than usual, his eyebags are more prominent, his eyes heavy and droopy.
Another reason you’re here, to apologize for keeping him hostage on your couch all night.
“Hi,” you breathe, shoulders sheepishly rising.
Jeongguk looks taken aback, and for a moment you debate wiping out your resolve and hiding back in your apartment, especially when he simply looks you up and down, brows angled upward. But you remind yourself you’re here to put an end to this very same uncertainty.
He recovers, though a stutter prefaces his greeting. “Hey, hi. Hey.”
You chuckle awkwardly, assuming his hesitation is born from the same nerves bubbling in your stomach. They considerably simmer when he opens the door wider, stepping aside to let you in.
He’s in a large black tee and grey sweats, looking homey enough to hold. You’re still in your work clothes and suddenly the denim feels constricting.
It doesn’t take long for you two to fall into your usual rhythm, even as your brain whispers his smile looks just a bit forced, and his hand shakes as it wraps around a plate under the running water. Still, he listens to your work-rambling and casually answers your questions.
“I’m sorry for yesterday,” you admit into a sudden lapse in conversation. Sitting on a stool behind him, you watch his back muscles shift beneath the cotton of his shirt. You add with a quick gasp, “I mean, for falling asleep on you.”
“‘S okay.” He nods, gaze intently fixed on his scrubbing motions, though the plate looks spotless. Yet his hand tightens around the sponge and he rubs more harshly.
He doesn’t mention the promise you made, the one to never apologise to him again.
That’s when you start looking closer, studying the sharp profile of his face, the small scar on his cheek, how his left eye twitches and he’s still scraping the same clean plate.
Tentatively, you stand. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem tense.”
He clears his throat, finally letting his gaze shift to yours. When you’re eye to eye, both your lungs exhale a deeper release and his grip on the sponge slackens. Water still gushes out, splashing droplets where it meets with the ceramic.
You step closer now, arms brushing and burning where you touch as you take the platter from his hand and set it onto the rack. Turning off the faucet, the only sound filling the kitchen is Gureum licking his paws under the table.
You look up to find him already seeking you out. Twisting enough to fully face him, you attempt a weak grip around his forearm, an unspoken demand for his undivided attention.
He seemingly recovers from the quiet with a flurry of blinks, drawing in a sharp inhale. “Yeah, uh…”
Brows furrowing, you read a different kind of uncertainty on his face than the one you were trying to find answers for. Experimentally, your hand slides upward toward his shoulder, feeling the muscles across his back coil.
“Is it your neck?” Your fingers try pressing into the nerve you feel tightening at the base of his skull, and he lets out a low groan that has him lolling his head forward, palms bracing on the counter. “Let me help you.”
Moving behind him, you work your fingertips into the base of his neck, pushing hard enough to draw a hum of approval from his throat. Perhaps all the time and effort you put into kneading dough paid off in this very instance. Your baked goods never uttered a rewarding sound like Jeongguk has under your fingers. Feeling greedy, you dig the heels of your hands in for a stronger knead, and a stray moan breaks from his throat.
You’re drawn forward from the effort, your hips now flushed against his plump ass and, as if he’s just putty in your hands, his own hips fall against the counter. A broken sound flies past his lips, hiccupping when you only press your body further into his warmth.
Your bottom lip threatens to split under the stress of your teeth on it, partly from the dedication you’re putting in the massage, partly from the struggle to keep a sheepish grin in. Yet, no matter the pace or pressure you apply, he won’t relax.
When he growls your name, your ears perk and you’re asking, “Is this okay?”
Then, the sudden twist of his body catches you off guard. You yelp as your arms drop to your sides, neck craning up to meet the evident restraint written across his features. His fists tighten and loosen, and his exhale brushes hot against your lashes.
He can only say your name again, and you can only take an instinctive step back. But he follows you, pressing flush against you until your spine meets the counter. His hands brace on either side of you, and soon he’s letting his eyelids flutter shut and his nose draw in a deep inhale of your scent.
Your eyes flicker over every corner of his face, now inches from yours. “Jeongguk…”
He seems on the edge of saying something, doing something, nose brushing yours as his own twitches. And he can’t bear to look at you while gathering courage, so he whispers it in your ear, nuzzling his way through your hair.
“Do you trust me?”
It’s an unexpected question, but it awakens the same uncertainty you knocked on his door with, went through the day with, have learned to be around him with. And it’s true what you told him: being with him makes you feel different while still allowing to be you. Being with him isn’t scary, only unpredictable.
You could adapt to that, right up until you’re both tripping and find yourselves unable to grasp one another, falling face first. You get back up with a few scratches, but then he’s making you laugh and the pain fades.
And sometimes, there’s a look on his face you can’t decipher, don’t have the time to, because it washes over him before he retreats back into norm. Sometimes, you might wander in uncharted territories and all you’re met with is silence, like you’re alien and have no way of understanding each other. You still try, inventing a new language, perhaps messing with the uncertainty further.
So, this time, you only nod, because there’s no better way than to bend to your instincts where he is concerned, it comes simpler being honest.
You lift your chin enough to brush the shell of his ear. “I do.”
Jeongguk exhales as if he’d been holding his breath just to ensure he didn’t miss a single syllable of your response. The air trembles over your jaw and he’s leaning impossibly closer, chests flushed, breaths mingling.
It’s not like you to go through things blind; you can’t bear the absence of his gaze any longer. Your hand slides up his cheek, turning his face until it’s directly in front of yours. When your eyes meet, your breath hitches.
His eyelids are droopy, brows angled upward, and a thin sheen of vulnerability coats his orbs. His mouth is inches from yours, parted, as though he’s begging to be let in or stopped that very instant.
You search up for his own answer through your lashes, your free hand bracing against his white-knuckled grip on the counter as you’re only pressed further into the digging edge.
When he drops his forehead on yours like he’s finally made peace with himself, you fan against his lips. “Do you?”
But he replaces words with the force of his mouth crashing on yours. Your fingers instinctively clutch at his hair, drawing a broken whine of his that filters through your kiss, immediately all tongue and teeth. An arm wraps around your waist, hauling you impossibly close until you feel his bulge press into your womb.
You’re soon gasping for air, but he keeps you still and trapped, pinned by his relentless mouth and his tightening hold. And there’s a sense of frantic urgency, like detaching might allow a tide to flood the space between you, separating your bodies until you’re both sinking and wheezing, and he can’t possibly risk that.
His other hand leaves the counter and travels up to tangle in your locks, splaying a palm behind your head to better angle the way his tongue slices with yours, swallowing your every moan and increasing sound, preventing even the thought of escape.
The oxygen in your lungs begins to fail, and you think if he wants you to die now, he might as well keep kissing you. Jeongguk groans when your tug on his hair teeters on rough, but he only dives deeper into the kiss, seeking more.
Only when you pat his chest harshly and whine loud into his mouth does he detach, and you’re both left panting in each other’s faces, flushed, lips swollen.
His eyes are blown wide, blinking serially as though he’s resurfacing from someplace distant. Your grip on his hair softens, slender fingers stroking his scalp in a soothing pattern, like that draw his gaze back to yours, away from the void between your lips and collarbone.
Now, your own body surges with the same urgency that had filled the kiss, had him keeping you tethered, when you can sense his hold around you loosening.
Your brows twitch and you instinctively push your middle into his, hands falling to his shoulders to anchor him. For a split second, as he lets his arm drop from your waist, his palm bruises your hip when he looks down at the contact, at where you’re dangerously close to grinding yourself against him.
Then, his warmth leaves you entirely, and your own arms fall from where they were trying to keep him close.
“I’m sorry, I…” Jeongguk avoids your eyes, recoils as if he’s been burned.
You shake your head, trying to be the steady one, “No, it’s okay, Gguk.” Taking a step forward, he matches it with a step back. Your brows knit together, “I don’t… Did I do something?”
“We— we can’t… I can’t do this.”
Oh.
The words hit like a physical blow. You’re certain your heart misses a beat almost in sync with his stutter, and it sinks altogether when no other explanation follows his low voice.
Pain and confusion wash over your face as you struggle to make sense of the rejection. You feel your cheeks flush with stinging embarrassment at the way he won’t even look at you, let alone offer a reason for the sudden wall between you.
And you’re left standing there, as if you’re some sort of ragdoll, as if you didn’t spend the past month harboring real feelings for him, as if you’re not worth basic respect. It feels like you’ve been proved wrong for trusting him.
“What… what do you mean you can’t?” You scoff like you can’t believe even the sound of those words.
You’re in the middle of his kitchen, where he’s tended so caringly to your burn, where he’s had you try his mean carbonara, where he’s poured your favourite soda before every movie without fail, where he’s just kissed you like it physically hurt to let go. And now, Jeongguk has his gaze fixed on the floor, shaking his head in small twitches.
Your ears buzz with chaos as your mind frantically catalogs every possible reason he’s standing in the same kitchen and rejecting you.
You think back to yesterday, to the girl pressed flush against him at the club, and you blurt out the first plausible reason. “Is it… Are you seeing someone else?”
At that, his head snaps up, and his startled eyes meet your stinging ones. “No, no. I’d never… It’s just…”
Somehow, that makes it even worse. You feel pathetic, and the sensation rushes to your brows, drawing up in a silent attempt to ask Jeongguk why.
Does this mean that all this time, you’ve been the only one feeling more? Wanting more?
Jeongguk stands paralyzed, and you can see his teeth tormenting the inside of his cheek, his eyes numb and falling to the side, zoning out on Gureum’s sleeping form on the ground.
You scoff, unbelieving, hands flying as you retrieve your phone from the counter. “Fuck, this is so dumb.”
He says your name, whispers it, and you still pathetically stop in your tracks and hang from his lips. You wouldn’t have been able to capture what they moved around if you had just turned and walked away. It’s so low you might foolishly hope he regrets saying it.
“Don’t go.”
Tears prick at your eyes and you dig your nails into your palms to keep them from spilling, anger replacing the hurt when you uselessly pant.
You exhale, voice pitiably quivering. “Look, there’s clearly some stuff you need to work on, but I’m not about to be your punching bag.”
A similar sheen coats his eyes when he meets yours, but it’s not enough to make him talk, make it easier for the both of you, put you out of this unknown he pulled you in, of which he’s the only one who could provide clarity.
His head twitches, hand lifting almost as if to reach for you. But your hope must still be pathetically alive within you, because all he manages is a stutter, “I’m—”
“I can’t let you do this to me,” you let the exhaustion filter freely through your voice, shoulders sagging. “I’m tired of the mixed signals, Jeongguk.”
“I didn’t want to—”
“But you did.”
Silence reigns between you, and you’re back to being aliens whose every attempt at communicating only further damages whatever progress there’d been.
“I couldn’t… I just want to help— save you.” His last words are merely a mumble into the empty space between you, but you hold onto them, doing your best to decipher his meaning.
“Save me from what?” You scan his face for anything that might stop the disaster, suck in the water flooding the room, reaching your throats, threatening to seal your mouths shut. “I never asked you to save me, Jeongguk. I just thought we had… something.”
Water reaches his lungs first, and soon you’re drowning with him, the tide keeping you apart, where you can’t reach for each other, but it still cruelly forces you to witness the pain etching itself into his features.
“But I guess I was wrong.”
The only way out of the flood is away from his space, back into the perceived safety of yours.
But even here, water sneaks from under the door. On your couch, his jacket still lies crumpled and forgotten. It stanches your apartment with the safe smell of almond and pine you’ve learned to associate with peace, only to realize you’ll have to relearn it all over again.
STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOIN. OOTW PT 2 DROPPED‼️‼️ my moods for this chap:
this part hurt me like no other. lovie does it again with her masterful words … her techniques on characterization, scene building, and tension are literally my biggest inspos. SO lucky to have gotten my hands on this part and immersed myself in the ootw!verse. pls show miss lovie all the love for this amazing series — YOU GUYS GOTTA LOCK IN FOR THE FINALE OK??
guys i’m so sorry to say this but exercising and indulging in hobbies rather than scrolling on your phone for 200 hours actually does improve your mood and overall mental health, this has deeply upset me more than anyone
synopsis: His heat is telling him he needs to go deeper. That he needs to do more. That he needs to breed.
j.jeongguk x f.reader
Ი︵𐑼 ┊: wc: 4.1k
Ი︵𐑼 ┊: genre: hybrid au, smut, fluff
Ი︵𐑼 ┊: content: rabbit hybrid!jeongguk, human!reader, established relationship, rut, straight smut, pwp pretty much the whole time, cervix penetration, overstimulation, marathon sex, heavy breeding kink, lots of cum, mild aftercare, kook gets a little anxious, mildly dubious consent (but you’re into it the whole time), lack of safe word discussion, i think that’s it :3 -> part of the ctrl the cold 2025 event
Ი︵𐑼 ┊: notes: The first fic of my winter series! I’m very excited to present to you all of these fics, I’ve been working on them for a while so I hope you all enjoy!! I have 10 weeks of fics lined up in the cue, so even if this fic isn’t your cup of tea, I hope you find something in there somewhere ^>^ !! I really love bunny!koo (and I have lots of other ideas of drabbles involving you too) but for now I’ll just leave it as this. Enjoy!
18+ -> minors / blank blogs dni -> smut begins right under the cut
“Shii– Shit! Jeongguk!”
Your voice is high, strained. Cracking from use, from the moans that Jeongguk somehow continues to pull from your slack form. Your cunt hardly able to clench anymore, cum and arousal practically pooling against the bed sheets. More and more of it somehow spilling from your cunt every time he thrusts deep inside of you.
You’re a complete wreck, to say the least.
