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jia — ‘04

[rikidaze]

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welcome to my blog, have a look around! i’m jia! blasian, 04-liner, enhypen + new jeans ult!

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[wonscrchy]

.ᐟ DIRTY LITTLE SECRET — Y.JW

⤷ To every girl who likes dark romance or who like villains instead of heroes—lay back down and take it like a good girl.

⸝⸝ Jungwon was off limit, your brother’s best friend, the one person you were never supposed to want. But four years of stolen glances turned into smth worse. One night alone was all it took to blur the line between you. You call it friends with benefits, pretend it’s just physical, But what Jungwon feels for you isn’t simple desire. It’s darker than love. Colder than obsession. And the worst part? You’re already too deep to run. ⸝⸝

༘⋆ Pairings : Brother’s bestfrnd!jungwon x reader.

WC : 22k+

༘⋆ Warnings : Dark themes! Strong language, explicit smut, violence, consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, slow burn(?), Dacryphilia, Mutual obsession, Jungwon & reader are down bad, Heeseung as your brother, Stalking, smoking, fwbs, Unsettling topics, Angst, heartbreak, fluff, mention of bloods, Featuring eunchae, all enhypen members, porn with plot. lmk if i missed smth!

༘⋆ Smut warnings : Porn with plot, p in v(both protected and unprotected) Dom!jungwon, sub!reader, fingering, unprotected!sex(wrap it up), orgasm denial, multiple rounds, multiple orgasms, humiliation, degradation kink, spitting kink, praise kink, filthy sex, jungwon picks up ur brother’s call between it, power dynamics, manhandling, overstimulation, sub!won but only for his girl, riding, cock slapping, cock warming, grinding, dry humping, masturbation, dirty talk, name calling, begging, breast play, oral(both), pussy slapping, spanking, standing doggy, multiple sex scenes, public sex(parking lot), cum eating(sorry), gagging, mirror sex(oops), belly bulge, squirting, impregnation kink!

A/N : guys i’m finally DONE with this holy shit 😭 i did NOT expect it to get this long. at some point my hands were literally just typing on their own. jungwon is actually insane in this one… like the obsession?? yeah. i’ve got two more wips sitting in my drafts right now so those will probably be posted here soon too. i really hope you guys enjoy this one. thank you for reading and supporting me <3 reposts are always appreciated.

You knew Jungwon was off limits.

When your brother, Heeseung, first introduced you to him when you were, like, sixteen, you fucking knew it. And it's common knowledge that the age of sixteen is when the slightest attention causes your brain to go nutty. Crushes are like life or death. Your hormones are out of control, and you believe that every lingering look is a cosmic sign. You fell for it. Of course you did. But you had to choose him out of everyone you could have fallen in love with.

You did, of course. Because Jungwon wasn't just a random schoolboy.

The golden rule: don’t even fucking look at your brother’s friends like that. Before you had a chance to dream about it, it was off limits and off the damn market.

So you told yourself it was temporary. Just some hormonal, dramatic, dumbass teenage phase. You’d grow out of it. You’d wake up one day and he’d just be… normal. Not the guy who made your stomach flip like you were on a broken rollercoaster. Not the guy whose voice alone made your chest tighten.

Except you never grew out of it.

The day he introduced himself is still fresh in your mind. There was something guarded in his dark eyes, something carefully concealed behind a soft yet unreadable expression. He barely blinked, simply watching you as though he were committing your face to memory. At first, he wore a polite smile—gentle, almost too damned beautiful to be true. Being that attractive while standing in your own living room ought to have been prohibited.

Your heart nearly pounded out of your chest when you shook his hand. His palm was warm against yours, steady and firm. He held your gaze without wavering, and he didn’t let go immediately. The only thing that shifted was his smile—it faded slowly, as if he had caught himself revealing too much. The slightest smirk appeared before he withdrew, and you swear, you fucking swear you saw it.

Two years older. That was it. Only two. However, that felt enormous, mature, and dangerous at sixteen. You finally understand what "raw and older" actually means now that you're twenty. After four years of pretending you don't think about him in ways you really shouldn't, the phrase has a different impact.

It would remain a fantasy, you assured yourself. Finally, your desire to fuck him would only ever exist in your imagination. Every time he visited, you would push that filthy little thought to the back of your mind, that you would eventually find it funny. Fall in love with someone safer and easier. However, you are now twenty years old, still figuring things out, Still broke bruh. And still a total idiot when it comes to Jungwon.

Both of you grew up. His shoulders grew wider, his jaw sharpened, and his confidence became quieter. You also changed; you were no longer a child, and you no longer hid behind big hoodies and awkward silences.

What didn’t change? Your feelings.

They didn’t just stick around. They Deepened, got worse, man, way fucking worse. They grew up with you. Less teenage crush and more slow-burning obsession that crawls under your skin and refuses to leave.

It was driving you insane. He was driving you insane.

Because how the hell are you supposed to get over someone who looks at you like that?

The way his eyes stay on you for a second too long when you're wearing shorts. You notice even though it's not clear enough for others to notice. You're always aware. When you pass him on your way to the kitchen, his eyes follow the curve of your ass and hips. His clenched jaw gives the impression that he is physically stopping himself from fucking you on the kitchen counter.

He occasionally clenches his fists, too. As if he's preventing himself from snatching you and destroying everything else that stands between you both.

And the worst fucking part? Because what if it’s not just you? What if he feels it too? The tension in the air whenever you’re alone is thick enough to choke on. Every eye contact makes you lose your sanity.

You hate it. You crave it. You’re back to that hopeless stage of wanting a taste.

A nip. A lick. Anything.

You’ll take anything he allows you to have. Even if small, You’ll fucking gobble it all down and store it in that nook inside you that's disturbingly filled with him.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

It’s Friday night, and your brother’s friends are over again. At first, the house felt alive in that chaotic, boyish way—controllers clicking, loud debates over nothing, and the occasional shove that almost turned into wrestling. They were playing games, yelling over each other, arguing about scores like five years old. For a while, it was almost entertaining.

But now the energy has curdled. The pizza boxes lie open and forgotten on the coffee table, No one’s really talking anymore—just half-finished sentences and exaggerated sighs. The vibe has completely died.

Heeseung’s friends are a bunch of fucking weirdos—no surprise, considering your brother is one too. They’re loud, and somehow always sticky. They argue over the dumbest things, laugh like hyenas at jokes that barely qualify as humour and treat your house like it’s their personal headquarters. Half the time you swear they share one collective brain cell.

Still… you’re glad they’re around.

As irritating as it gets having them over 24/7—shouting down hallways, blasting music at ungodly volumes, at least your life isn’t painfully boring. There’s always something happening. Someone getting pranked. Someone fake-fighting. Someone dramatically announcing they’re “never coming back” only to show up again the next day. They’ve blurred into something more than just your brother’s friends. They’re like extended family now—annoying, invasive, loud family, but family nonetheless.

Except one person. Jungwon.

He doesn’t quite fit into the “extended family” category. Not in the way the others do. While they sprawl across the couch and treat you like a younger sibling they can tease, Jungwon keeps a certain distance. He’s there, but never fully tangled in the noise. He doesn’t look at you the way the others do.

He looks at you differently.

Jake bursts into the living room with a football tucked under his arm. “We’re going to the turf. Night match. Loser buys food.” Sunghoon is already halfway to the door. “Jungwon, you coming?”

Jungwon is sprawled back on the couch, hoodie on, head tilted against the cushion looking as if he hasn’t slept in days. He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve had practice all week. I’m dead. I’ll pass.” Heeseung pauses, eyeing him. “You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll just chill.” Heeseung shrugs, then looks at you. “Y/n, I’ll probably come late. Maybe morning. Lock the doors. And Jungwon—” his tone shifts, protective big-brother mode kicking in, “keep an eye on her.”

You roll your eyes dramatically. “I’m not a kid, you know.” Jake whistles low. “You kind of are, though.” You glare at him. “Shut the fuck up, dickface.” Jake gasps like you’ve stabbed him. “I raised you better than this.”

“You absolutely did not.” Laughter fills the hallway as they grab their shoes and head out. The front door shuts. Then the gate clicks.

And now there’s silence. Not the awkward kind, the heavy kind. The house is big, spacious enough to swallow sound, but it suddenly feels smaller. Tighter. Especially when you remember it’s just the two of you here.

That thought alone makes your thighs press together before you can stop yourself. And then the unfiltered thoughts start pouring in. Not new, Definitely not the first time.

This doesn’t usually happen. Well—maybe once. But your mom had been home that time, moving around in the kitchen, the clatter of dishes acting as some thin thread of restraint. This time, though? Your parents are out of town, celebrating Valentine’s Day somewhere by the beach. So romantic. So annoyingly wholesome.

Which leaves you here, Alone. With Jungwon.

He’s still on the couch, scrolling through his phone like nothing’s changed. Like the air hasn’t shifted. Like you’re not standing down the hallway fighting the urge to do something reckless.

That annoys the hell out of you.

You lean against the wall for a second, watching him. He looks calm, relaxed, completely fucking unaffected.

And you hate that. So you plan to change it.

This is it. If there’s ever going to be a moment where you figure out whether he feels the same way as you do, it’s now.

You walk off casually and change. You slip on a two-piece nightwear set. The top is a black tank top with thin straps. The bottom is a pair of black shorts with a drawstring waist and a white stripe around the hem that cling to your hips and ass and the curve around your thighs—no bra underneath. Innocent. Deadly.

When you walk back into the living room, he doesn’t look up at first. You sit on the opposite end of the couch. He scrolls. You shift slightly, tucking one leg under you. Nothing, This asshole.

You stretch your legs out slowly, crossing them at the knee. The fabric rides up just enough. He glances up.

And for a split second, Jungwon freezes—just long enough for you to catch it. It’s subtle, but you see it. His jaw tightens. His breath stutters. His eyes flick down to your bare legs, then snap back up like he’s just touched smth that burned him.

Your pretty legs out on display only for him to notice, he doesn’t know that though. He wants nothing more than to wrap those legs around his shoulders and fucking devour you.

And suddenly he can feel his jeans tightening, fabric going unforgiving in all the wrong ways.

Some people would think it’s fucking stupid to react to something so simple. Bare skin. A pair of shorts. An absentminded stretch. But they don’t understand. They don’t realize the effect you have on him. You don’t even try, and that’s the worst part.

Jungwon has always prided himself on control. On not wanting what he can’t have—she’s off-limits, she’s your friend’s sister, this is a bad fucking idea, don’t even go there. Anything other than reality feels like a sin.

But you mess with his head in ways he hates admitting.

You make him want to punch walls, To flip tables, To smoke more than he should just to dull the edge of whatever the hell this is. You make him clench his fists so hard his knuckles ache. You make him lose his cool, and he never loses his cool. Not over anything, Not over anyone.

And the worst, most terrifying part?

He has this sick, gut-twisting feeling that if you ever looked up at him, tilted your head just right, and said please—soft and sweet and unaware of what it’d do to him, he’d be fucked. Completely and utterly fucked.

He’d give you anything. Every damn thing.

Then he looks back down at his phone like nothing happened, always so fucking controlled. You almost smile at that.

You lean further into the couch, arm draped casually over the backrest, fingers brushing the fabric like you’ve got all the time in the world. “So you’re really that tired?”

“Yeah,” Jungwon says, still not looking at you. “Exhausted.”

“Mhm.” Silence settles again, You shift slightly, crossing one leg over the other. Very slowly, veryyyyy practiced. The hem of your shorts rides up, His scrolling falters for half a second. You tilt your head. “You don’t look tired.” He replies almost immediately, “I am.” He clears his throat.

It’s hot, watching him hold himself together like that. If you really wanted to, you could ruin it in seconds. You could stand up, close the distance, and straddle his lap. You could feel the way he’d tense under you, hands hovering in air, unsure whether to touch or push you away—Okay no.

“Is it hot in here?” you ask lightly. “No.”

“Feels warm.”

“It’s normal.” You hum, then lean forward slightly, reaching for the remote. The shirt shifts, revealing your waistline, Jungwon exhales slowly through his nose, setting his phone face down beside him. His gaze doesn’t leave you this time.

“You’re very bored,” he says. You smile, “Maybe.”

“So you’re going to annoy me?” You tilt your head. “Annoy you? I’m just sitting.” His gaze moves down to your thighs, slow, taking in the shorts. The way you’re sitting. The way you’re watching him watch you.

He leans back, eyes finally settling on your face—and fuck, you’re so fucking pretty it almost annoys him. There have been nights, too many, where he’s found some quiet corner of his house, door locked, jerking off at the thought of how you’d look between his legs.

“Jungwon..” How every muscle tightens at the whisper of his name. It sounds so sweet coming from your mouth, like it was the sound of salvation instead of ruin.

You were the only person who’d ever said his name like that. His hands curled. The icy blast of water pommeled his skin but did nothing to quell the desire raging inside him. The smell of honey and your perfume swirled in the shower.

You had seared so deep into his consciousness that you were all he could smell. All he could feel. And, even when he closed his eyes, all he could see.

The need in his groin pulsed harder, goddamit. He bit out a low curse before he reached and fisted his cock, It was hard and swollen and already dripping with pre-cum. His movements were rough, almost angry as he worked himself towards a much needed release.

All these years, he could’ve kissed you if he wanted. He could’ve fisted your hair and branded you with his mouth until he proved that there was nothing wrong about the dark fire that burned between you both.

The only thing that'd held him back was a fine thread of self-control, woven from fuck ass logic and the faintest shreds of his long-destroyed conscience. He was well aware of the fact that, should either of you break, Jungwon would be condemning not only himself but you to hell.

He would touch you with bloodied hands and kiss you with a deceiver's mouth and you, without realizing it—would crawl willingly into bed beside a monster.

Part of him wanted you so badly he didn’t give a damn what it cost. The other part, the one that still resembled something human, wanted to hide you somewhere far away. Somewhere even he couldn’t reach you. Because he knew himself too well. If he ever lost control—if he ever came looking—there wouldn’t be a place, a person, or a god capable of stopping him.

He would tear the world apart piece by piece just to get you back.

It was a paradox, as were all things in his life that related to you. But if the thread had snapped…like now. Jungwon closed his eyes, his grip tight and his breath hardened. You could’ve been beneath him now, your nails clawing his back and his name a moan in your mouth….

He swallowed, shaking the memory off before it got out of hand. He didn’t know if this was right, or when the right time would come to make a move, but if you kept testing him like this, he’d just show you because once he claimed you as his, he would do it so fucking thoroughly there wouldn’t be a shred of doubt in either of your minds as to who you belonged to…or who he belonged to in return.

“You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” Jungwon says, voice low, but there’s tension in it now. “But I’m not doing anything.”

“You changed.”

“I’m in my own house.”

“That’s not the point.” You uncross your legs slowly. “Then what is?”

He's leaning forward now, bent elbows propped against his thighs, hands clasped in front of his chin. There's nothing bored or stony about him right now.

No, he's in pure heat and restrained hunger, and you love that You’re the person who's put that look in his eyes.

His jaw tightens slightly. “You’re testing my patience,” he says.

You don’t deny it because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Jungwon’s always been a persistent bastard. Impossible to read. He never shows what he truly feels, never lets anything slip, and maybe that’s why your heart’s been stuck on him for so long. Maybe that’s why he never leaves your fucking mind.

It’s been four goddamn years. Four years of glances that linger too long, of tension that never breaks, of teasing comments here and there, of almosts.

He doesn’t blink and somehow that only makes the heat in your lower stomach burn hotter. “You think because no one’s home you can just… push?” He said in a perpetually tired voice, “Push what?” you ask softly, tilting your head. His nostrils flare slightly.

Jungwon stands up so suddenly the couch dips from the shift in weight. He walks around the coffee table and stops directly in front of you. The movement alone makes you straighten without thinking.

“Don’t play dumb,” he says quietly. You have to tilt your chin up to keep eye contact. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“That’s what you think?” You stretch back against the cushions, feigning boredom, though every inch of you is hyperaware of him. He’s so close you can feel the heat rolling off him, and it’s driving you insane. “Sounds like a you problem.”

“You changed on purpose,” he says quietly. You shrug one shoulder. “I wanted to be comfortable.”

“You weren’t wearing that earlier.”

“And?” He exhales sharply through his nose. You can see the restraint wearing thinner by the second. You shift again, just slightly, drawing one knee up onto the couch so you’re angled toward him. Your gaze drifts over his body slowly before returning to his eyes.

Jungwon was aware that your eyes wasn’t sexual—or maybe it was. His groin continued to tighten in spite of that. It was straining his pants so badly, it hurt.

You say softly, "If it bothers you, I can go change." You don't get up to stand. He presses his hand to the couch's back. "Stop," he commands. "Stop what?"

“Talking like that."

“Like what?"

“Like you don't know what you do to me.” The words are heavier than you anticipate. They are no longer teasing. Not sarcastic. Simply put, honesty. "Then tell me," you say softly, maintaining eye contact without breaking first. "What do i do to you?" That's it. His expression changes, He looks at you for a long moment, as if he's considering every potential result and consequences that could come later.

You open your mouth to press once more, to say something else that will make him snap. He cuts you off.

“Fuck it."

Low and final, the words escape him in a breath. Then he moves, His firm yet cautious hand moves from the back of the couch to your jaw harshly, forcing your face up, There’s no hesitation in his moments—You can tell, he’s been waiting for this to happen.

Jungwon slams his lips onto yours. You answered by meeting his kiss with a firmer one of your own. He felt your fingers curling into his hair, fingernails scraping along his scalp and everything inside jungwon relaxed and the nervousness uncoiled from his gut. A warm buzz of energy sunk through his flesh down to the very core of his soul. This was right. This was always where he needed to be.

He places his hands around your waist as he pulls you closer, goosebumps swarming every part of your body he touches. You throw your arm around his neck as jungwon pulls you up, Fingertips pressing under your top, drawing gentle circles against that small stripe of bare skin that makes you break the kiss with a gasp.

He claimed your lips in a punishing kiss again. Your blood burned at the onslaught, and when his tongue forced into your mouth, you yanked a fistful of his hair in retaliation until he hissed out a pained growl.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath. “Jump.” Jungwon orders, rough and impatient.

And you do. Of course you do. Because you’ve waited too long to second-guess it now—years of longing, years of pretending, years of convincing yourself you didn’t love him. It was always him.

Love? You… loved him?

He catches you easily, like he knew you would leap. His hands drag down your back, slow and possessive, fingers spreading as they settle low on your waist. When your legs lock around him, He squeezes your ass, his grip tightens, spinning you once, holding you up like you belong there.

You make a soft, helpless noise when he pulls you closer, grinding into you while keeping you lifted. He walks you to your room without pulling away, breathing heavy through the kiss. He fumbles with the lock, pushes the door open, and once it clicks shut behind you, he pins you against it. The impact steals your breath, your gasp swallowed by his mouth.

Jungwon let out a low groan at the sound that slipped from you, the noise going straight to his head. Your gasping moan is all he needs to hear to devour you like he’s starving and your his Michelin-rated meal.

He cages you in with both arms, hands flat against the surface behind you, his body sealing you in. Then he moves closer, easing his thigh between yours, forcing them apart without breaking eye contact.

He leans in but stops halfway, like something invisible pulls him back. Maybe it’s the weight of what this is. Maybe it’s the way the world would look at the two of you and call it wrong. And maybe it is wrong.

But it feels right. Painfully right.

Jungwon exhales shakily, the breath uneven against your skin. His forehead brushes yours as he closes his eyes for a second, “We can’t… I can’t,” he says, voice strained. “Don’t you understand what this means? I can’t show you… I can’t want you.” The words sound like they hurt him to say.

Then lifts his hand to tilt your chin up with his thumb, forcing you to look at him. His eyes aren’t cold or controlled anymore—they’re conflicted, raw. “This can’t happen, y/n.”

“I know,” you whisper, your voice barely there. “But I don’t care what comes next.”

Jungwon’s eyes darken at your words as his hand comes up to grip your jaw. “God, you drive me so fucking crazy I can barely breathe sometimes.” His thumb drags down slowly, tugging at your bottom lip. “What I’d give to be the only man you ever looked at like this,” he rasps, fingers threading through your hair as he tilts your head back, exposing your neck like a goddamn offering.

He doesn’t kiss you this time. Instead, he leans in slowly, dragging his nose slowly up the soft curve of your neck, burying himself in the scent of your skin. “I terrify you?” he murmurs against your throat. You nod, small and shaky, and he breathes you in deeper, like that answer only fuels something inside him. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

Your fingers curl into his shirt. Your pulse is everywhere. “Tell me,” you whisper. His hand tightens slightly in your hair, keeping your head tilted back, his mouth hovering just above your skin. His breathing is uneven now, rough at the edges.

"I had so many chances, so many nights I should've said fuck it and taken what I wanted, and I blew every single one." His grip tightens in your hair as his forehead drops to yours and he breathes you in once more, like a dying man getting his last taste of heaven. "And now..."

Your lips parted, eyes nearly rolling to the back of your head when you felt his cock perfectly aligned against your wet core. “Now i’m gonna take exactly what i’ve been walking away from.” with that, his mouth is on yours—No softness, all teeth. It’s sloppy, messy, and so fucking hot.

You slip your hands down his body, feeling him, reaching exactly where you wanted to. His hard cock was straining against his briefs, and you stroked your hands along his length against the fabric. He felt so thick — the thought of him forcing that monster inside you, alone made you whimper. He leaned down, kissing you deeply as you continued to stroke him.

"Tell me what you want," Jungwon murmurs into the hollow of your throat, hands on your hips to urge you on, to grind your dripping cunt down harder against the muscle of his thigh. “argh, jungwon—” A broken cry leaves your lips as your back arches off the door as he slings your leg around his waist, thrusting up in process.

He pull back slightly so he can look into your eyes. When you don’t say anything, He shifts his hips again and demand, "Answer me, what do you want?” You moan and then says, “God please—fuck me—oh my god, Jungwon!” You whined, "Shit, i love the idea of being your god.” he groaned, pushing his hips forward.

You panted when his thumb pressed between your legs, brushing against fabric that was already dark and wet. You exhaled in a rush until there was no air left, embarrassment washing over you at the thought that now he must know exactly how much you wanted this.

“So fucking wet for me.” He says under his breath, hooking his fingers and dragging them along your clothed pussy. The slow, undulating thrust of his hips made you feel like you’re caught in a snare.

“Tell me what you want, y/n, come on, be a good girl.” He asked making you glare up at him slightly, “Why don’t you fuck me and we can find out?” You scrunched your nose.

Jungwon chuckles low under his breath before scooping you up again, and you yelp in surprise at the sudden movement. He carries you the few steps to the bed and tosses you onto it with more force than necessary, your body bouncing slightly from the impact. You glare up at him, hair a mess, heart racing.

Rude.

"Take off your underwear." He said, you blink, once, twice, then you slipped your hand into the waistband of your panties and shimmied them down until they pooled on the floor as you threw them. Heat rose to your cheek, because he could see how wet you really were.

Your panties completely drenched, Your thighs slick with your juices. Still, You were turned on enough to brush past your embarrassment.

He leaned over you, arms braced on either side of your head and for a second, it felt like the world had shrunk down to just this—his shadow, his heat, his steady gaze on your cunt.

His eyes ravenous as he soaked you in. Between his hungry stare and your current position, you felt so small. “Spread your legs wider, let me see that pretty pussy dripping for me.”

Heat rose up your cheeks at his words but you did what he asked. Spreading your thighs wider, He didn’t take his eyes off your face until you looked away, blushing. Only then did he allow his gaze to fall slide down to your cunt.

Wet, pulsing, throbbing, waiting to be filled. His cock strained even harder, snarling him to take you and make you his until it was clear to every single person who you belonged to. Me. Jungwon thought.

You shudder under his gaze because he was looking at you so intensely without doing anything. You closed your legs slightly, covering yourself but he stopped you with a grip on your wrist. “You don’t need to cover yourself infront of me.”

“I don’t…I’m not…” You sighed, your throat moved again with a visible swallow. “It’s been a while since someone saw me like this.” Possessiveness burned in his gut, ofc he knew you must’ve been naked infront of others men before—just as he knew he wanted to do nothing more than peeling their skin off and leave them to rot under the sun for daring to lay their eyes on you.

No one would ever be worthy of you.

“Define a while.” He said, “Years.” Jungwon tsked, he wanted to press further, demand the name of every fucking man who’d touched you so that he could pay them a follow-up visit.

Jungwon finally had you in his hands, and he wasn’t going to rush any stop along the way. “You’re fucking drenched, doll.” Lust rendered his voice and he dipped his hand under your thighs, spreading your legs wider before slipping his fingers through your wet folds.

Your head fell back and a moan slipped from you when he lazily played with your clit, circling and rubbing the swollen bud until your juices slicked his fingers.

Your moan is his new favorite melody as your orgasm floods your body, the taste of your energy tingling along his tongue like the sweetest sparkling wine. It nearly brings him to his knees, and he hasn’t even touched you yet, not properly.

Suddenly desperate for more friction, You grab Jungwon’s face and pull him into you, kissing him harder. You hear him groan, feeling him harden against your belly. "Jungwon," You whined, the last half of his name coming out with a shiver as he began to kiss your neck. Your hands dug into his hair, pulling him closer. "Stop toying with me."

"As you wish, pretty girl," He whispered into your ear as he slid his finger lower and into you. You were so damn hot and wet and perfect.

"Tell me this is all for me, Y/n.” He pleaded, stroking you while his palm grinded against your clit. Now that he could feel you, actually feel you, he needed to feel you come around his fingers as soon as possible.

“Tell me, y/n.” He growled, pressing a firm thumb to your clit, his touch as brutal as his command. “Yes—yes, Yours—It’s always been you.” The words exploded out of you, shaky, raw, filtered, followed by a needy moan when jungwon rubbed his thumb over you.

Jungwon smiled at that, dangerously beautiful before his mouth crashed over you, swallowing your gasp and ensuing moan when he fisted your hair hard enough to make your eyes water.

Jungwon pulled back enough so you could see him, and you watched as he shed his clothes, Broad shoulders, perfectly sculpted muscles, abs one could grate cheese on. Absolute masculine perfection. Your core pulsed as your eyes ate him up, biceps you’d like to bite on, a deep V-cut that led down his….Holy fuck.

Jungwon’s body could serve as the mold for greek god statue, his body was even more perfect up closer….and a long thick cock that looked like it could wreck you with little effort.

Fuck. Your mouth dried at the sight of it, thick, hard, with a bead of pre-cum glistening at its tip. The throbbing between your legs intensified until it was the only thing you could feel, hear. Jungwon moves to peck your lips, His grip on your hips tightens and he presses down, grinding his cock against your folds, rolling it in circles until your both gasping into each other's mouths.

“Y/n would be the death of me.” He thought, he’d had known it the moment he set his eyes on you and his prediction was playing in real life as he devoured you.

Four years of watching and waiting and wishing, None of that mattered when he tasted how sweet you were or felt how perfectly your curves fit in his palms, like you was tailor-made for him. It had all came down to this and it was better than he’d imagined.

Your arms wrapped around his neck, You tasted like honey and sugar, and at that moment, it became his favourite taste in the world. It wasn't a sweet kiss. It was hard, demanding, borne out of years of pent-up frustration and tension, but you matched him inch for inch.

“Fuck, look at you.” He says, rubbing his thumb over your bottom lip before trailing it down to the end of your shirt. Ripppp! Fabric gives way with a sharp, brutal sound, and you can only blink at him as he lets the ruined shirt fall from his hands.

“Before i take you, i need you to know one thing,” His one hand reached around and parted your thighs, slipping his fingers past your slippery folds. The other closed around your throat, He squeezed hard enough to cut off your breath for several beats before he loosened his grip. You gasped in a lungful of air.

Then he yanks you closer by your hair, a cry of pain leaving you until you felt his lips next to your ear, “Every inch of you…will be mine after i’m done with you.” Your cunt clenched around his fingers, “Yes.” You whisper.

You wanted to fill every inch of your soul with this man.

“Say it, who do you belong to?”

“You.” You moan out, “I belong to you.”

"That's right" Jungwon slipped his fingers out of your pussy and thrust them into your mouth. You could already taste yourself, the tension thick on your tongue. He hummed in approval when you licked your juices off without hesitation.

"I love how much you like your own juices. Maybe you'll lick them off my dick when we're done. Would you like that? Do you want to suck your come off my cock?

He could come just by watching this. There was a good chance he would say, “I want to worship you." You shuddered. And then he did, starting with your toes and working his way up your calves to your thighs.

Your fingers moved to his hair as he neared, and he stopped long enough to flick his tongue through the wetness there. You roll your eyes back so hard you almost see white.

Jungwon was taking his time—slow, painfully slow. You wanted him, Now. You wanted him inside you.

Without any warning, He slides two fingers over your clit, and then in one motion, he pushes one finger deep inside your pussy. Your back arches off the mattress and a strangled scream falls right out of you.

You try to close your eyes, but he grips your jaw harshly, angling your face so you have no choice but to look at him. “Eyes on me. Want to see you fall apart, want you to watch me finally fucking worship this cunt.” Jungwon pushed his fingers to the hilt and with-drew it slowly, yanking a loudest moan from you yet.

“Please…” You whimper, “I need….i need—” He pushed a second finger inside you, dragging them in and out. Enough to bring you to the edge but not enough to tip you over. “What do you need?” “I need to come—please, Won—”

You moaned, jungwon stilled. “What did you call me?” He lifted his head and you stared back at him, “Won…” You repeated in a whisper. Fuck. He exhaled a sharp breath before you dip your head back as he drags his fingers out and rubbed a lazy circle on your clit with his thumb before he slammed them back. You jolt, crying out. You hold the sheets while the other fisted his hair hard enough to sting.

“So hot and so fucking good for me.” You chase the building pressure. Rocking into his fingers and riding his hands with wild force until he pauses, leaving you breathless.

The wet, filthy sounds of his fingers pumping in and out of you told him what he needed to know. “That’s my girl, look how fucking good you’re taking me. Goddamn im proud of you.” He growled, looking down at the way his fingers disappear into your perfect cunt. “Come for me doll, Make a mess on my fingers, soak my hand.” You don’t hear him, because you feel like you could take his entire fist by now, that’s how wet you were.

And when jungwon curled his fingers just right—You clench around him hard, body tensed up as you go to close your legs but Jungwon’s other hand finds your thighs and prevents you from closing them. He slows down the pace of his thrusts and you physically wince when he pulls them out—You were so close.

He chuckles, and spreads your legs as open as he can get. He trails his wet fingers up your body before leaning down and spitting—right on your clit. Making everything slicker and dirtier, “Ask. Ask me to make you come. Beg for it.”

Then he gives you no time, no warning, again. And slams two—no maybe three fucking fingers inside you and starts pumping in and out, curling the tips upward, meeting every inch you alone couldn’t. “Oh—Please—gonna come.”

Jungwon’s mouth drops to your ears. “You’re gonna come for me, doll? I want to feel it. I want every second of your pleasure to belong to me. Say it. Tell me it’s mine.”

Your inner walls stretched around every delicious thick inch of his fingers. Your back arched off the bed, a moan spilling past your lips. Jungwon pulled out before shoving inside again, with the same maddening slow pace. His lips quirked with a smile as you lost all sense of everything around you, spreading for him, wide and eager. "Yeah, open those beautiful thighs. I want to see your pink cunt dripping for me. That's my girl."

Your breath hitched as he began kissing your inner thighs like they were your mouth, swirling his tongue, nuzzling his nose, making you open your legs wider. You grabbed one the pillows and moaned into it loudly. A hand reached from between your legs, grabbing the pillow and tossing it on the floor. “Look at me when i’m fucking your pretty pussy, doll.”

He increases the pace of his pumps while he lowers his head and sucks your nipple into his mouth. Jungwon groaned. You tasted even better than he’d imagined. He licked and sucked on your nipples while he savagely fucked in and out of your tight, clenching pussy. “No—please.” You beg, shaking your head, he’s been at it for god knows how long and you still hadn’t came a single time.

He grazed his teeth over your nipple. "You need to come? Hmm?" You whisper, "Y-yes." It came out as a half plea, half moan. You were wrecked. Hair a mess, your face streaked with tears, your skin slick with sweat and hot with arousal. His tongue, hot and wet, comes out and swirls around the pebbled flesh of your nipple, teasing you, and his fingers dig into your skin as he goes back for more, nibbling the whole breast.

Then he lifts his head and dragged his mouth on your neck until he reached your ear where he whispered, “Come for me like the slut you are.” Jungwon pinched your nipples and fucked his fingers into you with the hardest thrust yet, and you exploded, your mouth falling open in a soundless scream while your cunt strangled his fingers. Pulling him in more, he winced.

“Fuck—Cunt’s gripping me so tight like you don’t want me to let go. Yeah? Fuck, doll.” He watches as you shudder under him, your release slipping down your thighs and onto the mattress.

He didn’t give you any time to recover before he lowered his head again and gently scraped his teeth over your clit before he sucked on it. Between that and the finger fucking, You were dripping all down your thighs, and he lapped every drop up like a man starved. So fucking delicious.

Air fled your lungs when his tongue delved inside your slick heat as his head twisted, dragging a cry of pleasure from you as one fang grazed your sensitive nub of flesh. The strokes of his tongue were firm and determined.

He licked and sucked. “Shit, look at this, off-limits yet still dripping for me.” Then he feasted, feeding from you as desperately as he had at your throat. You were lost. Your body tried to follow, but the hands at your hips held you in place.

“Stay still. Let me eat, this is a twelve course meal—I won’t stop until i’m satisfied.”

Jungwon grabs your ass as he licks a stripe down from your hole, spreading them open with his tongue to find your clit. He rolls it between his lips, and finally finds a spot that had you bucking your face into his mouth. He pulls back just enough to say—“Want you dripping for me, soaked in every fucking drop.”

You whine loudly, “Gonna devour you, gonna kneel infront of you and eat you out until you can’t fucking remember how to breathe.” He growls into you, yanking your hips down onto the mattress with his strength, leaving you nowhere to go, all you can do is just lay there like a good girl and take what he gives you.

You screamed as white-hot pleasure blazed through you once more, Every thought and memory incinerated, leaving only mind-numbing pleasure in their wake. You come in a toe-shuddering state on his tongue, and jungwon wastes no time gulping it all down till his chin and nose is shoving into your hole, like he’s the one getting off of this. He pulls back to breathe, and gasps against your cunt so much you think he might actually suffocate. “Fuckfuckfuck, so fucking good—shit, baby.” Then goes back to dip his face into your pussy, enveloping all he can get with his mouth, You bet his chin is covered by your essence because he’s literally nuzzling his face into you. And your screaming so loud that you think you know your throat would be sore tomorrow.

You didn't get a chance to catch your breath before Jungwon draped your legs over his shoulders, went back to sucking hard on your clit, and you yelped at the overload of sensation. It was too much. You tried to pull away, but his hands clamped around your thighs like iron bands, forcing you to hold still until your body convulsed and came apart. "I said, eyes on me. All you need to do is watch me eat this beautiful fucking cunt until you understand just how much I want you—have wanted you." Jungwon growled.

All you could feel was how he was sucking on your pussy and thrusting his tongue inside you until your vision went hazy. You writhed and whimpered, sliding halfway off the bed—almost, until your legs on his shoulders and his crushing grip on your ass were the only things keeping you from falling apart.

You cry out—his name, you think and he groans against you like he needs this as badly as you do. He takes his time. Alternates teasing and giving. One finger inside you, Then two, Curled just right. His tongue never stops, never lets up. You’re shaking, begging, on fire. Your thighs tremble around his head.

As his tongue works you in destructive, tormenting circles, you feel his voice in your mind. “Am obsessed with this pretty cunt—Can’t—can’t stop, fuck—” Jungwon moans against you, drunk on you, the sound vibrating all over your body. He pumps his fingers with rhythm to his mouth, You’re close again—what the fuck—you don’t even know if your orgasm even stopped.

After another three orgasms courtesy of his mouth, You lose count, and even when you think you can't possibly come again, he wrenches even more from you.

"No more," You sob, unable to even prop yourself up on your arms to look down at him. Instead, you pull at his hair until he finally wraps his hands near your inner thighs, looking up at you, "But I felt you squeeze my tongue as you came, like you were milking it. My cock is jealous." He licks up the fluid on your thighs and groans. "Don't you want to feel me deep inside you? How hard and thick I am, stretching you, making you full?" Jungwon says, sucking your clit in a gentle suckle, and you cry out when you feel his teeth tugging your entrance, flicking and rubbing one last time before he pulls off of you with a wet pop after hollowing his cheeks around it at last.

Jungwon pulls back, finally releasing his hold on you, and the sudden absence of his touch makes your body feel weak. Drained. Like everything in you has been wrung out. You’re trembling slightly, breath uneven—from all the previous orgasms.

He shifts onto one knee above you, steady and composed in contrast to how wrecked you feel. Your vision is blurred with tears, lashes damp, the aftershocks of how good he fucked you still making it hard to focus. You can’t quite look at him properly.

“Eyes up here, doll.” Jungwon smiles wickedly, his stare burning into you and you meet his gaze. With one hand, he skims his thick tip, letting his hand slide over his cheft. He doesn't let you look away once as he works himself over. “Touch yourself, show me how you do it.” He smirks and licks your wetness off his fingers slowly.

You gulp and your fingers reach to your swollen pussy, you wince, You were so wet that your fingers were slipping. Then you slowly rub them in circles, the sound of your fingers working you open hits him first, then your scent—Fuck me. That smell—He can taste you in the air like he’s already inside you.

Your stomach ripples when he takes your panties from the floor, Jungwon grunts as he picks up the pace, angling his wrist and sliding the bunched-up panties up and down his shaft. “Tell me.” He grunted, “Who do you think of when your fingers fucking your tight cunt?” You shuddered as your head tilted back and your eyes fluttered close. “You.”

You hear jungwon moaning, the sound of his hands stroking his length up and down echoes in the room with your sound of whimpering. “What am i doing to you?” You moaned even louder, you don’t know when Jungwon closed the distance between you both and griped your chin in one hand, forcing your lips to part. “What. am. I. doing. to. you?” His voice only lowered further, “Fucking me.” you gasped. He was now close enough to smell your arousal and hear the slick sounds of your fingers sliding in and out of your pussy. “While I'm bent over the table and I can see you behind me in the mirror. Pulling my hair. Taking me from behind. Filling me with your cock."

You admit it, because it’s the truth. Every time Jungwon looked at you longer than he should, something inside you snapped tight. It made you want to cross the room and crash your mouth against his, reckless and unthinking, just to feel something real. That’s how far gone you were—crazy over him, crazy over this, crazy over whatever the hell he did to you without actually touching you.

It was humiliating. And intoxicating.

You never thought he’d drag it out of you like this, force the confession from your lips in such a raw, stripped-down way—but fuck, it was hot. The way he watched you unravel.

You didn’t care anymore. Not about pride. Not about consequences. You only knew that you wanted more. And more. And more. And fuck he wasn’t even inside you yet.

“You’ve got such a filthy mouth, maybe i should do something about it hmm?” Jungwon gripped your wrist, stopping your moments, forcing you still. “Get on your knees, now.” You did, who are you to disobey? You almost limp when you get and sink down the floor. Jungwon’s cock throbbed at the sight under him. You, kneeling on the floor with your legs tucked underneath you. Knees together, body upright. You looked so beautiful it made his chest hurt. God, he didn’t deserve you.

“I’m going to fuck you exactly how you need to be fucked.” He fisted your hair and tugged it back until you were staring up at him. “Tap my thigh if it’s too rough.” You nodded to which he said, “Open your mouth.” Jungwon slipped the tip of his cock inside your mouth, until he buried himself all the way down your throat.

“Fuckkkk.” His moan was rough, echoing through the room, Probably the whole damn house. He didn't care. The entire world centered on the feel of your mouth, the slide of your tongue as you kept moving your head, working him with artful perfection. But he kept myself still. he didn't tug on your hair. He didn't fuck your mouth. Not yet.

You blinked up at him, eyes watering at his size, he was so big you gagged with only half of his dick in your mouth. You trap him inside your mouth, flicking your tongue over the ridges of his digits, started licking and sucking—slowly at first, but quickly building up to a rhythm that had you bobbing your head up and down his dick. “That’s it, suck that cock like a good little whore.” He fisted your hair and used it as a leverage to yank you down on his length more causing you to gag as you hallow your mouth around his digits.

Slowly, he started thrusting himself into you, faster and faster until the only sounds were his ragged breath mixed with you chocked-gurgling. “That’s a good slut, good fucking girl—just there—shit.” He withdrew until just the tip remained and plunged down in one sharp thrust. You gagged again, new puddle of tears falling down your cheeks, the heat in your belly stoking hotter.

“Everytime i’m not with you, i want you to think about this.” He groaned, “You on your knees, gagging on every inch of my cock while i ruin your tight little throat.” You whimpered, your nipples and pussy were so sensitive and he started fucking your mouth so mercilessly, all you could do was try suck in breaths through your nose before jungwon bottomed out again. “Fuck doll, let me hear you struggle.”

You squirmed and tried to ease the ache in your jaw, but he was so big. Eventually, however, when your throat opened up, and he was able to slide even deeper into your mouth.

“That's it.” Jungwon rasped, “Every inch, just like that, i knew you could take it.” You moaned at the praise, You couldn't see properly through the tears clouding your vision, but the buzz between your legs had grown too loud for you to ignore. But you couldn’t as he slammed his hips forward so hard, your whole body jerked back at the impact.

You claw at his thighs, finally rolls his hips once, twice— and then, with one last powerful thrust, he lets go, coming inside your mouth. You choke, swallowing hard as his hips tremble against your face. “Good fucking girl.” Jungwon yanked himself out of your mouth.

"Your mouth looks so pretty full of my cum." He squats down, swiping two fingers across your tongue, dragging them over your chin and throat. He continues the descent down your chest, circling each one of your. nipples, leaving a glistening trail of moisture in his wake. "Bet your tight little cunt would look even better filled up."

He lifted you up and threw you on the bed, and pushed your legs wider with his knee. His hands come down to touch your aching, overstimulated pussy, and you jolt. Even the slightest touch of him is way too fucking much right now. You grip his biceps, “Please…” Jungwon laughs, low and vicious, “You want to serve me, doll? you want me to fuck you?” You barely nod, you catch a glint of smth dark in his eyes, as jungwon rubbed his thumb over your entrance, He smirked before his palm landed where his thumb had been. Delivering a sharp slap right to the centre of your aching core.

Your whole body jerked and you spiked with pain-pleasure so hard you instinctively tried to scoot away from his hold, but Jungwon yanked you to him by your ankles, glaring. “You’re so wet, baby. Did sucking my cock make you this wet? You filthy, filthy girl.” Jungwon removed his hand, “Who does your pussy belong to?” He asked, snd you whispered “You..” While griping the sheets so hard your knuckles turned white. “Say it again.” Jungwon said, and your voice broke out in a sob before he delivered another slap to your clit.

“Hmm yeah, That’s right, me.” Slap! “This is for all the times you ignored me.” Slap! “Fuck, you’re so wet, doll.” Slap! “All for me, yeah?” Slap! You were shaking, completely sobbing as razor sharp sensation spiked through you. “And this…” The hardest one of them all, the one which made you arch your back off the bed, Slap! “Is for driving me fucking crazy.”

A pleading sob fell out of your mouth when Jungwon yanked your head so that his mouth hovered near your ear “Tell me why i can’t stop thinking about you, hmm? What the fuck do you do to me, doll?” You shake your head, unable to form a response or make sense of the pain and pleasure ricocheting you.

“You’re mine, been mine since i saw you.” Slap! “You live in my head all the fucking time, even if i don’t want you to…And god, i want to punish you for driving me so damn insane. Every. Single. Day.” Jungwon’s low snarl rumbled down your spine and made your toes curl. You heard the faint tear of a foil wrapper, You didn’t say anything nor did you say a word when he positioned you over his cock.

You blink, looking down, your mouth sliding agape, gaze held where his cock is covering almost your entire stomach. “What the fuck…” You whisper, “Don’t worry, it’ll fit.” He gives himself a few long pumps, “Your tight pussy will take and love every second of it.”

He says then leans down to kiss your neck, “So, how much do you want, baby?” His lips brush past the corner of your mouth, “Seven inches, eight, or all nine?” He pushes inside slowly, the care and smugness in his voice sends a shiver through you. “All of it.” You say, your voice trembling with need. He slides in what feels like another inch, the stretch is so much it makes your head fall back.

“I can feel how wet you are, already soaking my cock with this perfect pussy.” He let you adjust first because Jungwon was so fucking big, it was literally painful. “Hold the sheets.” That was the last warning he gave you before thrusted inside, driving so deep and hard into your pussy with each upward thrust. You were so wet he slid in almost frictionlessly. He could feel your pussy stretching and struggling to take his size.

You cried out, Your mind emptying of any thoughts except the sensation of his cock pounding into you and the slide of his skin against yours. He captured your cry when he pulled you down and thrusted up. Your eyes snapped open, and your breath caught at the sudden stretch, pleasure.

The headboard of the bed banged against the wall with each thrust. Your eyes fluttered close from the sheer overload of sensation, “Gonna fuck you over and over until you’re so full of my cum, you can’t think about anything but me stretching you open.”

Your eyes flew open when jungwon gave your hair another sharp tug, “Open your eyes, Y/n.” His other hand gripped your throat harder. It felt horrifyingly right, like you were made to wear his fingers around your neck.

You were prepped enough yes, but nothing could've prepared you for what happened. He struck as fast as a viper, sinking his fangs deep into your throat at the same moment he thrust into you. The twisting shock of pain and pleasure stole your breath and fixed your wide eyes on the ceiling—his eyes burned through yours as he resumed his thrust, feeding his cock into you inch by inch until he was buried to the hilt.

He moved from your neck and tugged gently at yours earlobe with his teeth, “Whose cock, doll?” He asks, “Yours.” You whimpered and managed to say it , but even that faded into a string of moans when Jungwon picked up the pace and settled into a punishing rhythm. “Knew you’d take me beautifully, baby. You were made for this cock.” You’re close; He can tell by the way your writhing below him, by the way your breath hitches when the end of his cock brushes against your G-spot, by the way your face twists with ecstasy when he gets deeper.