Your pussy is red, sore. Your lips all puffed up from use, the inner walls practically screaming for a break that Jeongguk doesn’t allow. Your limbs tired, slumped against the mattress. The only thing still holding your hips up being the man behind you. Colours flick in and out of your vision, darkness wanting to take you as they spot in the corners of your eyes.
When you had agreed to help your sort-of boyfriend (he calls you his mate, explained it’s something similar to a boyfriend for hybrids but you couldn’t quite differentiate between the two) through his rut, you had never expected it to be like this. Even if he did live in the wild, even if he did act more on instinct than a typical hybrid, you never thought it could be this all-encompassing need. Had never imagined that the saying fuck like bunnies could be so utterly true for someone who is still still half human.
In all fairness, he had tried to warn you. Had tried to explain how insatiable he would be, how little of a rebound time he would need between rounds. How he was scared of losing control and breaking you.
The whole time, you had just reassured him. Calmed him down, promised him you could manage just fine. The voice in your head giggling over the wild rabbit’s mild concern. You had taken him before– you had already known he had a crazy amount of stamina, typically lasted 3 rounds before he was well and truly satisfied– how could his rut be much different?
You really should’ve done more research before you got involved with one, especially with your muted knowledge on hybrids in general. Before the bunny that was stealing veggies from your garden fell so completely into your heart that you could never deny him a single thing. Before he started courting you like a good rabbit would. Before he decided that he wanted to be with you forever.
Now, you’re regretting closing all of those tabs on google informing you about his species, figuring that he would tell you everything that you needed to know. That he would help you through it just like everything else in your relationship.
And at first, it was fine. Well and truly, it was.
About a week ago, Jeongguk had pounded against your back door with shaky hands, his entire body twitching in place. Soft brown ears perked upright, scanning back and forth while his foot threatened to thumb at the sign of anything. Clearly disturbed. Clearly upset.
He managed to maintain decorum when finally faced with you, doing everything in his power to not launch himself into your home and start scenting the place. Made it reek of him.
No, he was good. He waited until you invited him inside, gave you a little half hug and placed a kiss on your temple before he started walking around the perimeter. Traced around the edges of every room for no reason you could discern, picking up pillows and blankets along the way before he found his way into your bedroom.
You, you just let him go about his business. Knew it was his pre-rut kicking in, his head clogged up with the rumblings of his inner rabbit telling him what to do and where to go to make sure the house– den– burrow– whatever you wanted to call it was safe.
Let him rearrange your room into what felt safe. In fact, helped him with it. Helped him turn your bedroom into some-what of a bunny burrow– blankets covering every wall, blocking out the light from your window. Pillows and blankets scattered all across the floor, the largest pile on top of your mattress, removed from its bedframe, pressed into a corner.
Helped him when he got too manic about the fairy light placement, doing it for him while he just clung to your back, instructing you on where he wanted them hung. His face not leaving the crook of your neck, even for a moment. Barely glazing upwards at what you were doing, your scent already consuming him.
The next few days that followed included more bonding-time than you could ever imagine. Jeeongguk refused to leave you for even a second, going as far as to whine at the door whenever you went into the bathroom to pee. Muttering about how he just wanted to feel you, to make sure you were safe and that no other bucks were coming after you.
How they would find you in your locked bathroom, you weren’t sure. But you humoured him anyway. Let him scent you until your neck felt raw.
When his rut first started 3 days ago, it was manageable. Difficult, but manageable.
You could keep him under control– make him cum a few times with your hands, with your mouth. Make sure enough of his cum landed in your cunt to keep him satisfied until the next round of his rut would spike up.
Then, he let you feed him in the downtime. Let you clean him up in the shower once or twice, too. Plenty of naps included without fail as long as he could press his nose right up against your inner thigh. Let him smell his seed deep in your cunt.
He never told you it would get worse the closer it became to its end.
Now on the 4th day, he only seemed to be getting more and more manic. More insistent. More on edge.
Muttering about breeding you– about how you’re not bred yet and it’s driving him crazy. You should be bred by now, shouldn’t you? He would be able to tell if you were. He should be able to smell it and he can’t.
His nose pressing to your core after every round, refusing to fuck you anywhere but your quiverying, leaking hole. Making sure to fuck his cum back inside with his cock after every round, his fingers in the off chance he gets even slightly soft.
Round after round. Back to back. No break. No time to breathe or think about anything other than being filled up by Jeon Jeongguk. No time to do anything other than lay there and take his cock.
He’s been going at it since he woke up at noon, the sun now set beneath the horizon as the stars hang themselves high in the sky.
“It’s okay– It’s okay–” He mutters, voice high as somehow pleasure creeps up his spine once again. As he fucks into your sloppy hole over and over again without regard. Without concern for how you’re taking it, only knowing you can take more.
His hand weaves itself against your scalp, pushing your head down against the blanket as he takes you from behind for what feels like the millionth time.
“Just…” He grunts, his ears pinned back to his head. His tail twitching erratically at the base of his spine as he thrusts inside as deep as he can manage– a full inch of him still outside of your wet heat that he just can’t manage to fit inside.
“One more time… one more time mate.. You can take it, okay? You can.” He states, yet you can only give a half moan in response. Head feeling fuzzy, your body utterly drained. Not even sure how you’re still conscious after it all. Not sure if you still even feel anything below your waist.
“I just…” He huffs, hips working, grinding. Changing their course of thrusts to that of rough ruts, forcing as much of his cock into you as he can. Pressing incessantly against your cervix with the head, “Need to see my pretty human stuffed full, okay? I need it. Need it.”
He chants the phrase like a prayer. His expression pinching tight, nose scrunching up as he grinds his cock deep inside of you over and over again. The motion relentless, earth-shatteringly devastating.
“Need to get you pregnant. Wanna put my bunnies in you… that isn’t so bad, is it?” You slowly begin to feel the weight of him against your spine, his frame pressing against your own. “I just…”
He humphs again, clearly trying to find the right words in his dizzied mind. The only thing he can think of being breed, breed, breed. His rut is almost over, why aren’t you full of him yet? Why aren’t you getting pregnant like a good little doe?
Of course, his mind can’t possibly conceptualise birth control right now. Only the need to get deeper. To feel you more.
You’re barely hanging on.
You feel as thin as twine, but somehow, in some way you’re still there. Still in the moment with the love of your life as he does everything in his power to jackhammer into your raw, fucked out cunt. Unsure of how much more you can take, if you can truly help him through the rest of his– Oh.
Oh shit.
“I just need to get deeper, mate. I know I can.” His voice feels distant, yet close all at the same time. Right in your ear, across the room. All feelings and sensations blurring into one as you feel deeper, deeper, deeper pressure against your cervix than you’ve ever felt before.
Pressure forward, forward, forward inside of you. Against a place no one should ever go.
“So close, so close. –cum in here, I’ll get my pretty doe pregnant. ‘M know it. I do.” He’s barely making sense anymore either, too consumed, practically feral in his own right. “C’mon… just let me inside… let me go inside…”
Oh god. He’s going to break you.
You feel more conscious than you have been in the last few hours. All 5 of your senses springing to life all at once. The pain in your lower half coming back ten fold as you start to feel every stroke. Feel like the world is ending but beginning all at the same time.
Your pelvis hurts from his bruising grip, your legs wished to give out hours ago. Your whole body begins to tremble. Everything is too much. Everything.
“Hey.. shh shh shh..” As if sensing your impending panic, he already begins to soothe. His lips placing sloppy kisses at the ball of your spine, one of his hands releasing its grip on your hips to rub soothingly up and down your side. “It’s okay.”
Your eyes are already watering, though. A muffled cry tearing from your throat as he still doesn’t let up on the pressure deep inside. Pausing pressing forward, but keeping his cock’s presence there– known.
“Hurts– Hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts!” You’re a whimpering, messy thing. Hair tangled from sweat and the way he tossed you around so carelessly earlier in the day. Your frame begging for release, for some sort of reprieve from his frenzied breeding attempts.
“I know– I know baby, I do…” Even as he says it though, he lets out a whine. Feeling your slick walks pulse around him– trying to get him out or keep him in, neither of you are really sure. “I know.”
His free hand, the one that was gently trailing your sides now slides down to your stomach. Right to where your uterus sits under the skin. His thumb finding home against your flesh, rubbing soft, comforting circles into the surface.
If he was in his right mind, he’d ask if you want to stop. He’d check in a million times just to make sure the girl he loves the most in the world can take just a little bit more.
But he’s not in his right mind, the both of you know that well enough.
“After this, after this I promise it’s over. Promise I’ll be done.” The words feel hollow, even if he means them, “I just…”
God, he’s pressing forward again and the pain is all consuming. All consuming but something in you can’t tell him no. Doesn’t want to tell him to stop.
Something in you, despite how much it hurts, despite how much you need a break, wants him to continue on. Wants him to take everything he can from you, to use you for his pleasure alone. To just– do what he needs to do to get through this rut and make him happy.
He owes you big time when tomorrow comes. When his rut will finally subside.
His feet plant themselves on the bed, his entire weight pressing into your back as he manages to hold your hips up with shaky, manic hands. His cock no longer rocking to try and fuck his way past your cervix, but forcing his way inside by brute strength alone.
“Little more. Almost there. Almost there. Almost inside.” He pants, breathless. His lips pressed to the back of your neck, his teeth scratching against the surface with every word. Not a single grunt of his hidden from your ears, allowing you to hear just how much strain he’s putting into the movement.
“Almost there. Just a little more. Little more and then I can get you nice and pregnant. Can fill you up. Please please please!” He’s resorted to begging, feeling the wall ever so slowly give way to his impending need. Not stopping, not pausing to give it a second of reprieve until–
His gasp is somehow first, the loudest. The response is instantaneous as you feel his entire form tighten above you. Feel him shake out a chill travelling down his spine.
His voice fills your ear as you finally feel it deep inside. The final pop past the barrier. The searing pain of him engulfing you from the inside out setting all of your nerves on fire.
The head of his ruined cock inside of your womb. Him as deep inside of him as his anatomy would allow.
You let out a whine of a cry, your entire body responding to the intrusion in its entirety. The last bit of strength in your thighs giving way, your hands opening before fisting into the blanket. Your head shaking back and forth harshly as you adjust to the new, strange, demanding feeling deep inside of your gut.
You’re only given a second to adjust to the feeling. To accommodate the stretch of him inside of a place he shouldn’t be, but is. Claiming you whole, claiming you fully. The tight ring clamping down around him with everything that it has, holding him in tight. Making sure he doesn’t move out now that he’s decided to make a home inside.
Your boyfriend is already moving.
His senses have narrowed into one single thing. The once scrambled nature of his brain resolving itself into one directive now that he’s finally achieved his goal.
Breed. Fill. Rut.
His hips piston with precision, making sure to only pull out an inch before thrusting back inside. Making sure that the head of his cock never leaves the sanctity of your womb. Making sure that you feel all of him, the way he’s always felt all of you.
His ears are pinned back, his tail shuttered close to his body. His nails gripping into one of your hips for purchase, the other pressing against your womb from the outside. Feeling his dick. Feeling him slide in and out of you in more ways than one.
You hazard a glance between your thighs– difficult in your position, but done regardless. Breath huffing as you spot the mess between your thighs, spot the imprint of his dick poking from outside of your belly.
Your pupils widen.
Before, you weren’t sure if you could handle it, but now… how you feel heat rising from deep inside of you. Your cheeks beginning to burn crimson, your mouth falling open in a helpless gasp.
Fuck, fuck you really didn’t think it would be possible for you to cum again today. Really didn’t think you would be able to with how much everything hurts, how much everything just feels too much.
But the line between pleasure and pain has always been a thin one, hasn’t it?
Your walls clench tightly around his cock, the orgasm coming on much too quickly. Faster than you ever thought possible with the onslaught.
“Fuck– Fuck– so good, pretty doe! So good!” He’s breathless, whining in your ear. Though he’s had longer to work up his high, it’s clear it’s coming soon, too. “‘S tight around me. S’ tight and good!!”
He’s pitchy, not caring about the noise. About sounding attractive. About anything other than cumming deep inside of your womb.
The hand on your stomach dips lower, his finger tips pressing against your clit. The tight bundle of nerves twitching against the digits, feeling red hot from overuse, yet still pleasurable in an almost twisted way.
Your eyes close, a band in your belly pulling tight. A ball of knots forming, cascading into a feeling you’ve never felt before. Never even conceived your body could feel.
“Cum cum cum cum cum.” His voice is chanting another phase now. Begging, pleading with you to just let loose one final time so he can pretend this last round wasn’t out of pure selfishness. Pure lust and desire. Like this whole thing has been about you, too.
He still wants to show you he cares.
That cord that winded up so quickly inside of you begs, pleads with your body to let it snap. To let your orgasm just wash over you. To let you enjoy the feeling of his jackhammering hips, of the tip of his cock leaking deep inside.
“Please! Cum and I promise I’ll get you pregnant! Promise!”
And somehow, you do. That final sentence, his whimpering, whining tone finally sending you over the edge. Cascading over the edge of a waterfall as all of your joints lock up tight. As a high pitched cry leaves your throat. As your cunt clenches around him entirely, fully. Fluttering around him as each wave wrecks your very soul.
His dam breaks due to you. Perfect, utterly perfect, you.
As you try to breathe, try to take air into your lungs you feel his cock twitching restlessly inside of you. Spurt after spurt of cum unloading from his cock directly into your helpless womb. Flooding you, filling you up completely. Utterly.
If you had any more pieces of your shattered mind gathered up in your arms, you might wonder how he still has any cum left. Maybe you’ll hazard at the thought later when your eyes aren’t going black. When spots aren’t invading your vision, your brain finally pulling you under a cloak of black.