He removed the hand cradling your head and slips it between you, thumb rubbing against your swollen bundle of nerves until your whole body is arching and your jaw drops. “Scream for me, sweetheart.” The wet and filthy sounds of his dick pumping into you was enough to let him know you were super close. But he wanted to hear you longer.

The volume of your moans grew louder, but you held back. “Come for me, doll.” His mouth grazed your lips, “And when i tell you to scream, I want you to fucking scream. Or i’ll bend you over and spank your ass raw until you beg me to let you scream.” A wicked smile replaces his expression when he feels you clench around his cock.

"You're such a greedy stut. Pushing me past my limits, making me fuck this cunt harder than I want to. You love this, don't you? Are you going to come all over my cock, Doll?” Jungwon snarls, You moan at the feeling of fullness, a small bulge visible on your lower stomach, poking out, Jungwon reaches and presses against it so hard, you cry out in pain. “Shit—look, so fucking full, stuffed full of my cock, you like this, don’t you?”

Your entire body tightens as you cry his name into his shoulders, nail sinking into his back so deep he’d be surprised if you hadn’t drawn blood. “Gonna fill you with so much of my cum it leaks out of your body—Fuck, you’re going to feel me tomorrow.” Jungwon pounded you into the mattress, his thrusts so rough the bedsprings squeaked.

A tingling sensation blossomed at the base of your spine. You reached up to play with your nipples, your breaths coming out in short pants. You were close. So close. You were going to—

Ring ring ring!

The ring of a incoming call stopped the both of you followed by a Jungwon’s voice. "Hello?" Your eyes flew open. You gaped at Jungwon, who stared down at you with a calm expression as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the call. “Yeah, what’s up? Yeah, No, she’s not here.” Your mouth falls open as realisation hits you—It was heeseung, your freaking brother and Jungwon was still inside you. On the other end, Heeseung’s voice is loud even through the speaker. “Why did it take you so long to answer?”

Jungwon runs a hand through his hair, forcing his voice to stay normal. “Was in the kitchen. Didn’t hear it.” This was wrong, so fucking god in so many levels but fuck you could feel every hard inch of him buried between your thighs. You opened your mouth to tell him to cut the call but he shot you a warning look and pressed the fingers of his free hand into your hip, silencing you.

“You guys good?” Heeseung asks. “She locked the doors?” Jungwon glances at you for a split second. “Yeah. All good.”

“And y/n?” Your stomach drops. Jungwon doesn’t even hesitate. “She’s asleep.” Your eyes widen instantly, and unintentionally you grinded your hips up, desperate for more friction. This was so wrong but you cursed your brother for calling at the wrong time, You were about to come. His eyes flared and his grip tightened before he slid out of you slowly. He muted his end of the call and hauled you off the bed with one arm while he carried his phone in the other.

"What are you doing?" You wrapped your legs around his waist while heeseung, on the other end of the line kept talking, Jungwon put you next to the couch. "Bend over and spread your legs.” Oh my god, why was this turning you on even more? You trembled but obeyed, placing your hands on the armrest, arching your back, and spreading your legs until every inch of you was backed up on him.

Satisfaction curled in your stomach when you heard his sharp intake of breath. There’s shuffling on the other end. “Already? It’s not even that late.”

“She was tired,” Jungwon replies smoothly. “Knocked out like twenty minutes ago.” Another pause, You could see your reflection in the large glass window opposite the couch, Face flushed, Your breasts hanging heavy and full, the bite mark he gave you, Behind you, jungwon stood, he tilted his head and gave your ass a squeeze.

Your soft moan turned into a squeal when he slammed into you hard enough that the couch scraped forward an inch. “Don’t make a sound.” He warned. Heeseung starts speaking again, “Alright. I’ll probably be late. Maybe morning. Make sure everything’s locked.” There was smth about this that was turning you on so much, maybe knowing that your brother had no idea what was happening on the other side of the call.

Jungwon’s thrusts picked up his pace until you were no longer gripping the armrest, your face buried in the cushions, your rock hard nipples and swollen clit rubbing against the fabric as he fucked you so viciously your feet lifted off the ground. All the while, he continued his call, taking it off mute only when he had to speak. “Yeah. Got it.”

You had no clue what they were another talking about anymore, too lost in a fog of lust to make sense of anything. An unbidden yelp erupted from your throat when he hit a spot that caused your back to bow. Jungwon fisted your hair and tugged your head back until you were half-upright again, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes while his other hand closed around your throat. A warning and a reminder rolled into one. Don't make a sound.

“And Jungwon?” You could hear heeseung’s voice, “Yeah?” You were trying your best to stay quiet, you really were. Another sob of pleasure, one that had Jungwon releasing your hair so he could cover your mouth and muffle your whines.

So wrong. This was so wrong, but you couldn't bring yourself to care as Jungwon grabbed your shoulder and arched your spine backwards, bending you nearly in half. “Mmhph pffh!” You moaned against his mouth before you hear your brother speaking again.

“If anything happens, call me.” A beat. “Nothing’s happening,” Jungwon says looking at the reflection of you in the mirror, Your cry of release drenched the air, but muffled by his hands as you came in a shuddering, toe-curling orgasm that vibrated against his body.

Heeseung hums suspiciously. “Okay. Night.”

“Night.” The call ends. The second the screen goes dark, he releases your mouth, “That’s the good girl, didn’t i tell you to not make a noise?” Jungwon fucked you harder, deeper, the couch screaming with protest—it had slid halfway across the floor by now, “Or did you want your brother to hear how good im fucking you.” When you couldn’t respond, he chuckled, “That’s right, i’m the only one who gets to hear how much you love my cock in this tight pussy.” Another louder whimper. Your cunt clamped around him even tighter than the first time, and a building orgasm ripped through him with such sudden, unexpected force it rendered him speechless for a moment.

“I’m the only one who gets to see you like this.” His voice turned harsh, “You.” Thrust! “belong.” Thrust! “to.” Thrust! “Me.” Thrust! He whispers low, You were on fire, skin blazing, tears and drool pooling on the couch beneath you, but it all burned so nicely you never wanted to stop and Jungwon didn’t, instead he kept fucking into you until your next orgasm rolled in. He feels so damn good, all hard and full and gliding in and out in confident thrusts that make you keen. Slower, then building up, up, up until it crashed over you.

“Such a good little slut, ass out, pussy filled just the way i liked it—damnit.” And when Jungwon finished with you, You’d come so hard so many times you were a boneless wreck at this point. You slumped forward on the couch, collapsing.

You both lay there, breaths heavy in the sudden quiet, before he pushed himself off you and tossed his condom in the nearby trashcan.

You watched him in silence, the whatever the fuck you did hitting you. You’d had sex with Yang Jungwon, Your brother’s best friend, your ultimate crush. Not just any sex, Hard, toe curling, brain-melting sex. Sex where you begged for more and more and still feel it in the after effects.

Oh my god. Your stomach dropped. What have i done?

The room is quiet in a different way now.

“She’s asleep?” you whisper harshly. He looks at you, then at the phone, then back at you. “What was I supposed to say?” he mutters. “That i’m buried balls deep inside your sister?” You shove his shoulder. “Yah!” He exhales slowly, tension creeping back in. “Exactly,” he says quietly. And suddenly the room feels ten times more dangerous.

After minutes of silence, The air feels different. The kind of silence where both of you are replaying what just happened, frame by frame.

You’re lying side by side, staring at the ceiling. Your fingers are loosely intertwined, almost absentmindedly, like neither of you consciously decided to hold hands. You clear your throat first. “So.” He huffs softly beside you. “So.”

You turn your head slightly to look at him. His hair’s messy, eyes still adjusting to the dim light, expression unreadable. “Do you regret it?” you ask, softer than you intended. He doesn’t answer immediately. Then he turns to face you fully. “No,” he says simply.

You study his face for signs of doubt. There aren’t any. “Do you?” he asks back. You shake your head. The silence that follows next is comfortable, surprisingly. Just two people lying too close, pretending their hearts aren’t beating a little louder than usual.

After a while, he nudges your shoulder lightly. “We’re still alive. That’s good.” You snort. “Barely.”He smiles faintly at that, and the tension eases.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

Morning comes too quickly and it’s worse. Not because you woke up alone. Wait. Alone? Was it a dream? Did you imagine the whole thing? What the fuck? Your eyes snap to the digital clock on the nightstand. 9:03. Shit. You’ve been out for too long.

You push the sheets off and sit up, moving slowly. You climb out of bed and head to the bathroom to wash your face, cold water helping you wake up. When you straighten and take a step, you immediately regret it. Because no—it wasn’t a dream.

The dull, aching soreness in your lower half answers that question for you. You try walking normally, but your legs feel weak, unsteady, so you end up limping slightly, putting more weight on the one that hurts less. Every step reminds you of last night.

Then you hear it—the faint clatter of dishes downstairs. And something smells good. Really good. You follow the sound and the scent, moving carefully down the stairs.

And there he is. Jungwon. In your kitchen. Shirtless. Cooking. Like he belongs there. You stop at the bottom of the stairs and just stare. Holy fuck.

Something shifts inside you—sudden. Like you’ve just unlocked a kink you didn’t even know you had. Because you can’t think of a single thing sexier than a man standing in your kitchen, bare chested, moving like he owns the fucking place. The slow roll of his shoulders, the flex in his back when he reaches for something—it does something filthy to your brain.

And it’s not just any man. It’s Jungwon. Which makes it ten times worse. Ten times hotter. Ten times more dangerous.

You shouldn’t be looking at him like this. Shouldn’t be imagining the heat of his skin under your hands while he stands there so casually, like he isn’t ruining you just by existing.

But fuck. He looks sinful.

The sculpted muscles of his back flexed as he reached for the salt beside the stove, every movement slow and deliberate without him even trying. His hair was more tousled than usual, soft strands falling over his forehead like he’d just rolled out of bed and decided to ruin you for the rest of the day. Sunlight streamed through the windows, washing over his skin and turning it into something warmer—bronzed, almost glowing.

A strip of black sweats sat low on his hips, just visible enough to be distracting. The fabric clung in all the wrong-right ways, riding low enough to make your imagination spiral straight into dangerous, very X-rated territory.

You watched him in silence, caught off guard by the quiet ease in the way he moved. There was nothing rushed about him—every motion smooth, almost effortless. You’d always imagined he survived on pizza and beer the way he did back in school, careless and lazy about anything domestic.

But this? This was different.

It was attractive. So fucking attractive. He was attractive. The kind that made it hard to look away, even when you knew you probably should.

Shamelessly, You ogled at his body, watching as the muscles worked beneath the skin. At least, it was shameless until he turned around and caught you staring.

He tilted his head when he caught you and let out a low chuckle. “Morning, doll.” Heat rushed straight to your face. “M-morning,” you managed, hating the way your voice betrayed you. Fuck my life.

His smile only widened at that—Slow. He raised a brow, eyes dragging over you in a way that made your stomach flip. “You look a little flushed, doll. You sick?” A pause. Then, softer—teasing. “Or was last night too much for you?”

The smirk that followed was downright criminal. God. This ridiculously hot, cocky, infuriating bastard. “Shut up,” you shot back, way too fast. “My vibrator does a better job on its lowest setting than you.” The words leave your mouth before your brain can catch them. Oh no.

Too much. Way too much information. And definitely too rude. Jungwon’s eyes blazed hotter, something sharp flashing behind them. “Oh yeah?” he says quietly.

He closes the distance in a few steps, stopping right in front of you. He looks down, fingers coming up to grip your chin, forcing your gaze to stay on him. “That so?” His voice dips lower. “Funny. I remember someone begging me let her come.”

Your eyes widen. Heat floods your face again as you swat his hand away and quickly move past him, hopping up onto the kitchen counter instead. You cross your arms like that’ll do anything to save your dignity. Jungwon just smiles. Not a big smile. Just that satisfied curve of his lips that clearly says, I win. God, he’s such a jerk.

He goes back to the stove like nothing happened, plates the food, and sets one in front of you before taking the seat across from you. The two of you eat in silence. He’s still shirtless. And you’re painfully, incredibly aware of it.

“So..” You start, breaking the silence. Heart beating too loud. “So,” he echoes. “That happened….” Jungwon snorts at that.

“Yeah.” You rub your face with your hands. “Okay, we need to talk.” His shoulders tense slightly. “About what?” He questions, placing his spoon down. “About the fact that you’re my brother’s best friend.” He winces. “Ah. That.”

“Yes, that.” He turns to face you fully. “I’m aware.”You gulp, “If he finds out, he will actually bury you somewhere.”

“Probably.” You nod seriously. “So we need… structure.” He blinks. “Structure.” You repeat, “Yes.”

“Are we starting a company?”

“Shut up.” You fidget with your fingers, trying to organize your thoughts, which are not cooperating. Because here’s the problem: You’re not pretending it didn’t mean anything. It did, obviously. And you’re far too gone to act like you can just go back to normal.

Because if this was what it took—if this was the price for him standing closer, talking to you like this, looking at you like you were something he wanted—then you’d take it. You’d take all of it. Even if it meant sneaking around. Even if it meant doing things you swore you’d never do. Even if it meant this could shatter you later.

You don’t care. Not when it’s Jungwon.

He’s been your crush for years, and somewhere along the way that harmless, stupid little crush twisted into something darker. Something heavier. You weren’t just into him—you were fucking obsessed. Obsessed with the way he made your stomach drop just by saying your name. Obsessed with the way his eyes lingered a second too long. Obsessed with the way he could ruin your entire mood—or fix it—with one look.

It screamed bad idea. It screamed don’t do this. It screamed you’re going to regret it. But you craved it anyway.

When did you get this far gone? When did wanting him turn into needing him? When did you start justifying every reckless thought with a quiet, desperate it’s worth it? Fuck. This is such a bad idea.

And the worst part? You’re the one that started this.

You finally turn back to him. “We should set rules.” He stares at you like you’ve just proposed a legally binding contract. “Rules,” he repeats slowly. “Yes.” He crosses his arms. “This sounds dangerous.”

Hey, don’t look at me like that. Yes, it was stupid. Obviously it was stupid. But “rules” after sex? That could only mean one thing, and you knew it. You knew it the second the word even formed in your head.

The only reason you were spiraling like this was because you didn’t want it to be a one-time thing. You didn’t want to wake up and have it reduced to a mistake. You wanted more. More of him. More of the way he looked at you like you were something he’d been holding back from touching for years. More of the way he made you feel wanted—like you weren’t just the annoying little sister in the background.

And the way he fucked you yesterday? That alone was enough to make your body crave him all over again. It wasn’t just physical. It was the intensity. The way he said your name. The way he lost control. That doesn’t feel like something casual. It can’t be.

But you can’t just walk up to him and ask him to be your boyfriend. God, you don’t even know if he actually likes you like that. Maybe it was just heat. Maybe it was just tension snapping after years of pretending it wasn’t there.

And then there’s the biggest problem of all. He’s your brother’s best friend. That fact alone should’ve been enough to stop you. Enough to make you back off, put distance between you, pretend nothing happened.

Instead, here you are, hoping these aren’t “rules.” Hoping he doesn’t tell you this can’t happen again. Because if he does? You don’t know how you’re supposed to go back to pretending you don’t want him.

You finally snap out of thought and reply back, “It’s practical.” He raises an eyebrow. “You’ve never been practical in your life.” You scoff, “Excuse me?” You raise your eyebrows, “You told Jake to shut the fuck up yesterday.”

“He deserved it.” He chuckles, shaking his head. “Fine. What are these rules?” You hold up a finger. “One. Only sex. Nothing else.” He studies you carefully at that. Just looking. “Okay,” he says after a beat.

“Two,” you continue, pretending your heart isn’t beating slightly faster, “no catching feelings.” That one lingers. Jungwon tilts his head slightly, then lets out a quiet laugh.

“You’d end up falling for me before I ever do, doll.”You narrow your eyes immediately. “In your dreams.” He steps closer, just enough to make it irritating. “You’re already halfway there.”

“You’re delusional.”

“You’re defensive.” You push his shoulder lightly. “Shut up.” He grins, but there’s something careful in his expression now. Because you both know the truth. This isn’t casual. It never was. You didn’t fight this hard for “nothing.” You didn’t spend weeks pushing and pulling just to treat it like a random accident.

Suddenly you blink at Jungwon and hold out your hand. “Pass me the pen and paper.” He frowns instantly. “What? Where did that even—why?”

You roll your eyes and click your tongue. “Just give it to me.” He reaches across the table and slides the pen and notepad over to you. His brows stay slightly furrowed as he leans back in his chair, arms folding over his chest while he watches you.

You don’t explain. You just start writing. Jungwon tilts his head, eyes narrowing as he tries to read it upside down. “What are you doing?” You ignore him, focused, lips pressed together in concentration as the pen moves across the page.

He exhales through his nose, half amused, half concerned. “Why do I feel like I should be worried?”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

Friends With Benefits Rules (According to Two People Who Are Already in Too Deep)

1. It’s just physical.

(No lingering looks. No remembering the exact way he says “doll.” Strictly physical. Obviously. Sure.)

2. No catching feelings.

(They both caught feelings years ago. This rule is decorative.)

3. No jealousy.

(If Jungwon talks to another girl, y/n does not care. If y/n laughs at another guy’s joke, Jungwon absolutely does not glare.)

(They both will fail this immediately.)

4. No sleepovers.

Unless it’s “too late.”

5. No talking about the future.

No “what are we?” No “what if someone finds out?”

(Denial is key)

6. No bringing up the brother.

That topic does not exist. The word “Heeseung” is banned within a 5km radius.

7. No acting like a couple in public.

No subtle touches. Just here and there sometimes…..is fine.

8. Most important rule:

If either of them says, “This was a mistake,” The other one is allowed to kiss them mid-sentence.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

Jungwon stares at the list like it has personally offended him. His eyes scan each line slowly, jaw tightening for a second before he suddenly lets out a laugh—head thrown back, shoulders shaking. A real one. Not the smug little huffs he usually gives you. A genuine, unguarded laugh.

And even though you’ve heard it before, it still melts something inside you every single time.

It’s beautiful.

He looks back at you, eyes still bright from laughing. “God,” he mutters, dragging a hand down his face, “this is going to be fun.” The way he says it makes you bite your lips.

Jungwon pushes his chair back and stands. You track every movement without meaning to—every step he takes until he’s right in front of you again. Too close.

Before you can react, his hand comes up and grips your jaw, rough, tilting your face up toward him. He leans down slowly, until his lips hover near your ear. The warmth of his breath sends a sharp shiver down your spine.

“Then let me add one more,” he murmurs. His grip tightens slightly, possessive. “No other man than me is allowed to touch you.” His voice drops lower. Darker. “Let alone even fucking look at you.”

You’re two people standing in front of something that’s already too big to pretend it doesn’t exist.

“I swear to God, doll, if I find out you’ve let some man touch you, I will deliver his hands to you in a box.” His voice doesn’t rise. It drops colder.

“And I do not. Fucking. Bluff.” He means it.

There’s no playful edge to it, no teasing smirk softening the threat. The kind that settles heavy in your chest. Jungwon wasn’t the type to make empty promises. If anything, he undersold what he was capable of.

He was crazy over you—crazy enough to rip the eyes out of anyone who dared look too long, or who had the privileges to even look at you. You were his. You had been from the moment he first saw you standing in your own living room, too young to realize the weight of the way he stared.

From that day on, something in him decided and you never even noticed.

You didn’t know that he kept track of you. Not in an obvious way. Not in a way that would set off alarms. But he knew things, things like your schedule, your friends or the names of people you talked to. He knew about your past relationship—every detail of it. And when he found out your ex had put his hands on you the wrong way? Something in him snapped.

He had wanted to kill him, actually kill him.

Jungwon was obsessed. Far more than you ever were. What you felt was infatuation, craving, heat. What he felt was possession. It wasn’t just obsession. It was maddening.

You didn’t know there were eyes tracking your movements, memorizing your patterns, noting who stood too close. They were his. Always his. And in his mind, none of this was twisted instead he called it romantic because he cared. Because he protected what was his.

Jungwon was a very, very dangerous man. You just had no idea.

You tilt your head slightly, forcing a small smirk onto your face despite the way your pulse stutters. “Jealous?” you murmur. “I’m pretty sure I wrote a rule that said ‘no jealousy.’” You look up at him, challenging.

God, you have no idea what you’re stepping into. This is going exactly how he wants it to.

Jungwon bites his lower lip slowly, his tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek as he studies you. There’s something calculating in his gaze now. Darker.

“No one is allowed to touch what I’ll be touching,” he says quietly. “I don’t share.” Your stomach drops at the certainty in his tone.

“Mmh?” you hum, forcing lightness you don’t fully feel. “And how exactly would you know who’s touching me?” His lips curl. “I have my ways.”

You raise a brow, scoffing softly. “What are you, a stalker?” He steps closer. Too close. His shadow swallowing you whole. “I’m worse, y/n.” Jungwon replies, There’s no smile this time. Just truth. His grip on your chin tightens, enough to hurt.

“Till then,” he murmurs, voice low and steady, “you’ll be my dirty little secret.”

His thumb drags slowly along your lower lip, eyes locked onto yours like he’s memorizing the way your breathing changes, the way your pupils dilate. There’s something possessive in the way he looks at you—like he’s already decided your place and is just waiting for you to realize it too.

“A secret,” he repeats softly, almost to himself. “Hidden where no one can see. No one can touch.” His jaw tightens slightly. “They don’t get to have you,” he says, quieter now. “They don’t even get to know.” The air feels heavier.

“And when I’m ready,” he adds, leaning closer, his forehead almost brushing yours, “I’ll decide what you are to me.”

He presses a quick kiss to your forehead—soft, almost tender. Then another to your lips. And just like that, he pulls away, leaving you there, breath uneven, head spinning. What the fuck was that?

You’re still trying to process it when his voice cuts through your thoughts. “Oh,” he says casually, already halfway across the room. “Your brother will be here soon.” Your heart stutters.

He glances back over his shoulder, eyes glinting with something dangerous. “Wouldn’t want him knowing what I did to you, right?” His gaze drops pointedly to your neck. You follow it. And your breath catches.

Your skin is a mess of marks—dark, blooming bruises scattered across your throat and trailing downward. Some are deep purple, almost black at the center, fingerprints of his mouth pressed into you. Others are red and raw, teeth-shaped crescents that overlap and blend into flushed skin. Faint smudges of pink and angry crimson trace along your collarbone, disappearing beneath the neckline of your shirt.

They aren’t subtle. They’re possessive. Proof.

Your fingers hover over one of the darker bruises, and even the light touch makes your skin throb. The marks continue lower, scattered across the curve of your chest, layered like he couldn’t decide where to claim you first.

Jungwon watches your reaction with quiet satisfaction. “I look good on you,” he murmurs.

Then he turns away again, leaving you standing there with your pulse racing and his imprint burned into your skin.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

By afternoon, the house feels different. It’s 4:30 in the afternoon. The sun hangs low. Light stretches across the living room floor in long rectangles, catching dust in the air and turning it soft. The sun beginning to dip. Evening inching closer.

You’ve both freshened up—covered what needed to be covered, fixed your hair. The marks on your neck are hidden under a hoodie now, though you’re hyper-aware of them, like they’re still glowing beneath the fabric.

When the door swings open and Heeseung walks in with his friends, their noise fills the house quickly. Laughter, them kicking their shoes off. Familiar chaos.

You’re seated on the couch by then, legs tucked under you, time to act normal. Jungwon sits at the other end, relaxed, scrolling on his phone like he hasn’t ruined you less than twelve hours ago.

Heeseung drops onto the armchair. Jay and the others spread out—some on the floor, some leaning against the wall. The conversation flows easily. You join in, teasing, arguing.

It feels almost normal. Almost. Jay notices it first.

The way Jungwon’s eyes keep drifting toward you, glance when you laugh, then a slow look when you shift positions, faint tightening of his jaw when you lean too close to one of the guys to hear them better. Jay catches it.

And then he catches you doing the same thing.

The way your eyes flicker to Jungwon when he speaks, the way your posture straightens when he moves, the way there’s a split second too much eye contact whenever your gazes meet.

It’s subtle but not to him. It’s obvious to Jay. Probably obvious to everyone in the room except you and Heeseung. Jay leans back into the couch, eyes narrowing slightly as he studies Jungwon.

“Hey,” he says casually, cutting into whatever story Heeseung was telling. “Jungwon.” Jungwon doesn’t look away from you immediately. That’s the first mistake.

Then Jungwon blinks and shifts his gaze to Jay. “What?” Jay tilts his head. “You good?” Jungwon frowns faintly. “Yeah. Why?” Jay shrugs. “You look distracted.” There’s a beat of silence.

Sunghoon snorts. “He’s always distracted.” Jay doesn’t laugh though, His eyes stay on Jungwon. “Not like this,” he says lightly. Jungwon’s expression doesn’t change, but something in his posture tightens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jay’s lips twitch. “Means you’ve been staring at the same spot for the past twenty minutes.” Your heart skips. Heeseung looks between them, confused. “What are you even talking about?”

“Nothing,” Jungwon answers smoothly. Jay hums. “Yeah. Nothing.” There’s a challenge in his tone. Jungwon meets his gaze, a look which means stop it.

Jay raises a brow slightly, lowering his voice just enough that it feels private, even in a crowded room. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Jungwon’s jaw shifts. “Nothing’s going on,” he repeats.

Jay studies him for another second, then leans in a little closer. “Right,” he says quietly. “Because the way you’re looking at y/n is totally friendly.” Jungwon’s expression hardens just a fraction. “Careful.” Jay smiles faintly. Not scared. Never scared of him. “That’s what I’m saying,” Jay replies. “You should be.” He leans back again, satisfied, but his eyes don’t leave Jungwon’s face.

Jay was a royal pain in Jungwon’s ass. Not just because he wasn’t afraid to push him—but because he was observant as fuck. He read people too well. And he knew Jungwon better than anyone in this room.

Better than you. And right now? Jay knows something’s changed. I mean, come on.

Jay had spent years around the both of you. Years of late nights, shared houses, random hangouts, He wasn’t stupid. He knew when something changed. And something had definitely changed.

He’d known for a long time that Jungwon had a thing for you, never obviously tho but it was there—in the way he’d go quiet when you entered a room, in the way his mood shifted depending on yours, in the way he watched more than he spoke.

Jay never asked him why, never asked him how it started, never even confronted him about it. He didn’t need to cause he saw it.

And, lowkey? He’d wanted it to happen. Wanted the two of you to just stop pretending and get together already. It made sense in his head. The tension had always been there, simmering under the surface. But wanting it and it being possible were two very different things.

Heeseung was a persistent bastard. Protective to a fault. A good brother—too good. The kind who would smile and joke around but would lose his mind if he thought someone crossed a line with his sister, you.

And if he found out what was happening between you and Jungwon? God. Jay genuinely didn’t know how that would go. Heeseung might surprise them. He might try to understand or he might not. It could swing either way.

And that uncertainty? That’s what made this whole thing dangerous.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

Two Years Earlier — 5:40 PM

The café was warm, The soft hum of conversations and the hiss of the espresso machine filled the background. You sat across from Eunchae— Your bestfriend, your ride or die, your unpaid therapist, your brutally honest voice of reason. She was sharp-tongued but soft-hearted, the kind of girl who would drag you for your bad decisions and then hold your hand while you fixed them.

Eunchae watched you over the rim of her drink, “So,” she sang lightly, dragging the word out. “How’s your undying, embarrassingly persistent crush on Jungwon doing these days?” You shot her a glare. “Eunchae. My boyfriend is literally about to get here. Please shut up.”

She rolled her eyes dramatically and took another sip. “Girl. We both know you don’t love him for shit.” You exhaled slowly, staring down into your cup.

That wasn’t fair…but it also wasn’t wrong.

Your boyfriend—Soobin was perfect. Four years older, mature, handsome in that soft, comforting way. Polite to everyone, the kind of guy parents adored and the kind of guy girls envied you for having. Hey, you did like him. You did.

He was sweet, you know, remembered small details, held doors open, texted good morning every single day without fail. So why did your chest feel so heavy?

“Don’t say that,” you muttered. “I do like him.” Eunchae leaned forward. “Like isn’t love.” You swallowed.

The truth sat ugly in your throat. You felt pathetic. Truly pathetic. Because if you were honest with yourself, you hadn’t started dating Soobin because you were head over heels.

You started dating him because you were desperate, desperate to kill whatever you felt for Jungwon.

You thought maybe if you had someone else—someone good, someone safe—your stupid, reckless crush would finally die.

But it didn’t. It never did.

Jungwon still lingered in your mind at the worst times like a reminder, his stupid comments replaying in your head and every time you saw him, that spark never faded. Now you were stuck.

Stuck lying to Soobin, stuck lying to yourself. Playing the role of a good girlfriend while your heart was somewhere else entirely.

“I’m telling him today,” you said quietly. Eunchae blinked. “You’re breaking up with him?” You nodded once. She studied your face carefully. “Because you don’t love him?”

“Yes.” A pause. “…Or because you love someone else?” Your throat tightened. You didn’t answer.

Eunchae sighed softly. “You’re not a terrible person for feeling things. But you are if you keep stringing him along.”

“I know,” you whispered. “That’s why I have to end it. He deserves someone who actually loves him. Not someone who’s using him as a distraction.” The bell above the café door chimed.

You both turned. Soobin stepped inside, scanning the room until his eyes found you. His face immediately softened into a smile and the guilt hit you like a punch to the ribs.

Eunchae squeezed your hand under the table once. “Do it clean,” she murmured. “No half-truths.” You nodded, heart pounding as Soobin walked toward you. This was going to hurt him but dragging it out would hurt him more.

You couldn’t do it in there. Not with the café buzzing around you. Not with cups clinking and people laughing and Eunchae staring holes into the side of your head like she was trying to telepathically force you to grow a spine.

You sighed and shot her a look. Will you stop? She raised her brows innocently. I’m not doing anything. Just two best friends sharing the same dysfunctional brain cell. But this wasn’t something you could say with an audience.

So you stood up, forcing a small smile at Soobin. “Can we… talk outside?” He blinked, confused but agreeable. “Yeah, of course.”

You didn’t notice the two dark eyes watching you from across the street, didn’t notice the way they followed every step you took as you led Soobin out of the café and into the narrow alley beside it.

You stopped near a stained brick wall, the noise from the café muffled now. Your heart was pounding so loudly you were sure he could hear it.

You didn’t ease into it. You couldn’t. “Let’s break up, Bin.” The words landed heavy between you. Soobin frowned immediately. “What?” He let out a small laugh of disbelief. “Wha—why? What happened? Did I do something?”

Questions spilled out of him fast. You shook your head quickly. “No. You didn’t do anything. I just… I don’t love you anymore. And I don’t think this is right for me.” Silence.

You stared at the ground because you couldn’t look at him. You couldn’t bear to see the hurt. The disappointment. Then you heard it. A laugh.

Low, sharp, wrong, making your head snap up. He was laughing. “What the fuck is so funny?” you asked, confusion twisting into unease.

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You fucking bitch,” he muttered, the word landing like a slap. “Who said you get to break up with me, hm?”

Your stomach dropped. This wasn’t him. “What—” You didn’t get to finish. His hand shoved you back hard enough that your shoulders hit the brick wall. The impact knocked the air from your lungs. Before you could react, he planted both hands beside your head, caging you in.

“You don’t get to walk away like this,” he said, jaw tight. “After everything I’ve done for you?” Your pulse spiked. “Soobin, stop. You’re hurting me.”

“Oh, now I’m hurting you?” he scoffed. “After you’ve been playing me this whole time?” You grip his wrist, “I didn’t play you,” you shot back, panic rising. “I’m trying to be honest.”

“Honest?” His grip tightened around your arm. “Who is it?” Your brows furrowed. “What?”

“Who the fuck is it?” he demanded, leaning closer. “There’s someone else, right? That’s why.”

“There isn’t—” He cut you off by grabbing your jaw roughly, forcing your face to the side. His mouth pressed against your neck—not soft, not loving. His teeth sank into your skin hard enough to make you gasp.“Stop!” You shoved against his chest, but he was stronger.

Across the street, hidden in the shadow of a lamppost— Jungwon saw red. Literally.

His jaw clenched so tight it ached. His hands were fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms hard enough to break skin. Every muscle in his body locked.

He watched Soobin’s mouth on your neck. Watched the way you struggled. His breathing turned slow. “You don’t get to mark what’s mine.” Jungwon said in a whisper. The word mine didn’t even feel wrong in his head.

Don’t go. Not yet.

He repeated it in his head like a mantra.

Don’t go. Not yet.

He had been following you. Stalking you like a fucking predator. He told himself it was protection. That it was because he didn’t trust Soobin…. but standing there now, watching another man put his hands on you— He didn’t recognize himself.

You brought this out of him. This violent, possessive, unhinged part. You drove him crazy. He wanted to walk over there and drag Soobin off you, wanted to slam his face into the brick wall until his teeth shattered until no one could recognize him. And he would. Just not yet. Because he needed to see. Needed to know how far it would go.

Jungwon pulled a cigarette from his pocket with steady fingers and placed it between his lips. His eyes never left you.

He lit it. The flame flickered briefly in his dark eyes. He inhaled, once. Smoke curled from his mouth slowly as you finally managed to shove Soobin back with all your strength.

“Get the fuck off me!” you yelled, chest heaving. Soobin stumbled a step but didn’t fall. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes wild.

“You think you’re better than me?” he spat. “You think someone else is going to want you?” Jungwon took another drag. Two. His gaze was no longer just angry, It was cold. His hands flexed at his sides when you stepped back.

“Oh baby… you’re gonna be mine soon.” The thought slid through his head slowly. He watched the way you tried to stay calm, the way you swallowed your fear and still chose honesty. God you looked beautiful.

“I’ll treat you so much better than he ever could”, he said darkly, eyes narrowing as Soobin’s hand grabbed your jaw. “Come to me, doll.”

He’d waited years. Watched you grow into yourself, watched how boys circled you like they had any right, watched you settle for someone safe when what you really needed was someone who would burn the world down for you.

Someone like him.

His gaze dragged over you like a claim already staked. “He doesn’t deserve to touch you. He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you.”

‘I’ll give you everything’ he promised silently from across the street. ‘Everything you don’t even know you want. I’ll protect you. I’ll ruin anyone who tries to hurt you.’

Soobin stepped forward again, but this time you shoved him harder, panic giving you strength. “I said it’s over!” you snapped, voice shaking but loud. Across the street, Jungwon exhaled smoke slowly.

His eyes darkened further. That was enough. And finally—He started walking toward where you were.

Jungwon moves before he can think himself out of it. He pulls his hood up as he steps off the curb, the fabric shadowing his face. Halfway across the street, he slips a black mask over his mouth and nose, fingers steady despite the storm raging in his chest. You can’t know it’s him, not like this.

He takes one last drag from the cigarette, smoke burning down his throat, then flicks it away. It hits the pavement and dies out. That was the last clean second of his plan.

By the time he reaches the alley, Soobin’s hand is still gripping your arm. Jungwon doesn’t speak first. He grabs Soobin by the hair and yanks him back hard making you gasp.

Soobin stumbles, dragged off you so violently he nearly loses his footing. Before he can even process what’s happening, Jungwon’s fist connects with his jaw. The crack of it echoes against brick.

“Why are you harassing a girl?” Jungwon’s voice is distorted under the mask—lower, not recognisable. “Did your mom not teach you anything else?” Another punch.

Soobin’s head snaps to the side, blood already blooming at the corner of his lip. You’re frozen.

You don’t know who this man is. He has his hoodie up and mask on. He slaps Soobin once. Twice. Three times—sharp, humiliating, each one louder than the last.

Soobin lashes out blindly, kicking at his leg. “What the fuck—who are you?!” he shouts, panic breaking into his voice. The masked man chuckles darkly, “Your worst nightmare.”

The words drip with something that makes your stomach twist. For a brief second, his eyes lift, landing on you.

You can’t see them clearly under the shadow of his hood, but something about them makes you visibly tremble. There’s no softness there.

Just rage, His hand lifts again like he’s about to strike Soobin harder— And then it freezes mid-air. Because you’re looking at him. Not grateful but terrified.

His hand slowly lowers to his side. Inside his chest, something drops. Heavy.

You avert your gaze first, heart racing too fast, breath shallow. You don’t know why your body reacted that way. You don’t know why those eyes felt familiar. Jungwon stands there, fists clenched.

You are aware that you’re the only person in the world I’d never hurt, right?

The thought burns through him. He could ruin Soobin. He could break every bone in his face and feel nothing. But you? Your looking at him like he’s a monster.

And for the first time since he stepped into that alley— Jungwon wonders if maybe he is.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

The room smells like smoke and rust. Soobin is tied to a chair, wrists bound tight behind him, ankles secured to the legs. His head lolls slightly before he jerks awake again, struggling against the restraints, panic finally settling in his bones.

Jungwon stands a few feet away, back turned. He pulls out another cigarette with slow, deliberate movements. Taps it against the box once then twice. Jungwon slips the cigarette between his lips.

Thumb flicking the lighter until a small flame blooms. He leans in, the tip igniting orange, and takes a slow drag. His chest rises quietly, shoulders barely moving as he lets the smoke fill his lungs. He inhales deeply, eyes closing as the smoke fills his lungs. He exhales through his nose, smoke spilling out in thin streams that curl around his face before fading into the air.

Then the chair scrapes loudly against the floor. “What the fuck do you want from me?!” Soobin shouts, voice cracking. Jungwon’s eyes snap open.

He exhales slowly through his nose, wincing at the volume. “Lower your voice,” he mutters. “You’re giving me a headache.” Soobin thrashes again. “You’re insane! Do you know who I am?!”

Jungwon lets out a quiet tsk, turning around at last. He walks forward unhurriedly, cigarette balanced between his fingers, smoke trailing behind him like it does in movies.

“You touched what was mine.” The words are soft. Soobin freezes. “What—what are you talking about? She’s not yours!” Jungwon stops directly in front of him and tilts his head, the movement is almost curious.

“How dare you kiss her in front of me?” he asks, as if genuinely confused by the audacity. Soobin’s breathing quickens. “I didn’t even know you were there—”

“Exactly.” Jungwon crouches down so they’re eye level. He grips Soobin’s jaw suddenly, fingers digging into his skin hard enough to make him wince. The cigarette hovers dangerously close to his face.

“You didn’t even know I was there,” Jungwon repeats quietly. The lit tip presses lightly against Soobin’s cheek—just enough to sting, to sear heat into skin without fully burning. Soobin jerks back with a strangled sound. “You’re fucking crazy!” he gasps. Jungwon’s lips twitch faintly. “I know.”

He stands again, dragging Soobin up by the hair this time. “I swore to myself,” Jungwon murmurs, leaning down close to his ear, “that I’d wipe out anyone who misbehaves with her.”

His grip tightens. “No one deserves her.” His voice drops lower. “Other than me.” Soobin looks up at him—and finally sees it. The madness in his eyes, If looks could kill, he’d already be dead. Soobin’s eyes tremble. Jungwon studies the fear for a moment and mesmerises it.

Then, without warning, he yanks Soobin forward by the hair and drives his knee hard into his face. The crack echoes in the room as soobin goes limp.

Jungwon releases him, letting his body slump against the restraints. Finally, he breathes out, closing his eyes. And there you are, In his mind. Smiling, laughing, looking up at him with that expression you don’t even realize you wear around him.

Jungwon could literally feel his cock hardening at the thought of you, he drags a hand down his face. Fuck, Even now, Even here. Holy mother of lord, He needed help.

Any sane person would’ve looked at him and said it outright—get therapy, get distance, get a grip. But not even professionals would be able carve you out of him. You weren’t just a thought he could untangle or a habit he could break. You were too deep. Too deep in his bones.

You didn’t knock before entering; you made yourself at home, fucked him from the inside out. And fuck—he never once complained. If anything, he welcomed it.

He wanted to kneel at your feet and kiss the very ground you walked on, like a worshipper at the altar of something holy and destructive all at once. You weren’t just a girl to him. You were his religion, his obsession, salvation dressed as temptation.

You were his and not just his in the way boys say it when they’re jealous. His in the way blood knows blood.

In the way a pulse answers another pulse without hesitation. It wasn’t possession born from ego—it was something darker, older, carved into him like a birthmark he never asked for but would never remove. Jungwon didn’t want you beside him. He wanted you intertwined with him, breathing the same air, thinking the same thoughts.

And the worst part? He didn’t feel guilty. He felt certain. Because from the moment you stepped into his life— You were already under his skin and my bro Jungwon had no intention of letting you go. His control slips when it comes to you. He hates that, he loves that.

“You could never be anyone else’s,” he mutters under his breath. In his world, it’s already decided.

You were claimed long before you ever noticed. Claimed by the devil standing quietly in the shadows, watching, waiting. And one day— You’ll understand. You’ll thank him. Because he knows the way your eyes look at him. He knows the silent I want you that lingers there. And it’s torture, absolute torture to stand there and do nothing.

Jungwon opens his eyes again, jaw tightening as he looks down at the unconscious boy tied to the chair. He flicks the cigarette to the ground and crushes it slowly under his shoe.

“Stay away from her,” he says quietly to the still body.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

Present — 7:02 P.m

You’re sitting cross-legged on your bed, back pressed against the wall, fingers nervously twisting the hem of your oversized tee. Eunchae is sprawled across your carpet like she pays rent here, chin propped up on her hands, staring at you with wide, impatient eyes.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “You said you had tea. And not normal tea. Not ‘I tripped in the hallway’ tea. So speak.” You inhale. And then you tell her everything that happened in the past week.

Jungwon. The sex. The morning after. The stupid rules you wrote like it was some contractual agreement. The way he looked at you. The way he—Eunchae screams. “FINALLY.” You flinch. “Shut up!”

“No!” She bolts upright, pointing at you like you just confessed to a crime she’s been waiting years to solve. “I have BEEN waiting for this day. Do you know how long I’ve suffered listening to you pine over this man?” You bury your face in your hands. “It was not pining.”

“It was pathetic yearning,” she corrects. “With dramatic sighing.” You throw a pillow at her which she dodges it easily. “And wait—wait.” She squints at you. “You had sex. With him. And then you made… rules?” You groan. “It made sense at the time.”

“Oh my God.” She falls back onto the bed beside you. “You slept with your brother’s best friend and your first instinct was to draft a constitution?”

“It’s called emotional damage control!”

“It’s called you being insane.” You glare at her. “You’re supposed to be on my side.” You argue, “I am on your side!” she says, grabbing your shoulders. “I’m just saying this was inevitable. The sexual tension between you two could power a small country.” You try not to smile.

She studies you more closely now, expression softening. “Okay. Jokes aside.” Her voice lowers. “Are you okay?” You hesitate before answering, “…I don’t know.” She tilts her head. “Do you regret it?”

“No.” The answer comes too fast. Then she flicks your forehead lightly. “Okay first of all, if he hurts you, I will personally ruin his life. Second—” she narrows her eyes, “—does he like you?” Your stomach flips. “I don’t know.”

“Does he act like he likes you?” He does, yes. “…Yes.”

“Then congratulations,” she deadpans. “You are in a situationship with unresolved feelings and sexual chemistry. Welcome to hell.” You laugh despite yourself. She bumps her shoulder against yours. “Just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“Don’t lose yourself trying to win him.” That makes you pause. Eunchae’s expression is serious now, protective in the way only someone who’s known every version of you can be. “You liked him first,” she says quietly. “Don’t let him make you feel small just because he finally caught up.” Your throat tightens.

“…You really think this could be something?” Oh, you had no idea. She smiles, softer this time. “I think it already is.” Then she grins again. “But also? If he fumbles you after all this buildup, I will expose him spiritually.” You shove her. “You’re so dramatic.”

“And you,” she says, pointing at you again, “are finally living your Wattpad dreams.” You both burst into laughter.

Your phone buzzes against the table, the vibration loud in the quiet of the room. It skids slightly against the wood before settling, screen lighting up. You don’t even have to look properly to know who it is. You unlock your phone, Jungwon’s name sits at the top of your notifications, Eunchae leans closer, practically vibrating with curiosity. “Well?” she whispers loudly. You shake your head, chuckling under your breath as you open the message.

Jungwon : Tonight, my place. Midnight.

You’d agreed to keep your communications short, to the point, and vague enough that if anyone saw them, You could explain them away with a creative excuse. His text met all three criteria, but still. What bappened to a good old-fashioned hey, how are you first?

You : Can't. I'm busy.

It was true, You were with Eunchae after all, you can’t just leave her alone here.

Jungwon : Too busy for an orgasm?

You : Your fragile ego

can’t take a no?

Jungwon : love how you keep running your pretty mouth, you know what i’d do if i was there.

You bite back a smile the second you read it. Your tongue presses against the inside of your cheek as you reread it, heat creeping up your neck. Eunchae watches your expression change, her grin widening instantly.

Jungwon : Tomorrow, 10 pm. My place.

Jungwon : PS. Your gonna pay for the fragile ego comment .

Then you see it, your phone lit up a new notification, your brows pulled together when you read the message.

Unknown : Hey y/n.

The area code indicated a Seoul phone number. No, it can’t be.

You : Who is this?

Hope, a bit of fear, and anticipation curled in your stomach. Maybe it’s an old friend. An eternity passed in the next ten seconds for the next reply to pop up, and it nearly made you drop your phone.

Unknown : It's Soobin.

Soobin. Your ex-boyfriend. How did he get your number? Why was he contacting you now after almost three years of radio silence? You never saw him after that incident in the alley.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

You shouldn’t have agreed to this. That’s the only thought looping in your head as you sit at the small corner table of the café down the street from campus. Your fingers wrap around a cup of coffee that’s long gone cold, condensation dampening the cardboard sleeve. You check your phone again. Three years. Three years of silence, and then suddenly— Can we meet? Just once.

You don’t know what he wants. Closure? Apology? The bell above the café door chimes and your mouth goes dry as you watch Soobin stepping inside. He looks… older, obviously. Broader shoulders, sharper jaw, his hair is styled differently than you remember, longer in the front. He scans the room, and when his eyes land on you, something unreadable flickers across his face before he walks over.

You force yourself not to shrink. “Hey,” he says, pulling out the chair across from you. “Hey.” Awkward silence stretches between you both, “You look good,” he says finally. “So do you.”Another pause, “How’ve you been?” he asks, leaning back slightly. “Fine,” you answer too quickly. “Busy, collage and life…you know, the usual.” He nods. “Yeah. Same.”