It takes a full two minutes for Jeongguk to recuperate from his orgasm. For his brain to slowly slip back into place as his rut subsides enough for him to return to consciousness. His spent length finally softening fully for the first time since he had woken up that very morning.
“Mate..?” He slowly asks, pulling his hips back enough that he removes himself from your cervix, but not enough that he’s out of you fully– some part of the back of his brain telling him to keep his cock inside, to keep anything from slipping out.
He leans his head up, sniffing at your pulse point. Still strong, still with him. Just asleep. A pretty girl tired, too giving. Needing a rest after everything he put your pretty little body through.
He sighs, nuzzling in your throat for only a moment. Basking in the afterglow, in how much he loves you.
Where he was once rough with you, he’s gentle now. Slowly, delicately moving your body onto its side, forming your front into the shape of his chest as he takes his place beside you. One of his arms wrapping around your waist, keeping you close, the other hooking your leg around his hip, keeping his cock nestled deep.
Keeping you protected from anything, anyone that might want to harm you.
He knows that tomorrow, he’ll have a lot of work cut out for him. By the time he wakes up, his rut should have completely subsided. By the time you wake up, you’ll need all the aftercare and love one bunny boy can manage.
Humans are so fragile, after all. He knows he probably took it too far. Should’ve talked about it with you first, set hard limits before he tried to fuck his way into your womb. Should’ve set safewords and spoke in detail before he tried anything like that. Will apologise profusely tomorrow, do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t hate him.
But as you snuggle closer to him, your pretty little pussy sending a weak flutter down his soft cock, he finds himself a little less worried. A little less nervous because he knows you're his.
Your eyes flutter open blearily for a second, staring up at his soft, mushy face. Your irises swimming as they try to focus on him, try to recover even slightly.
“Hey.” You croak softly, your throat raw. Thirsty. Tired.
“Hey.” Is all he can manage to say back, entirely awestruck by everything you. Cheeks already pink from the attention, acting boyish and sweet. As if he didn’t commit like 5 of the cardinal sins moments prior.
You giggle slightly to yourself, and Jeongguk swears his heart skips a beat. Is unsure how anything revolves around anyone but you. Is sure you’re his soulmate. Is sure he’d rather be dead than be without you, the love of his life.
Then, you’re leaning forward and he swears you’re an angel. Your chapped lips are placing a kiss to the tip of his nose and he wants to bite you. Make you his mate fully and completely. Or maybe get down on one knee instead, propose and make you his in the human ways he’s seen on the tv.
“Are you back with me now?” You ask softly, an arm that weighs a million pounds rising up, brushing the sweaty hair from his forehead before reaching the base of his ear, scratching it gently. The close of his eyes an automatic reply.
“Mmm” He nods, knowing his brain is slowly coming back to him. Making him less of a mindless creature, a slave to the incessant urges that held him captive.
He opens his eyes again, trying to convey the sincerity in his expression while his tone might fail him, “‘M sorry if I hurt you. ‘M… I’m just sorry.”
You quickly– well, as quickly as the tiredness in your limbs allow– shake your head, trying to dismiss his thoughts, “‘T’s okay,” You pause for a second, reaching up to cup his jaw in both of your hands, “Didn’t hurt me. …Well, hurt in the moment. And I’m sore now, too, but…”
He flinches slightly, looking away. You continue before he manages to get the chance to get in his head, “but I liked it, too. It.. it felt weird.. Weird but good, I think.”
His eyes widen, looking up at you with something akin to quiet revere. Like he would do anything for you. Like he would hang the stars in the sky, burn down the planet if it just meant he could see that bright little twinkle in your eye that he holds so dear.
“Not–” You attempt to stop any imperative ideas that might be leaking into his head, “--that I want to try again now. Or any time soon. But I didn’t hate it. Just– just we have to talk about it next time you want to try something like that.”
Bunny teeth are in front of you now, wide and bright as he finally lets go of any worry or self doubt that you might want to break up with him now. His head dipping forward, nipping at one of the love bites he left on your neck.
“I love you.” He mumbles sweet, cloying. Somehow tugging you closer to his form, somehow still managing to have some playful energy in him despite how exhausted you are.
You let out a giggle, weak arms pushing at his shoulders in a barely there protest to give you some space. “I love you too, Gguk.”
You don’t think you could ever hate him. Hell, you think you might’ve even liked it more than you would ever be willing to let on. Thrived under how desperate he was, how utterly infatuated he seemed to be, but… but maybe next time you’ll ask him to not take the 99.99% effectiveness of your birth control as a personal challenge.
looking at it now, it all seems so simple. your neighbour is burn-in stubborn, you’re no better, and somehow you become another fire he feels compelled to put out. but flames don’t just burn — they leave everything changed. jeongguk knows only how to run, never to let himself be consumed. you’re willing to see what happens if you stay in the heat.
pairing firefighter!jk x vet!fem reader
genre neighbours au, frenemies to lovers, fluff, angst, smut
contents slice of life, crack-ish rom-com energy, banter & bickering, lowkey grumpy x grumpy, Or sassy x sassy, dog dad! jk, use of nicknames, sexual tension, minor burn, mentions of death and loss, alcohol consumption, brief harassment, consensual sexual interaction under the influence, making out, dry humping, brief tit play, dirty talk, pet names
word count 15.8k
author’s note IT’S FINALLY HERE!!! i recommend reading prologue and part one back to back 🙂↕️ let me know what you think plz… feedback in any shape is always dearly appreciated 🩷
beta read by @missenu & @voyter, my amazing best friends who shaped this chapter and made the whole writing journey pure magic ₊˚⊹ᰔ
banner by @voyter ᥫ᭡.
prologue ⋆ one ⋆ two
Sunday means you’re at Grandma Mimi’s again.
Ginger purrs on your lap as Grandma Mimi updates you on that 340 situation. The boyfriend supposedly found out and made a scene that the whole floor heard. Of course, Mimi got wind of it less than an hour later. You’re pretty sure there’s a solid network of granny-agents in your building. You wonder if each floor has its own Grandma Mimi.
You doubt they’d be as great as the original, though. You’re certain they wouldn’t, not when she selflessly shares another one of her baking secrets with you, just for the shared joy of the moment, your confidence growing with each week she spends reviewing your baked goods and giving you tips as you go.
“I feel like my eye can just tell when something needs more sugar…” Before she can add another spoon of diabetes’-worst-enemy to her tea, the doorbell rings. You both startle, but she quickly recovers and gets up.
“Would you add that spoon in for me, dear?” You nod but you don’t actually go with what she asked, having already watched her put in three spoonfuls. Instead, you get up to put the sugar away on a shelf in the kitchen.
When you return to the living room, it takes you a second to recognise the voice laughing along with Grandma Mimi from the entrance. You take a few tentative steps closer to the source, just to get a better angle for eavesdropping.
“Thank you, halmeoni. I just wanted to drop this off—”
“Oh, don’t go so soon, son. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”
Once you feel the voices getting closer, you quickly walk backwards and almost trip over the edge of the carpet. By the time Mimi comes back into view, you’re sitting on the couch looking perfectly unbothered. Only, she walks in side by side with your tall and handsome front-door neighbour, whose smile falters the moment he spots you and your narrowed eyes throwing daggers his way.
Grandma Mimi seems completely unaware of the sudden tension, and gestures for Jeongguk to sit next to you. He does, barely acknowledging your presence, and you scoot toward the far end.
“I’m sure you know each other well, right?” Mimi asks, settling into the armchair across from you both with the biggest smile on her face.
You side-eye the reason for her giddiness. “Kind of, I guess.”
“Isn’t he handsome, __?”
Coughing at the tiny woman’s straightforwardness, you despise the cheeky smile it brings on Jeongguk’s lips. You shrug, pretending to find your nails far more interesting. “He’s okay.”
Liar.
Jeongguk sits with his jeans-wrapped, muscled legs spread, and his unnecessarily broad back resting comfortably against the soft couch. On the other side of it, you sit cross-legged, one knee pulled up, lazily dressed in worn shorts and an oversized T-shirt. He looks at you with a glint in his eyes, like he knows you’re that. A liar.
“Did I ever tell you about that time Jeonggukkie saved Ginger from a tall tree?”
Grandma Mimi launches into a far-too-excited retelling of the event, as she usually does, but the way her praises seem to multiply when directed at Jeongguk makes your eyes squint. The neighbour-you-don’t-like suddenly turns modest, waving off the older woman’s — exaggerated, in your humble opinion — kindness, timidly scratching the back of his head. Your eye twitches this time.
Is he putting on an act, or is this the Jeongguk everybody else gets access to except for you? If that’s the case, you think you’re grateful. You almost gag at the blatant falsity. Maybe he should drop the firefighter career and take up acting instead.
When your eyes move back to Grandma, you momentarily forget who she’s so excited about and bask in her visible joy. One thing you can’t deny is that the story does sound incredible. Although, you’re not sure if your baking-guru might just be adding a little extra sweetness to it, for the same reasons she thinks her tea needs four full spoons of sugar.
You giggle at her reenactment of Ginger’s terrified paralysis. “Wow, these things really happen? Just like they do in the movies?”
A scoff comes from your side, and your smile drops. “Where do you think the movies get their inspiration from?”
The switch is, indeed, Oscar-worthy. He should seriously consider acting. Since he’s such an expert, he could play a firefighter. Genius.
You’ll pitch the idea to him later, after you’re done letting him know how much you hate his current, and possibly permanent, real-annoying-firefighter self with your most threatening gaze. Which he doesn’t seem threatened by at all. He just deadpans.
You hate that Grandma’s eyes are utterly enamoured and yours almost get stuck rolling in the back of your head. You hate that he gets to be her favourite when he’s always (mostly) such an ass to you.
Lucky for him, you’re feeling mature enough not to let your petty side show in front of Grandma, and just sigh in hopes a deep breath can help you hold on to your patience. “Right.”
Turning back to the neighbour-you-like, you reserve your biggest smile for her. “Well, now you also have me, Grandma Mimi. Next time something like that happens, I’m just a knock away.”
“You’re a vet.”
Mimi’s words die right in her throat, and you both turn toward the source of such an agitating, grating voice. Jeongguk looks far too confident you won’t cuss him out. It’s in his eyes, challenging you to do so. That smug smirk is still on his lips. His ridiculous, beefy arms are crossed now.
You cross your own. “Exactly. Your point?”
“Do you get trained for these situations?”
Slightly shifting to face him, what you reserve for him is your most condescending expression. “No, but I spend all my time with animals. I think I could do an equally good job.”
He actually laughs out loud. It cracks in his throat and makes him bend forward for a second. The seriousness is back on his face just as quickly. “That doesn’t mean you could save one from that kind of danger.”
Your feet drop to the floor as you sit up straighter, front leaning in his direction, close enough that you expect him to back away. He doesn’t. He stays right where he is, seemingly unbothered.
“What, do you get special training for saving little kittens from trees?”
He keeps his face unfazed. “It’s basic firefighter training.”
Two can ragebait. “I think I’d do even better than you, without any of that training.”
Jeongguk chuckles and rolls his eyes, pointer finger and thumb pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh, really.”
You fight really hard to keep a childish sneer off your face. It still slips into your voice. “Yes. I’d be soothing, calming it down…”
“First, you should make sure it doesn’t die from the fall—”
“You know,” Grandma Mimi chimes in, “I think you two would make such a good couple.”
It’s simultaneous, how you both snap your heads to the source of the interruption. A very much needed one, certainly. You’re just not sure you like the way Mimi’s complete misinterpretation of your interaction has the silence stretching for a beat too long.
Opposite of you both, she sips her overly-sugary tea. On your side, Jeongguk wipes his face with his tattooed hand, clearly done with the direction this is heading.
You scoff, leaning back on the couch and scooting to a non-threatening distance from Jeongguk. “Couple? Grandma, we’re literally fighting over who’d be better at saving Ginger.”
The old lady smiles a tender one, settling more comfortably in her seat, wrinkly hands smoothing down the creases of her pants. “Me and my husband were just like you once. Couldn’t say two words without yelling at each other.”
So far, her fragile voice seems to be the only thing able to turn down the bitter banter between you and your front-door neighbour. Her words fall like sweet and warm drops of honey that fill the space and the cracks of your grumpiness. You catch a glimpse of the love in her eyes as she recalls her late husband, and it manages to find its way into your own petty, lonely stare.
Jeongguk sits there too, quiet, attentive, humming when appropriate. None of what she’s saying seems news to him, though. Mimi glances at him knowingly, and you wonder if it must mean he had the chance to meet this charming man. From what you know, Jeongguk’s been living here for a long time, and Grandma… even longer.
She sighs, the satisfied kind, coming to the end of another one of her precious, well told stories. “Love’s what made us stick together, though.”
“Love and trust, halmeoni.” Jeongguk smiles with adoration and fondness, a combination you’ve never seen on his face in your whole year living here, not even toward Gureum. With the way it stretches, you notice just how round his cheeks are. How soft it makes his whole face look.
It would have been adorable if it hadn’t disappeared the second he spotted you staring. Your own smile follows. You hadn’t even registered you were mirroring him. Must be Mimi’s words getting to you.
“That’s right, son,” from your peripheral vision, you see Grandma getting to her feet, and, like it’s second nature, you immediately move with her, ready to steady her if she needs it. She smiles at you and loops her arm through yours, then looks between you and round-face.
“Would you two help me with lunch? My knees are killing me.”
You pat her hand. “Of course, Grandma. What are we making?”
Jeongguk lets out an awkward huff and stands, bracing his hands on his thighs. There’s nothing round about all that muscle.
“Halmeoni, I would love to, but I should go check on Gureum.”
Halmeoni waves a hand at his concerned face, “It’s okay, Jeonggukkie. Come back whenever you like.”