He studies your face in a way that makes your skin itch. “So,” he says slowly, fingers tapping the table, “heard you’ve been… around different company lately.” That makes you tilt your head, where did this come from? why does he care? “What does that mean?”

He tilts his head too. “Just heard you’ve been spending time with someone.” You stiffen. “That’s not really your business.”

A faint smirk touches his lips. “Just saying. Be careful who you trust. Some guys don’t show their real face until it’s too late.” Now he was getting under your nerves, surely he didn’t call you here to say this bullshit now, did he? Your nails dig into your palm under the table. “And you would know?” you ask quietly. His jaw tightens at that.

Before he can respond, the bell above the café door chimes again. You don’t look at first, bad idea, but then you feel it. You glance toward the entrance—And your breath catches.

Heeseung walks in first, laughing at something Jay says. Behind them—Jungwon. Jungwon finds your eyes meet instantly. They always do.

For a split second, his expression is soft, the expression he always gives you. Like he didn’t expect to find you here but isn’t unhappy about it.

Then—His gaze drops. To the man sitting across from you. Soobin’s back is to him so Jungwon can’t see his face but he sees enough. You’re with someone else, someone else.

You watch it happen in real time—the soft look drains from his eyes and smth darker replaces it, you watch as his jaw sets.

Your pulse starts pounding in your ears for no reason. “Soobin,” you say suddenly. “Yeah?” He blinks, “You need to go.” He frowns. “What? Why—”

“Just go,” you whisper urgently, standing up slightly. “Please. And don’t look back.” He stares at you like you’ve lost your mind. “What the hell is wrong with—” You shove his shoulder, harder this time. “Just go.” Your eyes flick past him.

Heeseung is scanning the café but Jungwon isn’t cause he’s busy staring at Soobin’s back like he could burn a hole straight through it. Soobin finally exhales in frustration and stands. “You’re unbelievable,” he mutters. “Go,” you repeat.

There’s another exit near the back of the café. Thank God. He hesitates for half a second—Then turns and heads toward it. And he doesn’t look back. You sag in relief, cause if Jungwon had seen his face—more importantly if Heeseung had seen his face—You know exactly what would’ve happened.

Heeseung would drag him down the street without thinking twice. Punch first, ask questions later and Jungwon? You don’t even want to imagine it.

You turn back toward the entrance just as they fully step inside. Jungwon’s eyes lift to yours again. Dark. Possessive, it reminds you of what he said that day. ‘I don’t share.’ You were supposed to meet him today anyway. Just not like this.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

You barely get a foot inside his house before Jungwon’s hands are on your waist, immediate, pulling you fully in as he shuts the door behind you. A small yelp leaves you, cut short when your back meets the door with a dull thud as the click of the lock follows. His body cages you in, one knee sliding between your thighs, spreading your legs apart with quiet insistence as he keeps you pinned there.

Jungwon buries his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling slowly, His breath is warm against your skin. Then his hand slides up, fingers wrapping around your throat, rough as they tilt your head back slightly, then he squeezes it, Your breath catches, lashes fluttering as the pressure builds for a second.

“Who was that guy, doll?” Jungwon asks quietly, His eyes catch the dim light, Your lungs burn just enough to make it thrilling, and when he finally loosens his grip, you pull in a shaky breath. Adrenaline rushing through your veins. This is exactly what you wanted.

You swallow, looking up at him through half-lidded eyes, feigning innocence even though you’re already falling apart under his touch. “What guy?” you ask lightly, provoking on purpose. Jungwon chuckled quietly and slid his hand down your body, feeling every curve. He's not doing anything yet, and you're already drenched.

"I'm not in the mood to play right now, doll," he said in your ear before gently biting your earlobe. Your eyes sparkled with amusement as you teased, "Jealous much?" However, your playful tone turned into a soft whine as you felt Jungwon's clothed hard-on pressing against you, causing you to instinctively lean back against the wall. His hands held your hips in place as he lifted your leg, positioning you so that you were practically grinding against him, unable to contain the moans escaping your lips.

"Yeah, I'm jealous, fucking hell, I've told you before — you're mine. No one is allowed to even look at your beautiful face," Jungwon said, pulling you close and deepening the kiss. Both of you moaned as he nibbled on your bottom lip. "This face belongs to me. It's mine to admire.” he said, moving his hips against you with each word. Thrust! “mine to kiss.” Thrust! “mine to fuck.” Thrust! “Mine to make a goddamn mess of anytime.” Thrust! "Mine to love and protect." You would’ve asked him what he meant by ‘love’ if you weren’t so soaked up in the moment of his hips as they quickened, bringing you both closer to the edge, you gasped, "Jungwon, please..." the friction of his cock pressing up against you feels so fucking good, feeling a mix of pleasure and punishment, he pinched your clothed nipples, intensifying the sensation.

"Every curve of you is made to fit into my hands. My hands and my hands only.” He lowered his mouth to your shoulder, trailed moist lips to the nape of your neck. "Don't worry," he whispered. "I'm made for your hands, too."

Jungwon then puts both of his hands firmly around your waist, his nails digging into your flesh so painfully that you know you will feel it the next day. He then quickly swings you around, slams your face against the wall, and his whole body is pressed on your back. You could feel him massaging your inner thighs with his cock. He was so damned hard, my god. There is nowhere more excited than the spot between your legs that's freaking pulsing. A small cry escapes your mouth due to the sudden jerk in your head as his hands grabs your hair and pulls you back.

“I should fuck you right here against the wall. Everyone thinks you like it nice but i know better. You’d rather have me tear you apart with my cock.” Jungwon’s voice is raw as he grinds into you. “That’s exactly what you fucking deserve. Maybe then, everyone would know it’s mine.”

He rasps, picks you up, pressing you even harshly into the wall. And this position…..his hands are hooked securely beneath your thighs, lifting you with steady strength. You’re pressed against the wall as your feet leave the ground, and your palms flatten against the surface for balance. You cling to it, fingers splayed, because the only thing holding you up is him — and the wall, which, you’re almost kissing by now.

After that, you feel him harden even more on your ass as he pulls you down on him. You let out a moan. "This shit is turning you on, huh?" He tosses you over his shoulders before you can even react. “Get on the fucking bed, your pussy’s been neglected for too long.” He drops you against the pillows, the impact knocking the air from your lungs slightly, then follows, bracing himself above you, gaze locked on yours.

Without wasting any more time, With quick hands, You find his belt and undo it, throwing it to the ground. He lifts your hips to tug your jeans and panties down your thighs.

He grabbed the back of your neck, pulled you close, and crushed his lips to yours. You wrapped your arms around his neck, your body warm and pliant against his as he plundered your mouth. Jungwon’s heart was a loud drum in his chest, beating in time with the throbbing in his cock. The smell of your perfume and the sounds of your little whimpers filled the room as you clung to him like you both were drowning and he was your last lifeline.

He parted your thighs with his knee, reached between your legs and hummed in approval when he found you slick and wet for him. Jungwon frowned the second you caught his wrist, stopping him mid-motion.

Then you moved, pushing yourself up slowly, pressing a hand flat against his bare chest and forcing him back onto the bed. He let himself fall, more surprised but went with it, eyes tracking you the entire time. You swung a leg over him and settled on his stomach, straddling him, your weight and your juices soaking his hips.

Jungwon blinked, not expecting it. A low, dark laugh slipped out of him, rough around the edges. “Shit,” he muttered, dragging a hand over his face before letting it fall beside him. His eyes trailed up your body, slow and shameless. “You drive me so fucking crazy, doll.” You held his gaze.

There was something about him like this — laid back against the sheets, looking up at you instead of towering over you — that hit different. His jaw tight, eyes darker than usual, lips parted just slightly. You can tell he’s controlling from fucking you so bad right now. But tonight, you wanted to be in control.

You tilted your head slightly, fingers brushing down his chest in a slow line, testing him, Jungwon swallowed. “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he warned quietly. You smiled down at him, all innocence and sweet composure. Jungwon’s head tilted slightly against the pillow, eyes narrowing in quiet amusement as a slow smirk pulled at his mouth. He didn’t say anything.

Instead, his hand slid down, settling on your ass. His fingers spread, warm and possessive, before giving it a slow, squeeze and—Spank! His palm landed on your ass with such harsh slap it made your whole body jerk upward, your tits bouncing.

"My dirty angel," he said gruffly. "Created to please and torture me. My heaven on earth." Spank! This one made your pulsating pussy throb even harder. “Look how pretty your ass is all rosy from my hand.” Spank! Jungwon said while looking at your reflection in the mirror placed infront of the bed.

Then his free hand slid down to your ankles, fingers wrapping around them before he gave a sudden tug. You let out a small yelp, your balance tipping as you nearly fell backward, but he was quicker—his hands moving to your back, steadying you before you could slip. In one smooth motion, jungwon adjusted his grip and lifted you, holding you securely as your body hovered above his.

You’re flushed a deep crimson, your pulse drumming in your throat as you realize there’s nowhere left to hide; because now he could see how fucking wet you were, Your legs shake, barely holding your weight, as your hair spills over your shoulders.

You look down, hair falling and you swear you just came right there on sight. Jungwon’s gaze is fixated on your dripping cunt like a man starving, like your his fucking meal. He looks hungry, lips already parted, tongue darting out to lick his lips before holding your legs, “Sit on my face, Y/n.”

He says licking your thighs, you whimper, “Sit that sweet pussy down on my mouth. Wrap those pretty thighs around my head and fuck my face, come on doll.” He growls,his breath gently caressing your bare cunt, you slowly lower yourself giving him time but jungwon holds your hips and yanks you down on him. And suddenly his mouth is everywhere— tongue pressing flat against your dripping slit, licking a stripe up and then down your clit, slurping in your pussy, sending your head back, whining.

He licks into you, tongue fucking you deep as he groans, You swear ur seeing stars. Your body tenses and melts and fucking bursts into flames because it feels so goddamn good, you don't even know what you’re feeling. But you’re feeling good, too good. Jungwon's tongue circles around your cunt, his grip on your ass tightening.

You were so close already. He slowed the thrusts of his mouth so he could reach and stroke your clit with his hand. You could feel his smile because his mouth was still buried in you, when your head fell back and your lips parted at the touch.

You were shaking, Completely sobbing as razor-sharp sensation spiked through you. "Who does your pussy belong to?" Jungwon removed his fingers from your pussy and squeezed your thighs. "You," You gasped, clutching the headboard so hard your knuckles turned white.

"Say it again." He said, Demanding. "You! My pussy belongs to you." Your voice broke in a sob as he delivered a stinging slap to your clit. "That's right. It belongs to me, and don't you ever forget it." Slap! He pulls back just enough to breathe, mouth shiny and swollen with your juices. He kept the pressure of his thumb against your clit and slid a finger inside your tight, wet heat.

Your mouth turned into a scream as his tongue licked against your aching center, from your entrance up to your clit, his mouth slowly engulfing your bud, sucking hard before slowing down again. "Did this pussy miss my mouth, baby?" You exhaled roughly. Jungwon flattened his tongue and licked you in a slow swipe.

You can't take it. The pleasure rolls through you; a pleased grumble vibrates in his throat as his tongue pierces you, sending you tumbling over the edge, crying his name. Jungwon’s breathes in you, “Can feel how wet you are for me. Such a pathetic little whore, wanting me to fuck you again. Was last time too gentle for you?" He flicked on your clit—"Jungwon—im gonna—" You cry out, arching your back as much as you’re able to, nearly pulling yourself forward out of the other Jungwon’s grip. “Come on my face, baby. Let go.”

Your mouth opens but no sound comes out but a silent cry. Every single muscle in your body is tensed up, like a metal coil getting wound up way past its breaking point—and your coming—squirting all over him—gushing down on his face as Jungwon growns and moans, nuzzling his nose in your clit. “That’s the girl, that’s my good fucking girl.” Jungwon coos proudly, his voice muffled as he drinks and laps every fucking drop.

Jungwon smiled against your wetness, his hot tongue twisting and circling over your pussy as he took a moment to catch a breath, moving his mouth from you to lick his lips. But jungwon? He doesn't stop, dips his head back into your pussy, your orgasm soaking his nose and chin, but he doesn't care.

Another lightning strike shoots right through you, as jungwon keeps fucking you through your orgasm with his tongue. Your cunt is fluttering around his mouth, still releasing your juices, as he slurps up all the liquid till half of his face is covered in your essence. His tongue moves with more intensity now, flicking over your clit in rapid, circular strokes before sliding down to your folds, his tongue pressing gently against your entrance, You shake your head, it was way too much.

“No—wonnie—too much.” Slap! Jungwon’s hand touched your heat in a smack again. “You take what i give you, you fucking bitch.” You let out a ringing wail, trying to scramble away and push back harder against him at the same time. You couldn't focus on anything, you only knew that you were dripping and burning and every inch of your nipples against the wooden board sent another jolt of heat straight to your throbbing clit.

"You taste so fucking good." Jungwon growled, You choked back a moan, still entirely too sensitive from your previous orgasm, Jungwon let out a string of curses as his teeth pulled on your cunt, “fuck fuck fuck, all mine—Can’t—so good—” Jungwon whimpers, actually whimpers. The overstimulation was finally starting to kick in and tears formed at the corners of your eyes as you cried out Jungwon’s name over and over, too dumb on his mouth on you to say anything else. When your words turned to silent screams and your pussy fluttered around Jungwon’s mouth, You look down at him, panting, trembling, his lips and chin are shiny with your orgasm and he brings his fingers to rub aggressively over your overstimulated clit.

He ran his finger through your folds a couple of times, thrusting against your clit and laughing at how your whole body jolted from the sensitivity. “Come for me, baby—” You flew forward with a startled yelp, coming so hard your whole body went numb. “Shit baby shit, so good, so beautiful. That’s it.” He praised, literally speaking while lapping up every drop. You’re full on sobbing now, but you can't hold back the way your hips twitch up and chase every filthy flick of his warm tongue.

“Yeah baby, grind on my face like a slut, ruin my mouth, doll—oh my—” Jungwon’s voice turns muffled when you sink yourself on his mouth all the way down to the point his nose and whole face is covered in you. He grips your ass, whimpering. “Fuck, y/n—Please—” jungwon whines while you ride your high again on his face, leaving him gasping for air and wanting for more because you’re both greedy and ruined.

Till the time you’re done, he’s fucked out. Breath uneven, eyes rolled back, tears at the corner of his eyes, mouth covered in your essence. He looks beautiful. You lift yourself slowly, legs shaking, your back arching as you lean down toward him. Your lips meet his in a slow kiss, and the faint taste of you lingering there makes heat rise through you all over again. Jungwon whimpers in your mouth—he’s ruined and so entirely yours.

You let your fingers wander over his chest, tracing idle patterns against warm skin before dragging them lower, over the firm lines of his abs. You stay seated on his stomach, legs hooked on either side of his thighs, keeping him exactly where you want him.

His hands come up quickly, gripping your hips like he’s about to take control again, fingers pressing into your skin. You catch his wrist mid-motion and slap his throbbing cock. Jungwon freezes for half a second — then a long, helpless whine leaves him, low and frustrated, his head falling back against the pillow. “Fuck,” he breathes, jaw tightening as he looks up at you. “What’s the hurry, baby?” You ask, a hard strike from your hand came in contact with his aching cock which bobbed at the impact, making him groan.

“Shit—please, doll.” Another slap to his member. A silent moan left his lips as jungwon started to grind his cock in your hand, the base of his erection rubbing on the bridge of your palms. Jungwon’s orgasm was approaching quickly. “Shit, baby—need to be inside you—doll.” You noticed the tell tale signs, with jungwon’s heavy breathing, his mouth hung open as he whimpered and whined, and how his cock twitched often.

“You wanna come inside me, hmm?” Your hands speed up your moments, he gasps, trying so hard to move away from your hands as you relentlessly stroked his cock, grabbing your wrist but having no strength to push you away entirely. "Fuck, doll—What are you doing to me?" You mock, "Making you work for it." He twitches at your touch, head rolling to his side.

“Tell me—wha—what I can do" you don't stop your strokes, "You can be a good boy and beg for me." He looks up with half-lidded eyes, “I want it. Need to be inside you so fucking bad. Need to feel how wet you are for me. Want to—shit want to see how you look when you come. And I swear to God, if you don't let me see those perfect fucking tits, I'm going to lose my mind." Your hairs were covering your breasts, you raise your eyebrows, “You didn’t say the magic word.”

Jungwon groans, “Fuck—i-i’m gonna cum, baby, please—” he rushed out to warn you. You smile wickedly, Something about him like this — under you, actually melting beneath your touch was turning you the fuck on in a way you hadn’t expected. He was usually the one in control. But right now? He looked wrecked, following every small movement of your hands.

The fact that you could make him lose it like this — make him whine, make him curse under his breath, make him grip the sheets instead of you sent heat straight to your cunt. You dragged your fingers lower on his tip just to see his reaction. The power shift was intoxicating. “Need to be in-inside—you, ffuckkk.” He chokes out a long whimper, “Say it like you mean it, wonnie.” You teased, hands wrapped tight around his dick to stop hin from coming. His voice cracks and he whimpers, eyes pleading.

“Need you—baby right now….need to make you come over and over again. Need you to ride me until I'm a fueking mess beneath you. Lemme feel how tight you are, how wet your cunt is—please” He chokes up, his cock clenching around your hands, milking him again with a loud, broken sob. “Let me taste you until you're shaking and screaming. Let me fuck you until I'm so deep inside you that we both forget who we are. Use me. Let me ruin you—or just ruin me. I don't fucking care. Just let me in."

“You can do more better, pretty boy.” Jungwon cries out, fucking cries out—a raw, guttural sound ripped straight from his chest, as his knot swells and locks him in place. “Please—please let me inside you please please—miss—please, i can’t ffuck—” You moan softly at his begging, his whines sending you to subspace. “Please please pleaseeee—wan-wanna cum inside you. Need you in me, d-doll please.” He sobs out between ragged breaths. “Fuck me, you’re gonna fuck me so well, doll—please—aren’t you?” Getting too impatient yourself, your tight pussy finally sinks down onto his cock in one powerful thrust.

Jungwon screams, stars shooting behind his eyes at the raw feeling of his dick inside your cunt. It was so good. You moan softly at the feeling of fullness, “Umm—wonnie—” You say, sitting up and arching your back to give him the view of a lifetime. Then slowly, you pull yourself up, he watches the way his dick spills out of your sweet cunt and you slam down in one thrust, your breasts flying up cus of the impact. “Shi—yes, Ride my dick baby.” He says with half parted lips, hands holding your hips while you start bouncing on his cock. Up. down. up. down.

Jungwon was so big and filled up your tight hole so well, your hands balanced themselves perfectly on his toned chest as you quicken your pace. Your mouth finds his chest, sucking and nibbling at his nipples, ripping the most pathetic whine you have ever heard out of him. His hips thrust upwards, looking for friction when you slow down. He looks up, eyes watering. You reached for his hand, resting it on the bulge on your stomach as you moved on him, the sight was driving him closer to his release, “Fuckk—look at those pretty tits bouncing for me—wanna breed you baby, pleaseee.” Jungwon lets out a low groan, nails digging into your hips so he can keep you there.

You roll your hips like a pro, thrusts get sloppier, moans louder, and when your mouth crashes into his, you slow down, shuddering and cursing as he throbs inside of you as Jungwon comes in thick spurts of cum inside you, his feet and legs shaky from his release. “Wonnie—!” You mouth opens in a whine as he holds your hips up and drags you down on him again and again and again until your seconds away from coming all over once, until your arousal was splattering over Jungwon’s stomach.

“Shit—yeah gonna breed this pussy—doll.” He moans as his lips latch on one of your nipples, sucks on it for god knows how long and lets go with a wet pop. You lifted your hips until you were halfway up his cock slowly, body shaking the entire way. Jungwon thrusted upwards so he was fully inside you again.

At the same time, he straightens abruptly, one arm wrapping behind your back as he turns you over in a single fluid shift, reversing your positions, flipping the balance of control effortlessly. He shoves your head down onto the mattress, yanks your ass up in air only to push your knees forward, bending you in half. Jungwon watch you from behind, fucking mesmerized.

“Such a tight little pussy this is, Y/n. All for me.” He pants near your ear, sliding back until the tip remains and plunged back in, Sweat beaded his skin, falling on your back. Your pussy clenched around him involuntarily, still pulsing from your release, He set a brutal pace. His hips pistoned forward relentlessly, the bed creaks under you both, along with banging of the headboard—thud, thud, thud. “Did you like me begging for you, hmm? You think you can get under my skin, huh?” You clutch the sheets, “hngh-oh my-God, please—Jungwon.”

The sound of skin slapping echoes the room, “Please what? want me to go harder? want me to breed this cunt? want me to fuck you so deep you feel me in your fucking throat?” He rasps, pounding into you as each thrust of his hips makes your body go up, up, and up. Jungwon leans down, his weight pressing you deeper into the mattress, as he reaches around to rub your clit.

“Going around meeting other guys, do you think i don’t know what game you’re playing?” You shake your head before you could form a coherent response his cock drags along your g-spot, making both of you moan out. You were in such euphoria that all of the pleasure almost hurt. Your hips bucked wildly on their own towards jungwon.

“It's my cock you come all over. Even when you wanna meet other guy’s. It's my name you fucking scream.” Every word makes you grip his hands behind tighter, the angle, the frustration, the control, he's destroying you. “And don’t let me find out who he was in the wrong way, doll. You won’t like what that’ll turn me into.” Jungwon growled. His hips never faltered, pistoning forward with that relentless force, thick shaft dragging along your inner walls.

Every withdrawal pulled a whine from you, your pussy clenching greedily around the retreating length, only to be slammed back full when he buried himself to the hilt. “Would fuck you anywhere in this house. Every room, even your brother’s…You’d probably enjoy that, wouldn’t you?” his arm wrapped tightly around your waist, “Answer me, doll.”

“Yes—Jung—wo-won, please…wanna c—cum, cum inside me, wanna be full.” Jungwon’s expression turns feral, God he loves you so much. “Yeah? can’t even talk properly, so cock hungry on my dick, you forgot how to speak huh? Fucking slut.” You nod, and when he hits your g-spot again, you both come at the same time, his seed spilling inside you, dripping down your thighs as he pulls back then says, “All mine.” before shoving his cum back inside you till he’s satisfied you’ve taken all of it.

Jungwon pulls out, the sudden loss of him making your body tip forward. Your arms give out as you drop onto the bed, sheets twisting beneath you while his grip slips from your skin. The mattress dips as he shifts back, leaving you sprawled there, breath uneven, warmth lingering where he’d just been.

Jungwon waits until your breathing steadies, the he gets up from the bed, He disappears briefly, returning with something warm and damp, kneeling beside you on the bed. His touch is careful as he cleans you up. He doesn’t say much, just a quiet “Hold on,” when you shift.

The contrast almost makes you laugh because minutes ago, he was rough, fucking you like a beast now he’s gentle. That’s why you love him.

No matter how he is with everyone else, how rough around the edges whether it’s the way he talks, or the way he takes over when he wants something — he’s never careless with you when it matters.

There’s a difference, with everyone else, he’s confident….almost intimidating you could say. But with you, in the normal moments — the in-between ones, he’s careful, he checks in. Jungwon has always payed attention to small things. He adjusts without you asking.

God. You love this man and he doesn’t even know it. Not yet.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

This went on for days. Then weeks and within a blink of an eye, a month had passed. A whole month of Jungwon.

A month of tangled sheets, late nights, rushed kisses against closed doors. A month of him fucking you like he’d memorized every inch of your body. A month of sex that didn’t just feel good in the moment, it stayed in the aftereffects, in the way you walked the next day.

Everything felt right but wrong in a way you couldn’t fucking explain. It was good, duh, obviously it was good. Yet something underneath it all felt off. Jungwon wasn’t distant exactly.

He still replied when you texted. Still showed up when you asked him to come over. Still met you halfway when you both decided to sneak out for late drives or stupid midnight convenience store runs but he never texted first anymore, not once.

At first, you told yourself you were overthinking it. Maybe he was busy, maybe smth was stressing him out or maybe he just wasn’t the texting type. But a week passed, then another. No random “what are you doing?” No teasing messages. No late-night “come over.”

Almost like a ghost and that’s when it started crawling under your skin. Did he get bored already? No. That couldn’t be it.

You refused to let your brain settle on that explanation cus hey….you knew what you had. You felt it every time he touched you, every time he pulled you close and muttered “good girl” against your ear, everytime he whispered that you were his, that you belonged to him. People don’t say shit like that and just… get bored. Right?

You still felt him sometimes, phantom touches, his hands on your waist, the weight of him behind you. The feel of his length hitting every spot inside you that curled your toes, the sound of his voice low in your ear.

Fucking bastard, all those promises said in the dark, just to pull back like this? No. He didn’t disappear. He’s just busy. You repeated it so often it started sounding believable. Your brother, on the other hand, wasn’t buying any of it.

Heeseung had been watching you sensed it when he looked between the two of you more now, or the way he’d go quiet mid-conversation if the two of you stood too close.

Fuck he even confronted yoy about it one evening when you were sprawled across the couch scrolling while your mom moved around the kitchen, the smell of dinner filling the house. Heeseung dropped down on the armrest beside you, crossing his arms.

“So,” he started casually. You didn’t look up. “So what?” You said, “What’s going on between you and Jungwon?” Your head snapped up so fast you nearly choked on air. “Wh—what? Nothing’s going on.” He stared at you, unimpressed. “Yeah,” he scoffed. “Sure. And I’m a ballerina.”

“You’re actually insane.” You rolled your eyes, trying to look offended instead of exposed. “Am I?” he shot back. “Because you two look at each other like you’re hiding a body somewhere.”

Your stomach dropped. God please don’t catch on. “That’s dramatic,” you muttered. He leaned closer, lowering his voice just enough so your mom wouldn’t hear. “If he’s fucking around with you, I swear to God—”

“Relax,” you cut him off quickly, heart pounding for a completely different reason now. “Nothing’s happening.” He studied your face, “Don’t forget that you grew up infront of me, y/n. We both know you can’t lie for shit.” He said flatly making you force a laugh. “You’re paranoid.”

But when he finally stood up and walked away, the room didn’t feel normal anymore. Because if Heeseung was noticing? Then something had definitely changed. And you had no fucking clue whether Jungwon was pulling away… or preparing to walk…away??

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯—

On the other side of this mess, Jungwon wasn’t handling it any better. If anything, he was spiraling. The silence he forced on himself felt like withdrawal. His mind wouldn’t shut the fuck up. Every quiet second was filled with you — the absence of your touch, the absence of your laugh, the absence of the way you’d look at him like he was something worth choosing.

He hadn’t realized how used to you he’d gotten. Used to you sitting too close, used to your hands on him, used to your voice softening whenever you moaned his name, used to the way your eyes would blink up at him — beautiful in a way that made his chest tighten.

He was starving, starving to see you, starving to hear your voice, starving in ways that had nothing to do with sex — though God knew he missed that too, missing being inside you, missed the way you’d fall apart under him, the way you’d cling to him like he was the only solid thing in the room but it wasn’t just physical.

It was you and that was the fucking problem. He knew the second he crossed that line with you — really crossed it — that there was no heaven waiting for him, not after the things he thought about when it came to you, not after the way he wanted to keep you, posses you, mark you as his in ways that went far beyond logic.

If he was going to hell, fine, as long as you ruled beside him. That was the sick part. But this feeling growing in his chest now? It wasn’t just lust or anything nor was it ego. It was something heavier.

He realized it when Jay said it out loud. “Bro, I think you should stop meeting y/n.” The words hit harder than expected. Jungwon had told Jay everything, not the details but enough. Enough to admit he liked you, that it wasn’t just messing around. That it had gone too far. Jay didn’t judge him. If anything, he looked almost serious.

“You need to tell her,” Jay had said. “Before it turns into something ugly. If you love her, say it.” Love damn the word stuck…and then Heeseung made it worse cause Heeseung didn’t yell or threaten. That would’ve been easier. He just looked at him.

“Stay away from my sister.” How the fuck was he supposed to ignore that? Heeseung wasn’t just your brother, He was his hyung, his friend, the person who had trusted him enough to bring him into his house, into his family.

“Y/n is too good for you,” Heeseung said quietly. “Too innocent for this world. You know she’s different than us.” Jungwon’s jaw clenched so tight it hurt. “Yes, hyung.”

He saw it then — the way hope drained from his own reflection in Heeseung’s eyes, the way something darker replaced it. Heeseung sighed, running a hand through his hair. “As much as I hate admitting it… she’s never been as happy as she is with you. Do you get what that means?”

He did. He understood the second you told him you trusted him with everything, the second you fell asleep against him without hesitation, the second you looked at him like he wasn’t dangerous.

“Jungwon,” Heeseung continued, softer now. “I’m not trying to tear you apart. But she’s too real for this world. Too sensitive.”

Jungwon nodded. He knew. That was exactly why he was stepping back. Because you weren’t built for half-love. You weren’t built for secrecy and control and the darkness that followed him around like a shadow. You were made to be loved—and he did, honestly. But jungwon was dangerous.

He was selfish, Obsessive, possessive in ways that scared even him. He closed his eyes and there you were again. Always there, in every fucking thought, in every quiet moment, in every decision he tried to make without you.

How was he supposed to stop? How do you stop loving someone after four years of watching them grow? After memorizing their habits? After noticing the way they frown when they’re concentrating or the way they laugh when they’re actually happy?

There was no going back from a girl like you.

Jungwon was dangerous. He knew that. He carried darkness comfortably throughout his entire life that he could live with it.

You, on the other hand, felt like smth untouched. Not weak, but genuine. Soft in the ways that mattered, honest in ways he had forgotten how to be.

Two worlds that were never meant to collide. And yet you did like fate didn’t give a damn. You walked into his life and ruined him without even trying.

Now he was stuck between two choices: Let you go and feel like he was tearing his own skin off. Or keep you and risk destroying something pure with his own hands. The worst part? He didn’t know which option was more selfish cause no matter how much he tried to convince himself he was protecting you… Every night, he still reached for his phone, still typed your name only to erase it before hitting send.

And tonight, Jungwon was going to confront you. He was going to stand in front of you and finally say every fucked-up, buried, aching thing he’d been swallowing for years. He was going to tell you how you ruined him in the best and worst ways, how loving you felt like setting himself on fire just to keep you warm and then he was going to walk away from your life… probably.

Probably. Because even as he rehearsed the goodbye in his head, he knew he was a liar.

Walking away didn’t mean disappearing. It didn’t mean not knowing where you were, who you were with, whether you were smiling or crying. He’d still keep track of you, quietly, from a distance. Making sure you were safe, making sure no one ever hurt you. He’d never stop watching over you — even if he had to do it in silence.

He told himself it was for your own good. That you deserved something softer. Someone who wouldn’t drag you into the dark with him.

But God, the thought of you moving on — of you laughing with someone else, letting someone else hold you made something feral twist inside his chest.

Tonight he’d confess, tonight he’d break both your hearts. And tomorrow… he’d pretend he could survive it.

It had been raining since evening.

The news had predicted it in the morning, so you stayed in all day, curled up in your room while the sky turned darker by the hour. By midnight the rain hadn’t slowed. It poured even more, tapping against your windows, sliding down the glass in restless streams. The whole house smelled like wet soil drifting in through the cracks — your favorite smell in the world. Earthy.

Heeseung was out, probably yelling at his screen while playing his shitty Valorant with his friends. It was almost 12:30. You yawned, rubbing your eyes, staring out at the streetlights blurring under the rain. For a second, you wondered what Jungwon was doing.

And then the doorbell rang making you frown, “Who the hell…?” You didn’t think much of it. Probably Heeseung, forgetting his keys like always. You walked downstairs slowly, the house dim and quiet. You unlocked the door and pulled it open.

You blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. Your mouth fell open, there he was—Jungwon stood there.

Soaked, his hair plastered to his forehead, his shirt clinging to his skin. Rain dripping from his jaw. His chest rising slowly, heavily but it was his eyes that made your stomach tighten. Dark under the rain.

“Jungwon—” Before you could finish, his hand wrapped around your wrist and he pulled you outside. The door shut behind you with a sharp click. The rain swallowed the world.

You stood there, breath caught, as his hands slid to your waist. Like if he loosened his grip for even a second, you’d disappear. Rain soaked through your clothes instantly. You didn’t move, didn’t protest. You missed him, you missed him so goddamn much.

His fingers traced up your arms slowly,sending shivers down your spine. Even through the cold rain, his touch burned. Jungwon pressed his forehead to yours, his breath ghosting your lips.

He inhaled deeply, like he could still smell you through the storm. “Tried…” he muttered. You swallowed, gripping his wrists. “Jungwon, we need to get inside—” His hand tightened around your wrist just enough to make you hiss. “Tried so fucking hard to stay away from you.”

The rain fell harder, as if the sky wanted to drown the moment. You both stood there like a tragic love story with no ending written. His heart pounded so loud you could feel it through his chest. He looked at you like he was memorizing you — like this was the last time.

“Then why are you avoiding me?!” you demanded, voice shaking. He let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, bitter, broken. “Because I can’t have you,” he said. “I’m forcing myself to keep away. Starving myself of you because I’m not good enough. Even though all I want— all I need— is for you to run into my arms… I have to keep my distance.”

Your chest cracked open, you looked at him in his eyes, the ones you found beautiful and fell in love with shimmered with tears before they hardened—and your hope died.

“You’re selfish.” The word hit you harder than the rain. “What?” you whispered, where did this even come from? “You’re selfish,” he repeated, eyes burning. “Because you look at me like I’m something worth saving and you keep choosing me when you deserve better and how you’d follow me straight to hell if I asked you to. That’s selfish. You don’t get to throw your life away on someone like me.”

What the fuck was he saying? After weeks of no contact, this was the first shit that came out of his mouth? That was his grand return? Not an apology, or an explanation, not even a simple “I missed you.” Just this cryptic, self-sacrificing bullshit that didn’t even make sense.

You stare at him like he’d lost his damn mind. He disappears, leaves you checking your phone like an idiot, leaves you replaying every touch, every word, every “you’re mine” he whispered against your skin and now he stands in front of you acting like he’s some tragic hero trying to save you from himself? Save you from what? From loving him? From choosing him?

You felt your chest tighten, anger mixing with hurt until you couldn’t tell which one was stronger.

“Me? Selfish?” you shouted, tears mixing with rain. “I choose you. I always choose you. I’m still choosing YOU! I gave up everything for you — because of you! and you’re calling me selfish?!”

“I didn’t tell you to,” Jungwon snapped. Silence crashed down between you….His words made you laugh— a broken, disbelieving sound. if he was going to walk away, fine. At least have the guts to say it straight. Don’t act like you’re doing this for me when you’re the one who pulled me into this mess in the first place.

After everything — after the way he held you like you were the only thing keeping him sane, this was what you got?

Jungwon stood in front of you, still holding your hands in his. His heart pounded so violently it felt like a drum echoing through the storm, and for a second he swore he could hear yours too — matching it, beat for beat. Maybe you were the same rhythm, maybe you were the same damn heart split into two bodies, forced to stand on opposite sides of a line neither of you drew.

Well at least he knew you were the beat to his heart. You were in his blood, beating in his fucking chest like you owned it. The only way you’d ever leave was when that heart stopped. You were his gravity, his entire fucking planet, the force that kept him from drifting into the dark. Without you, he wasn’t just lost — he was nothing.

His thumb pressed into the curve of your hip, His wet hair clung to his forehead, messy, making his eyes look even more unreadable. But his touch betrayed him. His hand on your waist trembled — barely.

Rain streamed down his face, but he didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. His hands trembled where they slid from your fingers to your waist, gripping you.

You could feel the heat of him even through the cold. Water ran down your face, over your lips, down your neck, but he didn’t look away, didn’t blink. He simply stared at you, stared your lips, your eyes, took in every detail of yours like this is the last time he’d be meeting you.

His grip on your waist tightened, pulling you flush against him until there was no space left. Until you felt him on your inner thigh, you gasp but swallowed when both of your lips grazed eachother—electric. A whisper of a touch that sent heat rushing through you both. His hand on your waist tightened instinctively. Your noses nudged again as you adjusted, forehead touching.

Then his lips pressed to yours properly, moving against yours slower, this wasn’t rushed like you both do when you’re having sex. It had a deeper meaning, his tongue nibbled at your bottom lip making you whimper, memorizing the shape of your mouth.

Your noses brushed again, rainwater slipping between your cheeks, but neither of you pulled away. His thumb traced against your side while his other hand kept yours locked with his, fingers tightening whenever you moaned into his mouth. When you parted your lips slightly, he exhaled into you, shaky, breath before kissing you deeper.

When he finally pulled back, a string of saliva connecting you both. His forehead rested against yours, lips still brushing yours as his chest rose up and down.

“This is a sin,” he whispered, voice barely audible over the storm.

“Then drop to your knees and worship me,” you shot back automatically, aching desperation cause you would follow Jungwon anywhere. To the edge of the world, to the fiery gates of hell. You’d burn beside him if he just reached for your hand and asked.

Your breathing faltered when jungwon let loose of your waist, your heart sinking down as you realised what this meant. You bit your lips, finally shooting out the words you thought you’d never say to him.

“Jungwon… go home,” you said softly. “As you said, this is over. Go home. We’re done.” Your vision blurred, you wanted to cry, Though not like this, not with him standing infront of you, staring. But you couldn’t, as you’d never really been able to hide who you truly were from Jungwon.

His eyebrows pulled together like you’d stabbed him. “Home?” he repeated.

“You’re my home.”

Two people standing in the rain, hearts beating the same rhythm, pretending they could survive apart.

Another week passed. No Jungwon. No texts. No No “are you okay?” Nothing, lol, silly you. What’d you even expect?

At first you told yourself you wouldn’t cry over him again, how can you not? That man was your everything. You cried in the shower so no one would hear, you cried into your pillow at 2 a.m, you cried quietly while staring at your phone, hating yourself for still hoping it would light up with his name.

By the end of the week, the tears weren’t dramatic anymore, they became exhausting. Your lungs felt heavy. You weren’t heartbroken in a loud way , you were hollowed out. A walking, blinking fucking zombie.

Heeseung noticed, of course he did. He always notices Your mom tried cooking your favorite food. Your dad awkwardly suggested a movie night, Heeseung even brought his friends over, hoping the noise and chaos would pull you out of your head for a bit. Laughter filled the living room, loud teasing — all of it deliberately exaggerated just to get a reaction out of you.

And he was there too. The second you heard Jungwon’s voice in the room,smth inside you snapped.

“Y/n! Come on, why is our princess so sad? What for?” Sunoo called sweetly from the couch, trying to make you smile. You stepped into the hallway just in time to see Jungwon walk through the door behind the others, hands in his pockets, like he hadn’t ripped your heart out and left it bleeding for seven fucking days.

Your vision blurred, this fucking bastard. You hated the way he still made your heart race. So, you stood up so abruptly your chair scraped harshly against the floor. No one even had time to react before you were walking away up the stairs, into your room, slamming the door shut hard enough to shake the walls.

A minute later there was a knock. “Y/n,” with Heeseung’s voice following it. “Why are you like this? Talk to me.”

You yanked the door open, eyes red, chest heaving. “Not like you’d fucking understand, Heeseung. Get the fuck out of my room.”

The words came out sharper than you intended venomous, even but you were drowning and he was the closest thing to blame. You saw it immediately. The way your brother’s expression cracked.

Heeseung had never hurt you, never let anyone hurt you. He’d always been your shield. But this time… he knew. He knew what he’d said to Jungwon, knew the conversation that had happened behind his back and watching you fall apart because of it was eating him alive.

“Y/n, if this is about—” he started, You grabbed the nearest cushion and threw it at him. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.” Your voice broke on the last word.

For a second, he just stood there. Guilt pressing into his lungs, wishing he could rewind time and take back the warning, take back the brotherly protectiveness that might’ve cost you your happiness.

He swallowed, nodded once, and stepped out, heading downstairs, the atmosphere shifted the second he returned . His friends looked at him expectantly.

“What’d she say?” Sunghoon asked. Heeseung let out a humorless breath. “Told me to get the fuck out.” Ni-ki clicked his tongue. “Oh. Damn.”

There was an uncomfortable silence before Jake leaned forward, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hyung… there’s a party the day after tomorrow. You know, at Minjae’s place? Bring her. Maybe she just needs a distraction. A change of scene.”

Heeseung hesitated, he didn’t want to push you. But he also couldn’t stand watching you fade like this. “…Yeah,” he finally muttered, nodding slowly. “Maybe.”

Upstairs, you sat on the floor with your back against the door, listening to the muffled sounds of laughter below and hating yourself because even now, even after everything, the only thing you wanted was to hear Jungwon come upstairs and knock.

The day of the party rolled in faster. You had said no to your brother. But Heeseung had the persistence of a mosquito.

“Please,” he had groaned for the tenth time, leaning against your door. “You’ve been rotting in here for a week. Just come. If you hate it, we’ll leave.”

“I do hate it,” you muttered from your bed.

“Y/n.”

“What.”

“Don’t make me beg.”

“You’re already begging.” Eventually, purely out of annoyance and not because you wanted to go, you agreed just so he’d shut up.

You texted Eunchae. Now she was in your room like a stylist, aggressively flipping through your closet. “Nope. Too sad. Too ‘I still cry at night.’ Absolutely not.”

“Eunchae—” You voice cuts in, “Nuh uh,” she cut you off, gasping as she yanked out a dress. “We need something hot. Like revenge-hot. Make-him-regret-everything hot.” She held it up like it was a sacred artifact, the dress was Black, tight, Halter neck, backless, high slit on the side.

You’re insane.” You said while staring at the dress, she narrowed her eyes. “Exactly.” Ten minutes later, you were in it. The fabric hugged every curve. The slit showed just enough leg. Your heels clicked sharply against the floor as you stepped out. Eunchae froze mid-sentence. “…Oh.” You raised an eyebrow. “What?”

She placed a hand over her heart. “If I wasn’t straight, this would be my villain origin story.” You snorted and then you laughed which startled even you. Eunchae exhaled dramatically, shoulders sagging in relief. “There she is. That’s my best friend. You look so pretty when you smile, you idiot.” You rolled your eyes but your chest felt lighter than it had all week. When you walked downstairs, Heeseung looked up from his phone — and visibly melted. “That’s it,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You should smile more.”

“Shut up,” you said, but you were smiling. He patted Eunchae’s shoulder. “Take care of my sister.” Eunchae flashed him her middle finger. “I always do.”

The party was loud, Music vibrating through your ribs. Heeseung’s friends immediately hyped you up. “Okay, who is she?” Jay said as he saw you walking towards their gang. “Y/n?? Since when do you look like that?” Jake clutch his heart, “You trying to kill someone tonight?” Sunghoon said while passing you a drink. You laughed, brushed it off, accepted the drink. For a while, you forgot.

Until your eyes did what they’d been trained to do, you look for him across the room, then you found him.

Jungwon. Across the room. With a girl. She was laughing at something he said, her hand resting lightly on his arm. Your stomach dropped so fast it felt like freefall. Wow. It’s been a week and he already replaced you?

You scoffed, grabbed the nearest drink, and downed half of it. Eunchae followed your line of sight. “…Oh wow. What a fucking asshole.”

“I don’t care,” you said flatly, rolling your tongue. She looked at you. “Yeah, sureeee.”

“I literally don’t.” You finished your cup. “He can do whatever he wants.” Eunchae nods, “Mmhm.”

“He’s irrelevant.”

“Right.”

“He’s looking at you, by the way.” Your hand paused mid-reach for another drink. “What?” You questioned, Eunchae smirked before replying. “Glanced at you like five times already.” You didn’t turn but as soon as she said it, you felt his stare burning into your back.

The alcohol started to warm your veins. Each gulp grew easier, the noise of the party soon blurring at the edges, bass vibrating through your heels, through your bones. Your fingers tightened around the plastic cup as condensation dripped down onto your knuckles.

Fine. If he could move on in a week, so could you. You let a guy pull you into the crowd. He was decent-looking, smelled like cologne and bad decisions. You danced with him, swaying yours with his. He moved behind you, hands resting on your waist. At first, it was fine. Then his hands slid lower to your hips till they settled behind and squeezed your ass. You stiffened. “Hey— don’t.”He leaned closer, breath hot near your ear. “Relax. I know you’re enjoying this.”

“I said don’t.” You tried to move forward, but his grip tightened. From the corner of your eye, you saw Jungwon, but he was alone, the girl was gone. He was leaned back against the wall, cigarette rested between his fingers, the tip glowing orange every time he inhaled. Smoke curled slowly from his lips, dissolving into the air. His gaze never left you.

Not once. He dragged in another slow inhale, cheeks hollowing lightly, eyes dark. The smoke left his mouth in a steady stream as he tilted his head, watching you dance with another man.

The guy’s hand squeezed your ass again, you shoved harder. “Let go.” You glared, “Don’t act shy now—” Suddenly his body jerked backward.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you fucking dickface?” Jungwon’s voice cut through the music like a blade. The guy stumbled, regaining his balance. “Bro, chill. She was dancing with me.” He clarified. “Touch her again,” Jungwon said low, terrifyingly calm, “and I’ll break your fucking hands.”

“Who even are you?” the guy snapped, trying to shove him, wrong move. Jungwon shoved him back harder. “The one telling you to keep your filthy hands off her.” Then the other guy swings his arm first, big mistake lol. They crashed into a table. Their body falling down with a loud thud as music faltered. Jungwon moved — fist connecting with the guy’s jaw.

The guy staggered, cursing, swinging once more but Jungwon ducked, drove his shoulder into him, forcing him against the wall. His cigarette dropped from his fingers but he caught it again between two knuckles, still lit. The guy cursed. “She was dancing with me!”

“And she told you to stop,” Jungwon growled. Then in a horrifying second, Jungwon pressed the burning tip of his cigarette to the guy’s cheek.

“She’s mine,” he muttered, voice dark. “Get your filthy fucking hands off her.” He pulled the cigarette away and punched him again, this time harder. The guy collapsed to the floor, clutching his face. People were shouting now…Someone tried to grab Jungwon’s shoulder but he shrugged them off. He stood over the guy, chest rising slowly, knuckles smeared red, smoke still curling from the cigarette between his fingers.

“Stop it, will you?” Your voice wasn’t dramatic, not yelling the way girls did in movies. Jungwon’s eyes lifted and locked on you. Your eyes were blank almost emotionless.

Heeseung pushed through the crowd. “What happened?” Then he saw Jungwon’s knuckles. Blood smeared across them. “…Okay, what the fuck?” Heeseung breathed. Eunchae appeared beside you. “Oh my god.”

“I’ll take her home,” Jungwon said, not taking his eyes off you. You frowned. “The fuck?”

“I’m not going home,” you snapped. “Who said I want to go home? Especially not with you.”

“She’s tired,” Jungwon cut in smoothly. “I’m taking her.” He looked at Heeseung. There was smth in his expression which was probably why heeseung said yes. “O-okay,” Heeseung muttered. “Yeah. Take her home.” Your head whipped toward him. “The fuck? I’m not going home!”

Jungwon looked at you and glared as his voice dropped lower. “You’re not staying here.” Who is he to decide that? “And you don’t get to decide that.” His jaw tightened. “He touched you.”

“So? I handled it.”

“No, you didn’t.” Your eyes flashed the second Jungwon’s fingers wrapped around your wrist. His grip was tight— firm enough to make you wince as he pulled you forward without asking, The warmth from the fight was still radiating off him, knuckles raw, jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked beneath his skin. “Jungwon—” you tried, digging your heels slightly into the floor.

This asshole didn’t stop, dragged you through the crowd, bodies parting instinctively at the look on his face. Music thumped, people whispered, but none of it mattered. His hand stayed locked around your wrist. You tried to twist free once. It was useless and soon gave up as you were no match for jungwon. Not when adrenaline was still pumping through his veins.

His grip tightened again when you resisted, warning you. Behind you, Heeseung blinked slowly, rubbing a hand down his face as he watched you both push toward the exit. “…Here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath, already bracing himself for whatever might happen.

“Arghh, let me go! Jungwon—” you hissed, trying to dig your heels into the pavement as he dragged you across the parking lot. The cold night air hit your flushed skin, His grip never loosened. If anything, it tightened every time you resisted.

His car was parked all the way at the end of the lot, away from the lights and all people. When you reached the passenger side, he finally stopped only to push you lightly towards the door, angling his head at it. “Get in the car.” You stared at him in disbelief, chest heaving. “The fuck did you just say?” His jaw flexed. “Get. In.”

You scoffed, almost laughing. “Are you insane? You’re the one who told me to stay away from you. You disappear for a week. A whole fucking week. And now you think you can just— what? Drag me out here and order me around?”

You could feel the rain from that night still lingering in the air, the asphalt smelling faintly wet. “A full week of crying over you,” you continued, voice cracking despite yourself. “A full week of feeling like I wasn’t enough and….and now you want me to listen to you? Just because you snap your fingers?”

Your heart was racing, not just from anger but eve from him, from the way his voice had dropped inside ur head when he said she’s mine. The words echoed in your head whether you liked it or not. She’s mine. It hurt.

Because he didn’t act like you were his when he walked away, instead he decide to be a coward, didn’t act like you mattered when he ignored you. Didn’t act like you were “his” when you were alone in your room crying into your pillow. And yet— The way he looked at you. The way he couldn’t take his eyes off you in that dress. Your chest tightened painfully.

“I’m not something you can pick up when it suits you,” you said more quietly now. “You don’t get to disappear and then show up acting possessive.” He stepped closer. His hands braced against the car door on either side of you, caging you in. "You don't own me," you said staring into his eyes. He lowered his voice, almost reverently. "No... but you own every part of me." His breathing was still uneven from the fight, knuckles scraped and smeared faintly with blood.

“You think I wanted to stay away?” he asked, voice low. “Then why did you?” You said, looking up and saw the way his eyes looked at you as if you were everything. “That’s exactly why you’re getting in the car.”

And for a second — you hated how your heart betrayed you by racing harder at the thought of being alone with him. “No. I’m not getting in the car—” Your voice came out steady at first, but it broke at the end from Jungwon’s fingers closed around your throat, pulling you closer to him by your neck, thumb resting just beneath your jaw as his grip tilted your face up toward him.

“Get inside or i’m fucking you out here in the parking lot.” Your breath hitched and your insides throbbed at his words. How dare he? how dare he say that—You moaned when jungwon pressed his knee to your pulsating center, already soaked. He kept the pressure of his knee, rubbing it until you were gasping near his ear. "If I want to, I could fuck you right now, and you'd walk into your house with my cum dripping down your leg and a goddamn smile on your perfect little face. You got me?"

His lips crashed into yours, rough and desperate, his mouth moving against yours. His hand slid up to the side of your face, fingers tight in your hair as he pulled you closer.

“Fuck…” he breathed against your mouth, barely pulling away before kissing you again. “Tried so hard— tried so fucking hard to stay away from you.” The words came out broken between kisses, His forehead knocked against yours for a second, breath warm against your lips, eyes completely wrecked. “But I couldn’t,” he muttered, voice rough. “Could never stay away from you.”

You barely had time to breathe before he kissed you again, tongue slipping inside your mouth as he claimed you for the hundredth time, biting down on your lower lip, drawing a small sound out of you. His grip on you tightened instantly.

“I love you, y/n,” he said suddenly, the confession spilling out of him like it had been trapped there for years. “I can’t fucking pretend anymore… can’t stand there and watch anyone else touch you.” Your chest felt tight, too full, like your heart had nowhere to go with all the relief and disbelief crashing through you at once.

Jungwon let out a shaky breath and pressed his forehead to yours again, hands still holding you. “I should’ve said it a long time ago,” he murmured. “But I’m saying it now and I’m not taking it back.” His thumb brushed along your jaw before he leaned in again, “I love you, doll… baby, fuck,” he said softly against your lips. “The rest of the world can go to hell.”

Jungwon leaned down, pressing his mouth against your neck, leaving a trail of wet, messy kisses along your skin. His lips dragged slowly over the spot beneath your ear before he sucked at it, breath warm and uneven against you. “Shit—” he muttered under his breath, voice rough, almost impatient. “Say something, baby…” he whined—actually whined in ur neck, pressing another kiss there. “Say it back.”

"Do you love me, baby?” he asked.

"You...you love me?" You asked, still unsure."You doubt this?" He put your hand over his heart dramatically. "I have loved you since the moment I first saw you. You looked at me and you smiled." He grins. “But it was a smile that promised you would gut me if I crossed you. That was when I knew my heart was no longer mine."

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow, “So do you love me baby? cus i do. if I could buy you the stars, I would. If I could pull the moon down for you, l wouldn't hesitate. If I could give you a million suns, I would do it in a heartbeat." He smiles sheepishly at you. "But I can't do any of that….yet, so I'm asking if I could give you my heart instead."

Perhaps in some other life you could have refused, could have torn your hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. Jungwon would go and walk in the fire and you’d follow, even into death. "Yes," you whispered. "Yes….yes, god. Yes, i love you, you jerk." Relief broke in his face, and he reached to kiss you.

You smiled at him when he pulled back and watching you smile made his heart feel oddly warm and... glowy. Like he could stand here and soak up your happiness forever.

That sounded a little bit like heaven.

“You’re my heaven and i’m your hell.” your lips curved in a quiet laugh, the sound melting his heart in such a way he thought he’d fucking drown. "You're impossible." He nods, "Impossible not to want you.” Jungwon says as he holds your waist and kisses down your collar bone. You whimper when you feel his teeth bit down on the area above your chest, “Jungwon—we should go—” your whisper turned into a soft moan when he licks up the bite mark, “Go here?” He kisses your shoulders, glancing up at your reaction. “Or here?” then slides his hands down and touches you exactly where you needed him to.

“Hmm—” You shake your head. This was crazy, you weren’t about to have sex in public place, nah that’d be—“Look at you, already shaking at my touch.” He says, rubbing fingers in circulation motion at your dripping pussy,

“Won—oh my—we need to go—we can’t do it here.” You say between ragged breaths, jungwon chuckles, "What do you want me to do baby? You wear that little dress that shows off your legs, making me fucking crazy and jealous and then you look at me like you want me to fuck your pretty little cunt. Like you want me to fill you up. That would be crazy, though, because then you'd be sitting through the whole ride with me dripping out of you."

He leans over to kiss you, harder this time. “You taste like cigarettes.” You pant, he looks into your eyes, “I’ll quit.” He says like its smth easy to do, keeping his body hovering above yours till you feel his clothed hard-on rub you. You moan into each other’s mouth.

“You danced with another man just to make me fuck you like this, didn’t you? you dirty girl.” He hummed, “Been a bad girl, haven’t you? making me jealous….bad girls get punished and there’s nothing more than i love punishing.” his hands find your hips, lifting you up so fast you half scream. Before you could even protest, he had you lifted—Your back met the hood of his car a second later, the metal shockingly cold against your skin, stealing the air from your lungs as you dropped flat against it. The night air only made it worse, the chill of the steel pressing through the thin fabric while the warmth of his body hovered over you.

Your hands instinctively grabbed onto him as your legs came up around his waist. Thank god no one was around. The parking lot was almost completely dark, the few distant streetlights barely reaching this far, leaving the two of you tucked away in shadows.

"Jungwon—” Your voice was half-breathless surprise, hands flying to his shoulders for balance. He didn’t reply, just slipped his hands under your dress, cursing at how wet you were for him. You gripped onto him for dear life. His hands were now pressing against you in deliberate pressure which only made you grow wetter second by second. “Hmm—please.” You pleaded, hips bucking into his hands for more friction.

Jungwon cursed, “fuck, look at you. Bent over the hood of my car and dripping for me. This looks like my teenage dream.” In a second, jungwon lifted up your dress, pulled your panties down to your ankles, revealing the perfect pink flesh to his eyes as a groan followed. His fingers work to spread your pussy lips open, and out of nowhere, he pushes a finger inside your dripping cunt. You moaned at the sudden stretch, you close your eyes so hard it hurt. The way his fingers slipped so easily inside cause of how wet you were, you bet it's dripping by ur thighs by now.

Your back arches off the hood and Jungwon pins you down in place, you can't do anything but take it. "Keep those legs apart for me." he whispers, curling his fingers just right, each one of them hitting the spot that makes you cry out. “Do you like this? Being spread open and finger fucked where anyone could see you?” No one would, and if they did, jungwon would kill them first before they even walk away after seeing you like this, you were only his.

You clench tightly around his fingers and he grunts, "Jesus, fuck, baby. You know how to make a man lose his mind." He blows out a sharp exhale against your swollen lips. You fist his hair tighter. "Not just any man. You." You whimper out, “Not just any man," he repeats with a blinding possessiveness. "Me. Only fucking me.” You nod, and roll your eyes back when his fingers are pumping in and out of you at a torturous pace.

"Say you're mine," he orders and it's such a low blow when he's trapped in the cloud of lust. “Yours.” You choke out in a heartbeat, his thumb pressed on your clit, and another finger slipped inside. The extra pressure sent you over the cliff. Your vision blurred, while you caught your breath and he didn't pull his hand away until he wrung the last pulse from you. Both of his fingers start to work inside your mesh walls, finding your g- spot so quickly.

“You like that, don't you? You're sweet, and light, and good." He breathes into your ear. Before you can say anything, he leans down and spits right onto your cunt, then slides it in between your folds with his fingers and slams them in—making everything thicker and dirty as you whine you loudly. “But you like the darkness. You need it, crave it. And I'm going to give it to you."

You gripped at his hair, unable to do anything but rock your hips against his hand to stroke the fire. "Are you gonna come for me, doll?" His skilled fingers lift you higher, the orgasm curling low in your stomach. You barely nod, Jungwon smiles.

You tightened your arms around his neck and pressed a soft kiss to his jaw that made his heart twist in the strangest way.

Then again, nothing about his life had been normal since you came into it.

His lips press deep kisses on your neck, sucking and biting as his fingers don’t slow down their pace. “Soak my fingers like a good girl, doll.” He says, "Jungwon--fuckk-" You whine out his name, You finally let go, screaming his name out like it's the only thing you ever know, soaking his hands completely. Your legs are shaking so violently over his waist that you're glad he's holding you still.

And suddenly his mouth is on you—tongue flat, licking and sucking a stripe you as jungwon drapes your legs over his shoulders. He gasps as your liquid falls down on his face, and he holds you by the hips and pulls you down onto his face more. “Fuckfuckfucck—missed this pussy so much.” Lapping and gulping down all he can manage to. Moving his tongue up and down, tasting the mess you've made, and when his teeth tugs on your sensitive bud with his mouth—you try to get off, "No—” You shake, and try to get off. “Wonnie—baby, you’re—fuck, you’re making me feel so good.” You mange to say it out loud.

God, this woman. He thought, You had no idea the things he would do for you.

He sucked hard on your clit, your breathing grew choppier. His hands gripped your hips tighter, holding you in place as he feasted on you. He was lost in it, completely pussy-drunk. “So sweet—hmm—mine, this cunt is only mine to fuck.” He pulled away to breathe before eating you out again.

His lips sealing around your clit as he sucked hard then releasing with a wet pop only to lap your juices coating his tongue, tasting every inch, every drop of slick on his tongue. His lips moved against you, his tongue inside you—fucking you with it in slow, deep thrusts and pulling back to circle your clit, hollowing his cheeks around your flesh, flicking up and down and the sharp graze of his teeth scraped the bundle of nerves. The sensation echoed in the healed bite mark on your neck. It was too much. you screamed as you shattered into his mouth—only for him to gulp down every single drop of your come.

“Shit—you always taste so fucking good.”

Again, you barely made it through his door before Jungwon grabbed you, hauling you up over his shoulder, the room spun for a second as he carried you across it. A moment later he dropped you back onto the bed.

The sheets rustled beneath you while he loomed over the edge of the bed, the air in the room suddenly feeling tighter.

Impatiently, you rushed to pull your dress over your head, fingers fumbling in your hurry. Jungwon stopped you before you could get it off completely, his hand closing around your waist, he was already naked, his shirt and pants and boxers pooled at the floor. Your mouth watered when your gaze flicked down to his cock—already hard, flat up against his stomach.

“You don’t take this off.” He said it while tugging your dress back down your body, the fabric sliding back into place. At the same time, Jungwon bent to grab one of the heels you’d kicked off earlier. The other was still hanging from your foot, barely on, and he caught the loose one from the floor before straightening.

He carefully lifted your leg up, one hand steady under your ankle as he just held it there before leaning down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss against your skin. Then he slid the heel back onto your foot, guiding it into place.

“You wanted to make me jealous in this? then i’ll fuck you in it.” Jungwon muttered out, your heart jumped at his words and you bite back a smile.

His hands came down to part your legs apart, no underwear this time, he told you to sit through the entire ride home with your come dripping down your legs and you did. His gave his dick a few pumps up and down, eyes never leaving yours as he settled between your legs, dragging his tip against your bare, slick folds with every forward motion. Both of you moaned, jungwon was taking this too slow and you were dying to have him inside you. It’s been too long.

The friction was maddening; intentional pressure guiding over your clit in desperate need, head nudging right where you ached most without pushing inside. “Please—want you inside.” His only response back was a guttural moan when he felt you grind into him, chasing the pressure. Already shaking, hands fisted at the sheets.

Jungwon yanked your dress a bit up till your stomach, groaning each time you pulsed around his leaking tip. He was humping you like a desperate dog in heat but not thrusting inside yet. “You want me inside you? want me to breed your pretty pussy until you can’t walk? until your whole stomach is filled with my load, hmm?” He gripped your jaw, forcing your gaze on him. “Don’t worry, doll. Gonna fuck you. Gonna be inside you—” Jungwon grabbed both of your wrists and had them pinned above your head. His other hand rested at your hips as he pulled your body down on him, leaning down and pressed his forehead to yours.

“Need to feel you’re mine but I need it to mean something. No more running. No more disappearing. I want you to take me, knowing it's us. That we don't break again." Precum mixed with your slick in thick, sticky ropes as he rocked his hips forward again, the tip of his dick going inside before pulling back. This was just pure torture.

“Want to fuck you with those heels digging into my back.” After—what felt like half an hour of grinding and teasing and torturing, Jungwon finally pushed inside you in one thrust, sinking to the hilt in a shuddering motion. You screamed, and he moaned your name, “That's my girl, you take what i give you and you like it."

My girl. Heaven was a place and it was yang jungwon’s bed.

You can't even get words out anymore—just broken and desperate moans, screams. You shake your head, sniffling, half sobbing. "Gonna bury my cock in so deep you won't be able to sit tomorrow without wincing." His hands tightened digging into your flesh, urging you to take what you wanted.

Your walls fluttered and clenched around him as he pulled out slowly, letting you feel every thick inch dragging out of you with torturous friction. “Your pussy always grips me so tight like it doesn’t want me to let go, fuck—gonna breed you, gonna fill myself so deep in you and you’ll take it like a good girl. Yeah? Fuck…i love you.”

He said, patting your cheek with his free hand. Your head goes blank under it, every thought stripped away until all that's left is the way his dick is poking the most sensitive parts of you. “Oh my—goddddd—jungwon.” He scoffed like he expected it, “Just me, doll, just me.” The feeling of him inside you is addicting, having jungwon fill you up so good, like every inch of his cock was made for your cunt, and your cunt only.

His hips snapped forward so hard, your body shoved higher up the mattress. The wet, filthy slap of skin on skin rang out louder than anything else in the room—other than your moans and his groans. Jungwon caressed the bare curves of your ass before spanking you.

Jungwon drives himself hard now, fingers digging into your thighs as he thruts himself so deep inside you that you fear you'll explode with the perfection of it. "Fuck," He says, eyes on you, "Look at you. Look at how perfect you are under me." he moved his thumb to press down on your clit, rubbing and rolling on it. "uunngh—” you moaned softly, teething at the double pleasure you were receiving.

He holds your right leg and pulls it over his shoulders, withdrawing to the tip only to slam it back in, The position splayed you open wider, changing the angle just enough to sink even deeper. You arched off the mattress, he could feel everything; slick walls clinging to him, your insides clenching around his hard cock trying to keep him inside.

Your heels dug into his back, the sharp tips pressing into his skin, dragging as they scratched against him with every thrust. You close your eyes, tears threatening to fall because of the overwhelming pressure of his cock poking your every inch. You were close. “Scream for me, tell me how much you love my cock in you.” he growls against you, voice thick with hunger, the vibration dragging another cry from your throat.

Obliterated in the way he stretches you open, In the way he groans as another wave of slickness coats his fingertips when he grazes his thumb over your overstimulated cit, giving you just enough pressure to bring you closer to the edge. Jungwon finally pulls your dress over your head, tossing it to the side.

Revealing your perfect round breasts he’d been dying to see before leaning down and sucking one of your nipples into his lips, whining at the taste of you. He keeps sucking, rolling your nipple in his mouth as his other hand fondles with your other boob, then he bites down on the swell of your breast so hard you scream as he pounded into you so mercilessly it would've been painful had it not felt so good.

"Oh, God, I..." You sniffle. “I-I can’t—” You said as exhaustion burned through you, "You've taken worse than this. You can handle me, y/n." Your pussy fluttered wildly around jungwon’s cock and his harsh thrusts that he refused to soften. You felt like putty in his arms, fully moldable for him, and he knew it—that was the worst part. He grunted with effort, his balls slapping wetly against your ass on every plunge. Spank! Your body jolted at the sudden sharp sensation, “That was for making me jealous.” More tears fell down your cheeks as you felt his cock throb inside of you.

Jungwon lifted you again, your legs wrapping instinctively around his back as he held you up and pulled out before slamming your body down on his shaft all that while walking. In a few quick steps he carried you to the nearby window and pressed you back against it, the glass cool behind you as your body hit it with a soft thud. His grip tightened to keep you in place.

His hands clamped firmly against your back, holding you up off the ground while he adjusted his grip. In one rough motion he pulled your legs higher, wrapping them around his neck. For this fucking angle felt insane, like the both of you might crash down if his hold slipped even a little. You were completely suspended on him, trusting his strength to keep you there.

Jungwon kissed you then, harder, his mouth claiming you and his hands mapping your most sensitive zones as he fucked you towards your orgasm on the window. "I'm sure we look like a sweet couple, just enjoying the view...but they can't see your gorgeous cunt dripping pretty cum down the inside of your thighs the way I can, and they can't hear the sweet sounds you make when till you up, hmm—fuck.”

You clung to him, legs on his shoulders as he thrusted into you, hitting every part of yours as you could do nothing but moan against him and take him as deep as he can go. "For two fucking weeks, I have been losing my mind." He pulled out, “I have not held you in my arms, I have not seen you, touched you, heard your voice….god, you have no idea what you do to me, doll.” He chuckles because obsession is weird, at first you just want a glance, a touch, taste. Then greed takes over and you can’t get enough.

Your reply turned into a hoarse scream when he slid his hands on your wet folds and pinched your clit, his arm moved from where it was and ran along your breasts and up your throat to grab your chin in a vice grip. Jungwon pulled your mouth open before sliding two fingers down your tongue slowly, “Suck.” He demanded, and you exploded without warning, hard, sudden, long, ears buzzing, knees buckling, as he didn’t slow down, kept fucking you towards another orgasm.

“Scream all you can, doll. Gonna make you so sore you won't know if it's from the screaming or the fucking.” He works you with his cock, his hands gripping your hips to hold you steady, and you have to bite down on his biceps from crying out loud.

Jungwon runs his palm across your stomach, his gaze fixed where his cock is disappearing in and out of you, your come dripping down your thighs falling to the floor making his dick glisten under the light. “Hmmm—too much.” He doesn’t look up, instead, he presses his palm flat on your stomach. The pressure is so much it makes you arch your back off the window. One hand comes up to grip your jaw and force your gaze down on his dick,

“Look, look how perfect you take me, goddamnit, you’re made for me, doll.” Your vision whited out for a second as he pressed down harder, caressing the bulge of his cock poking out. “Fuck, gonna breed you—wanna put a baby in you. Shitttt, you’d look so beautiful…stomach round with my kids.” He choked out, throbbing inside your cunt, Jungwon’s hips rose to meet yours and you nearly blacked out from how good he felt inside you.

“Yeah? you want that? want me to breed you so deep you forget your own name? Want me to fill you with my kids, hmm?” Your hips jolted towards jungwon and a whine left your lips. “Yess—please.” his hand moving from your hip so he could rub circles in your swollen clit with his thumb. “Fuck, so drunk on my cock you don’t even know what you’re asking for—fuckkfuckkk.” You thought that you were all stretched out already, but Jungwon always managed to prove you wrong.

“You’d look so beautiful—belly getting round, shit i’d take care of you—both of you. Fuck, let me breed you baby, You’re all mine now, yeah?” He whined, legit. Jungwon pulled you to him so you were chest to chest, your tits meeting his bare chest, He leaned down so his lips were at your ear, his thumb at your clit not stopping its mission to help overstimulate you more. “would kiss your bump everyday….shitshit, baby, please—I love you, love you so much, please—” He moaned.

Jungwon didn’t even know what exactly he was begging for anymore. The words kept leaving his mouth before he could think them through. All he knew was the feeling clawing inside his chest — If you asked for anything, he’d give it. Anything you looked at for more than two seconds would somehow end up yours. He’d tear the world apart before letting anything make you cry.

His mind was running faster than he could control, thoughts messy. The image hit him out of nowhere, of you laughing somewhere in a kitchen, sunlight on your face, your stomach round with his child. You’d look so fucking beautiful like that, glowing, complaining about cravings while he hovered around you like a lunatic.

He could almost picture the way your hands would rest there absentmindedly, rubbing the curve. Your body would change and he knew it would drive him insane in a completely different way. Your tits would become heavier, spilling against soft fabric, the weight of it obvious when you moved. The faint lines along your stomach, the stretch marks spreading across your skin like proof of something the two of you made together.

He imagined standing behind you, hands spread over that stomach, feeling movement under his palms.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, almost angry at himself for thinking that far ahead, his hand just got tighter around your throat, squeezing at just the right places that made you feel extra cloudy and like you were floating.

Your hips bucked wildly on their own towards jungwon’s hand and that motion nearly made you black out with his cock pistoning into you, your back hitting the window behind with a thud everytime he thrusted inside. He moaned when your pussy tried its hardest to completely suck in his cock.

Now it was worse. Now he couldn’t imagine a version of his life where you weren’t tangled in it. He couldn’t stop now moreover he wouldn’t stop. Not until you were tied to him in a way that no one else could touch, not until every part of you knew you belonged with him and nowhere else.

Till death did you both apart.

Your hips still bucked, trying to get as much stimulation as possible despite it already being entirely too much. You needed more of him, needed his cock pounding into you harder. Jungwon laughed in your ear, “Fuck, gonna catch you fucking pregnant, doll. You want me to? Tell me you do, shit baby, answer me—please.” He pleaded, “Yes, won—please, fill me up—” That was enough for him to slam forward one last time, burying himself to the hilt as he came violently inside you, cock pulsing as thick ropes of come filled your insides, flooding you rope after rope of his cum. “Fuckkkkkk—baby, shit.” His whole body jerked forward with each spurt, hips shoving his seed deep inside your stomach.

You came right after him, walls fluttering and clenching around his entire length that was buried in you, a broken cry leaving your lips as he kissed your neck. Jungwon kept fucking you again and again and again until you were a real life worn out doll, your one leg now wrapped around his waist as he did what he promised he will.

Now you were both lying there, the tension from earlier finally settling. Your legs were tangled together under the sheets, Jungwon had one arm tucked beneath your head, his other hand tracing slow lines over your bare hip. His fingertips moved back and forth, memorizing the shape of you.

Back in his arms again.

Somehow you always ended up here. It didn’t matter how angry you got, how dramatic things became. You always found your way back to Jungwon, like some stupid gravitational pull neither of you could escape.

He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, lingering there for a second longer than necessary. When he pulled back, he was smiling—an actual relaxed smile, not the cocky one he usually wore.

You looked up at him. “I love you.”

Jungwon tilted his head slightly, needing to make sure he heard that right. He let out a slow breath through his nose. “Say that again.” he needed to hear those three words again that he’s been dying to hear all these years.

You leaned up and kissed him slowly first, dragging it out on purpose before murmuring against his lips, “I love you, Yang Jungwon.”

The second time it hit him harder. For a moment he just stared at you. If Jungwon had a little less control over himself he probably would’ve burst into tears. “I love you too, doll,” he said quietly, brushing his thumb along your side. “So fucking much.”

He paused, searching your face, wanting you to understand exactly what he meant. “Because what I feel…” he continued, voice rougher now, “it’s more than love. It’s obsession. It’s every thought dragging me back to you no matter how hard I try to walk away. Every sleepless night. Every damn heartbeat.” His mouth twitched faintly. “And that kind of thing doesn’t just disappear, baby, That lasts forever.”

Your heart sped up at his words, heat creeping into your face. “You’re insane,” you said, shaking your head while a laugh slipped out of you.

That small sound made something in his expression soften instantly. “And you’re mine,” he replied, grinning now. “So what does that make you?” You rolled your eyes but couldn’t hide the smile pulling at your mouth.

Looking at you like this—eyes bright under the dim light, hair a mess, still smiling at him—Jungwon felt something dangerously close to peace.

Then your expression shifted slightly, becoming serious. You grabbed both his hands suddenly. “Promise me something.” His brows lifted. “What?” He asked, “That I don’t have to worry about you leaving again.” The question sat between you for a second.

Jungwon’s thumb brushed over your knuckles before he answered. “I promise.” You narrowed your eyes slightly. “Do you promise that you promise?” He let out a short laugh, shaking his head. “Jesus Christ.” Then he squeezed your hands. “I promise that I promise.”

The grin that spread across your face was ridiculous. Your cheeks started hurting from it but you didn’t care. You pointed a finger at him dramatically. “If you ever pull that disappearing bullshit again I swear to fuck I will lock you in a room with me and throw away the key.”

Jungwon didn’t even hesitate as a slow smirk spread across his face. “Too bad, doll,” he said. “I’d probably enjoy that.”

You groaned and shoved his shoulder, but he pulled you closer to him, tickling your sides. You laughed, breathless.

All his dreams came true tonight.

And for a while the rest of the world stopped existing.

Epilogue

Five months with Jungwon—the absolute love of your life. Five months since that night where every line that used to exist between you both snapped. The very next day he proposed properly, right in front of your brother. Jungwon standing there like he had nothing to lose, holding your hands. Heeseung’s jaw literally hit the floor as he just stared infront of him, blinking like his brain had short-circuited. Then he scoffed, ran a hand through his hair and started laughing.

“Are you serious right now?” he said. “You two are fucking insane.” Jungwon didn’t even flinch. “Yeah,” he replied calmly, squeezing your fingers. “But she’s still saying yes.” You were blushing so hard your face hurt, swatting Jungwon’s arm while Heeseung groaned dramatically.

“I knew something weird was going on, Niki muttered. “The tension was disgusting.”

Your brother was glaring but still pulled Jungwon into a hug right after, clapping his back. “Take care of her or I swear to god—”

“I will,” Jungwon said, serious in a way that shut the joke down instantly and….that was that.

When you told your parents later, it somehow turned into an even bigger mess. Your mom screamed the second the words left your mouth.

“I KNEW IT!” she shouted, pointing at you, “You couldn’t stop staring at him every time he came over!”

“Mom!” you groaned, hiding your face while Jungwon tried not to laugh beside you. “Oh my sweet babies,” she continued dramatically, grabbing both of your hands. “You have my deepest condolences.” Your dad just leaned against the counter, shaking his head with a smile.

“Honestly, good for you, honey,” he said, kissing your forehead. “Jungwon’s a good man. He’ll keep you happy.” You remember looking down shyly then, heart doing that stupid fast thing it always did around him.

Because he already was your happiness.

Now here you are months later, lying beside him in the quiet grass with nothing but the night sky above you. Thousands of stars scattered across black. The air is cool, and Jungwon’s arm is tucked behind your head while your legs are tangled together. His thumb traces lazy circles over your arm.

Jungwon quit smoking the night he promised you he would right there against your lips. That was how stupidly, hopelessly in love he was with you. Nothing in this world was allowed to hurt you, not even something as small as the smell of smoke on him.

His hyungs didn’t believe it at first.

Sunoo practically gasped when Jungwon waved off a cigarette one evening. “Wait—don’t tell me you actually quit smoking for her?” he said, staring at him, though the grin on his face gave him away.

Jungwon just laughed, smug, patting Sunoo on the shoulder. “Trust me,” he said, shaking his head lightly.

“You can only handle one addiction at a time.”

Back to present, “You’re staring again,” he murmurs. “At what?”

“Me.” You scoff softly. “Shut the fuck up.” He laughs under his breath, the sound low and warm in his chest. “You totally are.” You turn your head toward him anyway. His eyes reflect the starlight and for a second you swear your heart trips over itself.

“Maybe I am,” you mumble. “What about it?” Jungwon watches you, Your fingers drift up to his hoodie strings, playing with them. Twisting them around your fingers. “You’re cute,” he says. You groan instantly. “Don’t start.”

“What? can’t i appreciate my beautiful girlfriend?” You chuckle, “Yeah, sure.”

He leans closer suddenly and presses a quick kiss to your cheek. You shove his shoulder lightly. “Dude.” He frowns at the nickname, “What?”

“You’re annoying.” He hums, not believing you at all. His hand slides a little higher on your back, pulling you closer against him until your chin is resting on his chest.

Above you, a shooting star streaks quickly across the sky. Your eyes widen. “Holy shit—did you see that?”

“Yeah.” He says, his eyes never leaving yours. “Make a wish.” He replies immediately, “You first.” You close your eyes, squeezing them shut, hoping that’ll somehow make it work better. Jungwon watches you with the dumbest smile.

“What’d you wish for?” he asks. “I’m not telling you or it won’t come true.” You scrunch your nose up at him. “Liar. You definitely just wished for food.” You gasp. “Fuck you.” He smirks, “Now or later?” You slap his arms, He laughs again, and leans down to press a slow kiss to your forehead.

Your heart does that stupid fast thing again. “You’re staring,” you mumble. “Yeah,” he says easily. You lift your head slightly. “Why?” He shrugs a little, because come on, the answer is obvious.

“Because you’re mine.” You roll your eyes but you can’t stop smiling. “That’s cocky as hell.”

“Am I wrong?” He asks, “…unfortunately no.” He grins, victorious, and tilts your chin up with his fingers before kissing you properly this time. Slow, soft, the kind of kiss that makes your stomach flip even though you’ve kissed him a thousand times already.

When he pulls back, your noses brush. “I’m gonna marry you one day,” he says. You blink, heat rushing straight to your face. “Yeah?” you whisper, smiling.

“Yeah, doll.” He kisses you once more, this time, sealing the promise into the quiet night. Your fingers slide into his hair while you rest your forehead against his.

Above you the stars keep shining like nothing in the world could ever go wrong and right now, it honestly fucking feels like it won’t.

THE END

[wonscrchy]

still one of my best works

[elix8r]

Pink Whitney (psh) 

PAIRING: park sunghoon x fem!reader

GENRES: smut, fluff, crack, college au, friends to lovers au, brother’s best friend au, frat au 

WARNINGS: profanity, alcohol, mentions of birth control and Plan B, niki and jungwon causing chaos, one night stands, american college experience, unprotected sex (pls be safe!), mentions of pregnancy, drunk sex, frat parties, oral (m and f receiving), fingering, face-fucking, facial, and overall cuteness :)))))

SUMMARY: You had always trusted the beautiful bottle of Pink Whitney to deliver crazy fun nights with little to no hangovers in the morning. It was almost a sacred bond between you and your go-to drink. But that trust was shattered after a night that should have been like any other. Instead, you found yourself waking up in bed with your younger brother’s frat bro, and worse, narrowly avoiding pregnancy. Now, as you navigate the awkward aftermath of it all, you feel betrayed by Pink Whitney, the drink that had never let you down before. But even as you mourn the loss of that trust, you find yourself more worked up over the boy who shattered it. 

Fuck Park Sunghoon for ruining Pink Whitney for you or better yet fuck Pink Whitney for making you fall in love with Park Sunghoon.

WORD COUNT: 19k

AUTHOR’S NOTE: this is definitely the fastest i’ve ever written but it’s because i had literally so much fun writing this! So many moments in this story are inspired by real life events and i have loads more of insane college stories that i will definitely be adding on to my upcoming series set in this same universe: The Frat Diaries! I really really hope you guys enjoy reading this and i love hearing feedback so feel free to send them my way! thanks for all the love so far and i’ll see you soon! 

GLOSSARY LINK  

THE FRAT DIARIES MASTERLIST

Keep reading

[wonsiwon]

a crown between us. y.jw

synopsis: in the halls of the palace, where secrets are dressed in silk and love is the greatest betrayal, a maid finds herself caught in a dangerous entanglement with the crown prince, jungwon. though bound by duty and royalty, their stolen glances and whispered promises bloom into something neither can escape. but when the queen announces his arranged marriage, everything shatters.

pairing: prince! heir to future throne! jungwon x maid! reader

genre: historical royal romance, angst, forbidden love, smut

content warning: forbidden love, royalty vs. heart, emotional betrayal, class divide, political manipulation, dramatic confrontations, sacrifice, smut.

a/n: hii, i was finally able to upload this small project on which i have been working for several weeks (maybe months). i often run out of ideas or have a mental block to continue writing, so it usually takes me a few days for that inspiration to come back with more ideas. i want to clarify that I tried as much as I could and tried as much as possible that the dialogues had that style of royalty, noble, old-fashioned or dramatic. i hope you enjoy this it really took me long time and I hope you at least like it a little.

i. the garden kiss

your plans that night were simple. finish polishing the candelabras in the east wing, drop off the basket of white linens in the laundry, and finally retreat to your quarters to rest. nothing unusual. nothing that hinted you’d end up with the prince’s lips pressed against yours, hidden behind a bush covered in blooming hydrangeas.

but here you are.

your heart racing, his highness’s fingers barely resting on your waist like even the slightest touch might shatter you. his breath is warm, scented faintly with jasmine tea and unsaid promises, and his eyes… those eyes that never stop looking at you like you’re the most treasured secret in the kingdom.

“milady…” he whispers, pulling back just slightly, his fingers still on your cheek. “do you know how long i’ve longed for this?”

you can hardly answer. because even though it’s been weeks of sneaking off to see him, you’re still not used to how it feels to be kissed by a prince, the prince jungwon, who looks at you like you’re anything but just a servant.

your dress hem is dusty with soil, your hands still a little rough from the day’s work, and your hair is poorly tied with a frayed ribbon. but he never seems to care. he never has.

“my lord… if we’re caught…”

his brow furrowed. just a little. that gesture he made whenever something bothered him, even though he tried not to show it.

“milady…” he says, his voice low, almost a whisper. “i don’t care if we get caught. i couldn’t find you all morning. where were you?”

your hands tremble slightly at how close he is, how being with him like this feels both terrifying and perfect.

“i was… working.” you whisper, eyes falling to the flowers near your feet. it’s hard to look at him when he speaks with that kind of gentleness. “as i’m supposed to.”

he lets out a soft sigh, low and quiet. then his hand lifts to your face, tilting your chin with such delicate care that your breath hitches in your throat. his touch is gentle, too gentle for someone of his status. a prince shouldn’t touch a servant like that.

“working?” he repeats, raising a brow. “don’t you know that seeing you is far more important than any royal duty?”

he makes a dramatic little face, pretending to be offended, but his eyes sparkle with softness. his thumb gently brushes your cheek, and that stupidly charming smile of his doesn’t budge.

“i was about to launch a kingdom-wide search. or worse… interrogate every guard in the castle. do you know how bad that would look in the official records?”

you giggle softly, shaking your head, heat blooming on your cheeks.

“you missed me that much?”

“that much?” he echoes, smirking. “i almost wrote you a tragic letter and slipped it under your pillow. in golden ink, of course. signed: his royal highness, the hopelessly desperate prince.”

you cover your face with both hands, laughing while he leans closer, clearly proud of himself.

“what was the letter going to say?” you ask peeking your eyes through your fingers.

“something like… ‘my heart beats only for you, my radiant flower from the northern wing of the castle.’” he says, lowering his voice with mock seriousness, pressing his forehead against yours. “though… i still have time to write it. maybe it’ll convince you to sneak off with me more often.”

you bite your lip, heart fluttering like crazy. “you’re ridiculous.”

“and you’re enchanting, milady.” he says without missing a beat, whispering so close you can almost feel the smile on his lips. “now give me five more minutes before duty drags you away again, will you?

“actually… “you murmur, glancing toward the dark path. “i’m done for the day. i was on my way to my quarters.”

“to sleep?” he asks, with a look of mild betrayal, like you just insulted him.

you nod, a bit amused, and he immediately steps ahead, subtly blocking your way like it’s a royal obligation.

“milady, i’m afraid i cannot allow that.”

“excuse me?” you raise a brow, trying not to laugh.

“i spent the whole morning without seeing you.” he says, bowing dramatically like he’s putting on a show. “and now you want to simply… go to sleep? without letting me steal at least a few smiles?”

“jungwon…”

“yes, milady?” he responds with that face. that impossibly sweet, infuriatingly charming face.

he takes your hand and gently lifts it to his lips without breaking eye contact. his mouth brushes over your knuckles in the softest kiss imaginable, warm and lingering.

“just five minutes.” he whispers. “i’ll let you go after. though… i can’t promise i won’t steal one more kiss first.”

“just one…” you say, lifting a finger.

“one very long one.” he corrects with a mischievous grin, and before you can protest, he’s already pulling you in, his nose brushing yours, his voice soft enough to make your knees go weak. “i can’t help it, milady. there’s something about you that makes me want to break every rule in the kingdom.”

you fall silent, heart thudding faster than any royal horse could gallop. he leans in a little closer, and just when you think he’s about to kiss you, he murmurs.

“besides… i can’t let you go to sleep without wishing you sweet dreams”

“you’re going to wish me sweet dreams with your lips?” you ask, trying not to giggle. you bite your lip, and of course he notices, he always does. his eyes drop to your mouth, and he smiles again.

“of course.”

and then he does. it’s a soft kiss, sweet, so tender it feels like it was stolen out of a fairytale. and in that moment, you forget the castle walls, the titles, the fact that he’s the crown prince and you’re just a servant.

because right there, between bushes and whispers, he’s just jungwon. your jungwon.

after your encounter with the prince you made your way to the shared servants quarters, tucked away in the quieter wing of the castle. far from the golden halls and polished staircases that royalty walked. your room was small, simple, and lit by a few flickering candles. stone walls surrounded you, cold and silent, but the soft glow and warmth of your friendship with gisselle made it feel almost safe.

the candles were still lit, though dim, their wax spilling over the edges of their holders, pooling like forgotten time. the room was quiet, save for the soft creak of the wooden floor beneath your bare feet. your nightgown brushed against your ankles as you opened the door slowly, breath still uneven.

as soon as you stepped inside, gisselle sat up in her bed, eyes wide.

“finally!” she whispered sharply, sheets rustling as she motioned for you to come closer. “i was about to sneak out and find you. where on earth have you been?”

you closed the door gently and padded across the floor, not to your bed, but to hers. you dropped to your knees beside it, heart thumping, face flushed.

“i saw him, gisselle.” you whispered, breathless.

she clutched your arm immediately, her eyes even wider now.

“was it him? the prince?” she nearly gasped, then caught herself and slapped a hand over her mouth. “good god, what if someone had seen you?”

“no one did. i ran into him on my way back to the quarters. he came to see me.”

“oh my—” gisselle fell back onto her pillow, clutching it to her chest. “tell me, was it tender? did he call you milady?”

your heart skipped at the memory, his voice so gentle, like you were something delicate in his hands.

“yes..” you whispered, unable to hide the smile tugging at your lips. “he called me milady. and… it was like a dream, gisselle. i don’t know how to explain it. everything just felt… perfect.”

her eyes sparkled with excitement. she leaned in close, voice dropping to a whisper, like she feared the walls might lean in too.

“i can’t believe it. you’re really living a fairytale.” she grinned. “did he… did he kiss you? like..” she paused, eyes flicking around the room. “like a prince would?”

you swallowed hard. the memory was still fresh, still warm. your fingers brushed your lips without thinking.

“he did.” you whispered, shy. “it was soft. gentle. like he thought i might break if he wasn’t careful.” a laugh slipped out, light and breathless. “i never thought i’d feel like that… with him.”

gisselle gasped, her hand flying to her mouth again like she physically couldn’t contain her joy.

“oh my stars..” she breathed. “you’re not just some servant anymore, are you? you’re the prince’s secret. this is madness. pure, beautiful madness.”

you chuckled, glancing toward the soft candlelight flickering on the nightstand. shadows danced across the stone walls, quiet and warm.

“he’s royal, gisselle.” you murmured, your smile faltering. “if anyone finds out… it could mean trouble. for both of us. for everything.”

gisselle’s expression softened. she reached out and took your hand in both of hers, her touch grounding.

“i know.” she said gently. “but it’s his choice, isn’t it? if he wants to be with you… then who’s to say no? he sees you for who you really are. not just some servant girl.”

you bit your lip, her words comforting, but the worry still lingered like a shadow in the back of your mind.

“but i am just a servant.” you whispered. “and he’s the prince. his family, his kingdom… they’ll never accept it.”

gisselle squeezed your hand a little tighter, pulling you closer.

“forget them, y/n.” she said with quiet conviction. “you’ve got a love story worth telling, and no crown or title can take that from you.”

you sighed, the weight in your chest easing a little. just enough. for a moment, everything felt simpler. you closed your eyes, thinking of him. the way his lips had brushed yours.

“i don’t know what will happen.” you murmured. “but for now… i’ll treasure it. i’ll treasure him.”

gisselle leaned back into her pillow, her eyes warm with affection as she looked at you.

“you’re so hopelessly in love.” she teased, voice soft and fond.

“am i?” you smiled, resting your head against the edge of her bed, gazing up at the flickering candlelight.

she giggled, nudging you gently with her foot under the blankets.

“yes” she said. “and somehow, you’re going to make it all work. i just know it.”

you smiled, squeezing her hand once more. her warmth, her words, made everything feel a little less impossible.

“thank you, gisselle..” you whispered. “for everything.”

she smiled softly, voice like a lullaby.

“always.”

ii. lavender hands

the scent of lavender clung to the air, subtle and clean, as you stood in the linen room, carefully folding pressed sheets into perfect thirds. it was quiet, peacefully, so save for the rustle of fabric and the occasional creak of the old wooden shelves that lined the walls. sunlight streamed through the high windows, casting golden beams across the room like soft ribbons of light.

you didn’t hear the door at first. not until the latch clicked gently, then closed again. your head lifted quickly, heart stuttering when your eyes met his.

“your highness—”

“shh.” jungwon grinned, finger to his lips as he stepped inside. “i should scold you for calling me that.”

you stared at him, wide-eyed. “you shouldn’t be here. if anyone were to see—”

“they won’t.” he said simply, voice soft as he approached you with featherlight steps. “you fold these sheets too quickly. i hardly have time to catch a glimpse of you.”

you sighed, turning away to keep your hands busy. “i have work to do.”

“and i am only here to assist, mylady.” he said, lifting the edge of a sheet beside you, mimicking your folds with little success.

you tried not to laugh, but the way he fumbled the corners and stared at the linen as though it had offended him, it tugged a smile from you.

“you’re hopeless.”

jungwon beamed. “and yet, you are the one who’s hopelessly pretty.”

you turned, sheet half-folded in your arms, eyes narrowing with a blush warming your cheeks. “that’s improper.”

“so is sneaking in here to see you.” he murmured, stepping closer. his voice dropped, lower now, just for you. “and yet, i can’t seem to stop myself.”

his fingers brushed yours as he took the linen from your arms, folding it with surprising care this time. his eyes didn’t leave your face.

“every hour i’m away, i wonder where you are. what you’re doing. if you think of me.”

you looked away, heart racing. “you should be with your court. preparing for—”

“a future that bores me endlessly.” he finished for you. “i’d rather be here. with you. in rooms that smell like lavender. watching you tuck corners.”

you turned back to him, brows furrowed. “jungwon…”

“may i hold your hand?” he asked softly, like it was sacred.

you hesitated. then slowly reached for him, your fingers slipping into his like puzzle pieces long separated.

he let out a breathless smile, as if he’d just been handed the world.

“forgive me.” he said, raising your hand to his lips, brushing a kiss across your knuckles. “but i find you so terribly lovely.”

you couldn’t speak. not with the way his eyes looked at you, like you were something precious.