Mimi detaches from you to latch onto Jeongguk instead. He’s about to give her a dutiful smile when he hears you scoff behind her. His eyes narrow at you, then drop to your lips whispering his words from last week. Would you turn down an old lady…?
You think you see his jaw twitch. You shrug, hands up in mock surrender. Next, you voice your thoughts louder, “I’m just saying, you could’ve practiced what you preach.”
Before you get the chance to see his nostrils flare, you turn and head toward the kitchen. You’ve barely made it two steps when his voice stops you, sudden and resolved, immediately followed by Grandma’s delighted squeal.
“You know what, I can stay. I’ll help.”
That’s how you end up teamed up with the neighbour who supposedly dislikes you — and whom you only dislike back on principle, since he started it.
Mimi barely gives you a few instructions before abandoning you both in her kitchen, her tiny figure returning to her favourite armchair to resume whatever TV drama has taken over her life this month.
Jeongguk isn’t much of a conversationalist, at least with you. That, you’ve gathered.
Still, somewhere between the peeling and the chopping, you ask — mostly out of genuine concern for his dog. “Is Gureum okay, by the way?”
He nods, eyes focused on his task. “He’s fine. He just gets whiny when he’s alone for too long.”
You snort, well-acquainted with those very whines. Your coo turns into a giggle, and you put on a strangled imitation of the dog, even going as far as giving him a voice. Daddy, I miss you!
But he seems to take cooking very seriously, so seriously that he ignores your teasing entirely. Except, he visibly freezes for a second at your Gureum-voice. Or, more likely, at the name slipping past your lips. You don’t really have a daddy kink, so you hadn’t thought much of it. Does he?
“Less chatting, more potato peeling, 5.” He glances at you just long enough to lift his chin toward the two remaining, still very much unpeeled vegetables. Before resuming his Michelin-chef-level chopping, his gaze flickers to your shoulder. Following the source of his brief distraction, you realize your loose tee has slipped down. You tug it up with a childish huff, and it promptly falls from the other side.
“Alright, alright, boss.” You won’t deny that him ordering you around is kind of hot, so you comply. “See, we’re almost done. You’re good at chopping, I’m good at peeling.”
“Chopping takes finer skills,” he mutters, and you’re pretty sure he nearly nicks a fingertip as he says it. You can’t tell if he’s a try-hard or just naturally competitive.
Scoffing, you brush a stray strand of hair from your face with the back of your hand. “Why do you have to turn everything into a competition?”
He pauses to check his thumb, then snatches the half-peeled potato from your hand and starts cutting it himself. “You literally started it first with the saving-Ginger thing.”
There’s a beat of silence, long enough for you to come up with a response, but before you can blurt it out, he speaks again. “I’d really like to see you try that, though.”
“What? Chopping potatoes or saving Ginger?”
You’re positive this is the very first time he genuinely laughs at something you’ve said. Not condescendingly, not pissed. He actually chuckles, letting out a small sniff to conceal it. You clumsily follow with a giggle.
Against all odds, the soup is bubbling along nicely. All that’s left is to wait.
You’re just about to stir it when droplets of water land on your face. With your brows already furrowed, you turn to the source. Jeongguk just came back from the bathroom and he already has his wet hands raised defensively like he’s bracing for impact.
“It wasn’t on pur—”
“Oh, really?” Grabbing the spoon, you let it drip a bit before splashing him with one too many drops of soup. Those are going to stain, differently from your water ones.
You barely register it — not even that, more the fact that unlike the water, the soup is scorching hot. It’s too late when some of it lands on his arm and he jerks back, hissing.
“Ouch! Fuck, that burns.”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. So sorry,” you drop the spoon immediately and step closer, hands hovering awkwardly. “Does it really? Are you hurt?”
He shakes it off quickly, rubbing his arm once. Again, you don’t know if he’s trying too hard or if he’s really unpenetrable. “I’m good.” He shrugs, then moves for the sink.
You wish you could come up with something clever, put any of your medical knowledge to use, but he prevents you from that. And he has to be doing it on purpose. Purposefully, just to shut you up. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t know the effect it could have on you.
Could also be simpler than that. Mimi’s kitchen is just as large as your queen-sized bed — ideal size for a bed, not so much for a room — and there’s no other way to pass each other.
To get around you, he places his hands firmly above your waist to keep you still. Your back brushes against his chest. He’s warm, and smells like almond and Christmas trees. His fingertips graze and tickle your skin.
He’s close, too close to your ear that he speaks right into it. “Sorry.”
Either way, it works. You stay silent as you stir the soup, and he runs cold water over his arm before settling the table.
You only start talking again when Grandma Mimi joins you, obliviously going on a rant about last episode’s ending. Jeongguk advises her it’s not worth getting her cortisol levels up over something that isn’t even happening in the real world. Mimi turns to you knowingly. Men will never get it.
Hot soup and Grandma’s sticky-sweet smile have the, albeit temporary, ability to make you forget your animosity toward the man sitting across from you. For the moment, he also becomes a neighbour-you-like. Especially when, after your stomachs are warm and your cheeks hurt from laughing with your mouths still full, he washes the dishes and sweeps the kitchen floor while you paint Grandma’s nails a soft pink.
The magic starts fading the moment Grandma Mimi’s door closes behind her and in front of the two of you. Your smiles drop slowly, the contentment lingering just enough for you to really notice the ache settling in your jaws.
The short walk back to your apartment is filled with quiet hums of the trot song Mimi had playing earlier, and it dissolves the more you’re closer to your destination.
You start, hand on your doorknob, “Well—”
“Would you like to come inside?”
You blink. Jeongguk coughs, then clarifies. “To check on Gureum.”
Nodding as if you’d been on the same page all along — what other reason would there be for you to step inside his place, obviously — you pocket your jingling keys and shrug. “Gureum’s strong as steel. I’m sure he’s fine, but alright.”
The second the door opens, said little white dog comes sprinting toward you both, throwing himself at Jeongguk’s legs and attempting a jump that could seriously win him medals.
Jeongguk immediately softens, voice dropping into a tender tone. “I know, I know,” then he turns to you, the soft smile Gureum put there still lingering on his lips.
“I just worry, okay.”
It’s annoyingly hard to make fun of him when he looks like that.
The check takes no more than five minutes. You’re never entirely sure what you’re checking for. Sometimes it feels like Jeongguk simply remembers you’re a vet and uses the proximity to skip the long lines at the clinic. He’d much rather bug his neighbour across the hall than potentially risk an ER bill just because Gureum decided to fake a sprained ankle on a random Tuesday night. It’s an even playing field for when his skills as a fireman come in handy.
Though, it’s more awkward than it usually is this time. You’re coming back from a morning wrapped in warmth and affection, but your hands and feet already feel colder, and the words don’t come as easily. You realize you don’t know each other well enough to joke around the way you did in the presence of Mimi.
You’re sitting at the edge of his couch with Gureum on your lap, and you can practically feel Jeongguk scrutinizing stare from where he stands nearby. You clear your throat, about to assure him everything is fine, as expected, then he speaks.
“You and halmeoni seem close.”
Looking up at him, you find his gaze set on Gureum. Even after you settle the dog down and he hops out of your arms, trotting straight to his soft bed beside the couch, Jeongguk keeps watching him for a moment.
“Yeah,” you exhale. “She’s been helping me with baking for a while, and in turn I keep her company and help around the house.”
“That’s nice.”
Jeongguk lowers himself onto the couch next to you, though his attention stays on Gureum as he leans forward to scratch behind his ears. You both watch the interaction — you, admittedly, more focused on how the muscles in his forearm shift and flex with the movement.
“How long have you known her for?”
When he finally turns back to you, he catches your wandering eyes taking in his place. The space is neat: dark brown furniture, shades of grey, everything arranged with in-character precision. The few times you’ve been here, it’s never been anything less than spotless, but you feel it lacks something.
Besides a couple of framed family photos, there’s nothing that really gives Jeongguk away. That could help you understand more about him without having to ask.
Your eyes settle back on his, and only then does he answer. “Seven years.”
“Seriously? You’ve been living here that long?”
“Yup.”
“Who was your front-door neighbour before me?”
He shrugs. “A family.”
You tilt your head. “Am I better?”
Jeongguk snorts as he pushes himself up, and Gureum alarmedly scrambles after him, nails clicking against the floor.
“You manage to make as much noise as four people did, so…”
Groaning, you rise from the couch — which, now that you’re standing, you realize is way too firm to be considered comfortable — and head toward the door on instinct.
“Oh, please. My TV only fell because the handyman I hired was completely incompetent and couldn’t do his job right.”
“But a fireman could.”
You turn back, exasperation blooming again, warm and familiar. Whatever magic lingered from Grandma’s apartment fizzles out entirely as Jeongguk’s mouth pulls into the stupidest smirk.
You throw your hands up. “I guess. You’re good at everything, there you have it.”
He chuckles. “You’re good at peeling, I guess.”
Eyes rolling, you slip your shoes back on. “Anyway, Gureum’s healthy. And if he ever isn’t, you’ve got expedited services right here.” You point vaguely at what would be the direction of your own apartment. “May not climb trees to save cats, but I got more things up my sleeve to help this little one if he needs it.” You lean down for one last pat on the dog’s head.
His eyes soften. “Thanks.”
Just as you straighten up, Jeongguk steps past you to open the door, and once again manages to derail any coherent reply, his body brushing close behind yours. Solid, carrying that natural almond-y heat. You can only let out a girly snort — if a snort could even be considered girly.
Before stepping out, your eyes absentmindedly drift around the space one last time, your usual anxiety convincing you you’ve probably forgotten something behind. They stop on the table, and your instinct might have been right this time.
Your cookie container. Still full. It sits there, seemingly untouched, exactly where he must have left it. So he didn’t even try them?
Whatever. You’re serious about your containers. You’ll ask for it back the next time you run into him, just in case he changes his mind. And wants to try even one. After all, another reviewer is essential for your baking journey.
You do run into him, a few days later. Though the cookie container is not exactly your first concern.
You step out the elevator carrying grocery bags, the plastic handles biting into your fingers as you awkwardly shift their weight, trying to keep circulation going in your hands. Just as you’re repositioning them for what feels like the fifth time, movement catches your eye. From your peripheral vision, you see a tall figure pushing open the door to the stairwell. A quick glance reveals it’s Jeongguk.
You could have guessed without even looking — you’re fairly sure no one else on this floor willingly uses the stairs. Jeongguk has always been a bit different, you noted that pretty early on. He’s only slightly flushed, somehow still does not look like he’s climbed five floors of stairs. You tried it once, your first week living here, but immediately decided that it wasn’t worth the tachycardia.
Especially not while carrying three of the heaviest grocery bags you’ve ever managed to drag home from the store. You’re not a fan of multiple goings during the week. You’ve always preferred doing one massive grocery run every two weeks. It counts as a workout, and it limits how often you have to see the slightly-too-intense teenage cashier. It’s a system that works, if you ignore your limbs slowly losing sensation.
Jeongguk lifts his chin in acknowledgment. You huff in return, meant to pass as a greeting.
“Let me help y—”
“No! I can do it,” you don’t sound nearly as convinced as you’d like, and he definitely hears it. Still, he raises his hands in surrender.
You both head down the hall toward your apartments, you in front, him trailing behind and probably losing precious minutes because of your pace. His slow, heavy boots steps thump softly against the floor, matching the low rumble of his voice.
“You look like you’re struggling.”
“I’m okay,” it comes out breathless. You clear your throat, attempting defiance. “Work on your hero complex.”
You think you hear both his step and his breath falter — a silence that stretches just a beat too long. You fear you might have actually crossed a line, but the flicker of worry on your face quickly morphs back into annoyance the second he recovers.
“Alright, Oomps,” Jeongguk snorts incredulously, muttering to himself under his breath, still very much mockingly. “Short and feisty.”
When you finally spot 555 under the doorbell, you let out an exhausted breath. Your back is to Jeongguk’s as you fumble with your keys, hand shaking from the weight pulling at your wrist while trying to center the lock.
You’re almost there. Behind you, Jeongguk unlocks his own. As your key slides in, you sigh in victory.
It’s short lived.
For a moment, you feel relieved when the plastic bag around your arm suddenly feels lighter, no longer threatening to split your limb in half. Very soon, you come to realize the reason for it isn’t optimal.
Seconds before that, you’d heard barking. Gureum. The white dog darts past Jeongguk’s legs and bolts straight toward you, running face-first into your groceries and tearing one of the bags open with his tiny, only apparently innocent claws.
Seconds after that, you hear multiple consecutive thumps. Apples roll everywhere, scattering across the space between you. Slowly turning around, you think you could start crying right then and there. You seriously consider dropping everything, yourself included, and sliding to the floor to sob.
“Fuck,” Jeongguk mutters, scrambling to grab Gureum. He scoops the dog up and rushes him back inside the apartment, leaving the door ajar behind him.
The offender has the nerve to bark, displeased. It’s a muffled sound that fills the otherwise silent hallway while you still stand there, helplessly looking between the mess on the floor and the mortified expression on Jeongguk’s face.
It turns into an awkward grimace. “Do you still not want me to help you?”
“Ah, fuck,” you bend down and start gathering the apples, contemplating whether to throw one straight at his legs. Then, you notice those legs bending too. He’s helping.
Jeongguk hooks two fingers around one of the surviving bags and starts dropping the fruit inside. He clears his throat, “I’m sorry.”
You keep your gaze fixed on the floor. “Should train Gureum not to bolt out like that.” It’s meant as an insult, but good-natured. Would be dangerous for the dog to do this all the time.
Both of you reach for the same apple. You snatch it first, quick enough that your knuckles brush his. From there, it becomes a race. Who can grab the most, the fastest.