“you make it so difficult to stay away.” he whispered, his hands moving from your waist to gently cup your face.

he took his time, studying your face with such intent that it made your heart race. his thumb traced along your cheekbone, and you caught the small, soft gasp that escaped him when his fingers brushed a lock of hair from your face, tucking it gently behind your ear.

you laughed under your breath, cheeks still warm where his hand had been. “you’re ridiculous.” you whispered, voice barely louder than the fluttering in your chest.

jungwon grinned, the boyish kind, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made your heart stumble. “ridiculously in love with you, perhaps.”

you nudged his shoulder, trying and failing to look stern. “you shouldn’t say things like that.”

“but it’s true.” he leaned against the shelf beside you, hands tucked behind his back, as if resisting the urge to reach for you again. “besides, you blush every time. it’s very rewarding.”

“you’re impossible.” you muttered, turning to the linen stack again, but you smiled, and he saw it.

you pretended to be busy continuing folding, but he stepped closer, his shoulder brushing yours lightly.

“do you ever think..” he said, voice low. “about sneaking away? just for a day. no titles. no expectations. just you and me and the world outside the gates.”

you tilted your head, the idea painting soft, wild colors in your mind. “what would we even do?”

he brightened. “we’d eat sweet bread from the baker’s cart. get our boots dirty in the fields. maybe i’d pretend not to know how to ride a horse just so you’d help me.”

you snorted. “you’re an excellent rider.”

“then maybe I’ll pretend to get lost. that way you’d have to find me.”

“jungwon—”

“and when you do..” he continued with a playful grin. “i’d thank you with a kiss.”

your hands paused, eyes flicking up to meet his. the air between you filled with something golden and warm.

“i think you just want an excuse to kiss me.” you said softly, smile tugging at your lips,

he leaned in a little, lowering his voice like a secret. “i don’t need one.”

your heart flipped. and maybe it was the sunlight or the lavender or the way he was looking at you like the world had slowed down, but you didn’t stop him this time.

his lips brushed yours in the gentlest of kisses, barely there, like a promise.

when you opened your eyes again, he looked dazed, a little stunned with happiness. “i’ve been wanting to do that since the first time i saw you in this room.” he admitted.

you smiled, shy but radiant. “then you should’ve come to fold linens sooner.”

he laughed, full and bright, the sound echoing off the shelves.

“i’m never missing a laundry day again.” he said solemnly.

you giggled, swatting lightly at his chest, but he caught your hand and twirled you in a slow, clumsy circle, right there in the middle of the linen room, amidst half-folded sheets and sunshine.

“what are you doing?” you laughed breathlessly as you stumbled into him.

“practicing for our secret royal ball.” he said with a wink. “it’ll be just the two of us. dress code: aprons and laundry dust.”

you rested your forehead against his, still laughing. “you’re unbelievable.”

“you love it.” he whispered, brushing his nose against yours.

“i might.” you admitted, so softly he nearly missed it.

he stilled.

“say it again..” he murmured, his voice suddenly shy, like he couldn’t believe he’d heard right.

you looked up at him, eyes round and warm. “i might love you.”

his breath hitched. and then he kissed you again, this time giddy and just a little clumsy, like he couldn’t believe you were really there, saying things like that.

you both dissolved into giggles when your teeth bumped. he kissed you again to make up for it. and again. and again.

“you taste like honey.” he whispered against your lips.

“it’s probably the tea from the kitchens.” you replied, cheeks aching from smiling.

“no.” he said, nose brushing yours once more. “it’s just you.”

and there, in a room filled with nothing but fresh linen and sunbeams, jungwon kissed you like the world had finally gotten something right.

iii.

the room was too quiet.

you could feel it in your fingertips as you poured tea into a cup. your movements steady, but not calm. there was no one else in the chamber. no guards, no attendants. just you… and prince ri ki.

ri ki was the second-youngest of the royal line, born into silk and sharp expectations. where jungwon carried the warmth of spring, ri ki was winter, graceful, exact, and difficult to read. his words always seemed carefully chosen, his presence always perfectly composed. he was the kind of boy who wore velvet like armor and wielded silence like a sword.

he sat at the far end of the long table, posture flawless, gaze unreadable. his gloves rested beside his untouched plate, fingers steepled beneath his chin as if the entire room was waiting for his permission to breathe.

you bowed politely. “will there be anything else, your highness?”

“sit.” he said.

you blinked.

“…pardon?”

he nodded to the chair beside him, not unkindly. “i asked you to sit. not as a command, but a courtesy.”

after a heartbeat of hesitation, you obeyed, lowering yourself slowly into the seat. your hands folded in your lap, your breath held.

the silence stretched.

ri ki turned his head, studying you, not cruelly, not unkindly. just… watching.

“you’ve been spending time with my brother.” he said at last.

your pulse stuttered.

you answered carefully. “he sometimes visits the servants’ quarters. he’s friendly.”

ri ki tilted his head just slightly. “you think i’m such a fool?”

you stayed quiet.

“i’ve seen the way he looks at you..” ri ki continued, voice like polished stone. “i’ve also seen the way you look at him.”

your throat tightened. “i never meant—”

he cut you off raising a hand, not accusing, just tired.

“for it to become something real?” he finished, arching a brow. “it already has. and that’s the danger.”

he leaned forward, his gaze sharpening. “i’ve lived in this palace long enough to know the rules, even the unspoken ones. who’s allowed to look at whom. who’s allowed to want. and who’s not.”

you stared at your hands in your lap, fingers curled too tightly.

he sighed. not cold. not even annoyed. just… older than he looked. like someone who had been watching too long from behind a wall of gold.

“i’m not here to threaten you..” he said finally. “i came because jungwon trusts me. and i trust him. but love, especially his, is no small thing.”

you lifted your head.

“he’s always been brave.” ri ki went on. “but lately, i see something more in him. something… reckless. like he’s standing too close to a fire and smiling anyway.”

you breathed. “and you think that’s me?”

“no.” ri ki looked at you calmly. “i think it’s both of you.”

you swallowed, hard. “so what are you going to do?”

“nothing.” he stood, slipping his gloves back on one finger at a time. “at least… not yet.”

you rose with him. “why?”

he paused, adjusting the cuffs of his coat. “because for once, it doesn’t look like a scandal. or a game. it looks like something real. and if it is… you’ll need more than each other to survive it.”

he met your eyes one last time.

“you’ll need to be strong. careful. and above all… silent.” ri ki nodded once. “take care.”

you stood as well, heart still pounding. “your majesty, you’re not going to tell anyone?”

he turned for the door, then paused. “like i said, im not going to do nothing. but be careful.” he said over his shoulder. “not everyone in this palace will be as kind as i am.”

and then he was gone.

you stood there in the quiet, hands trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the truth that had just been laid bare.

because now, you knew someone else had seen the flame.

iv. mylady

the ballroom was packed.

music swelled from the golden chamber like waves crashing against your skull, strings, trumpets, voices, clinking glasses, laughter that didn’t sound happy, not really.

you didn’t belong there. you were just passing through the corridor when you saw him bolt.

jungwon.

a blur of dark blue royal suit, hair combed back too perfectly, expression unreadable as he walked fast, then faster, then ran. no one stopped him. they were too busy bowing.

you didn’t think. you followed.

and now you were here. in the stables. the royal stables, to be exact. where the scent of hay and saddle leather replaced perfume and wine, and moonlight poured in through high wooden slats.

jungwon was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, crown gone, his white undershirt wrinkled beneath layers of discarded uniform.

his knees were drawn up. his elbows rested on them.

he looked…small.

like a boy.

not a prince.

not someone with the weight of the entire court on his back.

“you’re not supposed to be here.” he said softly, not even looking up.

“you’re not either.” you whispered.

he looked up then. his eyes were red. not crying, but close. his jaw tightened when your gaze met his.

“did they send you?”

you sat beside him slowly. your skirts rustled. “no. i just saw you leave.”

he didn’t answer right away.

you watched his hands. they were shaking. he kept flexing his fingers like he couldn’t get the feeling back into them.

you swallowed. “what happened?”

jungwon let out a humorless laugh. “what han’t happened?”

he leaned his head back against the wall and stared at the beams above, silent for a moment.

“my uncle’s drunk..” he started. “my mother’s furious because i didn’t want to dance with the viscount’s daughter. the duke from glenmare asked me what my plan was for international strategy, and i—I’m eighteen.”

you glanced over. he looked so tired.

“i just wanted to breathe..” he muttered. “but then they said i needed to smile more. and shake hands. and bow. and act like i give a damn about any of it.” he turned his head to you suddenly. “and i couldn’t even find you.”

your throat tightened. “me?”

“you always find me when i need air..” he whispered. “but you weren’t there. i couldn’t see you anywhere in that room.”

you were frozen. you never realized he looked for you like that. you thought you were invisible most of the time.

“i was in the west wing..” you said softly. “cleaning.”

he nodded slowly. “of course.” he sighed and leaned forward again, resting his elbows on his knees.

silence again.

but not uncomfortable. just…settled. after a moment, you reached over and touched his hand. he tensed. then relaxed. your fingers stayed there and jungwon stared at them for a second, then intertwined his with yours without looking at you.

his hands were warm now.

“sometimes i wish i wasn’t the prince..” he said quietly. “sometimes i just want to be jungwon.”

you didn’t say anything. instead, you leaned your head on his shoulder. his breath caught. he looked down, stunned at first, but then his whole body seemed to settle. like your touch reset something inside him.

“you feel like peace..” he whispered.

you shut your eyes. he was still holding your hand. your pinky was twitching because of how close he was. you were just a maid. you weren’t supposed to be here. you weren’t supposed to comfort him like this.

but you were. and he was letting you.

“do you ever think about leaving?” he asked. “just…running off? starting over somewhere they don’t know your name?”

you nodded. “all the time.”

jungwon turned to look at you, really look this time. his lashes were long in the moonlight. his eyes soft.

“would you go with me?” he asked.

you blinked. your chest tightened. “what?”

“if i asked..” he said. “would you come with me?”

you wanted to say yes. god, you wanted to scream it.

but instead, you whispered. “is that what you really want?”

he didn’t answer right away. his gaze dropped to your lips. his face was close, so close you could count every texture of his skin.

“no.” he said finally. “what i really want is to kiss you. right now.”

your breath caught.

“but i won’t.” he added. “not unless you want it too.”

your fingers squeezed his, you looked up at him and you nodded. that was all it took.

jungwon didn’t hesitate. his hand came up to your face, gently cupping your cheek like he was scared you’d vanish if he touched you too roughly. his lips found yours, warm, slow at first.

then he kissed you again. and again, deeper this time.

you moved closer without thinking, climbing into his lap, your knees on either side of his thighs, skirts bunched around you. his hands settled on your waist, gripping like he needed something to hold onto.

he pulled back just barely, foreheads pressed together, breathing hard. “tell me if this is too much..” he whispered.

“it’s not..” you said, voice shaky but sure.

his mouth found yours again, more desperate this time. you felt his fingers slide up your back, warm under the fabric of your dress, holding you tighter. your own hands moved up into his hair, finally messy, the way you liked it, the way no one else was allowed to see.

he kissed you like he’d been waiting forever. like he didn’t care about the kingdom or the rules or the titles.

just you. just this.

when his lips left yours, they found your jaw, then your neck, slow, hot kisses that made your breath hitch. you felt dizzy. not from fear, not from nerves. from how real it all felt.

his hands roamed, careful but curious, tracing the curve of your waist, the dip of your spine, the bare skin where your dress had slipped just slightly off one shoulder. you gasped quietly when he kissed there, slow and lingering.

you rolled your hips slightly, testing the tension between you. he groaned, quiet, breathy, right against your collarbone, and you felt it, the proof of his want pressing up into you through layers that suddenly felt like too much.

“milady..” he muttered, voice low and rough. “are you.. sure about this?”

you nodded, hands tugging at the buttons of his shirt.

jungwon let out a short breath that could’ve been a laugh, but he was too busy dragging his mouth down your throat, kissing a slow path over your skin. your fingers finally got the last button undone, revealing more of his chest, pale, warm, already flushed. he looked up at you as your hands explored him, watching your face like every move you made was the answer to something he’d been aching to know.

“are you quite certain?” he asked again, one hand slipping up your thigh, pushing your skirts higher. l.

you nodded, breath catching where your fingers brushed his chest. “yes… are you?”

a flicker of colour bloomed on his cheeks. “i’ve never… not once. not with anyone.”

your eyes met his, wide and surprised. “nor have i.”

for a moment, neither of you moved.

the stillness between you felt reverent, sacred. not rushed, not impulsive, just two souls baring themselves.

jungwon exhaled shakily, his thumb brushing your cheek. “then we take our time..” he murmured. “we learn… together.”

your lips curved into the smallest smile. “alright.”

his kiss came slowly, deliberately, with every ounce of care he could give. his lips ghosted over yours as though you were something fragile, something royal in your own right. your hands slipped into his hair, anchoring yourself to him as the warmth of his body pressed against yours.

you helped him undo his pants, fumbling a little with the fabric, both of you shaky and flushed. by then he was free, hard and flushed and already throbbing against your thigh. your underwear came off too, discarded somewhere behind you, forgotten in the soft hay.

“i’ve no notion what i’m doing, mylady.” he admitted softly, flushed and breathless.

“nor i…” you whispered back, a nervous laugh escaping. “but i trust you.”

“may i…?” he asked, voice catching.

you nodded. “slowly.”

and he did. you took him in carefully, inch by inch, both of you holding your breath. it stretched and burned a little, but it wasn’t bad.

his fingers gripped your hips as though anchoring himself. “you’re alright?”

“yes.” you breathed. “just… give me a moment.”

“say the word, and i’ll stop.” he whispered.

but instead, you kissed him.

your bodies moved in soft rhythm, unsure but willing, each motion a question answered with breath and touch. his head rested against your shoulder, his voice a quiet sound of wonder each time you rocked into him.

there was no bed. no privacy. just the hay, the moonlight, and the way he held you like this moment might break him.

“sweet mercy...” he groaned, head tipping back against the stable wall.

you couldn’t think. could barely breathe. all you could do was move, slow at first, easing yourself into the stretch, the fullness. his hands gripped your hips, holding you like he didn’t want to let go.

“mylady, look at me.” he whispered.

and when you did his eyes burned into yours.

“jungwon..”

you moved together, slow, grinding, chasing the edge like it was the only thing that mattered. each roll of your hips dragged a whimper from your throat and a quiet curse from his. he kissed you through it, messy, desperate, open-mouthed kisses as your bodies met again and again.

you felt him throb inside you, knew he was close.

“mylady..” he begged.

you came together quietly, holding each other close, his breath mixing with yours. and a moment later, you followed, falling apart against him, your face buried in his shoulder.

neither of you moved for a long time. you both stayed there, tangled in silence.

his breathing was still uneven, lips slightly parted as he buried his face in your hair. one of his hands lay over your back, fingers twitching gently.

your heart thudded slow but steady, matching his. it felt like the world had paused around you. no court. no crown. just sweat-slick skin, shallow breaths, and the press of two people who shouldn’t have had this, but did.

you exhaled first. and then, softly, barely audible, you speak. “ri ki knows about us.”

jungwon didn’t move. he blinked once. then again.

slowly, he pulled back just enough to look at you. his eyes were puffy but his brows drew together with concern.

“…what?” he whispered.

you swallowed. “your brother knows about this.”

jungwon was quiet. his expression didn’t twist into panic, he just leaned his head back against the wooden beam behind him, staring at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling.

“don’t worry about him.” he murmured. “he wouldn’t tell anyone.”

you nodded slowly, fingers still resting lightly on his chest. “i know. but he’s also loyal. to the crown.”

jungwon looked back at you. there was something unreadable in his eyes now. something sharp beneath the softness. “he’s loyal to me.”

you held his gaze. “are you sure that’s enough?”

he didn’t answer right away. outside, a horse shuffled in its stall. the night breeze creeping through the cracks in the stable walls.

jungwon reached for your hand again, intertwining your fingers.

“i’ll protect us..” he said quietly. “i swear it.”

and you believed him.

v.

the morning sun had barely crested the hills when jungwon stepped onto the practice grounds.

his boots sank slightly into the soft earth, dew still clinging to the grass. his tunic stuck to his back with sweat, already, though it was barely past dawn and the guards who usually assisted him were dismissed.

jungwon exhaled through gritted teeth, blade locked against ri ki’s. both brothers stood at the center of the courtyard, boots planted firm on cobblestone slick with dew.

“you’ve gone soft.” ri ki muttered, pushing back with a smirk.

jungwon twisted his wrist, parried, and stepped aside. “i’ve not.” he grunted. “you’re just insufferable this early.”

“speak for yourself, your highness.”

their swords clashed again, fast now, the rhythm sharp, prince to prince, brother to brother.

jungwon’s movements were aggressive. sharp turns. no hesitation. each strike carried more than just training, it carried frustration.

“you’re distracted.” ri ki said after another parry. “again.”

“and you’re irritating.” jungwon bit, swinging low. ri ki dodged, barely.

“not the first to say so.” they paused, swords crossed, faces close. ri ki studied him. “it’s her, isn’t it?”

jungwon’s jaw tightened. “say it again and i’ll knock your teeth out.”

ri ki lowered his sword.

“you truly believe you’ll keep her hidden forever?” he asked, more serious now. “you’ve always been daft when it comes to consequence, but this, this is foolish beyond reason.”

jungwon stepped back, sword still in hand.

“you think i do not know that?” he snapped. “you think i do not wake with dread in my gut each morn, wondering if mother’s already caught wind?”

“then why continue?”

jungwon looked away, silent for a moment. “because she’s the only thing that feels… honest.”

riki scoffed lightly. “how poetic. write her a sonnet then, not an obituary.”

jungwon turned to him sharply.

ri ki’s tone darkened. “she could die.” he said bluntly. “you know what mother is. you know what she’s done. you’ve seen it.”

a silence felt and jungwon’s knuckles were white around the hilt of his sword. he was breathing hard, but not from the drills.

he stared down at the sword.

ri ki continued, his tone cold. “if word of this reaches her, if she senses even a breath of rebellion, she will not speak of it. she will act.”

jungwon’s jaw clenched. “she would not dare harm her.”

ri ki’s gaze did not waver. “she would. and has. you are heir, jungwon. you were not raised to love. you were bred to rule.”

he felt it then. the doubt.

for the first time.

like rot in his lungs.

he’d always believed he could protect you. that if he loved hard enough, held you tight enough, it would be enough.

but what if it wasn’t?

what if he was dragging you into a fire, blindfolded and barefoot?

what if loving you was a death sentence?

ri ki sighed. “mother wants you ready for tomorrow’s.”

jungwon turned his head. “what is it now?”

“you leave by carriage this afternoon. the royal instructors have been summoned. they are to accompany you by carriage through the northern route.”

jungwon looked up sharply. “i was not told.”

“you’re to meet the princess. she’ll be seated beside you during supper.” ri ki said flatly.

jungwon’s heart sank.

“it begins.” ri ki added. “whether you like it or not.”

he gave jungwon a long look before he left.

vi.

the hour was far past decent.

moonlight stretched pale across the marble floors, and the long hall you crossed seemed to echo with silence. torches flickered low in their sconces, their flames casting golden shadows that danced across your path.

your skirts whispered with each step, arms tired from scrubbing, apron dusted with ash from the hearth. your hands were smudged faintly with soot, apron crumpled, hair tucked back loosely.

you moved quietly through the corridor, long and dimly lit, you just wanted to reach your chambers. you rubbed your arms absently, your shoulders aching. only a few more steps until a hand caught your waist.

you startled, breath caught in your throat, but before you could speak, a second hand came around, pressing gently over your mouth.

your back was against the wall in an instant.

warm breath touched your ear.

“hush.” the voice was low, familiar. your eyes widened as jungwon stepped into view.

his tunic was open slightly at the throat, the royal crest gleaming faint beneath the fabric. his hair was slightly tousled, as though he’d been running fingers through it all evening. he said nothing at first. just looked at you.

you blinked at him. “you scared me.”

“forgive me.” he murmured, brows furrowed as he stepped closer. “i did not intend to, i only… gods, i could not wait.”

your back pressed further into the stone as he closed the distance, eyes still searching his.

he looked tired.

“i’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

you straightened. “leaving?”

he nodded once. “just for a few days.” he reassured, his voice quiet in the empty corridor. his fingers curled gently at your waist. “nothing dangerous. just business. royal duties.”

you looked up at him, trying to read past the calm in his tone.

he was dressed simpler than usual, his dark tunic a bit wrinkled from rushing, the crest at his collar half-buttoned, and his hair messier than you’d ever seen it. like he’d run his hands through it a dozen times.

“will you miss me?” he asked, his head tilting slightly.

you shrugged, arms crossed loosely. “a little.”

he huffed a laugh. “liar.”

his arms came around you then, slow, deliberate, like he wasn’t sure you’d allow it. like he needed to be sure.

but you didn’t move away.

you let him hold you.

his arms slipped further around you then, drawing you in. slower this time, gentler. his head dropped to your shoulder, warm breath brushing your skin.

you didn’t move away.

his hold tightened a little, just enough to pull you closer. he didn’t speak right away, just stayed like that, forehead against your neck, fingers curling at your lower back.

“you’re tense.” you said quietly, hand brushing through his hair.

he hummed low in response, then leaned back just slightly to look at you. his eyes searched your face, soft, a bit heavy-lidded.

“am i?” he said with a small smirk.

you raised an eyebrow. “you look like you haven’t slept.”

“maybe i haven’t.”

his gaze flicked to your lips.

you felt your breath catch, just barely, and when he leaned in, reflexively you turned your face, shy, cheeks warming before you could stop it. not out of rejection, but out of memory. of that night. of how close you had been. how bare.

he noticed.

“ah..” he said under his breath, a small, knowing sound.

his hand simply moved to the back of your neck, thumb gently rubbing along your skin as his forehead came to rest against yours.

“you’re shy now?” he whispered, teasing.

you rolled your eyes, cheeks warm, eyes refusing to meet his.

jungwon hummed, gaze dropping to your lips, and he leaned closer. murmuring near your ear. “you weren’t shy last time. you—”

“don’t say it.”

“you begged, dove.”

“jungwon!”

he burst into quiet laughter, pulling you in with both arms now, clearly too entertained.

“you’re never seeing me off again.” you grumbled into his shoulder.

he smiled against your hair.

“too late. i’m already leaving with a memory i’ll take to my grave.”

you pulled back just enough to glare at him, only for him to steal that kiss after all, quick and soft, catching you off guard.

your breath caught and he smiled smugly.

“miss me properly, yeah?”

vii. just for a minute.

the days moved on like they always did.

your mornings began early, before the bells rang. you helped prep the main halls, swept ash from the fireplaces, and kept the west wing windows polished so the steward wouldn’t complain.

gisselle was the one who kept you sane.

she cornered you in the linen room two days after his departure, arms full of folded sheets and suspicion in her eyes.

“you’re quieter.” she said bluntly, dropping the stack on the shelf.

you blinked. “i’m tired.”

“tired, huh?” she echoed, clearly unimpressed. “you’re always tired. this is different.”

you didn’t answer, and she didn’t press. just gave you a look and passed you a basket of fresh towels.

“well, whatever’s keeping you up, tell it to let you sleep. you look like a sad candle.”

“a sad candle?”

“yes. all dim and droopy. it’s tragic.”

you huffed a laugh despite yourself.

afternoons were filled with errands, refilling water jugs, delivering notes between staff, helping the kitchen girls carry bread loaves up to the great hall.

nights were quiet.

gisselle snuck you extra biscuits from the kitchen. you returned her hairpins when she left them scattered across the vanity table. and sometimes you’d crawl into her bed with a sigh and ask if they feed him properly out there. gisselle could only said that he was a prince. he’ll survive.

one week passed. then another.

you did your duties. you kept your head down. you kept that folded parchment beneath your pillow. untouched.

no letters came. but you kept waking before the sun. just in case.

you found yourself, as always, in the same places. tidying the east wing, sweeping the hallways, delivering messages to the royal chambers. and yet, you carried on.

then, one evening as you were passing by the library, before you could even turn, hands were at your waist, lifting you from your thoughts and pulling you.

you barely had time to process it.

“what—jungwon?” you managed, though his name came out more like a question, a gasp, and you couldn’t quite place the confusion or the shock, both because you hadn’t expected him to be back and because, honestly, you hadn’t heard a thing.

he didn’t immediately speak, though his presence alone was enough to unsettle you. you finally turned your head to face him, your eyes searching his.

“when did you return?” you whispered, a bit breathless from the unexpected turn of events.

jungwon’s eyes flicked to yours, and for a moment, there was something unreadable in them. the usual spark was gone, replaced with something deeper, unease, maybe?

“this morning.” he said, his voice quieter than usual. he took a small step back, but his hands never left your waist.

you frowned, noticing the way his brows were furrowed, the tension in his jaw. he was acting different, too still, too careful with every movement.

“you seem…” you trailed off, trying to find the right words. “what’s wrong?”

he gave a half-smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “nothing’s wrong.”

but it didn’t sound convincing.

you tilted your head slightly, studying him, feeling the quiet pull between you as he remained unusually distant.

you watched him carefully, he couldn’t keep his gaze on you. instead, his eyes flicked around, scanning the corridor.

finally, after a few moments of silence, he met your eyes again, this time with a softer look.

“i missed you.” he said simply, already pulling you by the hand, into the familiar hush of the library.

it was quiet. lit only by candles. he let go of your hand then, and you rubbed your wrist out of habit, though it wasn’t sore. just warm. still tingling.

you turned away first, pretending to examine the nearest shelf. “you know i’m still working.”

“then consider this… an unauthorized break.”

you glanced over your shoulder. “what if someone finds us?”

he raised a brow. “then we’ll lie. you were dusting books, and i was brushing up on agriculture.”

“you hate agriculture.”

“exactly. no one would believe it. they’ll leave us alone.”

you snorted, crossing your arms and leaning back against the railing of the spiral staircase. “you’re impossible.”

but your heart was already thudding. you hated the way it did that, loud and reckless, whenever he looked at you the way he was looking at you now.

god how much you’ve missed him.

“you like it here.” he said suddenly.

your eyes flicked to his. “the library?”

he took a step closer, hands tucked behind his back. “you always slow down when you walk past. i’ve noticed.”

“…maybe.” you shrugged, turning back to the shelves. “it’s peaceful.”

jungwon moved slowly then, careful, like he was testing the weight of every step. the candlelight hit the side of his face, softening the sharp lines. making his eyes look warmer than you remembered.

“you looked absolutely beautiful, mylady.”

you shake you head. “i looked completely horrendous.”

his hand reached up, brushing a loose strand of hair away from your cheek. gentle. slow.

“i mean every word when i speak to you.” he said.

you looked away, but he didn’t let you. his hand was careful, lifting your chin just slightly until your gaze met his again.

your lips parted. the breath caught in your throat. and then, just as suddenly, he stepped back. turned away. his shoulders shifted as he exhaled. he moved to one of the velvet armchairs near the tall window and sat down without another word.

“come here.” he said quietly, patting the armrest beside him.

“jungwon…” you hesitated.

“just for a minute.”

you sighed but walked over anyway, sitting beside him. your knees bumped lightly.

it was quiet again. the kind of quiet that felt private. heavy.

he looked at you, something thoughtful in his expression. something almost… hesitant. but he didn’t say anything. he didn’t say what he came here to say.

instead, his gaze fell on the shelves again. “read something to me.”

you blinked. “what?”

“pick anything. i want to hear your voice.”

you gave him a strange look, but reached for a nearby book anyway. you flipped through the yellowed pages until you found something legible and started reading, something about a royal banquet that had ended with someone’s wig catching fire.

he laughed and you glanced at him, smiling without thinking. you didn’t even notice how close his hand had gotten until your fingers brushed against his.

his fingers were long, soft, a little cold. yours were rougher, calloused from cleaning floors and silverware.

he liked your hands. he noticed they always shook a little when you were around him, and he’d never say it out loud, but it made his chest feel warm in a way that almost scared him.

you didn’t dress like the other girls he saw in the ballroom. no jewels, no silks. you wore a faded apron, scuffed shoes, sleeves rolled to your elbows. but somehow, you looked more beautiful to him than all of them combined.

and tonight, as you stood beside him under the library chandelier, face lit softly in candlelight, he couldn’t stop staring.

“why’re you looking at me like that.” you muttered, trying to sound annoyed.

“you’ve a smudge on your cheek.” he said, his hand reaching up your cheek to clean it. and when he did you looked away first, flustered.

he always looked at you like that, like you were something he wasn’t supposed to want, but did anyway.

it was confusing. it made your stomach twist in ways you didn’t understand.

jungwon stepped away slowly, pretending to inspect the books. his hair was slightly messy, soft brown strands falling into his eyes. he was always clean-cut, always neat in public. but in these stolen moments, he looked real.

less like a prince.

you stood in place for a moment, heart hammering, unsure of what to do with the space he’d left behind. the room still felt like it belonged to him, even when he wasn’t touching you.

you turned back to the book, pretending to read. you weren’t following the words. you were listening to him move behind you. the quiet creak of the floorboards under his boots. the way he breathed a little slower now.

“i didn’t think you’d be back so soon.” you murmured.

“neither did i.”

you glanced at him over your shoulder. he wasn’t looking at you, just tracing the spine of a dusty volume like it held something important. like if he focused hard enough, it would tell him what to say.

“did something happen?” you asked, voice low.

he paused. only for a second. but you noticed.

“no.” he said simply. “just… plans changed.”

you tilted your head, confused. “you’re usually kept longer when you travel with the council.”

jungwon let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, but not a real one. more like something tired.

“turns out, not everything goes according to plan.”

you nodded slowly, still watching him. his voice was steady, but something in it felt… off. and he still wasn’t meeting your eyes.

you didn’t ask more. you should’ve. but you didn’t. instead, you took a step toward him.

“well… i’m glad you’re here.” you said and grab his hands with a smile across your face.

and that’s when he looked at you. fully. his eyes soft but guarded, like he was memorizing something.

“don’t say that.” he murmured.

you blinked. “why not?”

he didn’t answer at first. just glanced down at your hands joined like he hadn’t meant for that to happen.

but he didn’t let go.

“you make it harder.” he said, almost like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.

you frowned.

he shook his head. “forget it.”

you opened your mouth to ask again, but then he kissed you. thumb brushing the edge of your jaw.

“you talk too much, mylady.” he said softly, teasing, even if his voice sounded far away.

“that’s new.” you muttered, trying not to sound breathless.

he smiled faintly. “you’ve always talked too much.”

you narrowed your eyes at him. “you’re so strange lately.”

“am i?” he murmured, like he wasn’t even listening anymore.

you paused, leaning your forehead lightly against his shoulder. “you sure everything’s alright?”

his hand slid gently down your spine.

“yeah.”

he didn’t look at you when he said it. but his arms stayed around you like he didn’t trust himself to let go.

you didn’t ask again.

and he didn’t say anything else. just held you because maybe he wouldn’t get to again.

viii. the promise that wasn’t for me

the days passed, but jungwon was quieter than usual. he didn’t come around like before, didn’t seek you out like he did in the library that night. you heard his footsteps less often, his voice rarely reached your ears. sometimes, when you passed the great hall or the council chambers, you caught glimpses of him in the distance, always alone, always serious.

you kept yourself busy, going about your chores like always, sweeping floors, polishing silver, and running errands for the steward. it was easier to focus on work when your mind was crowded with questions you didn’t want to ask.

gisselle noticed, of course. she teased you less and watched you more, like she was waiting for you to say something anything about jungwon’s sudden silence.

you wanted to say something. you wanted to ask why he came back only to disappear again, why his eyes looked tired and distant the last time you saw him. but you didn’t have the words. maybe he didn’t either.

sometimes, when the palace was quiet and the sun was low, you found yourself standing near the library, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. but he never appeared. the empty space beside you where he used to stand felt heavier than any silence.

tho this morning the palace was louder than usual.

you had barely tied your apron when the head maid grabbed your arm and thrust a tray of covered dishes into your hands.

“to the golden parlour. now. her majesty is having a private breakfast with a guest.”

“a guest?” you asked, adjusting your grip on the tray. “shall i prepare tea, or—”

“princess navina of esthrene.” she cut in. “do not speak unless spoken to. and mind your posture.”

you offered a tight nod and made your way down the corridor, trying not to roll your eyes.

another one.

prince jungwon had been “introduced” to more noble daughters than you could count. you’d seen dozens. each one laced in foreign perfumes and draped in their kingdom’s finest silk. each one trying, and failing, to draw a smile from him.

jungwon never smiled at them.

you balanced the tray and made your way to the parlour. your chest felt calm. you had nothing to worry about.

he was yours.

even if no one knew it.

the doors to the golden parlour opened with a soft click, and you stepped inside, careful not to let the tray wobble.

the room was warm with gold accents, sunlight filtering through gauzy curtains. the queen sat at the head of the gilded table, elegance in every movement. across from her, a young woman, presumably princess navina, adorned in seafoam silks and delicate pearls. her poise was flawless. she looked composed. polished. untouched.

but it was jungwon who made your breath falter.

he sat beside her. straight-backed in his ceremonial robe, the one with black and gold threading reserved for national announcements or courtships.

when he saw you enter, tray in hand, something shifted. his eyes widened just slightly, lips parting as though caught mid-thought. he hadn’t expected you. not here. not now. and definitely not like this.

he looked down, then back up, expression unreadable again, face settling into calm.

but he wasn’t calm.

you bowed low, eyes on the floor. “breakfast is served, your majesties.”

“set it down.” the queen said evenly.

you obeyed, fingers steady, until you reached him. you didn’t look at him. but you felt him. he didn’t speak. didn’t move. but his eyes found yours. not cold, not warm. something in between. something stuck.

then, as if remembering where he was, who he was, he looked away.

you quickly stepped back to your post. hands clasped behind your back with posture perfect.

“well princess navina” the queen began. “we’re grateful your family agreed to the shortened engagement. a summer ceremony will be most fitting.”

your stomach dropped.

“indeed, your majesty.” navina answered softly. “my mother preferred a spring celebration, but i insisted. i would rather stand beside my husband from the beginning of his reign.”

jungwon didn’t say a word.

“the royal tailor arrives tomorrow.” the queen continued. “the wedding colours shall be gold and seafoam. the announcement will go out by week’s end.”

your heart fell to the ground before the silver tray.

because yes, you dropped it and the porcelain dishes shattered on the marble floor.

the entire room went silent.

you dropped to a bow without thinking, heart thudding against your ribs. “f-forgive me, your majesty.“

the queen didn’t answer right away.

you stayed in position, knees pressed to the floor, hands trembling slightly. the sound of the broken cup still echoed in your ears. it was foolish. you knew better. you were trained better.

but you hadn’t expected that.

you hadn’t expected her.

princess navina sat gracefully at the table, one gloved hand resting in her lap, the other holding a silver spoon just above her untouched plate. she didn’t flinch. didn’t look startled or annoyed. only concerned, the type of calm concern taught in finishing schools and royal drawing rooms.

she was beautiful, of course she was.

her dark hair was swept back into an intricate twist, not a strand out of place. her eyes, soft and almond-shaped, were framed with kohl and intelligence. her dress shimmered faintly with seafoam thread, and the pearl comb in her hair caught the light whenever she moved.

she looked like she belonged there.

next to him.

and that made your stomach twist.

you heard the queen shift in her seat. “get it cleaned.” she said sharply. “then leave us.”

you bowed lower. “yes, your majesty.”

you scrambled to gather the broken porcelain, careful not to cut your palms. jungwon didn’t move. not a muscle. but you felt his eyes on you.

you didn’t look up.

you couldn’t.

as you stood, you caught a glimpse of princess navina watching you. her expression unreadable. curious, maybe. or amused. or nothing at all.

you turned and walked out, heart pounding, cheeks burning, pieces of porcelain rattling on the tray.

you hadn’t cried.

not yet.

but gods, your eyes stung.

you set the tray down in the scullery with shaking hands. no one was there and the silence pressed in around you like a second skin. you stared at the shards, white and delicate, now ruined. like something else you couldn’t name.

you pressed your palms flat to the counter, trying to steady your breath. your reflection in the tarnished silver tray stared back, eyes red-rimmed and wide, lips parted like you might speak if you only had the strength.

you didn’t see jungwon for the rest of the day.

you kept your head down, kept busy, scrubbed the kitchens until your fingers ached. you avoided the golden parlour. you avoided everyone.

even gisselle, who cornered you by the laundry with furrowed brows and folded arms.

“you’re not made of stone.” she said, not unkindly. “you can talk to me, you know.”

but you couldn’t.

that night you lay on your straw mattress, the thin blanket barely keeping the chill away. the quiet was comforting — except for the absence of giselle, who was supposed to be nearby. she had left a few minutes ago saying she needed a bath before bed, wanting to wash away the day’s dirt and tension.

then your door creaked open and you saw him. soaked in rain, his cloak dripping onto your stone floor and hair flat against his forehead. you sat up fast, heart leaping,

your breath caught in your throat. “you can’t be here. someone will—”

“why?” he stepped fully inside, shutting the door behind him. “because if anyone finds out i’m marrying someone else, they’ll know i’ve been sneaking into a maid’s room at night for months?”

“you lied to me.”

“i didn’t lie.”

“you didn’t tell me.” you snapped, rising to your feet.

“i was going to tell you.”

“when?” your voice cracked, raw. “when, jungwon?”

“i didn’t think they’d agree to the shortened engagement.” he rushed out. “it was supposed to be discussed, just discussed. i was going to tell you, but not like this—”

“so you were just going to keep lying to me.”

“i wasn’t lying!” he said, louder now. “i wasn’t ready.”

“you weren’t ready.” you echoed bitterly.

“i was trying to protect you.”

you stared at him. “by marrying another woman?”

“i’m not choosing her. you know that. you think i’d stand at an altar with someone else, knowing what we have?” his voice sounded tired. defeated.

“you already are.” you whispered, voice breaking. “you sat beside her today. you let them plan your wedding.”

“and what would you have me do?” his voice rose. “declare my love for a servant before the entire court? bring scandal to your name? put a target on your back?”

“you already have.”

his face crumpled. “y/n…”

you looked away, blinking hard, throat burning. your voice came quieter this time. “you should go.”

“please don’t do this.” he stepped closer but you backed away quickly.

“go.” you whispered and crossed your arms, not to defend yourself, but to keep from shaking.

jungwon stood in the middle of the room like a storm himself, unwelcome, uninvited, and yet impossible to look away from.

he didn’t move.

he pressed a hand to his face, dragging it down slowly, as if trying to wipe the weight of it all away. “i thought i could buy us time. i thought—i thought if i kept things quiet, i could figure it out without hurting you.”

you turned away, gripping the edge of the small wooden table near your bed, trying to steady yourself. “you should go before giselle comes back.”

he stayed where he was.

“jungwon..” you said again, softer now, tired. “please.”

he looked at you like he was memorizing you, the distance between you was breaking something inside him. he opened his mouth, then shut it. and then, finally, he nodded.

“i’ll fix this.”

you didn’t answer.

you didn’t look back when the door creaked open again. or when it shut behind him.

your knees gave out the second the door shut behind him.

you dropped to the floor, hard, hands hitting the stone as you caught yourself. and then it all crashed in.

you cried.

you cried like it hurt to breathe, like the ache in your chest might never leave. the tears came hot and fast, spilling down your cheeks, dripping onto the floor. sobs tore through you, quiet but wrecking, the kind that left your whole body trembling.

because you loved him.

you pressed your forehead to the floor, eyes squeezed shut, wishing the stone would swallow you whole-wishing you could go back to before, when it was just you and him and a library full of stolen moments.

but those moments were gone.

ix.

the days following were torment. not just for him, but for you too.

the palace didn’t sleep. there were whispers in every hallway, servants sprinting across stone floors with velvet fabrics, golden plates, and endless flowers. everyone preparing for the arrival of the royal guests.

and you?

you kept your head down, hands busy, ears deaf. or at least, you tried. but every time someone said lady navina, it felt like someone dug their fingers into your chest and twisted.

you spoke only when spoken to.

and when you did, you called him, my lord.

the first time it left your lips, the pen slipped from his hand like it had burned him.

now jungwon was looking for you all over the palace.

in the marble corridors, in the garden, in the library where you used to sort the books by color just because he said he liked it like that.

but you were no longer in any of those places.

you had asked to be transferred to the kitchen.

away from the east wing.

away from him.

and still, jungwon kept looking for you.

through the hallways.

through the art gallery.

he even asked about you in the laundry room.

but you ignored him. more firmly each time.

you were never under any illusion, it was never meant to last. you knew he would come. and so he did. three days later, the doors burst open with such force, the very knives upon the table trembled in their place.

the kitchen fell still. not a word, not a breath.

even the head chef, midway through stirring, froze in silence. only the soup dared to continue its boil—blissfully.

“leave. all of you.” jungwon’s voice rang out—clear. commanding. no one moved at first. until he lifted his gaze. “i said leave. now.”

the cook dropped her knife. the helpers rushed to remove their aprons. one by one, they left, confused. you did the same. left the board, turned toward the back door, but his voice reached you before you crossed it.

“not you.”

you halted. and slowly, so slowly, you turned to face him. he came closer, closing the door behind him.

“my lord.” you said, with a curt nod. “if you’ll excuse me—“

“is that it?” he bit out, stepping forward. “are you truly going to keep pretending you don’t know me? that you don’t know what’s between us?”

“i’m not pretending anything, my lord.” the coldness in your voice was worse than any slap.

“don’t call me that. not you, for god’s sake.”

“but that’s what you are now. my lord.”

“no!” he took a step closer, his voice breaking with anger. “not after everything. not after the way you looked at me. not after those nights we spent talking about the world beyond these walls, dreaming of something more than

“that was before your engaged.”

his eyes softened for a second, like your coldness tore him apart. he walked toward you, slower this time, like he was unsure, like every step hurt.

“don’t look at me like that. not you.” he whispered.

“how am i supposed to look at you?” you asked, not with anger, just resignation. “like nothing happened? jungwon, you knew this was going to happen. you chose it.”

“they chose it for me.”

“but you accepted it. and i don’t blame you. you’re the prince. you have a duty.” your voice cracked a little, but you kept going. “i already knew my place. i’m just… a mistake in your story.”

“you were never a mistake!”

“but it seems like one. doesn’t it?”

he breathed heavily. you remained unmoved.

“you don’t understand.” he murmured, turning away and running a hand through his hair. “you don’t understand how hard it’s been to pretend i don’t care about you. how i ache every time i see you and can’t touch you. you don’t understand what it’s like to smile at a woman i never chose while thinking about the scent of your lavender-covered hands.”

you didn’t cry. you wouldn’t give him that.

“i love you..”he let out, almost a desperate secret. “don’t you get it? i’d do anything to give you the truth back, to turn back time. tell me you still believe me.”

“believing you isn’t the problem, jungwon.”

you looked him straight in the eyes, finally.

“the problem is that none of this matters anymore. because you have a duty. a kingdom. a crown. and i’m just a stone in the path to all that.”

“you’re not.”

“yes, i am. and you know it.”

jungwon lowered his gaze. he looked tired. his jaw was tight, eyebrows drawn like he’d been clenching them all day. but it was his eyes. red, a little swollen, like he hadn’t slept right in days. they kept flicking from your face to the floor, like he couldn’t decide where to settle.

“i didn’t expect to stay with you. i’m not that naive.” you added. “but i did expect you to be honest with me. after everything… i thought at least that much, you owed me.”

he closed his eyes, like your words were blades.

“i tried..” he murmured. “i tried to find a way out. i thought that if i postponed the announcement, if i delayed the ceremony… i could find you, explain everything myself. but things moved faster than i imagined.”

“it wasn’t your duty to delay it.” you said softly, eyes down. “your duty was to become king. i was just the mistake you made along the way.”

that broke him. you knew it because he stepped back, like he needed space to breathe.

“you weren’t a mistake.” he said again, firm, with a mix of pain and anger. “don’t say that. you were… the only real thing.”

jungwon looked at you as if hoping you’d interrupt him, say something, anything, but you just stayed silent. the kitchen was heavy with tension.

“say something. anything.” he pleaded, voice barely louder than a whisper.

“what do you want me to say?” you finally asked, still not looking at him. “that i understand you? because i do. that i forgive you? i do that too. but none of it changes what you are now.”

“you talk to me like i betrayed you on purpose.”

“i don’t blame you, jungwon.” you repeated calmly, but it was the kind of calm that only hides exhaustion. “i really don’t. i just… didn’t expect to find out while serving bread and tea.

jungwon shut his eyes tightly. “it hurts when you talk to me like this.”

“and you think it doesn’t hurt me?” you said, finally looking at him, eyes wet but no tears falling. “you were the only thing that didn’t make me feel invisible in this place.”

he stepped toward you again, desperate.

“i don’t want this to end like this. i don’t want you and me to…” his voice broke.

“but it already ended, jungwon.” you interrupted. “it ended the moment you signed the papers. the moment you swore loyalty to someone else.”

he looked at you with a mix of sorrow and fury. not at you, but at himself. for not protecting you. for losing you. for not having the courage to break from what was expected of him.

“if i could go back…”

“but you can’t.” you said, and this time you smiled, a sad resigned smile. “this was your destiny. i was just a pause in the middle of your duty.”

the silence stretched.

“and still, i love you.” he murmured.

that made you tremble. you lowered your gaze. you didn’t want to hear that. not now. not when you had already forced yourself to let him go.

“don’t say that to me, jungwon.” you whispered.

he stared at you for a long time. too long. and for a second, just a second, you wondered if he might say screw it. if he might reach for your hand. pull you close. risk it all.

but he didn’t.

he just looked down. his shoulders dropped a little. then he nodded, once.

“i’m sorry.” he said quietly.

you didn’t answer.

and this time, when he turned to leave, you didn’t stop him. you didn’t even look.

and maybe that’s what hurt most.

x. the bells said I died

the palace glowed as if it were already celebrating a fairytale you never asked to be part of. white flowers climbed the windows, golden velvet curtains hung from every arch, and a thousand scented candles waited to be lit once night fell. the grand ball in honor of prince jungwon’s engagement to lady navina was just hours away.

and you… you walked through it all as if you were just another piece of furniture. invisible. as if you hadn’t woken up before dawn for months to prepare the tea he always said he preferred when no one else was paying attention. as if you hadn’t memorized the sound of his breathing while pretending you were the only one in love in silence.

it was the day before the royal ball. the celebration in honor of the prince’s engagement to lady navina was already filling the palace with decorations. the halls overflowed with white flowers and golden ribbons, and every servant was rushing from one end to the other with trays, fabrics, crowns of leaves, while you just… walked through it all with your head down, pretending it didn’t affect you.

“more to the center, dear, that table must be perfect. the princess wants everything to look flawless.” ordered one of the ladies-in-waiting, adjusting her headpiece with a handheld mirror.

you were about to answer, but gisselle ran up to you, breathless.

“prince jungwon…” she said in a hushed tone, as if afraid someone else might hear. “he hasn’t gotten out of bed. the physician was called. they say he has a fever.”

you froze. “how bad is it?”

“i don’t know. no one is allowed near him. his mother isn’t letting anyone in except for her most trusted staff.” she lowered her voice again. “but he hasn’t eaten. hasn’t spoken. it’s been all day.”

“and navina?”

“she hasn’t even gone to see him. she’s too busy choosing the flowers for the banquet.”

you walked away without a word.

that night, as the sun finally disappeared behind the palace towers, you sat in your chambers pretending to sew. the thread slipped from your fingers more than once, and your stitches were uneven—your mind too loud, too far from the needle in your hand. you hadn’t truly been focusing, not for hours, but you kept your posture straight, lips pressed into a line, like you’d been taught.

across the room, giselle slept curled beneath a soft wool blanket. her back rose and fell in steady rhythm, face turned toward the window.

the only light came from a single candle on your desk. shadows danced along the walls, and every creak of the old stone outside felt louder than usual.

you were about to put down the needle when someone knocked on the door twice. you turned your head slowly, not wanting to wake giselle, you rose quietly, crossed the room, and opened the door just a crack. and when you opened it you weren’t expecting to see him.

prince ri ki was there, slightly out of breath, as if he had run all the way. you slipped into the hallway before he could speak, closing the door gently behind you.

“your highness?” you quickly bowed, trying to keep your voice steady.

he shook his head, glancing over your shoulder, making sure you were alone.

“no time for formalities. pack your things.” he said quietly but firmly. “only what’s necessary.”

“what?” you blinked. “i don’t understand.”

“it’s an order.” he repeated, gentle but serious.

you didn’t ask anything else. you didn’t have the strength to. with trembling hands, you stuffed what little you had into a small bag. giselle was still asleep, unaware of what was happening. you didn’t have time to say goodbye.

you paused for a second at the door, glancing back toward the bed where giselle was still asleep under the thick blankets, her breathing calm.

“don’t worry about her.” ri ki said quietly when he saw you hesitate.

as you followed him, you passed through corridors you were usually not allowed in. ri ki walked quickly but with ease, greeting every guard naturally, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

“can i know where we’re going?” you whispered, trying not to sound scared as you stepped through a back door into the garden.

ni ki didn’t answer. he just kept walking, circling one of the old fountains in the back.

and then you saw him.

jungwon. standing beside the oldest rose bush in the palace. no sign of fever. not a trace of illness. his back straight, his face lit by the moon, and his eyes fixed on you like he had never stopped watching.

“what is this…?” you asked, confused, dropping the bag at your feet.

“no time, milady.” jungwon said, walking toward you. his voice was urgent, different, like he knew every second counted. “we have to go.”

“go?” you frowned, stepping back. “what are you doing?”

“i’ll explain later.” he said, taking your hand. his palm was warm, steady, and that only confused you more.

“there’s a carriage waiting further down, at the north path,” said ri ki giving his brother your bag. “i’ll take care of the rest.”

ri ki looked at him for a long second, like he wanted to say something else. then he simply pulled him into a hug. strong, one arm across his back, the other hand resting on the back of jungwon’s neck.

“you’re going to be okay, alright?” ri ki murmured into his ear, voice trembling. “i’ve got it. you just… live, okay?”

jungwon nodded, biting his lip as he pulled away.

“thank you, brother. for everything.”

ri ki grabbed his shoulders and gave him a small shake, eyes glistening.

“don’t thank me now. thank me when you’ve got a home far away from here, a new name, and… her by your side.” he looked your way briefly before turning back.

you stood frozen, feeling the air shift. you still didn’t fully understand what was happening, just that it was big. too big.

“take care of him, will you?” ri ki said quietly, almost pleading.

before you could reply, he turned and walked back into the garden, disappearing into the mist and shadows of the palace.

jungwon didn’t wait another second.

“quickly.” he said, tugging your hand.

“what—? jungwon— where are we going?”

“trust me.” he said simply, and then started running.

your steps were clumsy at first, stumbling a little from the pace. the mud clung to your shoes, and soon the edges of your white gown were completely stained. the hem dragged dirt, leaves, branches. the cold bit at your skin, but jungwon didn’t stop.

and neither did you. because he didn’t let go.

the bells started ringing before you reached the carriage. one, then another. their echo sliced through the air violently, making you shiver.

taaan!

taaan!

taaan!

the sound spread through the valley, from the highest towers of the palace. it wasn’t any ordinary bell. it was the mourning call. the one they rang only when someone of royalty had died.

and then, you heard it. a distant scream from the east wing of the castle.

“prince jungwon is dead!”

epilogue.

the sky had that soft color that appears when the sun starts to set but hasn’t quite decided to leave yet. a shade between gold and peach slipped through the light curtains of the small country house they now lived in. it was one of those afternoons when everything felt calm, like even time itself had decided to pause for a few more minutes.

the kitchen smelled like freshly baked bread and mandarins. lots of mandarins. your daughter, barely five years old, was sitting on one of the high chairs with a wrinkled apron and sticky cheeks from juice. she had peeled four, or maybe five mandarins with more enthusiasm than technique, leaving a messy pile of peels on the wooden table.

“mom, look at this one, it’s weird.” she said with a smile, holding up a slice that, in her eyes, looked like a heart.

“it’s because it has love.” you replied, gently brushing her hair, feeling that warmth that only simple moments can give you.

the back door was open, letting in the sound of the wind, rustling branches. your youngest son came running down the stairs. barefoot, holding a stick he insisted on calling his “royal sword”.

“i’m going with dad!” he yelled, his giggles being contagios.

you barely managed to say “put on shoes” but he was already gone. you watched him run across the garden, where the grass was still wet with dew.

and there was jungwon.

his back turned. hair longer, tied with a leather strap. his body stronger, broader. arms marked by daily labor, broad shoulders under a white linen shirt rolled up to the elbows. chopping wood like he’d done it all his life.

the prince he once was, now just a man. a husband. a father.

“daaad!” the boy yelled, running toward him, barefoot and with mud-stained pants. jungwon dropped the axe instantly to lift him into the air, spinning once as they both laughed.

you stepped onto the porch holding your daughter’s hand. she kept eating mandarins while you tried to wipe the juice from the corners of her lips.

the image stayed with you like a painting: the sunlight filtering through the trees, your daughter playing with mandarin peels, your son clinging to jungwon’s neck, and him, looking at you from the garden as if he didn’t need anything else in the world but that.

you.

jungwon looked at you, and kissed your forehead when you got close. his hand was rough from working the land, but warm. real. your fingers laced with his almost without thinking, like your body did it on its own.

“today’s a good day to go to the lake.” he murmured.

“yeah… today everything feels right.”

you looked around. there were no carriages, no jewels, no titles. there were winters by the fireplace with everyone huddled under a blanket. there were summers running through flower fields, and laughter that disappeared into the wind. there were nights when jungwon held your hand in silence, saying nothing, but with eyes full of gratitude because you chose him. because you saved him.

the sacrifice.

the lie.

the freedom.

all to get here.

the kingdom you built together had no castles. but it was, without a doubt, the happiest one.

[bambiens]

MR. POSSESSIVE ⋆˚࿔ — [p. sunghoon] part one

SYNOPSIS ⟢ Park Sunghoon can easily be described in three words: stuck-up, picky, and overly critical about everything and everyone. That was until he met you, who ticked off everything he liked in his head. One problem, he's got too much pride and ego to do anything about it. The other problem? His best friend, Jake, swooped in and took action before he could even build up the courage––and Sunghoon really hates when people take what's his.

pairing ⟢ grumpy downbad! sunghoon x fem! reader

genre ⟢ written, friends to lovers (?), university au

content warnings ⟢ smut with plot (18+), humour, profanity, use of alcohol, reader is with jake for a certain period in the story, sunghoon has a one-sided rivalry with jake, mutual pining but they don't know, sunghoon is stubborn in the beginning but should lowkey be prescribed xanax later on, everyone in the story kinda makes poor decisions (depending how you view it), homie hopping lol, softdom! sunghoon, unprotected p in v sex, multiple rounds, overstimulation, fingering, oral (m & f. receiving), mild ass play, nipple play, bulge kink, dirty talk, squirting, use of petnames (just baby), sunghoon is downright filthy in bed.

featuring ⟢ all of enhypen (7), giselle of aespa & anton of riize cameo(s)

word count: ~12k

author's note: official bambiens comeback with my first EVER full-length fic!! (please be kind to me), i genuinely didn't think i'd ever post a full-length fic –– let alone this one, like i thought this shit was gonna get sent straight into the basement. anyways, i hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing this!! also i haven't proofread this yet let me know if there are any mistakes please!

MR. POSSESSIVE PLAYLIST ⊹˚♬₊⋆

reblogs appreciated ♡

PARK SUNGHOON was always a hard guy to please. 

Exhibit A (extracted from age 5): As a child, he’d make a fuss whenever his mom forgot to cut the crusts off of his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

To this day, he still tells his mom that he didn't throw tantrums over bread crusts because he was “picky,” but simply because he had “food sensory issues.”

Exhibit B (extracted from age 10): He liked his toy figurines organized in a certain kind of way –– aligned on his shelf, standing upright, facing forward. Nothing else, no exceptions. 

One day, he found his limited edition Superman action figure fallen face flat on the shelf. 

His parents earthquake-proofed all of their furniture. 

…he later found out that his sister was secretly playing with his toys while he was at school.

Sunghoon didn’t come out of his room for three days after that.

Exhibit C (extracted from age 15): There were even instances in high school where he would get his grades appealed if he believed they were “marked incorrectly,” which, by the way, always got re-corrected in the end. Even if he really was wrong in the first place.

It was either his way or the highway.

In other words, Park Sunghoon was a complete perfectionist, and this fastidious behaviour followed him well into his adulthood. 

Somehow along the way, he managed to score himself a scholarship and landed himself a place in a prestigious university.

But even when he got there he was sensitive about the minor details. He was extremely particular about his class timetable, stuck to a tight-grit schedule, and even had certain criteria of who could be his friend and who couldn’t. 

And when it finally came down to choosing his university friends, he managed to pick people who were all in the same major, shared the same humour, had the same hobbies, and followed similar daily schedules as him –– but before you think of anything, no, they definitely weren’t as hypercritical as he was. 

Don’t get him wrong though, despite his meticulous and seemingly strict nature, he still found time to fool around and have fun whilst in school. 

If anything, Sunghoon considered himself as… quite the witty guy. 

He kept a mental list of things he likes. He likes watching funny cat memes on his feed, playing games on his computer during his free time, going clubbing with his friends every weekend, and he also really likes how the shawarma shop beside his place always had a buy-one-get-one deal on Thursdays.

He also had a list of things he hates. He hates when he has to share his food, or anything, really; he hates when people chew with their mouths open, he hates when freshmen walk too slowly on campus, he hates when his roommates “forget” to clean their dirty dishes –– honestly, the list could go on and on.

But, for the past couple of months, what he hated most was his best friend, Sim Jake.

Sunghoon didn’t always hate him though. If he hated him from the beginning, one, he wouldn’t have befriended him in the first place, and two, he wouldn’t have asked him to be one of his roommates –– which, this entire living situation soon became an issue with him. An extreme issue, he would call it, even.

So, what was the catalyst to the start of Sunghoon’s immense hatred towards Jake, you may ask? 

Well, it was you. 

At this point, Sunghoon’s heard it all. With people constantly calling him “nit-picky” and “extremely demanding,” always complaining that he has these crazy high standards for everything and that there’s nothing — better yet, no one — he ever liked from the get-go.

How exhausting does that sound?

Though he can admit, they’re all right about him being nit-picky, extremely demanding, and right about him having those “crazy high” standards. But, they were a bit wrong about that last part.

Park Sunghoon wasn’t sure about a lot of things, but he knew he was sure he liked you.

He guessed he always, at least, subconsciously knew he liked you from the second the two of you met during freshmen orientation –– he hadn’t realized it back then, but you kind of just checked off all the boxes in his mind.

With his personality though, he had never admitted it out-loud –– even if it was pain-stakingly obvious to all of his close friends.

It honestly really was just a little crush to him at first. He started looking for your face around campus, teasing you whenever you were around, occasionally texting each other. You know, doing the usual shit slightly delusional people always do to cope with their minor infatuations who don’t like them back.

Surprisingly over time, the two of you eventually became a lot closer and hung out with each other more.

…and also became a little more flirtatious with each other (at least that’s what Sunghoon thinks, but he’s not too sure). 

It got to the point where Sunghoon’s friends could tell whether he was in a good mood or not depending on whether he got a text from you that day.

You and Sunghoon were good, he thought things were going well –– he’s got game… right? 

Until one day, Sunghoon’s fairytale-princess-dream of living a life with the two of you together all came crashing down. 

To be honest, you’d never met Sunghoon’s so-called “best friends” the past two years you had been friends. You started to wonder whether they were real or if Sunghoon was just faking it and actually has no friends.

Eventually, you came to meet them –– Heeseung, Jay, Sunoo, Jungwon, Riki, and Jake.

Sunghoon really hated that. He never even wanted to introduce you to his friends, you guys just bumped into each other by accident.

In his mind, he kind of just wanted to keep you as his little secret. After all, he met you first, befriended you first, and liked you first. And again, Sunghoon really hated sharing.

And, it sounds a teensy bit toxic but he’d always been competitive to the bone, maybe a little too much. So when he saw you started getting a lot closer to Jake than you were with him, it honestly felt like a two-faced betrayal. But he couldn’t say anything –– his ego and stubbornness wouldn’t let him.

Sunghoon kind of just watched and let it happen, so he honestly shouldn’t even be that mad. At first, he tried to bury the thought of you and Jake being “best friends” in the back of his head. But it didn’t help when you started coming over to his shared apartment to hang out with stupid, freaking Jake.

He always wondered why you chose Jake and not him.

All of Sunghoon’s friends had just adjusted from the fact that they thought he liked you... to Jake being the one pursuing you instead. 

You and Sunghoon never “fell out,” however, the friendship felt a bit more distant. But what was Sunghoon supposed to do about it? Beg you to become best friends with him instead? Whenever he thought this way, he’d always feel like he reverted back into a kid.

When you’d come over, you would say “hi,” and engage in like, three-minute small talk with Sunghoon, and then go into Jake’s stinkin’ room and giggle with him and probably have so much fun with whatever the fuck Jake is doing. 

Sunghoon wouldn’t really know though, he couldn’t bring himself to ask what the two of you did when you left their apartment.

The most information he could get was when his other roommates would tease Jake about you. There was one particular time, however, where Sunghoon was royally pissed off over the two of you. According to him, this conversation was just so juvenile and hard-to-listen to this day. 

Sunghoon was in the kitchen fixing their coffee machine while silently eavesdropping on his roommates by the couch. Jay lightly nudged Jake’s shoulder, “So, you and y/n, what’s up with that?”

The second Sunghoon heard Jay drop the first vowel of your name, his ears immediately perked up.

Jake chuckles, staying focused on the game in front of him, “Nah man, chill. It’s nothing like that.”

Liar.

Heeseung tsks, tossing his controller down after losing a match against Jake, “If it was just ‘nothing’ then you wouldn’t be texting her all day and hanging out with her more than your own roommmates.”

Right? Heeseung’s so right. If it really was just “nothing” then he wouldn’t have caught Jake kicking his feet up and down while on the phone with you.

“Guys, leave it, we’re just best friends.” Jake laughs.

Yeah right, that’s such bullshit cause Sunghoon had found out you two started dating, like, exactly a month later.

That was essentially the beginning of his own hell, agony, and his pure hatred towards Jake.

Sunghoon would see you waltz into his –– their, sorry –– apartment almost every day with a huge smile plastered on your face like shit was all sweet and rainbows and butterflies when he was suffering every waking minute.

Daily he’d see your annoyingly gorgeous face, hear your stupidly adorable laughter through the walls, and watch you and Jake be all lovey-dovey right in front of him. Sunghoon didn’t even know he could like a person to this extent, you just made him like this.

It actually made him sick in the stomach. That should’ve been him.

One morning, he genuinely contemplated jumping off of their balcony when you stepped outside of Jake’s room wearing his clothes. He wanted to shout, he wanted to remind you that you were his friend first, he wanted to ask you, “what do you see in him that you don’t see in me?”

But all he managed to spit out was, “Morning, you want coffee?” while gripping onto his penguin-shaped coffee mug so tight that it was on the brink of shattering into pieces.

Now, Sunghoon knew it was wrong, and that you’re now quite literally his best friend's girlfriend but what ever happened to “dibs?” He knew you way before than dumbass Jake did.

One night, Sunghoon couldn’t fall asleep. He had been tossing and turning for the past two hours trying not to lose his mind over the fact that you were sleeping over at their place, again.

He thought some tea might help soothe his worries and ease his anxiety a little bit, eventually bringing him to sleep, so he got up and made his way over to the kettle in the kitchen. He got his favourite mug out and had the peppermint tea bag sitting nicely inside when he heard a small pip-squeak coming from the rooms.

At first he couldn’t actually tell if that sound was coming from the rooms or if it was just the steam from the kettle, but then a pip-squeak turned into a muffled gasp –– a seemingly sexual sounding one, he believed.

Sunghoon couldn’t bear to stick around longer to figure out whether you and Jake were having sex. That was enough for him to abandon his cup of tea and trudge his way over to Sunoo, Jungwon, and Riki’s place in his house slippers and pajamas. 

He even bought ear-plugs at the convenience store on the way there.

Sunghoon honestly doesn’t really remember much after he bolted out of his apartment that night. But according to them, he got to their place and sat in the corner of their living room with his knees to his chest –– refusing to tell any of them what the matter was –– eventually falling asleep on the floor. 

Riki also did keep mentioning how Sunghoon started rocking back-and-forth while whispering to himself quietly, but everyone knows Riki has a thing for theatrics.

While yes, Sunghoon had thoughts about you that were most definitely against the bro-code, he never actually acted on them.

Like, yeah Sunghoon hated his best friend for stealing the love of his life, but that’s still literally his best friend –– whom he hates. It’s complicated, he can’t really explain it.

Over the course of a couple months, Sunghoon thinks he’s seen and heard it all, especially the arguments you and Jake would have. On those nights, he prayed he’d wake up to news that you guys finally broke up –– which never happened by the way.

Those arguments were usually petty and small, but a particular argument was unlike the rest. 

One day, you ran out of Jake’s room in tears. Sunghoon was on the couch watching the evening news with the volume turned up so high at the time, he couldn’t even hear you guys arguing anymore.

But this was just usual protocol whenever you and Jake would argue, it felt almost invasive so all of the guys agreed to blast the TV and drown out the yelling sound.

At first, Sunghoon didn’t notice you crying hysterically –– not until he looked up and saw your face.

Sunghoon’s body reacted by itself. Without even meaning to, he found himself chasing after you to make sure you were okay. You two were still friends regardless of the fact that you were in a relationship with Jake, so he thought this was totally justifiable.

When Sunghoon finally caught up to you, he grabbed your arm, “Hey,” he spoke softly, “I can’t let you leave until I know you’re okay. What’s wrong?”

You finally turn to look at him, and he sees you: mascara running down your rosy cheeks, eyes all puffy, your nose running a little. It wasn’t long till you shrugged Sunghoon’s hand off your arm.

“Stop acting stupid,” you spat, “you guys are best friends, I know you that you know already. Really, what are you even here for? To seem like some good-guy-hero? Like, what, you’re gonna go on a whole tangent about how Jake is a great guy, that this is just some miscommunication, how he’ll apologize or that, maybe even I should be the one to apologize––”

Maybe Sunghoon shouldn’t have said what he said next, because it just made things worse.

“Is that really what you think of me, y/n? Like I’m just Jake’s loyal fucking lapdog running after you so I can take his side? He’s my friend, yeah, but why would you ever think that lowly of me?”

At this point, you started to feel really bad for snapping on him when in reality, he was just trying to help.

Sunghoon speaks in a tiny voice, “I don’t even know what’s going on in your relationship. I don’t even ask about it because it hurts.”

Your face of dishevelment slowly turns into confusion as you keep listening to Sunghoon, “What are you talking about?”

Sunghoon knows he probably shouldn’t be talking about this right now, that he should just end the conversation there and maybe try to gaslight you into thinking that he actually said something else –– but it all slipped out.

He lets out a frustrated sigh accompanied with a quick eye-roll, almost like he can’t believe the words that he’s about to say, “I met you first. We were friends first. I liked you first. But I just let you slip away and now you’re his –– and I can’t do anything about it. I’ve been forced to just watch you with him. You don’t even know how bitter I get seeing you guys together. He knew I liked you first, and he took you away from me. You were supposed to be with me instead.” 

You have a boyfriend, this is your boyfriend’s best friend. This whole situation is fucked up. All you do is shake your head in disbelief, “What are you trying to say, what’s the whole point of this Sunghoon?”

A pause of silence passed by, and in those seconds of quietness, Sunghoon really tried hard to think, what is the whole point of him telling you this now? What did he think would even happen?

“I–I don’t know,” he stutters, “just– nothing. Just forget everything I said please, just forget about it. Let me get you an Uber home.”

The truth was, you understood what he meant completely and you couldn’t just simply forget about it.

But you had to pretend.

Just in time, you saw Jake jogging towards you two in your peripheral vision. It wasn’t long until Sunghoon noticed.

The second Jake came to you, Sunghoon took a step back and left.

You honestly forgot about your argument with Jake until he apologized and insisted he drove you home. The drive back to your place was silent. Your head was leaned against the car window with your hands between your thighs the entire ride.

Jake turned onto your street, eventually pulling up to the entrance of your apartment. The two of you sit there for a while, the only sound coming from his fingers lightly drumming on the console. Your gaze stays fixed on a tree outside, too embarrassed to break the ice first.

He moves his hand onto the steering wheel, “y/n, I’m really sorry.”

You turn your head slightly to look at him before pushing the car door open, “It’s fine, just don’t let it happen again.”

Jake watches you slam the car door shut, making your way inside and up the elevator before he drives away.

That night, you had a lot to ponder about –– not just because of the argument you and your boyfriend had, but also because of what his best friend had just confessed to you...

Fuck, why are you even thinking about Sunghoon again? Jake’s right here. Jake is your boyfriend… yeah.

⋆˚࿔

Mondays were always the worst for Sunghoon. At 8 a.m., he has Theory of Computation, then once that ends at 10, he has an hour to himself before he’s got three back-to-back classes till 4 p.m. On top of that, he also told Sunoo and Riki that he’d meet them at the library at 6:30 p.m. to get a headstart on their group project. 

Great, he thought, so now he’s able to schedule an hour-long nervous breakdown before he has to compose himself like a normal citizen and attend to his responsibilities again. 

Once he got home after his final lecture of the day, he sat on his desk chair (not his bed, he had his outside clothes on) and pulled out his phone from his backpocket.

“Google am I a bad person?”

Sunghoon’s staring at the searchbar waiting for the results to load on his phone, the floorboards creaking loudly because of how much he kept bouncing his legs out of anxiety. 

All he’s done the past 24 hours was replay the conversation he last had with you, and the more he kept thinking about it, the more he started to feel like he really fucked up this time. 

His first worry was you possibly telling Jake that he had just confessed his undying love for you –– but when he heard Jake say good morning the next day while making an omelette, he crossed that fear off the list.

'Cause like, what guy who's mad would make omelettes in the morning?

His second worry was that he might actually be a horrible person. Sunghoon always understood he was insufferable since birth, but never once has he thought he was a bad guy… until now.

Like, it’s a really fucked up situation right? He put you in a difficult position, and if Jake finds out then that’s goodbye to his best friend too –– oh god, what about his roommates? Will he have to find a new place to live next year?

A plethora of different worries began to plague his mind until he realized the search results had finally loaded on his phone. He saw countless people asking the same question on different forums, where he eventually found himself on r/AmItheAsshole, reading excerpts from literally Lucifer(s) themselves in attempts to make him feel better about his own situation.

At that moment Sunghoon came to the realization that, yeah there are definitely a lot of worse people in the world with way more questionable morals than him –– and that if he was considered a bad person, then the people of this Subreddit must think he’s made out of unicorns and sunshine.

Before he left his apartment again, he took a deep breath, tried to push his feelings down and go about his day.

When he finally arrived at the library, he found Jungwon and Riki at their usual spot. Jungwon spots him walking towards them first, prompting him to move his backpack on the seat beside him to the ground, “Hey, we saved you a spot.”

Sunghoon falls into the chair, “Thanks man.”

In front of Jungwon, Riki lays his head flat on the table, “Guys, can we rethink this. We have a month till this project is due. Isn’t doing this real early almost unnecessary?”

Jungwon continues typing on his keyboard, not once looking up, “It’s just in case, and there’s nothing wrong with starting early.”

Riki rolls his eyes and releases a big sigh before raising his head to look back up at his JavaScript for the nth time today.

Once Sunghoon had opened up his computer, Jungwon left no time to waste, “I forgot to ask, have you ever used a graphical interface for designing SQL queries before?"

“Yeah, have you?”

Riki looks up at the two of them like they’re speaking a completely different language, when in reality he’s supposed to be in the same major as them –– therefore he probably should know what Sunghoon and Jungwon are talking about.

“No,” Jungwon shakes his head, “But, that’ll aid us while building this thing.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Riki groans and shuts his laptop, “Sorry Won, but I’ve been busting my ass learning this code for the past three hours we’ve been here –– I haven’t even eaten anything yet!”

He pulls out his phone, face immediately lighting up green, “Fuck it, I’m ordering UberEats, y’all want something?”

Sunghoon declines, “Nah, I’m good I ate before I left.”

Inside his backpack, Jungwon pulls out a tupperware filled with fruit and a bag of half-eaten beef jerky, “It’s fine, I packed myself some food.”

“Dude, what the hell,” Riki exits from the app, “Why didn’t you tell me you had food, my stomach has been grumbling for a whole hour.”

“Yeah, I know, I heard.”

Riki snatches the bag of opened beef jerky as a form of opposition against Jungwon, stuffing a handful into his mouth.

“Wait,” pausing mid-chew to swallow his food, “Anton just texted me, apparently his frat’s hosting a houseparty, mixer-thingy –– whatever the fuck –– on Friday.”

Sunghoon holds back a laugh, “Hell nah, remember what happened when their frat threw a party last semester?”

Unlike Sunghoon, Jungwon has no shame and bursts out in laughter causing the rest of the people on the floor to hush him, “Yo, we gotta go, Jake was legendary that time.”

Riki’s face falters as if he were recalling a traumatic memory, “Man, I don’t think Jake’s gonna act out, he’s been a different guy ever since he got a girl. Kinda miss the old him.”

After hearing your name being brought up in the conversation, Sunghoon looks up from his computer, fully immersing himself in the topic –– yet, he can’t bring himself to speak.

“Don’t make assumptions that he’s boring yet, I don’t think this guy has gone out since then, the guy’s a beast when he’s fucked up. Ya never know. Maybe he’ll surprise us.” Jungwon chuckles.

“Do you still have that video of him from last year?”

“Bro, of course I do. Chill, let me find it on my camera roll.”

At this moment, all of Sunghoon’s thoughts began racing. 

He can’t help it but those feelings of resentment towards Jake are all coming back again. Maybe he really is a bad person after all, because the only thing he could say was, “I think we should go.”

This is the reason why Sunghoon thinks that he might actually be a horrible person –– because why would he want to see his best friend potentially fuck up?

From then on, Sunghoon decided that this was the last time he would be selfish ...he thinks.

⋆˚࿔

It was around 10 p.m. when Sunghoon had gotten home from the library. All of the lights in the apartment were turned off, which was kind of odd to him but he didn’t really pay much attention to it. He figures his roommates just went somewhere –– he honestly doesn’t care where. 

In fact, he liked it when he was the only one home. It gave him some peace and solace. He never liked to admit it, but sometimes being with other people is exhausting. 

Not that he doesn’t like being around his roommates, he does. It’s just a little daunting for him to be around people for extended periods of time. He really hates the way he thinks. He finds it a little embarrassing that he thinks it’s anxiety-inducing and overwhelming to be around other people sometimes.

He thinks his logic is flawed, and almost wishes he wasn’t like this. Look at Park Sunghoon, uptight, picky, critical, no-good-for-anyone –– yet he can’t stick around long if he’s surrounded by people or else he’ll freak out? 

Whatever, he doesn’t have time to host his own pity party when he’s got bigger fish to fry. 

In hopes of seeking relaxation after the day he’s had, he grabs a towel and heads toward the bathroom. Waiting for him was a nice, steamy-hot shower, preferably one that’s a little too hot that it makes his body physically produce steam.

What he expected to see when he walked into the bathroom was a fucking toilet, shower, and sink. But when he opened the bathroom door, he was greeted with a fucking toilet, shower, sink, and you who just happens to be brushing your teeth oh-so conveniently at the same time Sunghoon wants to shower.

Truthfully, you almost scared the shit out of Sunghoon when he saw your face, cause first of all, no one’s even supposed to be home right now (allegedly).

Your eyes widen when you come face-to-face with Sunghoon. This was the first time the two of you had seen each other since last night. He didn’t rehearse this meeting happening and now he’s internally freaking out.

Instead of the awkward encounter Sunghoon had anticipated, you spit out your toothpaste, finish brushing your teeth, and flash him a smile, “Hey, sorry I was just quickly brushing my teeth, you can use the bathroom now.”

A smile that almost convinced Sunghoon that maybe last night was all just a dream and didn’t actually happen in real life.

Straight-faced, he nods, clearing the doorway for you to step out. He watches you walk past his bedroom door and go into Jake’s room before he steps inside the bathroom. 

Under the showerhead, Sunghoon lets the water run down his head, staring down at the drain. He had numerous thoughts running through his mind, but what stuck out most was why you just acted like nothing had happened between them?

When he looks up to grab his shampoo, he sees all of your shower products in the corner with Jake’s toiletries –– which made him come to the realization that actually, maybe nothing had happened between you two at all.

At the end of the day, you’re still Jake’s girl. Nothing changed that. Not even his stupid confession of love for you.

When he stepped out of the shower, he concluded that what really happened was: he shared his feelings for you on a whim, you basically rejected him, and now you’re probably just being nice to him, acting like everything is fine because he’s still Jake’s best friend after all.

Fuck, now he’s embarrassed. He should just forget about this whole ordeal –– right?

⋆˚࿔

For the rest of the week, Sunghoon was lucky enough to not bump into you anywhere –– not even inside their apartment. There were days where he knew you were over, but you never came out of Jake’s room whenever he was around.

All Sunghoon had been looking forward to all week was Anton’s frat party. It was basically an excuse for him to abuse alcohol and make bad decisions.

Once he came home from his last lab at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, he found his quiet sanctuary (his shared apartment) filled with all of his friends, quickly grabbing a beer from one of the cartons before ducking into his room to change.

Sunghoon tried to act nonchalantly, pretending like he didn’t actually care about what he was gonna wear to the frat party. It’s not even like he has clothes that would upstage anyone’s outfit, he was really overthinking it for no reason.

Knock knock.

“Yo, just come in, why’d you have to fucking knock?” he yells.

A small voice spoke through the crack of his door, “Oh, sorry, um, it’s just me, y/n, the guys need help picking up the keg stand.”

Sunghoon almost got whiplash from how fast he turned his head around to look at you; you hadn’t stepped a foot into his room, the door was slightly creaked open, and your head was down –– which he soon realized it’s because he doesn’t have a shirt on.

He swiftly grabbed the first shirt that was within vicinity and threw it on, “Oh sorry, I thought you were one of the guys, you caught me off guard.”

You flail your hands, finally looking up now that he’s fully clothed, “No! It’s okay! They told me to go and get you –– wait.”

Sunghoon furrows his eyebrows, wait for what?

All he could hear was your laughter, one that he recognized all too well, “Maybe you should change your shirt, Hoon.”

He immediately dropped his head down to look at what he was wearing.

…of course the shirt he had to grab happened to be the stupid t-shirt Heeseung gave him for Christmas that says “Mike Who Cheese Hairy” in bold.

Great, could Sunghoon’s life get any worse?

That night, he had a little too much to drink, actually maybe way more than he anticipated. But Sunghoon wasn’t the messy type of drunk –– at least that’s what he thinks.

He was never the type of guy who let himself get too intoxicated. He usually knew what his limits were. Oftentimes, he thought that overly drunk people in public settings were making a fool of themselves and that maybe those people just had a humiliation kink.

But as of right now, Sunghoon’s kinda having trouble holding his balance at Alpha Epsilon Phi’s mixer.

In his defence, he only got this fucked up because him and Jake were going back-to-back on that keg stand trying to outdo the other –– which only got the both of them hammered.

What made things even worse for Sunghoon, however, was the fact that 15 feet away from him were you and Jake.

Sunghoon was consumed in jealousy. How could he not? He can’t bring himself to look away from the painful scene in front of him, Jake wobbling against the island table with his hands wrapped around your waist while you fix his scruffy hair.

All he could think was: I’m drunk as fuck too. Where’s my help?

He scoffed and decided he’s had enough and went up the stairs. Using all of his strength, he managed to lock himself in a bathroom and finally took a deep breath out.

Sunghoon kept blinking his eyes while staring at his reflection in the mirror –– trying to desperately convince himself he’s not seeing double right now. 

Thinking that he might be able to sober up, he turned on the faucet, cupping his hand and drank from the sink (he also splashed a bunch of water on his face, slapped himself 10x, and tried to pull trig, which he failed to do). 

After 15 minutes had passed by and a hundred knocks later, Sunghoon decided to finally come out of his lavatory dungeon –– and of course the first person who he sees is Jake.

At this point, he’s just silently preparing himself to see you and him be all flirty and couple-y again.

Except, when Sunghoon gets closer, he realizes that Jake isn’t with you –– but another girl?

He immediately paused in his tracks, watching what was happening in front of him. Sunghoon was confused, where were you? Why weren’t you with Jake? And most importantly, what is Jake doing with another girl?

Should he say something? He should go up to him and stop him, right? But is that the best thing to do? What even is Jake doing?

The longer Sunghoon looks, the more uncertain he becomes. Jake seems a little too close to the girl, even if they aren’t kissing or doing anything… but why doesn’t this seem right to him?

Would this be considered cheating? Nothing sexual seems to be happening, just a bunch of teasing arm grabbing and touching.

But that wasn’t you, and you’re his girlfriend. If it wasn’t cheating, it still had to be fucking weird. Sunghoon was infuriated. Jake got the girl but can’t even treat her right? 

He knew then that he had to leave before he made a scene.

When he came back downstairs, he couldn’t help but feel suffocated. There were too many people, the air was stuffy, it reeked of alcohol, and the soles of his shoes were too sticky to stay inside any longer. So he decided to step outside instead. 

Sunghoon sat on a curb a couple of feet away from the fraternity, but still far enough that he wouldn’t be disturbed by booming bass or intoxicated party-goers. He figured he’d stay outside till his friends decide they’ve had enough with partying –– he wasn’t really feeling the vibe of the function anyways.

At one point, Sunghoon decided to just lay down on the pavement because he was drunk and he can. Out of boredom he began counting how many streetlights ran up and down the street, eventually dozing off in the process.

Coming out of a hazy state, all Sunghoon could hear was his name being repeated multiple times. When he opened his eyes, he came face-to-face with you.

You give a big sigh of relief, “Oh thank god, I thought you died for a second dude. Don’t scare me like that!” 

“What? …y/n?” Sunghoon rubs his eyes, “Sorry, I accidentally um, fell asleep I think.”

You laugh while Sunghoon fixes his posture and sits up right again, “Can I sit beside you?”

To be honest, Sunghoon still kinda feels foggy in his half-woken drunk state, so he can’t really think properly, “Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” He pats on the ground beside him. You take a seat, bringing your chin to your knees, playing with the gravel beneath you.

“Are you not having fun?” You ask.

Sunghoon looks straight ahead and shakes his head, “Not really feeling it today.”

You nod in agreement, continuing to collect pebbles with your right hand.

After a beat, Sunghoon turns to look at you, “Hey, I, um, need to tell you something important.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

He lets a deep exhale out before bringing himself to speak again, “I saw Jake inside with another girl. They weren’t like, doing anything but it’s just weird –– I don’t know if this is cheating but I thought I should tell–”

Your eyes stay fixed on the ground, “I know.”

Sunghoon furrows his eyebrows at you, “What do you mean?”

“That’s why we were arguing last week. This has always been an issue with him, even if it isn’t physically cheating.”

Sunghoon didn’t know this. All he could hear during your arguments with Jake was the volume of the TV on max. Carefully, he asked, “Is this… not the first time?”

“No.”

You almost feel ashamed that you’re confessing this all to Sunghoon. You’re scared of what he’d think of you. You already know what he’s like, what he’s probably thinking of you at this moment. You’re aware of how pathetic you sound right now.

Before he could even think about what he was saying, he blurted it all out, “I don’t get it, then why don’t you just break up with him? Isn’t what he’s doing bothering you?”

That night, you and Sunghoon found out something about each other: the two of you probably shouldn’t be together while drunk.

“...I don’t know. Wouldn’t breaking up with him mean that I won’t be able to see you anymore?”

“What? Why are you saying that?”

“If me and Jake end on bad terms, does that mean that you won’t be there for me anymore?”

⋆˚࿔

After Jake had dropped you off at your apartment that night last week, you realized you were more angry than sad. All of those tears had dried up, and now you were yelling on the phone.

“Why would he do this now when he had all that time last year and make a proper move! It’s not my fault he didn’t man up sooner!” You ranted on the phone.

You didn’t know what else to do except call Giselle and ask for some advice. 

“I don’t get Sunghoon, he never did anything about us for so long and now he wants to tell me that he wanted me first?”

“Well, what are you going to do about it? You’re with his best friend now,” Giselle asks on the other side of the speaker.

You wipe your mascara-streaked eyes with a cotton pad, “I would have loved it if he told me all of that a year ago, that’s what I wanted. He missed his chance and now I’m just stuck in a sticky situation.”

“But, you love Jake right?”

“Yeah...” you murmured, “Right.”

Before you were with Jake, Sunghoon was the one you wanted most. 

To you, Park Sunghoon was like this shiny, perfect Ken doll that you wanted so badly but couldn’t get no matter what.

Contrary to popular belief, you had made your advances towards him –– just in different ways. So you actually never knew if he caught on or not. Over time it seemed like Sunghoon really had no interest in you at all, and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t heartbroken over it at all.

You decided to move on after being sure that nothing would happen with you and Sunghoon. In all honesty, you were never that interested in Jake at the beginning.

It was always him starting conversations, making plans. And after a while, you started getting used to Jake’s company.

But for some reason, the closer you got with Jake, the further Sunghoon seemed to get. At the time, you knew not to think any more about you and Sunghoon –– it wasn’t happening and that’s final.

You came to learn that Jake was a pretty outgoing and talkative guy, the complete opposite of Sunghoon. 

When Jake finally asked you to be his girlfriend, you won’t lie. You were taken aback. It’s true, you do like Jake… but what about Sunghoon? Were you really over this crush? Are you going to have to be around him all the time because he’s Jake’s best friend? You didn’t know if you could do that.

You snap back into reality when you remind yourself that Sunghoon just doesn’t like you like that.

And it wasn’t like you didn’t like Jake at all. So, you gave him a chance.

Sim Jake was extroverted, polite, and friendly –– maybe a little too friendly. Being in social settings with him almost felt exhausting sometimes. He was the kind of guy that was able to go up to anyone and be able to talk to them.

The first time he ever got too friendly with a girl, you tried to ignore it. You made excuses for him like, that’s just the way he is, maybe I’m being an overbearing girlfriend.

But then it happened a second time, then a third time, then it just kept going.

This was the main reason for most of your arguments.

The start of your arguments often looked like this: the two of you would go somewhere, Jake would get a little too close, a little too talkative to a girl, and you had to wait till you guys were alone to bring up your concerns.

“Jake, I just really don’t like how overly friendly you are with other girls. It makes me feel weird as your girlfriend.”

Jake doesn’t seem to be taking the conversation seriously, “C’mon, y/n you’re the only girl I have eyes for.”

You shrug, sitting on the edge of his bed, “Can’t you just, I don’t know, not… do that? I really don’t like it.”

He tenses his forehead, fixing his position on the bed, “...do you not trust me?”

Your eyes widen in shock, “No! That’s not what I’m saying at all!”

And that’s essentially how you and Jake got into that huge argument last week.

What a mess.

⋆˚࿔

When Sunghoon woke up the day after the frat party, he was met with constant panging in his head. He only remembers little bits and pieces of the night and genuinely cannot, for the life of him, remember how he even got home that night. 

It was only till after breakfast that he found out Sunoo had called him a Uber home after he spotted him crying alone on the curbside.

Why was he even crying? He can’t remember, no matter how hard he tries to pull it out of his memory, nothing comes out.

Sunghoon’s roommates were usually out and about on Saturdays, so he decided to dedicate his Saturdays to self-care –– which in Sunghoon’s case, means watching cute videos of animals and yelling at his teammates over the mic that they suck ass all day.

He couldn’t even do that because of all that banging inside his head. Even after taking some Tylenol, it just wouldn’t stop pounding. So Sunghoon decided he should try to sleep it out on the couch.

After a couple of minutes of tossing and turning, Sunghoon finally found some tranquility –– but this was ruined the second he heard their apartment door slam shut.

Sunghoon almost fell off of the couch due to the sound, “What the fuck are you slamming doors for in the afternoon?”

When he looks up to see which one of his roommates almost broke their door down, he sees Jake –– his expression annoyed and Sunghoon’s presence totally ignored. Jake slams his own door shut without saying a word.

Sunghoon always knew not to bother Jake when he was upset and to just wait for him to feel better, so instead he sent a couple texts to Heeseung and Jay asking what’s up with Jake.

SUNGHOON What’s up with Jake He just came in slamming doors looking pissy and my head fucking hurtssss

JJONGSAENG think he and y/n broke up

HEESEUNG U being deadass?

JJONGSAENG yeah but jake didn’t tell me tho heard thru the grapevine  u know how fast rumours spread on campus but pretty sure they did i’ll ask him later

Upon reading these texts Sunghoon sat up immediately. All those times he prayed for you and Jake to break up finally came into fruition. But was it right for him to be celebrating like this? Jake’s still his best friend after all.

His thumb hovers over your contact on his phone –– but what was he even going to do? Say, hey heard you and Jake broke up, I’m sorry. If you ever need a shoulder to cry on, I'll be waiting?

He felt incompetent and stupid thinking about this, so he just turned off his phone and kept trying to sleep.

Later that night, Sunghoon found out that you broke up with him and not the other way around. Sunghoon tried really hard not to smile when Jake was explaining what had happened between the two of them to their roommates. 

They found out that you had broken up with him after he said, quote, “...she saw me with another girl at the frat and got so fucking upset about something and the fact that I was ‘acting out’ at the party, then she left without a word. It wasn’t until this morning she texted asking me to come over to talk. I didn’t know she was gonna break up with me?!”

At the frat? Was it the one Sunghoon had seen him with when he left the bathroom?

Truthfully, Sunghoon had been waiting for a text from you even though he knew it wouldn’t happen. After a week went by without hearing from you, he gave up on waiting.

Jake was up and running again in no time. He was the kind of person that could easily bounce back from adversities. He did admit, however, that he tried reaching out to you multiple times but never got a reply.

Sunghoon kept getting deja vu, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what’s so familiar –– until it clicked. Remnants of the night slowly started popping up again.

“What do you mean ‘I won’t be there for you anymore?’” Sunghoon asked you on the curb.

You turn your head on your knees to face him now, “I mean, would I lose you for good if Jake’s not in the picture anymore?”

Sunghoon didn’t know if he was absolutely plastered or if these words were actually coming out of your mouth right now.

“No,” Sunghoon shook his head, “No you won’t.”

The corners of your mouth turn upward, “Okay.” You stand up and brush off all the gravel from your clothes, “Are you going to be alright?”

His eyes stay fixed on you, nodding.

“Well,” you sigh, dusting your hands off, “I have to go back to the party. Text me, okay?”

Sunghoon was even more confused now –– on top of already being drunk and overly emotional –– so he burst out in tears. He tried his hardest to keep the tears from spilling out but the floodgates just wouldn’t close.

It wasn’t even just the whole him, you, and Jake situation that caused this –– it was also all the emotions that he had been building up for years.

Being Park Sunghoon –– stuck-up, critical, nitpicky, and insufferable since birth –– was hard. 

⋆˚࿔

Sunghoon found himself stuck in a dilemma. On one hand, he has Jake, his best friend, and on the other hand he has you –– but he wants both.

It seems like an easy decision, right? Jake’s his best friend, so ultimately he’s gotta kick the girl to the curb –– except Sunghoon doesn’t want just anyone, he wants you. 

He knew trying finding someone like you would be impossible.

It was truly a newfound feeling when he had experienced butterflies for the first time. He’s honestly never felt this deeply about a girl before. 

So what else can he do but text you when you ask him to? …two weeks later after mustering up the courage to open up your messages on his phone.

SUNGHOON Hey How have you been?

YOU hey!!!! u finally texted me i’ve been good thanks for asking

Sunghoon taps his foot on the ground, biting his nails, thinking about what else he could say to you to keep the conversation going.

SUNGHOON That’s good I know a lot has happened the past two weeks

You assume he’s referring to you and Jake breaking up. The two of you haven’t seen each other since Alpha Epsilon Pi’s mixer.

Admittedly, the last conversation you had with Sunghoon really cleared a lot of the looming thoughts you had stuck in your brain.

It’s been two weeks since you broke up with Jake.

It’s also been two weeks since Sunghoon told you that you wouldn’t lose him for good.

YOU yea  we should catch up let’s have a drink together like old times :))

⋆˚࿔

Like old times.