You steal a lot of his. When you look up, he’s already narrowing his eyes at you. You don’t register how close you’ve ended up like this, but you can smell almond and he can smell bubblegum.
“You should’ve let me help you.”
“As if that would’ve changed anything.”
“Yes, it would have.”
Scoffing, you drag the bag a little closer to your side. “Are you seriously blaming your dog-training incompetence on me?”
“Gureum was just excited to see you.” With his fingers still hooked around the rim, he pulls the bag open wider and baskets in three apples he’d somehow been holding in one hand. Damn.
Whatever approving thought the right side of your brain had just started forming, it vanishes the moment he adds, “Alright, I’ll train him to rip two bags next time.”
“Great,” you mutter. “As if one dog hating me wasn’t enough.”
Jeongguk gasps with faux theatrics. “Are you calling me a dog?”
You pause mid-reach to raise your brows at him. “You just admitted you hate me.”
Somewhere along the way, the apple race has turned into a staring contest. You’re the first to break it, perfectly fine with losing if it means not having to look at his twitching jaw and the way his eyes keep flicking all over your face.
You do win the apple-picking competition, though. The moment he hesitates is enough for you to snatch the last red round from his hand and drop it into your bag.
Jeongguk exhales, standing up. “Hate’s a strong word, but whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“I’ll sleep like a baby.”
The comment breaks on its last syllable, your voice thinning under the strain of straightening up with the considerably heavier bag.
He instinctively reaches for it. You twist your body away before he can touch it. “I got it.”
Taking a step back, your front-door neighbour rolls his eyes in a way that tells you he’s officially done trying. Hopefully. “Okay.”
This could have all been avoided if you’d done what you’re doing now three minutes earlier. Carefully lowering the bags to the floor, making sure nothing else tips over, you take a breath and line your key up with the lock. It slides in easily.
“Thanks. You’re off duty now,” you add, not turning around. “I’m not a struggling lady who needs a fireman to help her.” You quip.
His voice resounds behind you, tone calm and stupidly attractive. “You are a struggling lady.”
“I don’t need a fireman.”
“Alright,” he snorts. If you’re going to deny what he just witnessed with his own eyes, he’ll let you. He’s not about to argue with you at your level.
A beat passes. Then, casually, “You making an apple pie?”
“Yes.” You push the door open with your hip, dragging the bags inside. “Why? You planning on turning this one down too?”
When you turn back, he’s leaning against the doorframe, the raised brows and slow smirk combo having you mentally ask God for strength. And patience.
“You planning on offering me some?”
You roll your eyes, your untouched container of cookies still a fresh sting. “Nah, not a fan of my hard work and kindness going to waste.”
“I— whatever.” He grumbles.
The last thing heard in the hallway is the echo of both your doors slamming shut, almost at the same time.
God, or whoever is up there, must have heard your prayer. But the universe clearly does not like you very much.
The strength and patience were apparently granted just so you could handle the situation you’ve now found yourself in. Though both virtues go flying straight out of the window, your brain skipping past God entirely and landing directly on Jeongguk.
Weird comparison. There’s a reason.
You swore to yourself you didn’t need Jeongguk’s help. Not your style, constantly playing damsel in distress.
Yet, here you are. For the past ten minutes, you’ve been pacing your kitchen, whimpering and willing yourself to calm down. To just resort to cold water. Six forgotten ice cubes in the freezer. Your unhelpful, and fairly warm, breath blowing.
None of it works, predictably. Now, you’re in front of Jeongguk’s door, and if you could, you'd be anywhere else in the world. You hate that this is your only immediate option to get out of this misery. And you hate the timing even more. This is the same man you refused help from and accused of having a hero complex just yesterday.
What you really wish is that you didn’t have to turn to him, but he’s so conveniently the only one close enough to help. Who might actually know what to do.
You press the doorbell twice, breaths still uneven and feet squirming restlessly inside your crocs. When the door opens, your lungs pull in air, but it doesn’t come back out the way it should. Your exhale trembles, not at all relieved.
Bleached blonde hair, thick dark brows and big brown eyes, round nose and full lips, in a cropped tee and denim shorts, taller than you even if barefoot. A girl you’ve never seen before is staring at you with her brows slightly raised.
“Are you looking for Jeongguk?” She asks.
You only notice your mouth has been hanging slightly open when you try to speak, voice groggy from your dry throat. “No, I—”
The door swings wider and behind the tall blonde figure appears the even taller brunet you were, in fact, looking for.
“You okay, Oomps?”
You’re fidgety. Your throat bobs in a hard swallow, your feet shuffle closer together like that might somehow hold you upright, your brows pull upward.
Still, you attempt composure. “Huh, yeah. Sorry, I didn’t know you had guests over. Gonna ask Grandma Mimi for help.”
Jeongguk steps closer, now beside the tall girl you suppose he must be busy with. His eyes are set on you, dragging over your face, your stiff posture.
He doesn’t seem to buy it. “You sure?”
“Yes, of course,” you nod quickly, afraid you might scream if you stand here another second pretending you’re sure about being okay. “You enjoy your date. Very sorry again.”
You’re already turning, ready to go back into your apartment and actually scream into your pillow, or your freezer, or both, mind already racing a mile a minute as you consider your other alternatives. The worst one, the one that has water threatening to well in your eyes, is having to deal with this alone in the longest line at urgent care. And how would you even get there on your own?
The wheels in your head grind to a halt when Jeongguk speaks again.
“She’s not—”
“I’m his sister.”
The girl cuts him off smoothly and watches you carefully. Admittedly, she’s been doing that this entire time, like she must have clocked that you’re just seconds away from crying. Either that, or she’s noticed the ketchup stains on your tee.
Her voice comes out muffled as she steps back into the apartment. “And I was just leaving. Right, lil bro?”
Your neighbour frowns, clearly thrown, eyes following his sister pull on her jacket and grabbing her purse, before slipping between the two of you.
He tilts his head. “I guess?”
“You enjoy your date.” Turning to him, she wiggles her brows. Turning to you, she winks. Then, she heads straight for the stairs.
Jeongguk lets out a long exhale as he watches her go, hand coming to wipe his face.
“Sorry about that…” He stops mid-sentence upon inspecting your figure, brows knitting together. Not with confusion this time. With immediate concern.
“Hey, are you crying?”
Your eyes have filled with tears. You know because his face is blurry, distorted. You’re not sure anymore if it’s from the actual pain or the growing anxiety.
You swallow the lump in your throat, finally untying your hands from behind your back. Naturally following your every movement, his eyes drop instantly. One hand carefully cradles the other, skin flushed an angry, uneven red. His jaw tightens.
“I, huh…” Your voice wobbles. “I burned my hand with boiling water. I didn’t wanna alarm anyone, so I figured, since you’re trained in medical—”
“Oomps, come in. Immediately.”
Jeongguk opens the door wider and gently steers you inside with a palm on your waist. The second the door clicks shut, you let your tears free. You don’t even try to stop them.
He’s back on you fast, swollen orbs scanning your wet face, then your hand again. “Is it hurting a lot?”
You only nod, a broken sound leaving you.
The kitchen light flicks on. The faucet runs and cool water gushes out. The next second, your hand is under it. You hiss at the initial contact, not because it hurts more, but because the instant relief is almost overwhelming.
Jeongguk supports your wrist delicately, angling your hand so the water runs over the reddest areas. His grip is firm but gentle, matching his tone. “Keep it still.”
His free hand comes up to your back, slow strokes between your shoulder blades. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ve got you. Breathe,” his voice is steady and controlled, completely opposite of the way your heart is racing.
But it works. Its low vibrations close to your ear are calming. You mirror his deep breathing, chest puffing up, inhaling, deep — then coming down, exhaling, slow.
The cool water continues to run over your skin, and after a few seconds the sharp, stabbing burn dulls into a heavy throb.
He watches the skin closely. “It’s red. But I don’t see any immediate blistering yet. That’s good. You did good coming here.”
That almost makes you sob altogether. His thumb adjusts slightly under your wrist and his palm presses a little firmer against your back when your breathing stutters again. You can feel it when his attention drifts from your burn to the side of your face, focusing on your trembling mouth releasing quiet whimpers.
His free hand works to move strands of your long fringe from your face. “There, come on, no more tears. It’s nothing, okay? Do you trust me?”
You stutter a yes, nodding too fast, and he softens with a smile. His palm slides from the middle of your back to settle on the curve of your shoulder, anchoring you. Your spine brushes against his chest when you shift, and he doesn’t move.
Five minutes pass like that, the only sound between you being the steady rush of running water.
He inhales. “I saved another kitten yesterday.”
You sniff, finally lifting your gaze from your hand to look up at him. Your expression is still tense, his is deliberately calm.
You’re confused as to how this is relevant. “What?”
This time, it’s your turn to stare at the side of his face while he shifts his focus on your fingers. He gently guides them open, then curls them back into a loose fist. And again.
“He’d climbed, like, eight floors,” he continues, brows twitching. “People called us because he wouldn’t listen and come down. He was hurt, too. I brought him to your clinic.”
You swipe at your damp cheeks with the back of your other hand. “Oh, that was you?”
His mouth tilts at the corner. “Yeah. Looked like Ginger, right? But not as fat.”
A groggy giggle escapes you, cracking in your throat, but undeniably genuine. He grins, eyes flicking back on yours. They’re still glossy, so he continues, “Very dramatic, too. He tried to bite me.”
Your cheeks puff with your smile, stray tears slipping down. You don’t think you’ve ever been this close to him, so close that you can see his pupils dilate and feel his breath cool against your wet face.
So close that his voice only needs to be a whisper between you. “You scared yourself more than the burn, didn’t you?”
You sniff, looking down half ashamed. "I’m sorry. I’m such a cry-baby.”
“No need to apologize. It happens,” Jeongguk leans toward the sink and a curl of his brushes your temple. He brings your hand closer to his mouth and blows gently across the skin. “What’s important is that it’s nothing serious, alright?”
Ten minutes later, you’re perched on a stool while you can hear him rummaging in the bathroom. On the kitchen counter, your cookie container sits untouched. You wonder why he didn’t just toss them, they’re probably all dry and bitter by now.
The thought of even mentioning it vanishes entirely, because when he returns he’s crouching down in front of you. Your legs instinctively close together. Gureum sniffs him — tries to get his attention, fails, then sits at his feet.
You watch the top of his fluffy hair in silence, his tattooed hand holding the palm of your burnt one, while he uses a clean cloth to wipe the skin.
Then, he gently applies cool cream on the worst spots, careful not to press too hard. When you hiss, he looks up, alarmed — only to see your lips stretch and your head shaking reassuringly. He grins back.
“You feeling dizzy? Nauseous? Like you might faint?”
You just might if he keeps looking like that. The tips of his bangs shadow his big eyes, and you have to stop yourself from brushing them away. Just the thought makes you actually dizzy. He studies your face, eyes narrowing when you take a moment to reply.
Shaking your head again, he hums. “Good. Sometimes the pain and adrenaline does that.”
Pain and adrenaline have faded, now replaced by a weird feeling in your stomach, and it’s comfortable but icky. When you both straighten up, your eyes meet for a beat too long like you might find the answer.
It feels like post-nut clarity, but worse. Your nose wrinkles at the intrusive thoughts reminding you he still dislikes you, and has the right to. You’ve openly declined his help, then you come to him crying like a child.
He breaks the awkward pause first. “I’ll drop by tomorrow to see how it’s doing.”
You nod, gaze drifting to your container. Another reminder that makes it sickening to face him. “Thank you,” you murmur. What else is there to say? You feel guilty, and it filters reluctantly in your childishly-voiced words.
Jeongguk, though you can’t bear to witness it, is smiling the most genuine one he’s ever reserved for you. He snorts. No sure, whatever, but a simple, “You’re welcome.”
He does drop by the next day, and this time you don’t deny yourself the sight of him. You let him take your hand, let him apply the ointment over the healing skin, and only after making sure it doesn’t cause any sharp or lingering pain does he agree with your murmured observation that it already looks much better.
The treatment itself takes less than two minutes. Jeongguk stays over thirty.
He ends up lingering by your vinyl collection, thumbing through the sleeves, curiosity slowly replacing whatever reason he had to leave. You find out he’s been meaning to get into jazz — and you happen to be his lucky day, having inherited your dad’s entire music taste. He says ever since he watched Pixar’s Soul, he’s wished he could be a jazz musician in another lifetime.
You watch the movie that same night, and next evening, sometime after ten, you find yourself knocking on his door just to tell him. He lets you in, using your visit as an excuse to hand you the cream and walk you through how often, and how gently, you should be applying it.
Somehow, you don’t leave until midnight. At some point, Jeongguk shows you his own record player and puts on Radiohead’s OK Computer. You both sit cross-legged on the carpet while the album plays from beginning to end, Gureum curled up on the couch as if satisfied with the reversed positions. You tell him your mom had Karma Police playing while she was giving birth to you.
The next two weeks pass with the two of you finding stupid, almost teenage excuses to make peace without ever actually saying it.
When you’re both at Grandma Mimi’s, he tries your apple pie and tells you the floor really gave the apples extra flavour. You glare at him, but he catches the grin already stretching across your face — the equally silly one pulling at his.
You call him an alien for having never watched Cars and he says he always thought he was too cool for those kind of movies as a kid. You think he hasn’t changed a bit, he tells you he’s catching up. You end up watching it together on his stiff couch, Gureum wedged firmly between you like a carefully negotiated boundary.
When it’s time to leave a sleepy and cozy-looking Jeongguk behind, you notice four cookies missing from your container.
You mention you’re still a little scarred from the boiling water incident, and the very next day you’re over at his place once again just so he can cook your pasta.