Sunghoon sat in a booth at his local university pub, just like he would last year. Waiting for you all the time.

In truth, Sunghoon couldn’t shake off the nerves of seeing you again after a while –– so to curb his anxiety he ordered two beers. One for you and one for himself. Well, at least that’s what he intended at first, but after he finished his bottle he still felt nervous so he drank “yours.”

You aren’t even late to meet him, he’s just way too early.

Ah fuck, he thought. If you still weren’t here and he’d already drank his own beer and “your” beer, and the two of you were meeting for drinks –– wouldn’t that suggest they were going to get multiple drinks?

Sunghoon covered his mouth, murmuring to himself silently, “Oh my god, how drunk am I gonna get. I can't embarrass myself.” (Spoiler alert, he wasn't actually that drunk throughout the night, definitely just the placebo effect).

You actually arrive 10 minutes before your meeting time thinking you’d be early, but you were surprised when you saw Sunghoon sipping beer by himself, “Hey! You’re really early.”

“Yeah,” Sunghoon grins, “I guess you are too. How have you been?”

You seat yourself on the other side of the booth, “Well,” you sigh, “you already know what’s been going on with me and Jake.”

Sunghoon flinched at the mention of Jake’s name. Oh god, now he really was going to have a nervous breakdown. In the midst of this all, Sunghoon actually forgot about Jake in the equation.

Is it appropriate to be meeting his now ex-girlfriend for drinks? Like, just two of them? But wait, Sunghoon was friends with y/n way before him so would this be justified? Whatever, he needs a drink.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.”

You figured you probably shouldn't have brought that up and sheepishly smiled, “Why would you be sorry? Let’s order some drinks!”

After three more beers, a long island iced tea, and a mojito later, it was safe to say you and Sunghoon had all the alcohol courage you could get.

The two of you were laughing about, god knows what, for the past two hours –– but the topic of conversation never mattered between you and him. You could talk to him about anything. 

You stretch your arms up, “Do you think we should leave?” you and Sunghoon turn to look around the pub and realize they’re getting ready for closing.

Sunghoon ended up paying for all the drinks which made you feel giddy and thankful because your drinks were $15 each and you weren’t planning on going broke that night.

Outside of the pub, you and Sunghoon kept the laughter going. God, it’s been so long since you’ve hung out with him like this. You never realized how much you missed him.

“So…” Sunghoon drags out, “is this goodbye?”

You fish for your phone in your purse to check the time, “Wanna keep talking and have drinks at my place?”

He smiles at you, gesturing to the sidewalk ahead, “Lead the way Missy.”

When you finally arrive at your apartment, you push the door open and welcome him in, “My humble abode.”

Sunghoon had never been to your apartment before. Back then he thought it would be creepy and invasive if he asked to hang out at yours instead. He always knew you were a nostalgic and sentimental person, but your apartment unit really personified it. You kept all of the cheerleading medals you had stacked up in high school years ago, your fridge filled with photos of you and your loved ones, you even had a pile of every birthday card you’ve received in the corner of your desk.

Without meaning to, Sunghoon found himself meddling around your apartment inspecting everything you possessed. He wanted to know what you were like before he met you –– he wanted to know everything he could about you.

A finger taps on Sunghoon’s shoulder making him jolt, “You snooping around?” you tease.

He stammers, “No– sorry, I– I was just curious.”

You chuckle and walk towards the kitchen to grab some more drinks, “I’m just kidding, Hoon.”

Exactly like a loyal golden retriever would, he followed behind you quietly. You pass him a bottle of beer and take a sip of your seltzer. You prop yourself up the counter, legs lightly swinging from the ground, “So…”

In front of you, he puts a hand in his pocket and takes a swig of beer with the other, “...so” he repeats.

At this point, the alcohol wore off from the walk back to yours. Both of you were the right amount of buzzed –– giggly drunk.

“But seriously, how have you been? Like truthfully.” you ask.

Sunghoon tries to think hard about it –– but he’s always stuck to the same routine he’s had for the past three years. He scratches the back of his neck, “I dunno, life’s been the same as always. Wake up, eat, sleep, repeat all over again.”

You tilt your head, “Same old Sunghoon, doesn’t it get tiring sometimes?”

“What does? The routine?”

“No,” you fiddle with your fingers, “bottling everything up.”

Sunghoon’s surprised by your answer. He wonders what makes you think that, “What do you mean?”

You chug the remaining of your seltzer, “It’s just– it seems like you had a lot on your plate recently.”

At first, he wonders what you’re referring to. If he thinks hard about it, all he does is study, go to the gym, and play games. But when he finally realized what you were talking about he started getting flustered.

“...are you asking me this because of the conversation we had three weeks ago?”

He still remembers that night vividly. It had rained during the day, releasing the smell of petrichor and wet grass. The pavement hadn’t dried up yet where they stood –— he remembered because he kept his head down after Jake came to console you. He also remembers how he felt when he heard Jake come back from dropping you off. Straight guilt.

He laid in bed that night wondering what kind of “best friend” he was to say all of those things to you as if you weren’t dating Jake then. 

But now he’s standing in front of you, at your apartment, in your cramped kitchen, a little too close to each other.

“...yeah, sorry,” you apologize, “it seemed like you had a lot on your mind then.”

Sunghoon steps a bit closer, slightly wedged in between your legs, “I did have a lot on my mind then.” he confessed.

Not once breaking eye contact with you, he takes a final swig of his beer before he lightly places the empty bottle on the counter.

“Would you tell me if I asked?” you let him slide in between your thighs.

He boxes you in when he places both hands on the counter beside you, “I’d do anything you ask, y/n. You know that.”

You could hear the water drip from the kitchen faucet with how quiet it was.

“What about now? Do you still have a lot on your mind?”

Sunghoon pretends to ponder about it for a second before answering.

“Yeah.”

“...what are you thinking about right now?”

He only looks at you, fixing your hair before tucking a strand behind your ear.

“Whether this is a good idea or not.”

Sunghoon slowly leans in, almost as if he’s asking for permission before making a move –– and when you wrap your arms around his neck, he takes it as a green light and presses his lips against yours.

He thinks he’s dreamt about this moment his entire university career; what it would be like kissing you. Well now he knows. He knows that your lips taste like the cherry chapstick you always wear, that you kiss him softly, and that you get all handsy while making out. 

You drag your hand gently down Sunghoon’s chest and you assume he liked that considering you can feel him smiling on your lips. 

So you begin to outline his entire body. You trace your fingers along his jaw, the curvature of his abs, his biceps. You gently tug on his hair which elicits a small groan from him. You’re everywhere, you were ravenous.

All that time back then, when you’d pine over ice prince Park Sunghoon and throw hints at him here and there –– he never got the message though. 

But now you’re here, kissing Sunghoon, and you just can’t get enough –– and it seems like he can’t either.

Sunghoon caresses the outline of your waist, fingers slightly skimming up your skin, when he pulls away to pepper light kisses on your neck, “you know,” he mumbled, "I've been waiting for this moment ever since we first met.”

A small moan escapes your lips when he starts licking behind your ear, “Hoon,” you breathe out, “...do you want to go to my bedroom?”

He swears he can see stars now from how lightheaded he feels right now. He can’t even process that what’s happening is actually happening. 

Is this real life? 

Instead of exchanging words, he lets his body talk, picking you up from the counter walking towards your room, where he lays you down with the utmost care –– like you were his most prized possession. 

Cautiously, he asks, “Do you really wanna…”

“Yes. I do.” You shut him up with a kiss, fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt. You knew he understood the memo when he pulled away to throw his shirt to the ground.

He falls back into you, moving his knee between your thighs when he cups your face to kiss you again. This time, it’s messy, it’s desperate. Sunghoon wants to explore every inch of you, learn how your mind works, what you’ve experienced in life, what you haven’t, what you want to. He slides his tongue like he’s going to devour you.

Slowly, he peeled off all your clothes one-by-one until you’re left in your undergarments. You wish you had known what your plans were gonna be tonight otherwise you would’ve surely put on some better lingerie.

Sunghoon doesn’t give a fuck though, you were laying in front of him undressed and beautiful, how could he focus on something so miniscule when he has you all to himself? …but he also didn’t care because it’s going to come off anyways.

He unclasps your bra, exposing your bare chest. His kisses trailed from your throat all the way to your inner thighs. Now he was perched in between your legs next to your clothed pussy. He smirked when he saw how soaked your panties were, “You get this wet for me?”

You cover your eyes using your forearms out of embarrassment, “Just stop teasing, Hoon.”

“Hoon.”

God he loved hearing you call him by that nickname, he could feel his dick getting impossibly hard in his boxers. He’s going to absolutely destroy you.

Sunghoon delicately took off your panties before spreading your legs wider. He could see the slick from your pussy drooling onto the sheets already, and he swore he almost moaned.

You bite your bottom lip when he starts to place light kisses onto your pussy. He dragged his tongue from your fluttering hole to your clit. Park Sunghoon was a starved, starved man. He attaches himself onto your clit. He works his tongue until he gets you moaning, and when he’s decided he wants to hear you moan louder for him, he plunges two fingers in without warning.

Now he was knuckle deep inside of you, and those moans just kept escaping from your mouth, gradually getting louder and louder –– you pray you don’t get a noise complaint by the end of tonight. He pumps his fingers with vigor, eventually finding your most sensitive spot. 

He’s still lapping at your pussy while he massages your spongy G-spot. Sunghoon assumes he’s doing a great job since your legs are shaking …and also because you keep cheering him on like he’s a D1 athlete, “Ffffuck… Hoon– Please just– don’t stop. K–keep going!”

When you start to thrash around he tightens his grip on your plush thigh, continuing to work his tongue and fingers inside of you. He could tell you were about to cum from the fact that your pussy kept pulsing while his fingers were in deep.

“W– Wait,” You grab onto the sheets, “Hoon wait, I think– I feel like I’m gonna pee.”

“So what? Just relax and let it out.”

You do what he says, your juices coating his tongue. You watched him suck up every drop. The squelching sound was filthy, his fingers still scissoring you open. He brings himself up to lick at your neck while his fingers stay buried inside of your pussy, “You like that?”

What a freak. 

You never expected Park Sunghoon of all people acting this way in bed.

Your mouth drops open, nodding in agreement, “Uh huh…” Your breathing pattern still off from your last orgasm, “I fucking love it.”

He sucks at your neck, “Atta girl,” his fingers finally pull out of your cunt, dragging his hand up to one to fondle with one of your titties, “You gonna let me fuck you then?”

“Please.”

His lips curled into a devilish smirk, pulling out his cock out from his sweatpants. Teasingly, he raises his eyebrows at you, hand holding his cock –– silently curious about whether you could take the dick or not.

Saliva started pooling on the corners of your mouth and he hasn’t even fucked you yet. Sunghoon takes one good look at your swollen clit and puffy lips before he aligns himself at your entrance.

You’re horny and throbbing, you can barely hold your patience while Sunghoon seems to look extremely entertained taunting you by slightly pushing the head in before pulling out. He grabs ahold of your hips, bringing you closer to him. 

You laid there biting your nails wondering if he’s ever going to actually fuck you when he slides his cock inside your pussy inch-by-inch without warning. He starts thrusting in and out, grabbing your face to sloppily kiss you. All that drool you’ve accumulated from your past orgasm had been licked clean from your mouth to your chin. 

Sunghoon was insatiable. He started kneading your titties, his dick still fucking you nice and open. You probably still don’t know that he hadn’t even put the entire thing in yet. He starts rolling your nipples in between his knuckles before pinching them –– bottoming out completely at the same time.

You just had to lay there and take it. Everything hurt but felt so good at the same time. You hear the schlick-schlick-schlicking sound coming from his dick relentlessly pounding into your drenched pussy.

“Mmphf! Wait, Hoon it f– feels ssoo… good.” You manage to whimper out.

“You just–” thrust, “take it–” thrust, “so fucking well.” thrust.

He was inside so raw, so deep. You thought he was inside of you to the hilt, but when he pressed your thighs against your chest, he found a new angle and somehow managed to fuck you even deeper. You could feel his fat tip battering up against your cervix with every pump –– genuinely becoming scared at one point that his cock would slide into your womb. Your moans echoed throughout your apartment unit. It honestly sounds like pornstars having sex in here.

When Sunghoon felt your walls clamp down on his dick, he knew that you were about to cum soon. He began to really pound into you now, using his thumb to rub on your clit. It felt like he really did stretch you out. You look down at where the two of you connect and you cum at the sight of his cock plunging into you, forming a ring of milky white cum during the process. 

Sunghoon groans at how tight your pussy walls squeeze him in as he fucks you through your second orgasm. You were already so overstimulated; his pelvis rubbing against your sensitive clit, his cock deep inside you, your nipples being rolled and pinched. You couldn’t take it anymore.

Your whole body is quivering at this point and Sunghoon is still spearing you in half. You push at his chest, “W– Wait, hold on.”

He pulls out and looks at you with a cocky smirk on his face, “What’s wrong, baby? Can’t take the dick?”

You pant out, “I just…” You bring your hands to your legs, attempting to stop them from shaking, but it’s no use, “...I just need a second.”

“You tapping out?” he tuts.

Despite having to take a quick breather, you quickly shake your head no.

You crawl towards him now, wrapping your warm hands on the base of his cock. He groans at your touch and revels in it. You lick the tip like it’s candy.

You wait till he lets out a couple more groans before you finally wrap your lips around him and slowly slide his cock down deeper into your throat, stroking the rest with a hand.

A sense of satisfaction washed over you when you looked up to see Sunghoon with his hair tussled, head thrown back, mouth agape. It only pushed you to do more. You relax your throat to prepare for the intrusion, gliding his cock down lower and lower. Sunghoon gently grabs a fistful of your hair enough to keep his balance. All you could hear were his groans of pleasure. 

You try to keep all of him in your mouth for as long as you humanely could before pulling away from his shaft, sucking a big breath of fresh air in.

You could see his eyes darken, “Turn around for me.”

Confused but still compliant, you follow his orders and turn your back against him. He places his hand on your lower back, moving it up your spine to delicately push you back onto the bed. He grabs ahold of your hips, perching them up.

Now you were face down, ass up on your bed. 

Sunghoon smoothed the arch of your back with his calloused palm, finding its place at the nape of your neck. He growls lowly in your ear, “You gonna be good for me?”

“Uh huh,” you manage to get out.

He removes his hand at your neck, giving your ass a squeeze before entering inside you again. He hammers into you with the same drive and vigor, steadying your legs when he feels them start to tremor again.

You melt under his touch, the curve of his dick hitting that sensitive spot once again. The sound of your moans pushed him to go even further. He lands his two hands on the moons of your ass, spreading them wide open to see his wet dick pound into your dripping pussy, sliding deeper till he feels the resistance.

“Aargh,” he groans, swiping his thumb over the rim of your other hole.

“Fuuuck…” you whine out loud.

Sunghoon watches himself disappear in between your glistening pussy lips. The sheets beneath you two were pooled with your slick, you couldn’t control your moans anymore –– you knew you were about to give out and cum again any minute now.

Your pussy just squeezes him in right, he could keep fucking you all night. You push against him, fucking yourself on his cock when he starts laughing, “How bad do you want it, baby?”

You roll your hips on him, “I want it… bad.” you mewl.

He presses himself balls deep inside of you just to watch you struggle and grind on him to desperately reach your nth orgasm tonight. He caresses your asscheek when he’s decided he’s had enough fun watching you use him like a fuck toy.

Sunghoon starts thrusting into you again, slow and deep this time, jolting your body forward on the bed with each pump of his dick. When you feel him twitch inside of you, you knew his release was close –– his groans getting louder.

He starts pounding into you again relentlessly, feeling your gummy walls hugging him tight. You could feel him chasing his orgasm. His hand snakes its way to your lower stomach, brushing against the bulge of his bulbous cockhead before he presses down on it. The added pressure made your eyes roll back, gripping onto anything you could.

“Hoon… I’m gonna– I’m gonna cum.” you cry out.

“Then do it.”

You let yourself go, cumming so hard on his cock, you swore you were about to blackout from the feeling of immense pleasure.

He fastens the speed of his thrusts; you feel them become messy and sloppier. You hear his breathing getting ragged when he pulls out, stroking himself as thick ropes of sticky, white, cum spill onto your ass. You lay still on the mattress, still panting when Sunghoon finishes milking out every drop of cum.

Sunghoon uses the back of his hand to wipe off the sweat dripping down his forehead, “Wait,” he breathes out, promptly leaving the room to come back with a towel. He cleans you up when you start chuckling out loud.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, moving your hair out of your face.

“No, it’s just I haven’t had good sex in a while.” you giggle.

Confused, he asks, “Wait but, haven’t you…”

“Me and Jake never had sex.” you confessed.

Sunghoon’s eyes widened, “But– I heard you… in his room–”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you look at him, face puzzled, “Maybe we were watching a movie?”

He decides to drop the topic and just be glad instead. He wraps his arms around you and pulls you closer to him, “I wish I’d done something sooner.”

Snug against his arms, you chirp, “Well, why didn’t you? I was throwing hints all the time!”

Now Sunghoon didn’t know this, “...what do you mean ‘throwing hints?’”

You playfully slap against his chest, “Freshman and sophomore year I was waiting for you to make a move but you never did! So I just assumed you didn’t like me like that and tried to move on…”

One thing about Sunghoon was: he wasn’t really good with social cues. He was always in his own little bubble doing his own thing. But now that he thinks about it, you were pretty obvious –– it just didn’t click to him back then.

The two of you ended up dozing off after talking for hours, and before you knew it, the sun was up again.

Both of you were awoken by a couple of hard knocks at your door.

Sunghoon yawns, “Who’s at your door this early?”

Half-awake, you slip into some clothes you find scattered on the floor, “I’m not sure, maybe a package I ordered?” You rub your eyes, “These FedEx guys always deliver packages so early.”

You quickly leave the room to see who’s at your apartment door. While waiting, Sunghoon props himself up against your headboard, reaching for his phone. He placed a hand behind his head while he started scrolling through his missed notifications. For some reason, Sunghoon felt like he was forgetting something –– he wasn’t sure what.

Something was off, but he couldn’t quite pin what it was. Was he just being paranoid? He bagged the girl of his dreams, he just had amazing sex, and now he’s waiting for you in your bed shirtless, boxers on.

He tries to run through his mental to-do list in his head: he already submitted his assignments, it’s the weekend so he doesn’t have any classes, his rent isn’t due till next month, he did his laundry yesterday –– so why did he feel like he was forgetting something?

Sunghoon hears your voice echo throughout the apartment, “Jake! What are you doing here?”

Oh shit.

kay's note: r/amitheasshole which one of them do you think is the biggest asshole: sunghoon, jake, reader, or all of them, cause i was lowkey thinking about it myself but i'm not too sure either

copyright © bambiens 2026.

[hoonkitti]

MELO I COME BACK FOR SUGARGLASS PART TWO AND HOLY SHIT IT'S SO FREAKING GOODDD 😫😫😫❤️❤️❤️

I was reading the first night scene while listening to 'a little death' by the neighborhood, oh god the song was perfect for them. It brings out the sickening, forbidden vibe of their relationship even more.

You said the reader reminded you of baek ahjin, and YES YES YES I AGREE 100% WITH YOU. She's so manipulative and pretty it makes sunghoon weak everytime she makes a move, just like baek ahjin did to yoon junseo.

I'm sorry but, yura pmo so bad in the dinner scene, like what are you doing girl? But it doesn't matter tho bcs in the end reader win against her, twice.

And the ending... Oh it's so perfect, i love you so much 🫶🏻

Also you said you wanted to make a different scenario where they get caught by sunghoon's friend, and I'm lowkey picturing jay, jake, and heeseung visiting sunghoon in his new town. But they're a little lost so they need to ask a neighbor for help, and the neighbor's be like "oh sunghoon and yn? the newly engage couple?"

Lol they're gonna be so confused but they choose to keep their mouth shut while the neighbor yaps about how sweet and cute sunghoon is to his fiancée (his sister). And when they finally meet sunghoon and yn, imagine the terrified look on their faces...

- 🪽 (i decided to be 🪽anon hihi)

!! new nony??!?!?!? yayyy ₍₍⚞(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⚟⁾⁾ and omg i ran just to listen and why are you so right... the neighbours are knocking but no one would let him in = the forbiddeness of the relationship t-t ...

i'm saying!! yn is soo baek ahjin. she's not directly evil!!! yura defo thinks she has the gotcha moment when she purposely asked questions about her date in front of sunghoon in hopes that it'd fuck their relationship more somehow!!! i love u too :( i had to make them run away from korea lol

yes exactly! i want to make diff scenarios that don't link to the main story because i love yn and sunghoon sm :( i don't want to let them go yet lol.

💌 incest/stepcest

(the first outcome) i imagine sunghoon's friends making a sudden, unannounced visit to the country/neighbourhood and jake's like, "no dude, i swear it's this street! i just... don't know which house..." and jay called ikeu stupid... and said they should just go to one house and ask. and that's what they did!

"sorry to bother you," heeseung says in careful, polite english, bowing slightly out of habit. "we're looking for a friend who moved here recently. korean guy, about this tall," he gestured at around jay's height. "—park sunghoon? do you know if he lives on this street?"

"oh! the korean boy? that tall, very handsome boy?" she smiles warmly. "yes, yes—he lives just there!" she points three houses down, to the white one with the wraparound porch and a flowerbed.

the three boys turn their head to look. ah—should've been obvious.

they're about to thank her—

"him and his fiancee, right? are you their friends?" she continues, chuckling as she pulls her cardigan around her. "they keep to themselves mostly, but they're very friendly. especially the lady."

jake frowns, blinking. "fiance?"

she nods, leaning against the doorway. "yes! sunghoon said so. when they moved in together, just the two of them with no family around, i figured they wanted privacy for all that newly engaged bliss,"

she's settling in for a chat, and spilling almost everything to bunch of strangers. "ah, i forgot the lady's name... something [misspelled name]... [mispronounced name]?"

"yn?" jay suddenly blurts out, the words escaping before he can stop it.

the older woman's face lights up almost instantly. "yes! that's it—yn! such a sweet, young girl. she's still studying, isn't she?"

they nodded, slowly.

"such tradition to get married so young... but that's just how it is these days, isn't it? early marriage?"

all three of them froze. jake's mouth parted slightly, but no sound come out. jay's hand, halfway to rubbing the back of his neck, just... stopped in mid-air. heeseung's polite smile cracked at the edges.

maybe they don't know sunghoon as they... thought they do.

the woman is still talking, oblivious. "... and they're always just so affectionate! they're lucky that this town is filled with old people like me who don't judge!" she laughs. "anyway, you boys go say hello now. they'll be thrilled to have friends from home."

silence.

no one spoke until they were standing in a tight knot under the bare branches of a tree—just outside of your house.

"we're already here, so let's just... be cool. surely he has a reason why he's doing this, or maybe the woman misunderstood yn and sunghoon. they don't need to tell everyone they're siblings."

even though that probably isn't the case—but that's just how heeseung is. giving everyone the benefit of doubt. even though the pit in his stomach says this isn’t a misunderstanding at all.

they follow him up the short path, past the blooming tulips in the flowerbed, to the front door. jake reaches out and knocks three times—no turning back.

the door opens almost immediately.

you're standing there in soft home clothes, rubbing yours eyes, hair loosely tied, socked feet on the warm wooden floor. your face lights up with genuine surprise, then instant delight.

"oh, hi!" you say, bright and sweet. your smile is wide and welcoming, thrilled to see old friends—while not yours technically—show up unannounced.

"how—what are you guys doing here?"

their eyes drop—just a fraction—and land on the ring.

a simple, brushed silver band on the fourth ring of your left hand. not flashy, but unmistakable. you don't try to hide it, don't even seem to notice they're staring.

from deeper in the house, come soft footsteps on the stairs.

"yn? who's out?"

sunghoon appears behind you, descending the last few steps slowly. he's in a loose white shirt and sweatpants, hair slightly tousled like... like he was just napping. you two—were just napping and they bothered. your older brother stops just behind you, brushing your back.

his hand settles naturally on your shoulder—thumb grazing the bare skin of the slope that connects your shoulder in a small, absent caress.

there it is.

the exact same ring on his left hand.

sunghoon looks at the four of them standing on his porch, sleepy face replaced by a delighted look. "guys!" he chuckles, grinning. "what are you doing here? why didn't you call me—?"

his fingers tighten on your shoulder.

you tilt your head back to look up at him, still smiling, then back at the three boys.

"come in!" you invite them brightly, stepping aside and pulling the door wide. "i haven't started on dinner yet but—we have tea, or coffee for now. you must be tired from travelling!"

the invitation hands in the air. but none of them move right away.

jake's gaze flickers from your ring to sunghoon's matching one, then up to his face, searching for something—anything—that makes sense. jay looks pale, lips aprted in a silent oh that never becomes a sound. heeseung is the only one who steps forward first, crossing the threshold.

"...thanks," he says quietly. "we'll come in."

the others follow after a beat, moving like bodies are on autopilot.

you close the door behind them with a soft click.

not the happiest with the ending >.< but i wrote this without planning to! hehe

[courire]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 🦇 JUST MY TYPE

（ 박성훈 ）finding a fully furnished apartment with a river view for half the usual price is a bit sketchy . . . but anything to live in this economy!

𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆，unbeknownst to you, your landlord is a vampire and you are exactly his ( blood ) type.

𝗛𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗦 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎𓂃 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎𝗏𝖺𝗆𝗉𝗂𝗋𝖾 !sunghoon 𝜗ৎ 𝖿𝖾𝗆𝖺𝗅𝖾 !readerㅤㅤ✿ humor, romance, crime, thriller

notesㅤthere are no profiles .. but the gist is that jungwon is a doctor / pathologist, heejayke are vampires, sunki work in media

01 ground rules

02 anemia

03 an iq too high

04 sherlock holmes

05 girl logic

06 pointing fingers

07‎ human trials

08 benefit of doubt ( written + smau )

09 backing out

10 #watdatmean

11 conspiracy theories

12 good to go ( written )

13 stupid ass life

14

15

tba

from, malenaㅤbig thanks to @drkbl00d for helping me with this >< ily linnie! ^___^

[enchive]

HOW TO PRETEND

⏱︎  sunghoon wakes up in a world where you're alive.

⏱︎  park sunghoon x f!reader, ft. 02z ⏱︎  fluff, angst, fantasy [alternative universe, time travel themes], college!au, slowburn(?) ⏱︎  wc: 19.2k ⏱︎  cw: major character death, grief, mourning, emotional breakdown... sunghoon just goes through it i'm sorry T_T

⏱︎  enchive's lttr: i worked on this a lot during my finals week and then proceeded to get cooked. enchive is taking summer courses so this came out very slowly i apologize. it took a lot of brain juices but i powered thru, so hopefully there aren't any inconsistencies bcus my brain was so scattered writing this. special shout to @02zc0re, @cherryw0n whose anticipation greatly motivated me. thank u kindly! +++ shoutout to my roomie for beta reading i love u <3 here is a small playlist I listened to while writing~

how to pretend by lucy bedroque i saw you in a dream by the japanese house time machine by willow

Park Sunghoon hasn’t been himself ever since you died in winter.

Not that there’s much left of him to be.

Most of him perished when you did, and the other part that remained became a lifeless body trying to pass the time day by day. The color disappeared from his life once you did, and now all that’s left of him are bleak, monochromatic snapshots of his grief weaving into his everyday routine. Time became indistinguishable without you. Two years of his life were structured around your dates, your classes, and spending time with you. But now, his life became a repetitive cycle of waking up, going to class, and going home, where he rotted with your visage behind his closed eyes as he lied in bed until the next day broke.

Winter left, and Spring came, yet Sunghoon still felt like he was stuck in the cold season. 

In your shared apartment, your things were still there as if you never left. Your puffer jacket was still hanging on the coat rack, unwashed and chilly to the touch. Your toothbrush was still right next to his in the bathroom, the bristles bone-dry from the lack of use. There was an empty space on the full-sized bed, a perfect fit for where your body was supposed to lay right next to him. If Sunghoon closed his eyes and breathed in hard enough, he could still smell the remnants of your lingering, sweet shampoo clinging to the fibers of your pillowcase. 

His friends tried hard to help him move out of his cycle of grief. Sunghoon loved them for it, but he couldn’t help but remain where it was safe, in the little domain where your presence was missing, but your life was still there. Where your pictures hung on the walls, your bright smile lighting up the darkness of each room. Where your lucky pendant mocked him as it hung off the backpack you left on the stool of the kitchen island. Where you still were alive, even if you weren’t physically there.

Jake came in first after you died, letting Sunghoon have his peace for two weeks. Jake was the type to worry so much that it was overwhelming. For the past two weeks, he had blown up Sunghoon’s phone everyday, not letting him have a moment to himself on the device. (Sunghoon was grateful, honestly. Because he had spent the past two weeks looping every video of you until he could memorize the timestamps of every action you took.)

Jake checked on Sunghoon by knocking on his door and bringing him food. “Sunghoon, I brought pyeonyuk from your favorite place…” He gently breached the silence with a careful lilt to his voice, afraid that Sunghoon would snap if Jake said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Sunghoon begrudgingly got out of bed, clutching his phone tightly in his hand, and met Jake in the living room, his hair flying on his head and body dragging across the floorboards.

“I’m not hungry…” Sunghoon muttered in response, the same answer as the day before and the day before that.

“You should eat something, Hoon…” Jake frowned, setting the food on the dining table anyway and opening the takeout bag. Sunghoon didn’t respond. He knew Jake was right, but didn’t have the energy to say anything back. “She wouldn’t want you like this–”

“Don’t talk about her like you know what she wants,” Sunghoon snapped, his voice coming out sharper than he intended. The words stayed in the air, with regret settling into Sunghoon’s guilt-adled mind. But Sunghoon didn’t take them back, he couldn’t.

Jake was your friend before Sunghoon even knew you, so he knew that Jake was still mourning. Sunghoon knew it was wrong for him to say that, but he couldn’t help himself. Jake didn’t know you like he did. He didn’t know the soft murmurs of your sleep and the look of affection in your eyes.

Sometimes, he was angry at Jake for being able to smile after you passed. Other times, he was envious that he could move on so easily and continue living as if you were never there. But in the privacy of your apartment, Jake’s sniffles would merge with Sunghoon’s as they recounted the sides of you only they knew.

Jay came in after to help organize your apartment, more persistent than Jake. “You can’t keep staying like this, Hoon. You’re gonna get bugs, or something…” He murmured, bending over to pick up stray debris on the wooden floors. When your death was still fresh, and your messes were still around, Sunghoon loathed Jay’s help. How dare Jay come in and taint the memories of your existence by cleaning up what you had left behind?

“Jay, stop…” Sunghoon murmured as he helplessly watched his friend reach for the zip-up jacket that you had left on the couch, the cotton material still holding onto your perfume.

“It’s just a jacket, Hoon. It’s gonna smell if you leave it here–”

“I said stop! Just– just fuckin’ leave it where it is, Jay!” Sunghoon’s voice cracked as the volume rose. He stood up without realizing, in Jay’s space, and gripping onto your jacket like it was a lifeline. Jay startled, the jacket slipping from his hands and into Sunghoon’s protective grasp.

“Why does it matter?” Jay had shot back, frustration finally slipping through. “She’s not coming back to wear it, Sunghoon.”

Sunghoon’s heart steeled, and he could only whisper back to Jay as tears slipped down his cheeks.

“Get out.”

Sunghoon was still embarrassed about the amount of screaming and sobbing he did to Jay, but he’s sure that they’re fine now. Apologies flew between them, but Sunghoon had already let go of the anger in his chest. After all, it was only swallowed up by the grief he was feeling for you.

When both of his friends noticed it wasn’t helping, they would take him out on the town, shoving milkshakes in his hand and laughing louder than they usually would. They talked about everything and nothing all at once, carefully avoiding your name as if he would break upon hearing it in public. After a while, Sunghoon didn’t want his friends to feel like their efforts were in vain. So he learned to force a smile, puffing up his cheeks and curling up his lips as Jake made a stupid joke to Jay like he always did. (When Jake and Jay looked triumphant about their victory, turning away to silently celebrate, Sunghoon would let his smile falter.)

The night was like the others. Jake and Jay took him to this diner far out of the way, with an American retro vibe. Red and white stripes lined the walls, and the tiles gleamed in the bright overhead lighting. There were only a few patrons in the restaurant, as it was late. The smell of meat cooking on the grill wafted through the air, permeating the atmosphere with smoke and seasoning. The three men were munching on burgers, updating each other about their courses for the next semester. But mostly, it was just Jake and Jay speaking to Sunghoon. The youngest of the three remained silent for most of the meal, only responding when he felt like he really had to.

But the sight of the cheeseburgers and fries on his platter only made him think of you even more. Even if he knew his friends were trying to distract him from you, he could only be reminded of the countless dates you had at the burger joint next to campus. Reminded of the way you used to get ketchup on the corner of your lips, and how he would wipe it off with his thumb. He used to complain about how you always ate so messily, but he couldn’t help the wide smile from growing on his lips. Can’t you come back? He’d never complain again…

“Guys, it’s getting late. I think we should go now…” Sunghoon spoke up after a while. Truth be told, he was spacing out for most of the time and just wanted to bury himself under the covers. Jake looked at him and smiled, not wanting to push anything.

“Sure, man, we can go back now.” He stood up, dusting off the crumbs from his thighs. He looked at Jay, who simply nodded and stood up to let Sunghoon out of the dining booth they were sitting in. Jay drove them back home, not forgetting to tell Sunghoon to text him in the morning. Sunghoon only nodded in response before going back up to your apartment.

When he opened the door, the silence greeted him as always. Not your cheery voice yelling his name or your padding footsteps eagerly running towards him. There was only a suffocating absence waiting for him. The wooden door clicked shut behind him, and with that sound, his composed act dropped.

Sunghoon’s shoulders slumped. He tried. He really tried. But when his breath hitched, his emotions began to unravel uncontrollably, unfurling like a roll of ribbon. His keys slipped from his fingers, clattering against the floor. His vision blurred as quickly as he blinked, tears filling up his eyes, and his throat closing up as a sob threatened to rise from his chest.

“Fuck–” His word broke apart as soon as he let it out. He collapsed to the ground, his body not strong enough to carry him and the weight of his emotions anymore. He felt ugly– so ugly. His figure practically folded into itself as his knees hit the ground, his chest pressed against his thighs and his arms awkwardly crossed. He uncurled his body, crawling like a baby as he thought to the only thing he wanted.

You.

But you weren’t here. So his hands desperately sought out the closest thing he could get. Your jacket, the one that he still hadn’t moved even though Jay tried to many, many times. He bunched up the fabric in his fingers, the cloth wrinkling under the force of his tight grip. He buried his nose into the fabric, inhaling the sweet smell of your perfume– from the bottle that was still at your vanity, macerating as it went unused. A choked sound tears from his throat as he inhaled sharply, like maybe if he breathed your scent in deep enough, he could fill the hollow space you left behind.

“Please…” His voice was barely there now, worn thin from crying. “Just—just come back.” He squeezed his eyes shut, and the memories came flooding in. Your bright laugh that lifted any weight off his shoulders, your warm eyes always seeking to stare into his, and your heavy hand that slipped effortlessly to slot into his. Then, the quiet moments that you both lived, the meaningless ones, the ones he never thought he’d have to remember like this. They all hit his brain at once, bringing on a throbbing headache for him. But even though it ached to think of you, he still clung to these memories desperately, replaying them over and over on loop.

If he stopped and let them fade even a little, then it would be like losing you all over again.

Your voice wasn’t there to comfort him like it always used to be, and if he took out his phone to play a clip of your sweet voice messages that used to encourage him, he wasn’t sure how he would react. His sobs eventually silenced, faltering into desperate gasps of air. Exhaustion pulled him down as his breathing became uneven. He curled into himself on the floor, still clutching what little of you he has left as his body tumbled to the side. The last thing he felt before he passed out was the faint scent of your perfume and the hollow ache in his chest that never seemed to go away.

Winter had long passed, allowing flowers to bloom over the frigid grass. Yet, Sunghoon remained frozen in the cold weather, trapped in the season you left him in.

Sunghoon didn’t remember setting his alarm, but the shrill sound of it woke him up from his deep sleep.

He kept his eyes closed as he pouted, squirming around as he patted around for his phone. But, instead of meeting the cold floor, his hands brushed up against warm bedding. He shot upright, eyes wide and head throbbing. Who the hell moved him from the floor to the bed?

For a moment, Sunghoon sat still, disoriented and trying to piece together the puzzles of last night through his dazed head. He remembered having a breakdown and the sweet aroma of your perfume. His vision was blurry, and he thought that it was from his tears from last night, but even after blinking for a few seconds, his eyesight didn’t gain any clarity. His hands shot up to rub his eyes, but his sight was still fuzzy. He remembered passing out on the floor, holding your jacket. But he surely didn’t remember this.

He looked down, realizing he was on a twin XL bed. He squinted his eyes as he stared at the bedding. It looked way too familiar. The way that the blanket hung off the edge, and the striped pillow was resting up against the wall, compressed into a flat piece of cotton. It looked all too familiar, too similar to the navy blue set that he used during his freshman year of college.

A chill ran down Sunghoon’s spine as he realized where he was. He was in a freshman dorm.

As he glanced around, his bleary eyes still didn’t clear, but the room around him became a little more concrete. The cheap white paint peeling on the ceiling, the shaky frame of his wooden bunk bed, and the pile of unfolded laundry sitting right in the middle of the floor in a blob of mixed fabrics. The mini-fridge was humming next to his closet. It was all there, exactly the way he remembered two years ago. He would’ve mused at the fact that it looked so identical if he wasn’t so freaked out about being in some random freshman dorm.

Fuck, what did I do last night? I probably look like a creep! In the dorm of some random freshman kid when I’m a junior… He nearly sprained his ankle trying to jump off the bed, scrambling to leave as soon as possible. But as soon as he jumped down from the top bunk, the door opened, revealing Jay.

“Dude, you good? You jumped off the bed mad hard.” Jay snickered, running a hand through his wet hair. Sunghoon blinked. This had to be a dream, a prank, or a grief-induced hallucination. Maybe he cried himself so hard that he lost his fucking mind. Because there was just no way he was staring at freshman year Jay in his freshman year dorm.

Jay was supposed to have short black hair with a strictness that only college and a two-year unpaid internship could instill into him. He was supposed to be wearing button-ups and polos with tight trousers and a fancy belt. But this Jay had longer, dyed silver hair with his teenage features still ghosting his face. This Jay was wearing a soccer team jersey with baggy shorts and his silver conch piercing still looped through his ear.

“Sunghoon, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost…” Jay nervously laughed, throwing the towel around his neck into his hamper. “Did you have a nightmare or something?”

Sunghoon’s throat was dry. He tried to swallow, but instead he broke out into a coughing fit. Jay scrambled to pat his back, grabbing a cold water bottle from the shared mini-fridge. “Th– Thanks…” Sunghoon wheezed as he greedily gulped down the entire bottle. “Uhm, I’m– I’m okay…” He whispered, trying to find his voice. Jay frowned, concerned.

“Are you sure? You sound weird as hell, man.” Jay smiled again, his expression dry and one of concern. Sunghoon cleared his throat and nodded again, turning around to look at himself in the mirror. He was faced with the younger version of himself from two years ago, too. Instead of his ripped figure, his muscles were just beginning to bulge with the beginnings of his consistent workouts. His hair was dark as usual, but he could see the overgrown appearance framing his eyes.

“I– I think ‘m gonna be sick!” Sunghoon gagged, before running to the communal bathrooms and flinging open the closest stall door. He yakked in the toilet, sick to his stomach. The sour smell of vomit filled the claustrophobic space of the stall, and Sunghoon nearly threw up again as chunks of undigested food sputtered out from between his lips. Jay came in a minute later, standing awkwardly next to the open door.

“Are you good, man? You’re worrying me… Did the dining hall fuck you over, too?” Jay snickered. Sunghoon flushed, leaning heavily against the wall as cold sweat clung to the back of his neck. His whole body felt wrong. Jay lingered outside for a moment before speaking again, voice softer this time. “Seriously, Hoon. Did something happen?”

Sunghoon stared at the tiled floor for a moment before flushing down his puke. Everything had fucking happened. You were dead, and he had buried you. But he couldn’t say that to Jay. So instead, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and forced out a weak response.

“Bad dream.”

Jake had been talking about you for weeks before Sunghoon met you.

The puppy-like boy had been yipping his ear off about you, but Sunghoon didn’t even know what you looked like. All he knew you as Jake’s hometown friend who’s known the man since high school. Yet Jake talked about you like Sunghoon was already integrated into your friendship, like you were apart of their routine too.

“Yuck, this dining hall food sucks.” Jake scrunched his nose as his fork penetrated the dry chicken, the metal tearing into the strips of meat. Sunghoon snorted as he dug his spoon into the “soup” that had animal fats coagulating on the surface of the bowl. “Should we take the bus downtown and get sushi?” Jake licked his lips, eager for the change of meal.

“We already used a meal swipe, Jake. I don’t want to waste it.” Sunghoon frowned, but he himself was about to lose his appetite as he stared into the abyss of the tomato soup that bubbled and popped, spurting tiny droplets of thick tomato onto the table. When Jake didn’t respond, Sunghoon assumed that Jake had conceded and began eating his dry chicken, but when he looked up, Jake’s eyes were somewhere else.

Sunghoon followed his eyes to see that Jake was staring at a girl grabbing a cookie. “Ohh, you think she’s cute?” Sunghoon teased. Jake’s lips then curled up in disgust, his entire face contorting to express his repulsion to Sunghoon’s words. The younger boy frowned, disappointed. “Jake, don’t look like that. She may not be your type, but she’s a cute girl.”

“What? Dude, that’s Y/N. My friend from home.” Jake snickered. “So you think she’s cute, huh?” The chestnut-haired boy leaned across the table immediately, grin widening like he had just been handed the greatest entertainment of his week.

“No, Jake, I didn’t say all that.” Sunghoon groaned, knowing that he had just walked himself into a trap.

“Nah, don’t lie. You think she’s cute, huh? She’s single, I can set you up…” Jake smirked, wriggling his eyebrows. Sunghoon groaned, the tip of his pale ears turning red from the embarrassment he was feeling. He covered his face to hide his expression.

“Stop, Jake…” He whined. Jake snickered and pushed Sunghoon’s elbow.

“Be cool, man, she’s coming.” Jake winked, biting his lip at Sunghoon. The pale boy’s face was so red, he was sure he looked like a stop sign at that point. Behind Sunghoon, he heard the steady sounds of footsteps against linoleum. It was when the footsteps were directly behind him that he decided to turn around, not wanting to look too snappy or weird.

Sunghoon was blown away. He thought you were cute from a couple of feet away, debating whether to grab either the cookie or the brownie as you tapped your foot in a rhythmic motion. But you were even more breathtaking up close. You had a soft, warm smile gracing your lips, making you look approachable. Your cheeks were dewy from the humid air that resulted from the smokiness of the chicken charring behind the dining hall bars. You were wearing sweats and a hoodie, dressing warmly for the cool temperatures that began to settle in the atmosphere during September. He absolutely couldn’t hide how smitten he was with you, so much that Jake began lightly kicking his foot under the table.

“Hi, Jake.”

God, even your voice was like honey. Smooth, silky, and thickly sweet. “Hey, Y/N. Did you finish eating, or did you just get here?” Jake asked you, not bothering to hide the wide, mischievous grin that began to spread across his lips.

“Mmm, I ate with my classmate, Chaewon. She left to go back to her dorm already,” You answered, circling the table to stand behind Jake. Your face came into full view of Sunghoon, and he had to remember to swallow so that he could prepare his mouth to speak.

“H– Hey.” Sunghoon’s voice cracked as he greeted you. Jake pursed his lips, biting them to stifle his laughter. He cleared his throat and looked down, embarrassed.

“Hi, I’m Y/N, Jake’s friend.” You giggled, melodic and charming. Sunghoon shyly smiled up at you, gathering the courage to look up at you directly. You took the seat next to Jake, maintaining your friendly grin as you stared at Sunghoon. “Aren’t you in my CS class?” You asked, tilting your head. Sunghoon gulped. He didn’t even realize, but you remembered him so easily. He felt a little guilty.

“Uhm– Uhm, yeah, ‘m– ‘m in CS 1010… Monday, Wednesday, Friday lectures from 12:15 to 1:30… You– you too?” Sunghoon stammered out his question. You giggled again, seemingly amused and endeared by his bashful demeanor.

“Yup, that’s me too! Hey, sit next to me in lecture next time! I sit in like, the middle back. And I’m going to be honest with you, the guy who usually sits next to me… he’s a bit obnoxious…” You leaned in to cheekily whisper to him, as if letting him in on a secret only you both knew about. (And Jake, he guessed…)

The conversation began flowing into a natural river of meaningless talks about dorm life, classes, and unshared stories of Jake that you both had. Honestly, Sunghoon barely remembered what you guys talked about. All that was stuck in his mind was the way you kept glancing at him with your bright, wide eyes that squinted with your cheeks as you smiled and giggled.

At the time, Sunghoon thought it was just a lucky afternoon, stumbling upon a pretty girl and even scoring a friend in a class. He didn’t know then that it would become coffee dates and late-night study sessions, shared bus rides, first kisses, and apartment keys. He didn’t know that one day, he would be whispering “I love you” to you every night before you both fell asleep after long days of cramming for Data Structures and Algorithms. He didn’t know then that you would become home.

And he definitely didn’t know that one day, years later, he would sit on the floor of that very home, begging the universe to let him have you back.

Back then, all he knew was that you smiled at him, and for the first time, he was excited to attend CS 1010.

Sunghoon had finished hyperventilating twenty minutes ago. Or maybe thirty. Time felt fake now, so he honestly couldn’t tell.

All he knew was that he had woken up in his freshman dorm, thrown up in the communal bathroom, cried for a little bit more until Jay awkwardly told him he had to leave, and then kneeled down on the (very disgusting) floor of the stall trying not to pass out or cry again. Either grief had sent him into some form of delusion or psychosis, or genuinely sent him two years in the past. Neither option was looking like an optimal answer to his question of why the hell he was in his freshman year self.