You sit on a stool, watching how he lowers the spaghetti into the pot, animatedly hating on anyone who dares break them in half. You don’t tell him you do, afraid you might risk losing this. Or your pesto pasta.
“You know,” he says, glancing over his shoulder, “you’re nicer when you let me handle stuff.”
Brows pulling together, you smack him with a dish rag. “You just always think I can’t do shit.”
He turns to look at you properly. You stare right back, expression flat. Clicking his tongue, he sets a timer on his phone and rests his back on the counter.
“You just always seem to need my help, though.”
Your grimace is meant to come across as mocking. Jeongguk just ends up laughing at you. And he’s wrong for that, because if there’s one thing that he should have learned about you by now, even before you both placed the guns down, is you’re stubborn. Competitive. Possibly worse than he is.
Maybe a little childish, too. Not as much as he is, though.
Yet, you hop off your seat and walk over to stand beside him at the stove. Without breaking eye contact, you grab the half of the spaghetti still waiting to sink into the pot and snap it in two.
Jeongguk gasps, hand flying to his mouth, and this might be the most emotion you’ve seen from him so far. Next second, his arms are crowding you away from the stove by your waist, and you giddily fight against his hold to get through.
Trapped between him and the counter, you shriek and bend forward, twist and try to squirm out of his ticklish fingers while laughing against your will. Over his shoulder, even through your glossy vision, something catches your attention. Four more cookies missing.
A couple of days after Jeongguk’s pesto-induced indigestion — which only subsided once you stopped by with a foolproof Mimi-style hot tea (and noticed three more cookies missing), you’re simultaneously stepping out of your apartments. This has only happened twice before: with the Ikea box situation, and when you heard a crash so loud you both assumed the other had caused it.
You’re in similar attire. Although interpreted differently. Jeongguk leans toward the loose side, wears gym style in a tank top and basketball shorts falling below his knees. The relaxed fabric of his shirt shifts when he moves, offering glimpses of what’s underneath: defined pecs, the continuation of his sleeve tattoo disappearing beneath cotton, hidden but not from the nosiest.
You’ve opted for the less comfortable route, wearing a tight baby blue set, leggings and a fitted long-sleeved top hugging where they can and helping where nature might have been feeling unmotivated.
Behind him, Gureum darts out just before the door clicks shut, leash already clipped on. Nothing about his tail-wagging, little frame suggests he’s here for fitness.
A Yankees baseball cap keeps your neighbour's otherwise rebellious locks in place and shadows his big eyes, but you swear they still catch the light anyway.
You also both smile simultaneously.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” you sound a little breathless. It’s not like you did anything remotely physical before stepping out, the reason your lungs feel short on air is standing right in front of you.
You move your attention down to Gureum, who just pants excitedly, whole body joining on his tail. “Walk time?”
“Yup,” Jeongguk gestures for you to go ahead, falling into step after you while the dog trots freely between you, leash dragging. “Are you going to the gym?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” you deny quickly, pressing the elevator button. Surprisingly, Jeongguk doesn’t head for the stairs. He stands beside you, waiting. “It’s walk time for me, too.”
Your neighbour hums, bending down to pick Gureum’s red leash. When he straightens, you catch a faint whiff of his almond scent and you find yourself exhaling.
“It’s nice.”
He turns to you, confusion settled between his brows. “What is?”
“That you take Gureum out on walks,” at the mention of his name, the white cloud barks at you. “Most small-dog owners don’t bother.”
Jeongguk shrugs, guiding the leash through his fingers. “It benefits both of us.”
The elevator arrives with a soft chime. You step inside together, and a grin slips out when you glance his way. “No stairs today?”
“Gureum won’t go down them.”
You both giggle when, glancing down, the dog in question is already sitting, staring up expectantly. You crouch to scratch his favourite spot. “Where do you usually take this pretty boy?”
Looking up at Jeongguk is a mistake. The lopsided, crooked smile he gives you is not at all ideal from this angle. His veiny hand lifts into your field of vision, and you briefly wonder if he’d use it to push you in place when—
“Just the park behind the building.”
You nearly lose your balance standing up, his voice cutting straight through your very inappropriate and disgusting train of thought just as the elevator reaches the ground floor. His warm palm closes around your forearm, steadying you. The second the doors slide open, you jump out of the confined space a little too fast, setting distance.
You still end up tagging along on their walk, can’t help but drift close to his broad frame, and take turns holding Gureum’s leash before eventually letting him wander freely, nose to the grass as if this is his version of scrolling through TikTok.
After almost an hour of aimless walking, you sink onto a bench. Trees stretch overhead, their shade shielding you from the afternoon sun, and somewhere in the distance you can hear kids laughing with their whole bellies.
“Do you go on walks often?” Jeongguk asks, fingers idly fiddling with the leash while his eyes stay fixed on Gureum’s zoomies a few feet away.
He’s close enough that your shoulders nearly brush, and from your seat next to him you study his side profile. The round slope of his nose, his bottom lip more prominent. There’s a scar on his cheek, and you’re almost certain you spotted a similar one on his bicep a few days ago, definitely not because you were staring.
Realizing you are, in fact, staring, you quickly shift your focus to his dog instead.
“Just when work gets hard.”
The honesty filtering through your voice still feels foreign to both of you, unfamiliar to your own ears. Recently, it’s been slipping out anyway, although matched with uncertainty. Breaths hesitating, throats clearing, nails scratching at the back of a neck.
Jeongguk, who is usually the one who follows manifestations of anything remotely personal with each one of those tells, sits in stillness. Today he just hums, and the only movement that betrays him is his hand tugging the brim of his cap.
Then, with mirroring honesty, “How’s it like, being a veterinarian?”
You inhale. It’s never easy to talk about — your relationship with your profession. Especially lately, when it has been weighing on you more than usual, like a love-hate relationship you can’t walk away from would.
Putting it into words is something that you rarely manage to do correctly. It always feels like the person listening doesn’t quite understand, like they can’t pull the right words from you the way they actually exist inside your chest.
But Jeongguk asked, and he’s patiently listening, and you don’t know if he’s the right person for those right words, but you really try this time.
“It gives a lot, and it takes a lot. At the same time. Sometimes it takes more than it gives.” Your gaze drops to your own fiddling hands. “Even when it does, it’s not always just sad. I mean, it is. The owners are devastated, the whole team feels it, too. But knowing I can make an animal feel safe and peaceful in their last moments is also healing. It teaches you how to let go— loss can be much more than just pain.”
Between you, birds chirp and kids shout through the park. Outside, the world is settling, sky glowing with its last orange rays. Inside, you feel peace settle into your bones too.
Having to deal with loss is part of your job. You’re confronted with its weight daily, though your relationship with it hasn’t always been constant.
You feel that death is objectively inevitable, but prospectively a mercy. A moment where love gathers instead of disappearing. Where it’s held, consumed, multiplied.
Death is also unfair. But proof that something was alive — a proof of love. And maybe it isn’t really death at all, when that love still carries your name in the mouths, eyes, hands of those who bear witness to life.
Beside you, Jeongguk stays quiet. Gureum rolls in the grass, his white fur turning slightly muddy, but when you glance at his owner, his eyes aren’t on the dog. They’re pointing at a void, unmoving.
The words had come easily, honest, instinctive. Like he was the right person to tell. To turn feelings into sounds. But does he understand it? Did he even want to?
You clear your throat. “Sorry.”
Jeongguk startles and jumps slightly forward, shoulder bumping into yours, and he’s turning to you before your mind can erase progress. He reassures, “No, no. That makes perfect sense.”
There’s a small smile playing on your lips that you bite back. You lift your brows at him, curious. “Does it? Is it the same being a firefighter?”
Silence reigns once again, mouths still hesitating on the edge of honesty. Your neighbour bites the inside of his cheek and his inhale falters, his throat works, his fingers come up to scratch at the back of his neck.
Does he have the right words? Are you the right person to voice them to?
When Jeongguk finally speaks, it’s your own breath stuttering.
“For me… Loss is mostly pain. And sometimes it feels like failure. There’s nothing peaceful about it.”
Between you, everything seems to still. Gureum looks up, snout streaked brown, and the children in the distance call their goodbyes before heading their separate ways. Outside, the world definitely settles, announces it in navy shades of blue. Inside, something aches.
Beside you, Jeongguk’s dark orbs drop to his hands resting quietly in his lap. For a moment, you consider reaching out — holding them as gently as he held yours while tending to your burn. As gently as he did when your jacket’s zip got caught and your impatience only made it worse, his fingers moving yours aside without a word. As gently as he guides you, never invasive. Just there.
Synapses connect, and your orbs unconsciously swell the more you watch him worry at his bottom lip with his front teeth. Your hands twitch, but ultimately never make the move.
Jeongguk is never very vocal about what he feels, why he feels it. He’s never very vocal about what he needs, why he needs it. He’s content when the people around him are, and unsettled when they aren’t.
For a firefighter, fitting this description must be like striking gold. For a human, it must be exhausting.
He inhales, broad back settling more comfortably against the bench and eyes that seem they’ve just come back from somewhere far away lift to yours, still heavy with the same thoughts. “It pays well. Can’t complain.”
“Right,” you cough, trying for a small smile. It feels like walking on eggshells, wanting to know more about him without pushing too far. Without scaring him away.
So you reach for the one thing that’s always kept you safe, even when that safety felt thin. Sarcasm. “The uniform looks good on you, too. Is it a requirement to be absolutely ripped?”
He laughs, head tipping back. The sound eases an unconscious worry that had started to settle in your chest.
“You think I'm absolutely ripped?”
“You don’t?”
He stares at you then, with intent and a hint of a challenge. One of your brows raises in return, and he breaks eye contact first, the smile you left on his lips tugging to one side, turning into a smirk you’re becoming familiar with.
“I think I’m fit.”
“Oh, so now you’re Mr. Modest.”
Jeongguk whistles for Gureum, and when the little dog comes bouncing back, he bends slightly to clip the leash onto his collar.
“You know, you should come to the gym more often. I've only seen you there, like, twice.”
You tilt your head. “Are you saying I'm not absolutely ripped as well?”
Standing up, you place a hand on your hip and shift your weight onto one leg. It’s not meant to be a serious question, not meant to invite a serious answer.
But Jeongguk looks. From head to toe, letting his gaze — darkening like the evening sky — linger a second too long on your hips.
You swallow, instinctively wrapping your arms around yourself. You feel naked, and you don’t entirely hate it.
His Adam’s apple bobs with his own swallow, and as he straightens you fall into step beside him, Gureum already ahead of you.
“You look very fit. I was just saying… if you ever need help with that.”
Gym is not at all your thing, but he makes you consider it for just a brief, dangerous moment.
When it’s time to part ways, you turn to him. His back is to you as he fishes for his keys, and there’s one more thing sitting on your tongue.
“Hey. My birthday’s this weekend. I’m thinking of going out for drinks with my friends, nothing too crazy. But it’d be cool if you were there, too.”
This is the second most awkward you’ve ever sounded, the first being in Paris with your ex, asking a French pharmacist for a morning-after pill.
He smirks, again. “Sure, friend.”
The word lingers longer than you’d like.
Maybe it’s the way he said it without a second glance back, letting it be the last thing echoing in the hallway along with his door clicking shut.
Maybe it’s the way it crosses your mind for just a second as you tie your black lacy corset into a bow; slip on the burgundy kitten heels you picked from the shoe rack Jeongguk built; watch your own friend Mia laugh and lean closer to his chest at his every bad joke.
You know they’re squalid. The music is too loud to catch more than fragments, but you can tell from the way he sits comfortably in the booth, arms stretched along the backrest, open to whoever dares give him enough attention.
The word lingers because whenever he lets out a small, useless chuckle out, he turns to you. And you always feel it before you see it, because he stares. It lights up the side of your face, warms up your body along with the alcohol you keep swallowing.
When you meet his gaze, he lifts his chin. He’s on the other side of the round table, and no matter how much you love being out with your friends, you wish you were sitting next to him. Tell him your own party kind of sucks, that you could cry just thinking about Grandma Mimi’s promised cake tomorrow. That you wish they were playing Ella Fitzgerald and not a shitty remix of a Taylor Swift song.
You raise your own chin back, along with your glass. Want more?
Jeongguk just shakes his head, nodding along to whatever bullshit Mia is saying into his ear. He chuckles, and the whole time he’s still looking at you. The fluorescent lights do nothing to soften the heaviness that has settled in his orbs.
You gulp down your third drink. Yell in your best friend’s ear you need more of this shit.
Ana raises her brows back at you, nonetheless topping off your glass with the last remnants of the fancy Prosecco you popped open earlier. You’re long past the point of worrying about what you’re mixing; vodka and whisky could taste the same to you now. Your tongue is numb.
“Yo,” she shouts over the music, pointing her glass somewhere across the table. “You had that living in front of you and you still chose to let Mingyu finger you?”
It takes every bit of self-control that you almost don’t have not to spit out the sparkling mouthful you just swallowed, slapping Ana’s thigh beside you and widening your eyes so much they might actually fall out of your skull. She just shrugs.
“Shut up!” You whisper-yell. “I told you that in a moment of weakness. I knew I shouldn’t have.”
Ana doesn’t even seem to be listening anymore, her lips wrapped around the straw of her drink as she watches Jeongguk. It’s what everyone’s been doing, really. Even your male friends, jaws tightening and egos threatened.
Jeongguk chose to wear a tight polo that looks like it might give up any second, chest defined, biceps straining against the fabric. His jeans black and baggy, just like yours. His hair pushed back from his forehead, every feature looking sharper.
You hate that four drinks still aren’t enough to quiet your mind. Not enough to stop you from regretting every choice that led to this moment, to celebrating your birthday in a place that doesn’t give a fuck about you, surrounded by people who are more interested in who they’ll hook up with tonight than anything else, let alone your little party. Face to face with someone who might be the only one with your best interest at heart, that you still don’t feel right calling your friend.
Even standing up to dance becomes something you quickly come to regret. Your heels ache, your skin is sticky with sweat, the lace cuts too tight into your back. And what the drinks do in this instance is making it easier to find someone to blame without digging any deeper than the surface. Because the sight of Jeongguk, dancing close with your friend and still managing to find your eyes through the flashing lights is infuriating.
You need air.
Slipping out of your own party, leather coat brushing your calves and the tiniest bag hanging from your shoulder, air you get. You don’t give your lungs a chance to take it in as it is, though. Not clean. The moment you step out of the burning heat of the club, a cigarette is already between your lips. Your hand cups around it, shielding the flame as your pink lighter flicks to life.
It’s not the best combination, the alcohol rushing to your head and the smoke only adding to the dizziness. Still, it does temporarily fill the weird-feeling hollow in your chest, the one that’s been expanding since the clock struck midnight. You pull until your throat constricts, and huff the grey cloud out.
When a voice sounds beside you, your distorted senses spark with stupid, fleeting hope. That a solution to whatever is sitting intensely inside you had materialized next to you, that it would allow your thoughts peace and stop their constant war. But you should know not to trust yourself in moments just like this very one.
He says your name, and your mind processes it instantly. Your heart still stutters pathetically, though it hopes your eyes are lying to it.
Now moving in front of you, Mingyu approaches your coat-wrapped figure in a crooked smile, hands tucked in his pockets, and carrying the usual grimy sensation with him that only stretches the empty space wider, deeper.
You roll your eyes and try to step back, but the move backfires when your shoulders hit the wall behind you. Alcohol works for all the wrong reasons, chooses the worst possible moments to blur the edges of your surroundings.
And just to make it even harder to walk away, your ex-boyfriend grabs your forearm. “What, can’t even say hi now?”
You yank against his grip, cigarette slipping from your fingers and, forgotten, tumbling to the ground. “Not in the mood. Leave me alone.”
He laughs, and the smell of liquor on his breath makes your nose wrinkle. “Happy birthday, brat.”
“I told you not to fucking talk to me anymore.”
“Not what you said while you were cumming on my fingers,” he leans close now, too close that you consider spitting on his face. Telling him you had to fake it, that in twenty-five years of living, across both your past relationships, no man has ever made you come, and he was no exception.
Using all the strength you have left, although it feels like it’s melting straight out of your bones, you shove him away. The force sends you stumbling forward a step. You wish your body reacted as fast as your mind does, because just as you attempt to walk away, his fingers clamp around your wrist.
You twist against it, uselessly. “Dude, fuck off. You get off on the idea of ruining my birthday or something?”
He laughs, without humour. The sight of it sends a shiver down your spine, enough to still make you try and jerk out of his hold.
“Hah, your party doesn’t seem that great either way.”
The void takes up more space, and it gains weight. It’s so heavy that it sinks to your stomach, deforming when it mixes with the other contents already sitting there and making you feel sick.
Mingyu always finds his way back in because he’s the reason that sickness exists. Because he still holds some sort of power over you. Can gain it back with a few careless words leaving his lips, no matter how disgusted you are by it.
He knows you and knows exactly where to dig. Deep enough to come up to the surface with everything that makes you hate yourself the most, dangling it in front of your face until you believe that’s all there is.
Clicking his tongue, he finally lets go. A confidence that threatens to have alcohol knocking at your throat and that makes him take a single step back has something sharp glinting in his eyes. Because he knows you won’t walk away now. Not when he’s about to give you the last hit.
“All alone on your birthday,” his gaze drags from your heels to your face. “Shouldn’t have ignored my texts, huh.”
Surprisingly, it’s words and not liquid that rise to your throat. They press and press, beg to be let out, but only a strained noise slips past your lips before you’re interrupted.
Your name, sounded by another voice your mind welcomes immediately and that, unlike Mingyu’s, has you unconsciously unclench your teeth. Although this time, your heart shuts down. Curls in on itself, even if it wants to lunge toward that call. Too afraid of being wrong again, deceived again, uselessly hopeful again. It won’t even let you turn around to confirm it with your own eyes.
But your heart can’t deny the warmth of a calloused palm settling at the small of your back. Can’t deny the scent of pine and safety. Can’t deny when you look up: big, dark eyes already searching yours, taking in your widened pupils.
Jeongguk’s gaze flickers between you and the man in front of you, expression hardening. When Mingyu narrows his eyes at him, Jeongguk doesn’t look away. Holds the stare.
“Everything okay?”
Mingyu lifts his chin, nose twitching. “Peachy.”
Your neighbour steps further, arm anchored even firmer at your side now. “Think I’ll take it from here, man. She’s done talking to you.”
The void that had been threatening to numb your limbs fills all at once, becomes the ideal-sized space for a swarm of butterflies, flooding every nerve ending, muffling the world around you. All you hear is the frantic flapping of wings. You don’t register the last thing Mingyu mutters, not sure you catch Jeongguk’s either, not even when his hand slips away from your waist.
You might find the fullness as unbearable as the emptiness was. Maybe even find it worse.
Taking a few unsteady steps forward, you shrug off the warmth of Jeongguk’s hands as they reach for you, heat clashing with the cold night air. Your feet carry you toward the main road before your mind can catch up.
Men have only ever managed to ruin your every moment. You want to put Jeongguk in the same category, want to consider him just as guilty, want to blame him too. But your body betrays you, wants more of his presence, wants more of his reassurance.
You wish you could have said something, though. Should’ve stood your ground, just this once.
Your neighbour follows close behind, and it becomes almost claustrophobic even as it’s the only thing making you feel safe enough to walk home on aching heels and an alcohol fueled head.
“Watch where you’re going. You’re gonna trip.”
Your reply comes out slurred, but with Jeongguk practically flushed at your back, you don’t bother raising your voice or untangling your tongue. “I didn’t need you to help me.”
For a while, your heels clicking and his boots striking are the only sounds echoing through the empty street. Whenever you stumble, he slows. When you steady yourself and resume your uncoordinated walking, he falls back into step with you.
“I still wanted to.”
Butterflies, all thin limbs and fragile wings, climb up your chest and lodge themselves in your ears again, beating louder than your thoughts but somehow even more unbearable than those.
You hate that you can still hear your own voice and how childish it sounds. “I could’ve handled that on my own.”
At a red light, you’re conscious enough to stop. He moves to stand beside you, towering figure blocking the harsh glow of the streetlamp from your face. This time, when he speaks, it’s a whisper and his eyes are fixed straight ahead.
“I still wanted to.”
Could be alcohol making you more stubborn than usual, but his soft tone only makes you want to rebel against whatever feeling it stirs in your already unsettled tummy.
“Dude, why are you even following me?”
“Dude, I’m trying to get home, too.”
Right. The attempt doesn’t do much for your shattered pride.
You go and take a step forward, but you barely make it a second before you’re yanked back into something solid. Your neighbour’s solid chest, realization settling fully when you look down and see a tattooed arm wrapped around your middle.
And it’s his hushed voice close to your ear. “Can you behave for once?”
A split second later, a car tears past in front of you, the rush of air whipping your hair back, half of it flying straight into Jeongguk’s face.
You don’t exactly behave after that, but Jeongguk seems to prefer this to you almost getting yourself run over out of sheer refusal to accept help when you clearly need it.
The rest of the walk home happens with you on his back, arms looped around his neck, legs hooked at his waist while he holds you steady under your thighs. Your words are spilled directly into his ear, borderline drunk rambling about how men have managed to ruin every single day of your twenty-five years of life, and how they couldn’t even spare your birthday. His fingers dig where they hold your legs. You yelp.
The cool night air sobers you up just the tiniest bit, enough that when he lets you down, you can stand without completely twisting your ankle. You do stumble, but he’s already turning and finding your waist to steady you.
The motion carries you forward until your chests bump. And if you want to look at him — which you do — you have to tilt your face up, neck craning and straining just so that you can melt with the way his orbs swell, soften, one hand hovering near the side of your face. Your chin brushes the front of his shirt. You wonder if he’s repulsed by the smell of alcohol and smoke lingering on you, because you are.
Wetting his lips, his exhale trembles against your cheeks. His breath carries alcohol too, but you close your eyes and breathe him in anyway.
“I’m sorry about that.”
When your lashes flutter open, Jeongguk is playing ping-pong with his own gaze — eyes, lips, eyes, lips, eyes. Yours settle on his mouth.
“No, it’s okay,” your whisper would be lost if you weren’t this close. “I’m sorry for always being such a bitch. It was nice of you to help me.”
“Of course. I would have done that even if I knew you didn’t want me to.”
That, along with the cheeky curve of his glossed lips, makes you shove at his stomach. He stumbles back a step. You take one too, putting space between you.
This makes it harder to call him your friend. You don’t miss a friend’s warmth the second it leaves you. You don’t linger like this, don’t hesitate moving, eyes caught and holding. You don’t feel this restless buzz under your skin, thick with expectation. He can’t be your friend. At least not while your head feels light and still wouldn’t mind another cigarette.
His gaze mirrors yours, heavy-lidded and searching, head tilting toward his door. “Wanna come inside?”
You snort, the idea making you laugh before you can even shape it into words. “What, to check on Gureum?”
He rolls his eyes, already turning to fit his key into the lock. “We’re not letting the last hour of your birthday be shitty.”
The last fifty minutes of your birthday aren’t shitty. Not at all.
Gureum doesn’t need checking this time. In fact, he doesn’t even wedge himself between you. There wouldn’t be room anyway.
Because in less than five minutes, the wide stretch of Jeongguk’s couch becomes irrelevant. Useless, almost. Too much space for something that doesn’t need it. Not when your knees brush, the side of his face rests against the backrest and you instinctively mirror him, inching closer with every tipsy giggle you share.
The following twenty minutes pass with you rambling about your earlier shift and him listening. To you complaining about Angela making eyes at Matt, and Matt flirting with Olivia, while Olivia cries to you about her ex girlfriend, Gina. At least, he thinks that was the name.
He’s not really keeping up. Not because he isn’t interested, you sound so adorably invested. But because you look even more adorable while completely absorbed.
So endearing when you ask for his opinion with pouting lips, only to resume your stream of thoughts before he can even draw a breath. So pretty while you begin frustratingly tugging at your heels, huffing when the straps refuse to give way.
“Let me do it for you,” his offer vibrates in the tight space, sinking down straight to your middle that’s been already traitorously buzzing with his every low hum, and with how his eyes don’t even pretend not to trace your face, neck, delicate hands where they brush his thigh.
He leans down, hoisting both your legs onto his lap and drawing a sharp yelp from you. Making you audibly gulp as he moves to the straps, one hand cupping your instep while the other works at the buckle.
It gets quiet, deafeningly so. Your earlier words die in your throat, and the remnants of your rant vanish. You aren’t even sure what you were talking about anymore.
He seems amused by that, letting one shoe clatter to the floor before shifting to the other.
“So,” he glances up at you through his bangs, a boyish grin playing on his lips. “What did Matt do when he saw that?”
Blinking at the devilish raise of his brows, like he knows exactly what is happening, and is ready to stop pretending otherwise, you fix your slumped posture against the cushions. One bare foot presses into his knee for leverage, and even when he’s finished with the second heel, you make no move to pull away.
“He…” you clear your throat, watching as he slowly leans back into the couch, eyes never leaving yours. You prop yourself up on your palms. “He told Angela to fuck off.”
He hisses through his teeth, and you can’t help but giggle at his genuine investment. You let out a long sigh, shoulders dropping. “Yeah… Just messy.”
Another twenty minutes pass, and this time it’s him filling the space. Him, and your laughter, louder than usual and softened by the alcohol still lingering in your system. He has you nearly in tears when you ask about his trainee days, not because he makes it emotional. Because he sounds so sarcastically earnest.
You’re doubled over, and somewhere between his story-telling his arm slides behind you along the back of the couch. When you finally sit up, you’re almost entirely engulfed by him, legs curled against his, shoulder pressed to his chest.
It’s the ideal position for when he starts showing you pictures on his phone. Jeongguk, cheeks rounder, good-boy smile, hair buzzed like a fuzzy kiwi. Thinner, shorter, more youthful. A soft coo tangles with another giggle as you pinch the screen to zoom in, leaning closer to the screen.
Beside you, he snorts in your ear. And if you were to look to the side, you’d see that he’s no longer watching the phone. His booze-hazed eyes are fixed on you. His jaw shifts subtly as he traces your profile. Your neck. The curve of your lips.
When there’s nothing left to share, the clock has already ticked past midnight. Technically, there’s no reason for you to still be here, practically draped over his lap, nape resting on the curve of his bicep. You both sit in content silence, with only Gureum licking his paws somewhere in the background.
A shaky exhale escapes you when his palm comes to rest on your calf. Absentmindedly rubs it in a soothing motion that makes you feel everything but soothed. You feel lit up, no longer something you can blame solely on the alcohol.
Still staring at the ceiling in search of a distraction, you blurt out, “Can I ask you something?”
He hums. “Shoot.”
“Why were we never nice to each other?”
You turn slightly to look at him and you find him already watching you. You shift, angling your face so your cheek replaces the back of your head against his arm.
His voice sounds smaller now. “What’s changed to you?”
You hum. “I mean, you weren’t exactly nice since the very moment I moved in, so I just assumed that was who you were. But you’re not like that.” Spending time with Jeongguk has made you realize that.
His orbs tremble with a flicker of hesitance. You gulp, suddenly afraid you might have said too much. Ruined the moment. Asked for something he doesn’t ponder the way you do.
So you retreat, play it safe, familiar. “Maybe my cookies were life changing.”
Jeongguk smiles at that, but his hand stills on your leg. He huffs softly, shifts his face a fraction closer. Just enough to make sure you’ll hear his quiet voice when he finally gathers the courage to let the words leave his mouth.
“I find it hard to trust new people. It’s easier to act like an asshole,” he mirrors your faint smile. Then, his expression morphs into vulnerability you’ve never seen on him, but that fits him in a way that makes your chest ache. It looks right, so soft. His brows twitch and his eyes are wider and unsure.
“Yeah, cookies were amazing. Just didn’t wanna open the door for more only to be left with none at the end.”
You aren’t talking about cookies anymore. At least you hope you aren’t. The gloss in his gaze tells you he might be alluding to something else, heavier.
When you’re too scared to speak, afraid you won’t be able to handle this with the care it deserves, he slips back into what’s safe, much like you did. Downplays it, shrugs it off.
“I think I’ve got trust issues, or whatever you call it.”
And that’s where you’d smile, deflect. This time, you don’t. You stay unguarded, eyes drifting to his lips before lifting back up.
“People trust you all the time, though. You save them.”
“A saviour never gets saved.”
It’s your brows pinching together this time, your attempt at composure betrayed by the heavy thud of your heart. You don’t know where to look, what to do with your hands, with yourself.
Instinctively, your fingers find his on your calf, covering his hand with yours. “I think it can happen. When trust goes both ways.”
He doesn’t add anything else. Can’t. Can only nod slightly and bite the inside of his cheek. You can tell he isn’t ready to go any further tonight by the way his gaze flits around before putting on a tight, reassuring smile.
Jeongguk breaks the stretching pause first, taking a sharp breath. “I’m sorry about that guy earlier. Did you know him?”
You sigh, the air leaving you slow. “Yeah. He’s my ex.”
“Damn. He sounds like a piece of shit already,” his fingers press with a new and grounding intention into the skin of your leg.
A bitter laugh escapes you. “Tell me about it.”
Jeongguk doesn’t push for more. Can speak with his eyes locked on yours, though he’s not so subtle when he lets them flicker down to your mouth, or the small mole by your nose. In turn, you edge closer, focus narrowing until you’re almost cross-eyed.
Biting your lips, you try to gulp down your thoughts, but they find a way out anyway, slipping through a shy whisper. “Least I’ve got my hot and insufferable neighbour to make up for it.”
Up close, his smirk is even more disarming than it usually is from a distance. Paired with a lazy roll of his eyes, it makes your legs to press tighter where they rest over his.
“You think I’m hot, huh?”
Without thinking, you seek for more proximity than you would normally allow and rub your cheek against his sleeve, almost certainly smearing makeup onto the fabric of his shirt.
“How many times do you want me to tell you that?”
His palm slides up your thigh brazenly, head tilting, gaze amused. “Never get tired of hearing it. ‘Specially if it comes from my pretty and insufferable neighbour.”
Your own eyes roll, forehead finding refuge from the very heavy-lidded gaze pinned on you that you’re trying to hide from. Your hum is muffled there, stretching out with his low chuckle.
“Hmm, Jeongguk…”
When you look back up, his pupils have swallowed almost all the brown, mouth slightly agape and exhaling heavily. The look on his face has something tilting inside you.
You involuntarily arch into him, bringing your faces nearly flush. “I’ve had such a shitty week, and a shitty shift, and a shitty birthday…”
He nods along with your words, mutters reassurance that brushes your lips. “I know, I know…”
His burning hand crawls upward, brushing your hip and the curve of your waist until it settles against your cheek. Your face feels small against the broad expanse of his palm, even more as you lean into it.
Eyes hazed, you let them beg along with your whisper. “Don’t make it worse.”
With your noses brushing, he angles his head to align with your mouth. The first time you feel his on your skin it’s with a lingering peck on your chin.
“I won’t,” he breathes. “I’ll make it better.”
The second time, it’s his mouth on yours. The sound you make is small but disgustingly needy, your curled fingers coming to fist at the collar of his polo. It’s the only invitation he needs to deepen the kiss, tongue slick and sure when it slides against yours, his firm hold on your jaw guiding you as you let him in.
You’re flushed against one another, chests heaving in sync, and your feet push his legs wider as you reposition and settle over him with your knees at his sides. His thighs flex and slot deliciously between your own. You moan a particularly loud one when his hands haul you closer, your bodies colliding with a friction that makes your surroundings spin.
When he pulls back for air, his thick fingers are tangled deep in your hair, keeping your foreheads pinned together. He pants, eyes dark and raking over your frame draped across his. “Fuck, you’re so hot.”
Next, his slicked lips are beneath your jaw, going slack as he guides you on his lap until your embarrassingly wet and aching core drags along his clothed length. It’s been like that since the walk home, when you were too drunk to stand and he carried you, your chest pressed against the solid expanse of his back.
He kisses a path along your neck and shoulder, and you brace yourself with a tight grip on his locks. Breathless, you look down at him — how engrossed he is, eyes closed, mouth sucking, tongue tasting.
“Jeongguk,” you whimper, overwhelmed by sensations you’ve never reached before. You tug at his hair in an attempt to ground yourself. “Gguk, please.”
When his eyes flit up to yours, his tongue dangerously traces a line across your collarbone. “Hm?”
“I’m so— fuck, this is so embarrassing,” your head falls back. You can’t handle his dark and hooded stare. Can’t handle his scalding touch and the way it runs down your hips, gripping your ass just to grind it firmer into him. You press your palms to his chest for leverage, but the feel of his solid pecs and hard nipples under his polo only make it worse.
One of his warm palms slides up to your neck, urging you to look at him again, how he’s staring up at you with knitted brows and swollen lips. “What, baby? Why?”
The slurred pet name sends you into a panic, results in your mouth instinctively crashing on his to shut him up, prevent him from saying anything else that will fuck with your head further. But there’s no way to escape him with the way he has you pinned, hands firm at the back of your head and the small of your back.
What is embarrassing? Your pulsing hole dripping wet while fully dressed. Why is it embarrassing? Because he had barely even kissed you when you considered you could come just from the sound of his low voice.
Your teeth clash, patience wearing thin and your folds running soaked with the fastening pace of your grinds. A strangled moan escapes into the kiss when he buckles his hips upward, bulge fitting perfectly between your slit.
Jeongguk smirks up at your wrecked expression — eyes glossed over and lipstick smudged — his own grinds meeting yours halfway. “You want me to make you cum, pretty?”
Your face thrashes into his neck, teeth sinking into the skin just beneath his Adam’s apple, causing him to let out a low, guttural groan. Part of you wishes you could stop, rationalise this, prevent any regret that could arise tomorrow from both sides, when you realise you’ve crossed the line. With your neighbour. Someone you can’t escape without a moving truck.
Someone you were certain hated you a little less than a month ago. Someone you’re not even sure you can call your friend, solely because of this happening: your undeniable attraction for him taking over, and his hungry eyes on your figure finally doing something about it.
You wish you could stop because you want him to do exactly what he just growled, with his palm cupping your cheek and his eyes trembling. And you can’t bear the thought of it being this easy. This childish. With all your clothes still on and your hips pushing animalistically against each other like you’re sixteen. It’s infuriating, especially when no man has ever gotten you there, not even with all clothes off.
But your body is a traitor. It certainly wants it. Certainly thinks that he could make it happen. It yearns to be selfish and take what it’s been waiting for. And maybe it’s exactly him making it happen this simply that turns you on more.
“Don’t— don’t say it like that, fuck,” you still put up a weak fight for no reason as he guides your face back up.
Yet, when he brushes his thumb over your bottom lip, you obey. Open your mouth for him, welcome the taste of his skin on your flat tongue, hollow your cheeks around his finger. Something you’re probably going to overthink while you process everything sober.
Jeongguk doesn’t think even a skull fracture could make him forget this vision, let alone some alcohol. Your head bobs on his thumb, tongue swirls all around it until the slick feel of it makes him throb in his denim. Groan as he pushes his thumb deeper for more, and pulls you down onto his lap as if desperate to feel you further through your clothes, to reach beyond, to be inside you.
He gives a dazed, loopy smile. “What, your snappy, sexy mouth can’t tell me what you want anymore, huh?”
You can only groan in response, brows furrowing, trying to fight the effect he has on you. Your body refuses to cooperate, with your hands sneakily finding their way under his shirt and tracing the hard, tense lines of his muscles.
You grip him by the waist and continue grinding on him, and he looks up in awe, palms tightening their hold where they fell on your ass.
Your mouth can still run, if only incoherently with your actions and your core pulsing. “I’m not… not gonna cum like this. We’re both wearing jeans.”
Jeongguk chuckles feverishly, leaning in close enough to bury his face in the lace of your bodice before planting his chin between your breasts to challenge your gaze.
“I can fucking feel how wet you are and you can feel how hard my cock is. Can’t you?”
That’s your final breaking point. Won’t pretend you don’t want this anymore. Can’t.
Head tossed back, your front arches into him as his arms perfectly wrap around it, anchoring you through your uncoordinated movements. Him thrusting up, you pushing down. And the more you do it, the more you feel your rationale melt with the way his length slots between your folds.
Your moans fill the quiet expanse of his living room, growing louder when he mouths at your nipples through the rough material of your corset. He treats you like he’s starving, nipping at your skin when you don’t look at him, demanding every ounce of your attention.
A low growl vibrates against your chest. “Look at me. Use your words. You’re all talk, neighbour.”
Head shaking, you feel your vision glossing over. “No…”
“No?” His brows arch, tongue licking one long, slow stripe across your skin before resting the back of his neck against the couch. He spreads his legs wider, letting you sink even deeper into his lap, posture relaxed as if he’s meaning to enjoy a personal show. And he does ask you for it.
“Then show me. Grind on my cock. Make yourself cum.”
Words so rough and commanding they make your eyes roll and threaten to get them stuck. You give it everything to satisfy him. Show him exactly what he wants to see. And the power he gives you, the one he still holds but shares with you, sends an electric shock through your limbs, buzzing deep in your middle.
It’s all in your hands but he’s still guiding you, keeping your strokes slow and deep, eyes locked on yours and never faltering. Your expressions mirror one another: jaws slack, eyelids heavy and close to shutting. But neither of you wants to miss the sight. Neither of you is willing to concede
Until you feel it, that sudden peak. Your hips instinctively grinding faster and your weight dropping onto him as your chests collide. You bury your face in the crook of his neck and you both moan into the muffled space of your proximity.
“Fuck, baby, let go,” he sounds strained and tight in your ear, yet he still spurs you on. “Been waiting for this moment.”
The words linger long after you do let go, sprawled across his broad front, his arms coming to wrap tighter around you as one hand slides up to cradle your nape. You don’t comment on what he said; wouldn’t know what else to do if not agree with him. You aren’t even sure if he’d repeat those words sober, or even slightly less under the influence.
He makes you consider the possibility when his thick fingers tuck your hair behind your ear to whisper against it. “You did so good. Feel better?”
You only nod sheepishly, seeking refuge in his neck again, too embarrassed to face him now when everything starts to sink in.
Jeongguk chuckles, the vibration rumbles against you. “Why so shy all of a sudden, hm?”
When you shift to hide further, he hisses through his teeth and his hold around you gets tighter. Stills you. You feel it then, how he still pulses and throbs beneath you, his heart skipping a beat.
You figure you can still make use of the post-climax haze, wanting to show him how grateful you are for an experience no one else has ever given you except your own self.
Your slender fingers trail down his front, landing above his zipper. You lift your chin up just enough to murmur into his ear. “Wanna touch you.”
“Holy shit,” he whimpers when you palm him through the denim, slightly jolts forward at the direct, pressing contact. “Pretty, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
Wrapping a hand around your wrist, he gently replaces it on his shoulder, prompting you to shift up until you’re supporting yourself against him. Your brows furrow, the silent question written all over your face.
Does he not want it? Does he not want you?
His thumb comes to swipe across the space between your eyebrows, smoothing the tension there along with his lazy smile. “This was about you, okay? I don’t need you to do anything else.”
“But—”
“Stay here. I’ll get you some water,” he delicately maneuvers you on the cushions, not before leaving a soft peck on your chin, then disappears into the hallway. He stumbles a bit as he walks, and after having felt it beneath you, you can clearly also see the bulge straining against the fabric of his jeans. Your legs squeeze together instinctively at the sight.
You think you hear the click of the bathroom door lock. Too worn out to move, you rest your chin on the back of the couch and let your eyes wander lazily around his space. The room feels too quiet now, yet the more you’re left in that silence the more it gets louder.
On the table, your cookie container sits almost empty. Only one cookie left.
SOUND THE ALARMS WE GOT ANOTHER LOVIEKU UPDATE 📣📣📣‼️
no one knows how much i love this story and the characters. you really know when an author loves writing just by how you feel the characters live through a simple string of words. i love everything about this story … the humor, tension, banter, and above all, the slice of life.
the part about their professions and their differing views of life/death AND the aftermath? absolutely beautiful. i’ve yet to see another story in bangtumblr written this delicately and lovieku delivers as always.
give me a firefighter!jk stat …….. pretty please??? i sound like a broken record with every lovieku fic and how much i love every single jk… but this is one of my faves on god. anyway, so thankful i got to read this beauty before the rest of the world bc it’s honestly a treat and masterpiece. 🥺🩷🫂🫂🫂 ty for trusting me to beta this amazing story. YOU GUYS ARE NOT READY FOR PART 2 GAAAAHH
stormborns
jacobvanloon
annaxmalina
jbbartram-illu
areudirty
germansingergirl