After managing to get up, he went back to his dorm to search for anything that could help his predicament. (As if his dingy gaming laptop could send him back into the present…) He entered his room to grab his morning essentials, splayed out in a cup on his white dorm cart. His vision was still blurry, and it finally clicked to him as to why when he noticed a foreign object on the same cart. He picked up a glasses case and opened them to reveal a pair of glasses. He put them on and stared at himself in the mirror secured on the front of his closet door. 

They were black, wide, and thick-rimmed, pressing up against the sides of his nose and nudging into the fluffy skin of his cheeks. But Sunghoon never wore glasses– he had perfect 20/20 vision. Sunghoon freaked out– who wouldn’t freak out after losing their after a night’s sleep?

He took his cup of essentials to the bathroom, cringing at the loadout. He had a dingy, plastic toothbrush and a cheap tube of toothpaste. He didn’t own his usual mixsoon skincare, so he couldn’t wash his face with cleanser. He brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth with purple Listerine, and splashed his face with water.

“God, this is sick. This is actually so sick,” he muttered to himself, patting his face dry with his sleep t-shirt and putting on the glasses. Now that he could properly see his reflection in the dusty and streaky mirror, he was staring at the younger version of himself that had softer features, longer, dark-brown hair, and a pair of fucking glasses now.

He looked like a loser, and his present-day brain wanted to fight himself for not taking care of himself properly until he began talking to you. He checked the time on the old and unnecessary clock hanging over the door of the communal bathroom, whispering a curse as he realized that it was almost 8:30AM, his class was at 9AM, and the walk was 20 minutes away from the dorm. 

He ran back to his dorm room to change, throwing open his closet door with a resonating slam against the wooden sideboards. Instead of the expensive and sleek monochrome clothes he meticulously spent two years curating into his fashion style, he was greeted with vibrant colors overtaking any monotone hue that could have hidden in his hangers. He pulled each hanger back, revealing neon green, a bright yellow, and a shirt with Detective Conan on it. He groaned, internally cursing his freshman-year self for buying whatever he could get his cheap hands on. He picked out a green sweater and a clean pair of blue denim jeans. He wanted to accessorize, but when he dug through his other drawers, he couldn’t find anything. There wasn’t even a watch or necklace or bracelet. He shook his head and exhaled in frustration.

Sunghoon checked the calendar on his desk promptly, throwing on a jacket and grabbing a random apple on his desk. It was November, three months after university had started for him. But when his eyes landed on the color-coded events, he was confused. Because instead of CS 1010 and CALC III, the usual courses he took on Monday, he was looking at CHEM 1010 and BIOL 2100. He remembered taking the chemistry course his freshman year, but he definitely remembered not taking anything biology-related in his college career. Hell, he was a Computer Engineering major. What would a CS student need Biology for?

Ignoring the weird nostalgia blooming in his chest and the odd discrepancies that just continued to pile up, Sunghoon went out to go to his classes. Instead of the green trees and blossoming flowers welcoming him outside, he was met with the warm leaves and moderate temperatures of Autumn. Students passed by in a haze, chattering about their classes and walking way faster than Sunghoon remembered. The cold breeze drifted through the campus, inflating his sweater as it crept under the fabric. Jay had already left to attend a mixer for his pre-law frat, leaving Sunghoon to try to stimulate his own brain so he could ignore his weird time flashback or time-travel or whatever the hell this was…

He checked his phone, inhaling a big breath of air and holding it in, as if bracing himself for the impact that he was seeing his screen two years in the past. When the screen brightened, Sunghoon was greeted with Patrick Bateman laughing maniacally at him with blood splattered across his face. He instantly shut his phone off out of embarrassment. “Hell no.” He grunted.

He inhaled again and opened it to check his text messages. He expected to see your name at the top, but instead, it was Jake followed by Jay. He scrolled through, expecting to see your name at least somewhere. After all, it’d been three months since you’ve met. You should’ve at least talked about the CS midterm by now, right? But instead, he scrolled through to see his parents, his sister, and some random high school friends Sunghoon hadn’t thought of in years.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He felt a headache coming on, and his heart was twisting into itself, wringing out all of his worries about his time-travel to soak up the anxieties of you. If he was here—if this was really freshman year, really November, really two years ago— then where the hell were you?

Sunghoon stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk, students brushing past him with annoyed mutters, enunciated scoffs, and eyerolls. His fingers trembled around his phone as he opened your contact again, except… there was no contact to open. Your name didn’t exist in his phone, and there was nothing to remember you by. His stomach dropped to his feet, and from his feet, crept up the nauseous nagging of… what if you didn’t exist at all now, these two years ago that he was in?

“No, no, no…” he muttered under his breath, swiping faster like your name might magically appear if he looked hard enough. But it didn’t. All that stared back at him was the image of fucking Christian Bale laughing at him, jeering at him as if making a mockery out of Sunghoon.

Could… this not have been his timeline entirely? Instead of going back to the past, did he somehow fall into a world where you never even existed?

Even the beginnings of the thought was enough to make Sunghoon keel over, steadying his body on a nearby tree and focusing his eyes into the nearby bush. Was this world not the version where you sat next to him in CS 1010 and whispered gossip to him during lectures? Because if so, then this wasn’t the version where he walked you home after late-night study sessions and fell in love with you under fluorescent library lights. This wasn’t the version where he kissed you outside your apartment in the snow for the first time.

The version of him that had met you.

Sunghoon’s breathing started to shorten again. He had one hand pressed flat against it the thick and textured trunk of the tree, as if it could keep the world from tilting. The autumn air began feeling suffocating instead of crisp, and the stray threads inside his stupidly bright green sweater began scratching at the hairs on his arms, penetrating through to itch his skin.

think think think think think

Jake? Jake knew you first, didn’t he?

He couldn’t give less of a fuck about his stupid CHEM 1010 class, not when the idea of you not being in his life again was wrapping heavy hands around his neck and choking him. His thumb fumbled as he opened Jake’s contact and scrolled through his messages. Most of it was stupid nonsense, with the most recent text being Jake begging him to skip class for food. Then, buried between them, secluded amongst the sheer amount of back-and-forth texts, was a diamond in the rough.

jake: bro r u coming to the library tmrw nite? jake: y/n’s gonna be there too jake: bro please be normal this time 😭🙏

Sunghoon choked out a broken sound, a cacophony of laughter and sobbing. His knees nearly gave out from the release of tension in his muscles. He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes, digging it into his eyes to steady himself. Sunghoon didn’t care that he looked like an idiot in the middle of campus while students walked around him. After all, they were ignoring him like his spectacle was an everyday occurrence. He couldn’t care less.

you existed here you were here alive breathing here here in this world not six feet under but above ground walking talking breathing living

Sunghoon stared at the message until the words blurred.

y/n’s gonna be there too

alive alive alive

You were no longer trapped inside of the pictures hung up on the walls. Not reduced to old voice messages and the lingering scent on the piles of clothes you left around the apartment and in your hamper. Not a mere name carved into stone and buried under the solid, winter dirt.

alive.

Sunghoon’s chest caved in on itself. If he had not met you like he did two months ago in the dining hall, then would you both be starting from square one now? Does that mean that he had another chance to start from the beginning? To love you again, wholeheartedly, and make sure that you wouldn’t die? That instead of two measly years, he could love you for an entire lifetime? Or were you destined to meet the same fate again?

He didn’t hesitate to decide. No matter what lifetime he was in, he would make the same decision. He would choose you again, every time, even knowing how it ended. Grief this devastating could only exist because love had once been so kind, and now that he had a chance to experience your living love again, he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Sunghoon: r we still on for the library?

“I didn’t think making a grade calculator would be this fucking hard, oh my god.”

You and Sunghoon were both deep into three Red Bulls, eyes bloodshot and accessorized with grey and purple bags hanging under them. Sunghoon exhaled and slammed his laptop shut, before immediately pulling it open again to reveal the same piece of coding that had been mocking the both of you for hours. Meanwhile, you were slumped over your own laptop, fingers tapping away at your keyboard meaninglessly. Honestly, you weren’t even trying to fix the code, you were just typing a bunch of bullshit into the program.

“Seriously, why did I choose CS?” Sunghoon sulked, about to begin reflecting on every decision that led him there, before you snapped him out of it with a few delicate taps to his arm.

“How about we take a study break, hm?” You tilted your head, smiling up at him. Even though you look exhausted, you still managed to muster up a warm grin on your lips that instantly quelled his anxieties about your project. “Where should we go… it’s pretty chilly outside…” You thought aloud. The way your eyes flicked up and your hand dramatically stroked your chin endeared him, blossoming an aggressive affection in his chest. He squeezed his hands into a fist, trying to resist pinching your cheeks.

“What time is it now? 2AM? Is anything even open?” Sunghoon yawned. You thought about it for a second before gasping. Sunghoon could almost visualize the lightbulb flashing above your head.

“Let’s eat ramyeon at the convenience store on the main road!” You suggested. The brown-haired boy hummed in agreement, standing up abruptly to stretch before putting on his coat. You both abandoned your things and put your trust in student honor as you began your 10-minute walk down the street, leaving the warm and humid library in favor of the chilly autumn weather.

“Sunghoon, have I ever asked you about your lore?” You suddenly asked. Sunghoon furrowed his eyebrows.

“Lore? What does that mean?” He responded, confusion puppeting his eyebrows into a furrow. You puffed up your cheeks as you thought about how to explain the term.

“Like– your cool anime backstory, or whatever…” You answered, embarrassed at the way you chose to describe it. Sunghoon snickered, shaking his head.

“Uhm, I don’t think I have a cool anime backstory, or whatever…” He started to think. “Well… I have a younger sister and then I used to figure-skate. Nothing really interesting, I don’t think…” You gasped at his downplaying of his abilities.

“You used to figure-skate? That’s so cool! When did you start?” You smiled, eyes sparkling at looking up at him with wonder. Sunghoon’s face flushed even harder.

“Uhm… when I was pretty young… I was pretty good at it, other people tell me. But I didn’t have many friends when I was a kid because I was the only guy who did figure-skating,” he continued. You tilted your head curiously.

“Do you have any pictures, Hoon?” You perked up. He tried to ignore the flutter in his heart with the usage of your sudden nickname, instead opting to fumble for his phone. He hid away the Patrick Batemen lockscreen he forgot to change before flashing you a photo of his younger self.

Child Sunghoon was round and soft, with a cute and awkward smile on his face. He wore a flashy costume, a white button-up with silver glitter lining everywhere that it could trace. In his hands was a trophy and a bouquet of flowers. A coo immediately erupted from your throat as you took it in. “Sooo cute, ohmygod!” You gasped. His shining pupils disappeared as he smiled, bashful as he looked away. He turned off the phone, causing you to whine.

“Nooo~ Hoon, send me the photo! I’ll make it your contact!”

As much as he didn’t want to give in, ultimately, he did. He airdropped the photo to you, which you received with a delighted squeal. Sunghoon peered over your shoulder, trying to subtly look at what you were going to do. Just as you said, you immediately went to change his assigned contact photo to the child version of his picture. But as you opened his chatbox, his heart stuttered. His number was saved under ‘hoon <3.’

He immediately jerked his head away, blushing profusely as he tried to ignore the steady and rising thumping in his chest. You looked up at him, oblivious to the motions his body was going through.

“Soo, what ramyeon should we eat?”

Sunghoon didn’t know shit about biology, so he left his lab as soon as the class ended.

His labmates were very obviously frustrated, not-so-subtly glaring at him as they passive-aggressively shot their DNA samples into the wells of the gel electrophoresis. One of his lab mates, a nice boy named Sunoo, leaned in to whisper into his ear, “Are you okay? You’re normally never this slow?” And after a reassuring nod, Sunoo pouted and looked away. Sunghoon guessed that meant he was actually skilled in biology, but he knew for sure that this Sunghoon, the one who wanted to pursue cybersecurity, didn’t know jackshit about DNA, RNA, and whatever the Central Dogma was.

Sunghoon was hungry, his brain was overloaded with too much new information, and all he could think about was the thought of seeing you. Breathing, alive, and here. So as soon as the TA dismissed everyone, he sprinted out of the lab and across campus to the library. He didn’t care if he looked stupid, clutching his backpack strap and punching his shoulders backwards and forwards in order to gain more momentum as he ran for his life. All he cared about was you. you you you

As he neared the library, waiting for the crosswalk to turn green for pedestrians, he whipped out his phone to text Jake.

Sunghoon: Hey Jake. Where are U sitting. Sunghoon: What floor are U on? Sunghoon: Where R U located. jake: ???? jake: were on the fourth floor in a cubby jake: why r u texting so weird LOL when dod u use punctuations n caps? Sunghoon: Uhhh trying out a new style of texting. jake: wtv man just dont act like a weirdo with y/n LOL jake: dont tell her i said this but she said shes excited to see u

Sunghoon’s heart was pounding, and he was sure it wasn’t because of the intense cardio. He looked back and forth on the road, tapping his foot impatiently as the crosswalk was still red. As soon as the street was cleared of cars, he began rapidly walking across the road, ignoring the protests of the crossguard with an embarrassed expression on his face.

He practically bolted across the small lawn in front of the library in order to enter it, panting as he climbed up the large flight of stairs leading up to the main entrance. He pushed the doors open, his feet rapidly clicking against the tiled floor as he raced to find you and Jake. He rounded around the entirety of the fourth floor, ignoring the pointed and obvious stares of the other people trying to study. Soft chatter and giggles filled the wide floor, as well as the sounds of keyboards clicking under pressure and Apple pencils tapping against screens. But one particular sound stood out to him.

The sound of your sweet, sweet laughter.

He nearly tripped as he rounded the corner, only to see the glorious sight that his heart had been searching for forever.

You.

You were sitting cross-legged on one of the seats in the cubby, your laptop balanced on your thighs and a Red Bull cracked open beside you. The same, sugar-free flavor that you always liked when you both studied together and that Sunghoon conditioned himself into loving, too. Jake was next to you, saying something dramatic with his hands, and you were laughing at him– your head tipped back slightly, eyes squinting, your smile so bright that it was the only thing he could see.

For a moment, the entire world went silent until his ears began ringing. There was nothing else in the world except you.

Just you.

Alive.

Not framed in a photograph, not buried under frozen dirt, and not simply reduced to a voice memo he replayed at three in the morning because he was afraid he’d forget the exact cadence of your laugh.

You were here.

You were breathing, laughing, smiling, moving, existing. Alive.

Sunghoon stopped walking.

His body forgot how to function, rooted to the tiled floor as if one more step would shatter the fragile miracle in front of him. His vision blurred almost instantly, tears gathering so fast it embarrassed him.

Because you were there, right in front of him after the seasons had changed and months had passed since he last saw you.

Wearing some oversized hoodie he recognized from years ago, sleeves covering half your hands. Your hair slightly messy, your lips wrapped around the straw of your drink, your foot absentmindedly bumping against Jake’s chair.

You were so alive.

Sunghoon’s throat closed as the tears wouldn’t stop. He hurriedly brought up his sleeves to wipe his eyes. He had spent months begging the universe for this. Whether he was in the kitchen, pleading to have you back so you could wash your dirty dishes. Or buried in the side of your bed, his face smothered by the scent-heavy fabric of your pillow case. At your grave, where your name engraved into the stone mocked him and the dates of your birth and date blending in together. In every quiet second where grief became too heavy to carry, and Sunghoon’s body would collapse from the sheer weight of it all on his back.

Yet now, here you were, as if no time had passed at all and Sunghoon was back to day one. 

Jake noticed him first, standing outside the cubicle like a weirdo. To be fair, Jake thought Sunghoon was a weirdo until he recognized the vibrant fashion choice. “Dude, finally—” Jake started, the beginnings of a laugh about to escape his throat, but the words died in his throat when he saw Sunghoon’s face, because Sunghoon looked like he was seeing a ghost.

Your eyes followed Jake’s, landing on him, and Sunghoon’s breath hitched. He had your eyes on him, and they hadn’t changed from the last time he saw you. They were as bright as he remembered, with the stars of the night filling them with a shine so breathtaking that Sunghoon couldn’t believe that this was real.

And then you smiled, the same smile that always instantly calmed him down, alleviating him of any negative thoughts. You smiled like you hadn’t fucking died, and Sunghoon was almost angry at how naive you looked, oblivious to the suffering that he had gone through for months without seeing that beautiful visage. But as soon as your lips curled, they faltered.

“Sunghoon?” you said, tilting your head a little. “Are you okay?”

God, your voice was as melodic as he remembered. So softspoken per usual, with a tune that was like angels were singing. A broken sound left his throat before he could stop it— a half laugh and a half sob mixing together to produce something ugly and raw. His hand came up to cover his mouth like he could physically shove the emotions and sound back inside of his throat. But he couldn’t. because you were looking at him finally after months of going without it.

alive alive alive youre really alive and youre really here and youre smiling so pretty so beautiful my sweet girlfriend my y/n mine mine mine youre mine

Tears spilled over despite every humiliating attempt to stop them. Your expression immediately shifted, your weak grin fading into a concerned look as you stood up too quickly, chair scraping against the floor.

“Dude— are you crying?” Jake asked. You hissed at him, silently scolding him for his dumb question. Sunghoon couldn’t help but laugh because that was such a you thing and you were doing it like you always did before and he can’t stop crying you’re you you’re you you’re you

“I’m fine,” he lied instantly, voice cracking so badly it made Jake wince.

You took another step closer. You were so close, so close that he could smell the same sweet perfume that you always wore. The one that he kept on your nightstand to let macerate after you died. The one that was masked by the putrid smell of formaldehyde at your funeral. The one that he spent the last couple of months trying to get a whiff of out of your dirty clothes and unwashed pillowcase.

This was torture. You were standing there looking so beautiful but so painfully not his. Because at this point in time, you didn’t know him yet. Not the way his you did. No, this you didn’t know the shape of his hands in the dark, or how he took his coffee, or the way he only liked sleeping if the weight of his leg was thrown over his. You didn’t know about the apartment that you both lived in until it was just him, alone, with the broken promises of forever and eternal love left to remember you by.

Sunghoon’s fingers twitched at his side. He wanted to reach out to at least brush his fingertips over your arms. He wanted to hold your face. He wanted to hear your heartbeat to make sure that it was beating. He wanted to bury himself in your arms and stay there until the last few months faded until it didn’t exist to him anymore, so he could at least pretend like your death had never happened and he finally got his happily ever after. But he was scared. So scared that if he touched you, he was afraid he would never let go, or you’d vanish and disappear, or he’d wake up from this beautiful dream that was your world.

So instead, he just stood there sobbing and shaking his head like an idiot in the middle of the library.

Sunghoon was inconsolable for an hour.

He honestly thought that an hour was too short for his whiplash of relief and anguish to stop, but he was fine.

Nope, he wasn’t. You patted his back and he began sobbing again.

“Dude, are you okay? What’s wrong, man? I’ve never seen you like this before…” Jake asked, worry laced in his accent-heavy voice. You looked at Jake, your eyebrows knitted in concern for the poor boy sobbing his heart out in front of you.

“Are you having a hard time because of midterms? It’s okay, Sunghoon, it’s okay to cry… let it out, you’ve probably had a stressful week… don’t worry, you’ve worked hard…” You tried to comfort him, but he only sobbed harder because this was something that you would definitely say. Sunghoon sniffled, but let out a few coughs instead. Jake unsuccessfully stifled his snickers as the younger boy began to cough excessively, before crying harder.

“Jake…” you silently hissed, thwacking his shoulder with a heavy hand. His mouth opened as he flinched back. Sunghoon finally calmed down after a while, staring at you with wide eyes. Your hand was still resting lightly against his back, warm through the thin fabric of his sweater, and he thought he might start crying again just from that alone. It was after he processed your body heat that he realized you were touching him. You weren’t a memory or a dream anymore, and most importantly, this is real. Not some cruel hallucination his grief-ridden brain had conjured to keep him from completely falling apart.

Jake looked between the two of you like he was watching a live drama unfold in front of him. “Okay,” he said slowly, dragging the word out. “So, uh, what happened, man?”

Sunghoon opened his mouth.

Nothing. Because what was he supposed to say? Sorry, I watched the love of my life die, spent months rotting in our apartment, cried myself to sleep holding her jacket, and then apparently got thrown backward into freshman year like some sick cosmic joke?

He knew Jake believed in the idea of multiple universes. He knew that from his constant rant about physics and the laws of the galaxy or whatever the hell Jake yapped about– it wasn’t like Sunghoon didn’t care about Jake’s interests. He just didn’t understand. But Sunghoon wasn’t sure that Jake would be so open-minded to find out that he had time-traveled two years into the past from a future that you died in.

Sunghoon simply swallowed hard and just looked away. “I just…” His voice came out hoarse. “I had a really bad dream.”

Jake blinked. “Dude, that bad?” He grimaced.

Sunghoon nodded with a small frown. Your expression softened immediately, and Sunghoon immediately noticed the shift in your face. Because you were giving him that unbearably gentle look you always gave him when he was trying too hard to pretend he was okay, the same look that Sunghoon got when he failed his CSO midterm in sophomore year and when he almost flunked Prob Stat. It made his chest ache with a comforting nostalgia.

“Sunghoon,” you said softly, pulling your chair out beside yours, “you should sit down before you pass out or something. You look like you ran here.” You giggled. Sunghoon sniffled, his plump bottom lip jutted out in a pretty pink pout. His cheeks were now streaked with the dried-up stream of his tears and his entire face was flushed and puffy. You sounded so pretty when you said his name. Sunghoon let out a weak, embarrassed laugh and sat where you told him to, because your voice still had the same authority over him that it always would.

Jake shoved a tissue packet toward him across the table, the plastic messily torn open, as if Jake didn’t care for tabs that instructed him. “For our sobbing Sunghoon…” he snickered. You and Sunghoon both smacked his arm.

“Shut up,” Sunghoon croaked, his voice still ruined from crying. You laughed softly at that, and the sound nearly made him start all over again. He pulled off his glasses and dabbed uselessly at his face while desperately trying to act like a normal person and not a man whose entire soul had just been resurrected by the sight of you alive. When he put back on his glasses, his vision clear from tears and poor eyesight, they landed on your laptop.

The screen was still open beside you, but instead of lines of code and an unfinished project like he expected, he caught sight of anatomy diagrams and a color-coded set of notes. Organs, labeled veins, tiny handwritten mnemonics in the margins. On another tab, a link to register for CNA classes. Sunghoon blinked, confused.

“…You’re not in CS.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them. Jake snorted immediately. Your eyebrows lifted in confusion before you laughed. “No? Definitely not.” You turned your laptop a little toward him, showing him the mess of biology notes even though you didn’t really have to prove it to him.

“I’m a nursing major, unfortunately,” you sighed dramatically. “Heavy emphasis on the unfortunately this week. I have a poster presentation due for chem lab this week, and my group partners suck… They keep ghosting me… but what can you expect from engineering majors?” You joked lightly. “Hey, did you think I was a CS major ‘cuz I keep hanging out with this stinky loser?” You pouted.

“Hey!” Jake protested in the background, but Sunghoon didn’t care. His word was tilting even more on its axis, and he felt like the laws of the universe were rewriting themselves.

“No– No, sorry… I guess I mistook your major for someone else’s…” Sunghoon nervously laughed. “Uhm… Is– is it hard– Nursing, I mean?” Sunghoon meekly gulped. You smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, but, I guess everything is hard, right? I don’t think I could ever take discrete or linear or anything of that sort.” You giggled. Sunghoon swallowed dryly and nodded. What would you think if you knew you were his tutor in those classes when you guys dated? Would you laugh him off in disbelief, or would you brush it off and claim yourself as a genius…?

Jake rolled his eyes at how awkward you both were. He distracted himself with his Calc III homework, trying to ignore the very obvious attraction looming over the both of your heads. He thought to himself as he made a very hard point to not stare at the both of you guys speaking.

“Man, I hope I don’t have to third-wheel.”

Your number was in Sunghoon’s phone now, saved under your name.

You had input your own contact name, a simple formality of your name, and in parentheses (jake’s friend). But you were more than just Jake’s friend to him, so he changed it as soon as he got back to his dorm, replacing the parentheses with a sweet and simple ‘<3’ instead. He resisted the urge to text you as soon as all three of you left the library.

Sunghoon took a shower as soon as he got back to his dorm. It had been so long since he stepped foot in a communal shower that he almost stepped in barefoot. He almost freaked out when he realized he forgot his shower slippers. He stepped back in, feet now clad in slippers and his shower caddy in hand. The water pressure was harsher than he remembered, the shower spray hitting his scalp like bullets. His caddy only contained a simple shampoo, conditioner, and bar soap, which made him grimace internally. When he did his skincare, he tried to ignore the oily feeling that sat like a film over his skin.

Jay greeted him when he entered his dorm again, his wet hair dripping a pathway into the shared space and his slippers flopping against the wooden floor. “Hey man.” Jay briefly looked up, staring at his laptop as he softly strummed his guitar. “You going to bed soon? I can stop playing.”

“No, you’re good, Jay…” Sunghoon replied, taking off his glasses and setting it back into the case, the magnetized plastic snapping shut. Sunghoon grunted as he climbed onto the top bunk of his bed. Jay smiled and nodded, before going back to playing around with his acoustic guitar.

Sunghoon tucked himself under the covers, letting out a small sigh of relief. His back was aching, and his eyes felt a bit sore. He rubbed at the sides of his cheekbones, trying to relieve the puffiness in his face. Suddenly, his phone pinged, causing the black-haired boy to flinch. He reached for his device, tucked under the pillow, opening it only to see your name in his notification center.

y/n <3: hii sunghoon! did u get back to ur dorm yet? i just got back y/n <3: r u feeling better now? Sunghoon: I got back safe. Sunghoon: Thank U for today. Sunghoon: Sorry for being weird. y/n <3: LOL its okay y/n <3: honestly i was kinda flattered Sunghoon: Flattered??? y/n <3: yeah y/n <3: imagine crying that hard after seeing me y/n <3: my ego is huge now y/n <3: but seriously are u okay?

Sunghoon stared at the message, unsure how to respond. Too many answers began to crowd his throat, and he was certain he was about to start crying again. But instead, he typed:

Sunghoon: Bad dream. Sunghoon: Thats all. y/n <3: aw man i’ve been having weird dreams too… but i hope u have a good dream tnt… y/n <3: come study w me again tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow. There was going to be a tomorrow with you.

y/n <3: OH y/n <3: and dont cry again when u see me pls y/n <3: what if i get bullying allegations…

Sunghoon covered his face with one hand, laughing weakly into his palm. God, you were just like how you were back in freshman year of college. Always so approachable and kind, so sweet and patient. Sunghoon bit his lip to stifle his tears, not wanting to interrupt Jay’s peaceful strumming.

Was this a chance from the universe to win you back? To have you back in his arms where you were supposed to be? Were the stars realigning for your love to reconcile? To give you a chance at the life that was taken away from you too early?

Because if so, then who was Sunghoon to deny the universe’s gift?

He vowed it there and then– that he would make you his once again.

The next few weeks blurred together for Sunghoon. Time did feel fake, after all.

At first, he thought being around you again would continue hurting. He’d thought that every time he’d seen you after your first encounter, he’d start crying over and over again. He thought every glance at your face would reopen the wound inside his chest until he bled out from the sheer amount of grief that had welled up in his hollow chest since that fateful winter morning.

But instead, Sunghoon got used to you again.

Between your late-night study sessions and meaningless unproductive chatter in the library, you slipped into his life as naturally as you did the first time around. And now, you managed to sew yourself into the knittings of his daily life cycle again. Your “study nights” turned into convenience store midnight snacks. You invited him to your dorm to “fix the wallpaper” which ended up with you guys reminiscing about your high school days. Your texts became routine too, and every single notification still made his heart jump. Some nights, you’d call him instead. (But your sleepy voice through the speaker sounded too much like the nights in your shared apartment when you’d mumble nonsense into his chest before falling asleep.)

Sunghoon didn’t realize it until late, but he began to notice he was listening and watching you pre-emptively. When you told him about the guy you had beef with for talking back to the teacher back in high school, Sunghoon already knew that. Before you told him you had a bad habit of chewing on the sides of your fingernails when nervous, Sunghoon had already told you to stop. He already knew everything about you. From the way you’d subtly eye the way he took bites of food even after insisting you weren’t hungry to the way your nose would twitch before you started crying– Sunghoon knew every single minute detail about you.

You never commented on it. Sunghoon hoped you just chalked it up to him being observant rather than looking like a creepy stalker who cried whenever he saw a pretty girl. 

“Hoon? Helloooo? Earth to Hoon?”

Your hand was waving in front of his face, a pout on your lips. “Zoning out again?” You huffed. He smiled, cheeks puffing up as he looked at you. You both were in the convenience store again, looking for a late-night snack amidst your endless studying for finals.

“Yeah, just thinking what to get,” he replied, following you around as you scoured the aisles. You kept whipping your head back and forth, scanning each item meticulously as you thought about what you were craving. Absentmindedly, you rubbed your tummy over your hoodie, pouting slightly. 

“I dunno what to get either. Should I get a drink too? ‘M kinda thirsty.” You hummed, pinching a drink pouch between your fingers as you examined the flavors. Sunghoon watched as you looked around. He suddenly reached out to give you a green grape flavored drink pouch. You looked at him, confused but still smiling.

“Thanks, Hoon, but I don’t really like green grape.”

What?

Sunghoon furrowed his eyebrows, confused. “Really? You don’t like green grape?” His tone was wavering, and you were puzzled. He sounded so torn up about the fact that you didn’t like green grape.

“Are you a green grape superfan, Hoon?” You laughed, reaching for the lychee pouch instead. Sunghoon’s face remained confused, his eyebrows knitted and lips twisted up into a weird pout. He shook his head, making you laugh.

“You’re so weird sometimes, Hoon…” you said, giggling as you picked up an ice cup. Sunghoon followed you, still perplexed as you continued to pick your late-night meal.

Because you loved green grape and hated lychee.

He remembered when you told him about how you hated lychee. It was too sweet, but green grapes were just right for you— a perfect balance of sour and sweet in a small fruit. He remembered laughing at you about it, teasing you for being so nitpicky with your fruit, so why were you here eyeing every sweet fruit flavored pouch?

Your fingers skimmed across all of the ramyeon cup noodle packages, your head tilting as you tried to find the perfect one. Sunghoon was still behind you, but his footsteps became slower and more mechanic as his brain was racing. “What about this flavor?” Sunghoon picked up your favorite, Carbonara Buldak. You scrunched your noise and picked up the 2X Spicy Buldak instead.

“I like really spicy things, Hoon! The carbonara isn’t spicy enough for me!”

His mind was clipped, as if everything he had been thinking of suddenly disappeared. Sunghoon could excuse the change of majors— hell, his own major changed when he woke up in the past. But the few little things that he had grown to love were even changing in front of his own eyes.

“Ah? Really… this flavor is good too…” he mumbled, nearly incoherent. You laughed, furrowing your eyebrows before going to pay for your food. He followed behind, mindlessly tapping his card to pay for your things, his racing mind drowning out the sounds of your whined protests.

It was after that when Sunghoon began watching you closely.

During movie nights, you happily stole bites of Jake’s mint chocolate chip without even batting an eye, but you hated mint chocolate chip ice cream because your cousin threw it up on you when you were seven. You sucked at chemistry and nearly cried over memorizing all the molecular orbital structures, but now you could solve a retrosynthetic analysis question with a single glance, as if you were adding one plus one. You told him one late night walking back to the dorms that you became a nursing major because your mother was a nurse, but Sunghoon remembered his “future-mother-in-law” actually worked in an IT department, which led to your passion for computer systems.

This version of you didn’t scrunch your nose at sickly sweet candle scents anymore. This version of you didn’t like wearing cute pieces of jewelry that framed your body like an art piece. This version of you didn’t like dogs. This version of you hated rom-coms. This version of you wasn’t exactly his.

The more time Sunghoon spent in this world, the more wrong everything felt. You were still here, and that’s all that he believed he cared for. But everything felt wrong enough to keep him up at night, recounting all of the true memories he shared with you. This place looked like his world, his universe, but every day, more tiny differences revealed themselves like cracks in glass to the point where the fragile world that Sunghoon wanted to believe in was about to collapse.

You’re still Y/N. Sunghoon couldn’t deny that. But you didn’t feel like the same Y/N that he fell in love with sometimes. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from loving you again. Sunghoon could ignore the minor changes in your life if it meant having you all over again, right?

“You’re staring again.”

Sunghoon blinked, immediately looking away from you across the table. Where was he again…? He glanced around, taking in his surroundings that was the study area on the first floor of your dorm building. Sunghoon briefly looked at the multitude of formulas you had written on the whiteboard of the small room before directing his gaze back at you.

“I am not,” he muttered.

“Soo we’re lying now…?” you laughed, spinning the whiteboard marker between your fingers. “You always stare at me, Hoon. Do you know that? It’s like you know something I don’t… like you know everything, or something, or whatever… You’re so suspicious sometimes….” Sunghoon shrugged awkwardly and looked back down at his laptop screen.

“It’s not that, promise. You’re just hard to look away from,” he mumbled before he could stop himself, the reply coming easily to him. It was something that he used to tell you all the time.

Your face flushed immediately, and Sunghoon felt warmth crawl up his own neck too. But unlike before, he didn’t panic under your gaze anymore. Sunghoon used to be scared of moving closer to you. Was it too bold to constantly sit next to you? To comfortably lean into your space as if it was his too? He was itching to have you be his again.

But over the past month, you had become comfortable around him too. Comfortable enough to lean against his shoulder during late-night bus rides. Comfortable enough to nab food off of his dining hall plates. Comfortable enough to text him first thing in the morning and last thing before sleeping. Comfortable enough that sometimes, when you laughed too hard, you’d instinctively grab onto his arm.

You’re too cruel. You were unknowingly becoming his again. But Sunghoon didn’t know what to think. All his mind could conjure was the question of how fast you could be his again– should he confess now? But instead, he continued to stare as you worked through your chemistry practice exam questions.

One evening, the three of you ended up stuck in the library until nearly midnight because Jake refused to finish his Calc assignment anywhere else. Sunghoon had long stopped pretending to study. Instead, he watched you again. He couldn’t care less if you thought he was staring again. To be fair, you were half-asleep beside him, cheek squished against your folded arms while pretending to read anatomy notes. It’s not like you could exactly call him out when you were on the verge of passing out.

Your highlighter slipped from your fingers. Sunghoon picked it up before it rolled off the table. Your eyes fluttered open tiredly. “…Thanks,” you mumbled softly. Even exhausted, you looked beautiful. A dangerous tenderness spread through his chest so intensely that it almost scared him. He felt like he was falling harder this time, especially knowing how you both would end up anyways.

“Sunghoon.”

He blinked out of his thoughts. You were staring at him again, your hooded lids fighting to stay open to look at him properly. “Yes?” He replied softly, not wanting his loud voice to puncture you out of your sleep-filled daze.

“You were zoning out...” You frowned slightly, your voice slurring slightly from how exhausted you were. “You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

Every time he looked at you for too long, memories overlapped. You laughing in the library became you laughing in your apartment kitchen. You falling asleep beside him at a study table became you sleeping on his chest during thunderstorms. Your warm fingertips caressing his soft cheeks before leaning in to press your lips against his–

Sometimes the timelines blended together so badly he forgot which version of you he was seeing. But Sunghoon couldn’t say that, so instead he lied, “I’m okay.”

You looked unconvinced. Then, after a moment, your hand slowly slid across the table toward his. It was a decision that you carefully made– Sunghoon could tell by the way you suddenly spaced out and looked left to right as if physically weighing the choices between touching and not touching him. It was barely anything– a pebble of physical touch that pebbled in comparison to the boulders of love that he used to share with you. It was just your pinky lightly touching his, tentative and careful. You looked shy immediately after doing it, eyes darting away. But Sunghoon felt love blossom in his chest nonetheless.

“…You don’t have to tell me if something’s wrong,” you murmured. “But I hope you know you don’t have to deal with everything alone.” The warmth of your skin against his nearly killed him.

Fuck, so what if some things changed? You were still you in every universe. So kind and gentle and always reaching for him, noticing almost intuitively when Sunghoon was about to lose himself. He carefully hooked his pinky around yours under the table, sending you a reassuring and small grin. Your breath caught slightly, not expecting him to so confidently touch you back.

Jake looked up from his homework. “…Am I interrupting something,” he deadpanned, already knowing the answer despite still asking.

“No,” both of you answered immediately. Jake narrowed his eyes, but didn’t reply. He just let out a quiet sigh before going back to scribbling on his iPad again. You finally closed your eyes to go back to sleep, a subtle and content smile lingering on your lips. Your pinky was still tightly interlocked with his while your other arm relaxed.

Maybe the universe had rewritten details. So what your majors changed or your histories changed? Who cares if this wasn’t his original life?

Because all that mattered to Sunghoon was that you still found your way back to him anyway.

“Hey Hoon!”

Jay entered the dorm in a ruckus, hissing as his guitar case nearly slammed the doorframe and cursing when he stubbed his foot against the wooden plank of the actual door. Sunghoon rushed to hold the door open for his roommate, wincing as Jay slammed his backpack to the ground.

“You okay, Jay? I haven’t seen you in awhile.” Sunghoon took note of the slightly older boy’s appearance. He looked disheveled, with eyebags accessorizing his face and sunken-in cheeks.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve just been busy looking for internships and studying for finals— shit— and these networking events are kicking my ass. They’re like, ‘oh, you need at least 3 years of experience!’ But it’s a fucking entry-level position!” He ranted. Sunghoon smiled softly at the familiar ramblings— at least Jay didn’t change.

“What a tough life you live, Jay.” Sunghoon sighed.

Jay dropped face-first onto his bed with a loud groan, one arm dangling off the side dramatically. “I’m serious, Hoon. If one more recruiter tells me to ‘circle back next semester,’ I’m actually gonna lose it.”

Sunghoon huffed out a quiet laugh from his desk, spinning a mechanical pencil between his fingers. He had chemistry notes spread out in front of him, though he hadn’t processed a single word in the last couple of hours. His brain had been occupied by you since the moment he woke up. “Whatcha doin, man? Homework?” Jay peered over the railings of his bed to look down at Sunghoon’s desk. The younger boy ran his fingers through his silky hair, tilting his head.

“Yeah, just reading the textbook for my Chem discussion. I’m not going to lie, I don’t really understand anything right now…” Sunghoon laughed. The side of Jay’s lips crooked up into a teasing smirk, like he knew something that the other boy didn’t.

“Oh? Chem discussion, huh?”

“What does that mean?” Sunghoon furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Jay wriggled his eyebrows suggestively, licking at his bottom lip in a weird display that made Sunghoon squirm with discomfort.

“OKAY, don’t tell Jake that I told you this but… he’s been texting me about you and Y/N…” Jay let out, sounding exasperated as if he just lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. Sunghoon raised an eyebrow. He didn’t expect Jay to say this to him, but he was sure that Jake was telling at least some other person about the rapid development of friendship between you and Sunghoon.

“Really? What is he saying?” Sunghoon acted nonchalant, trying to appear relaxed to coax Jay into spilling more. Jay looked around briefly, biting his lip before leaning in closer.

“Okay, basically.. he’s saying that you and Y/N have been hanging out a lot like— one-on-one without him…” Jay excitedly rolled. Sunghoon nodded. “But you know how Jake is– he tried asking Y/N about you and she thought he was acting weird because he sucks at being subtle… so can I ask you about it? Like, are you guys talking or…” The silver-haired boy trailed off awkwardly, waiting for Sunghoon to finish his question.

The raven-haired male tilted his head. “Uhm… I guess so…” he sheepishly replied. What else was he supposed to say? “Nah, I’m actually trying to get my girlfriend back after she died in another universe???”

“I’m happy for you man, really.” The sincerity in Jay’s voice was almost worrisome.

“Oh, uh, thanks, Jay…” Sunghoon smiled awkwardly, unsure how to respond to the genuine pride that Jay had carried in his tone. The silver-haired man nodded, seemingly content before rolling back into bed. But seriously, what the hell did he mean by Chem discussion?

“I never expected you to make the first move, honestly. I heard from Jake that you were the one who initiated your first hangout together, right?” Jay spoke, his eyes glued to the ceiling that had white paint falling off the bone. Sunghoon hummed in agreement, but was getting impatient. Couldn’t Jay get to the point already? “Man, I remember when you first talked about her to me. They grow up so fast,” he continued to ramble, his speech slurring as sleep began hitting him. Sunghoon furrowed his eyebrows. When did he ever talk to him about you?

“Jay, I think I just met the love of my life in Chem discussion!”

Sunghoon froze. He shot up in his seat, nearly tripping as he ran to the side of Jay’s bunk. His fingers curled into the railings protruding from the frame of the bed, his warm skin cooling against the frigid metal material. “What? Jay, what? When did I tell you this?” He rapid-fired at the older boy. Jay yawned, rubbing his eyes.

“Remember? When school started? You went to Chem discussion annoyed with the readings and came back like a lovestruck idiot.”

“What? When school started back in August, Jay?” Sunghoon sputtered out. Jay nodded with another yawn.

“Yeah, man, remember? You woke up so annoyed about all the readings you did, but when you came back you were like, head-over-heels. You said it was love-at-first sight.” Jay snorted quietly at the memory, rubbing sleepily at his eyes. “Dude, it was actually kinda insane. You came back to the dorm and wouldn’t shut up about her.”

Sunghoon stared at him, pulse beginning to pound against his ribs.

“…What did I say?” he asked carefully.

Jay grinned immediately, already amused by the memory. “You were acting crazy, man. Like genuinely gone.” He pushed himself up slightly on his elbows. “Jay, I think I just met the prettiest girl ever. Jay, I think I’m in love. Jay, she smiled at me and I forgot what I was saying!” He exclaimed, trying to imitate Sunghoon’s unique tone.

“You’re exaggerating,” Sunghoon muttered weakly, but his head was slowly began to pound with the thought of him gushing about you before he met you. As if his consciousness existed before he woke up in the past.

“Swear, I’m not.” Jay laughed. Sunghoon’s stomach twisted. “You told me she sat two rows ahead of you during discussion, that she had these little charms hanging off her pencil case, that she kept pushing her hair behind her ear while talking to her discussion group—” He suddenly paused, staring at Sunghoon suspiciously. “Wait, why are you acting like you don’t remember this?”

Sunghoon’s throat tightened immediately. He didn’t. This wasn’t the right beginning or the right way of meeting you. He could’ve excused the minor changes about your preferences, discrepancies in your life, but now there were too many that his head couldn’t keep up. And now, your entire story was beginning to collapse in front of his eyes, through his ears, even if he wasn’t there to experience it.

“I dunno,” he lied quickly. “I think I’m just tired. I– I have a headache…” Sunghoon stumbled to his side of the bed.

Jay looked unconvinced for a second before shrugging. “Well, anyway, after that you started acting weird as hell,” he continued.

“Weird how?”

“You kept dressing up for Chem discussion.” Jay barked out a laugh. “Like suddenly you cared about your appearance. You asked me if your hair looked okay before class.”

Sunghoon nearly recoiled in horror. “I would never ask you that. I always look good.”

Jay furrowed his eyebrows, but barked back accusingly, “You did. And then after discussion ended, you’d come back looking all devastated because you never talked to her.”

Sunghoon’s chest ached strangely. He felt as if he could picture it so vividly. Him sitting in chemistry discussion secretly staring at you. Getting nervous. Fixing his hair in the reflection of his phone screen. Trying to work up the courage to speak to you. Falling in love slowly and naturally without grief or death or memories of a future that already happened clouding every rational thought in his brain.

Jay continued rambling, oblivious to the way Sunghoon’s expression had begun to fall. “And then one day Jake mentioned his hometown friend named Y/N and you literally interrupted him mid-sentence.” Jay laughed harder now, fully awake from recounting the story. “‘Wait— Y/N? Nursing major? Chem discussion on Thursdays?’ Dude, your face was priceless.”

Sunghoon felt sick. He didn’t know you were a nursing major until that fateful night he had seen you in the library. “Oh my god, dude I feel like I’ve been holding this in. Remember the first time you guys talked?” Sunghoon’s heartbeat was thudding loudly in his ears, and he’s sure that they were about to ring. He remained silent, and Jay took it as a sign to keep rambling.

“You said she asked to borrow an EXPO marker during discussion because hers was out of ink or something.” He snorted. “You kept replaying the conversation like a loser, saying that her voice was like descending from the angels.

Sunghoon’s grip tightened around the railing of Jay’s bunk. He agreed, but he wouldn’t ever verbalize is like that so shamelessly. He honestly thought saying something like that was a little corny, and then the realization began to sink in.

He wouldn’t say that. No, not him. Another version of him.

It was then when it dawned about Sunghoon. God, he hadn't even considered the possibility that another version of him existed before he became conscious. But that meant something that Sunghoon didn't even want to even think about considering– some empty timeline where he had conveniently slotted himself into a vacant life, or where he went back into the past two years with just a few butterfly effects changing the outcomes. This universe already had a Park Sunghoon who liked you before future Sunghoon ever woke up here. And Sunghoon had stolen it.

Jay kept talking, unaware of the devastation crawling across Sunghoon’s face, like a spider mapping out its web of a trap. “Then.” Jay cackled. “You literally flopped face-first onto your bed and said– hold on, I remember this exactly–” It seemed like talking about you energized him or woke him up, because he cleared his throat dramatically, trying to imitate Sunghoon’s voice again.

“Jay, I’m actually gonna marry her.’”

Sunghoon’s breath hitched. He had said that before, two years into the future, when he was drunk off two bottles of Original Soju as he was eating barbeque with a much more mature Jay and a burnt-out Jake. He had never brought up marriage before until that night, a few days after you guys moved into your apartment together.

But apparently, this version of him had said it too before any of that happened, even with only knowing your name and that you were Jake’s friend.

Was loving you inevitable in every universe?

Jay blinked suddenly, his teasing grin faltering slightly as he finally noticed how pale Sunghoon looked. “…Hoon?” Sunghoon looked away quickly, swallowing hard. “You okay?”

No. No, he really wasn’t.

Because Sunghoon’s entire world and entire universe was collapsing. His fate was twisting, and the red string that threaded it together was tangling within itself. Was the universe fucking with him now? After giving him so much hope with your presence in his life after losing you? What’s the point of him going back in time if not to reclaim his love story?

Because now, it felt like he was interrupting someone else’s.

“It’s snowing!”

Your voice was cheery, lilted so lightly that it instantly spread a feeling of warmth across Sunghoon’s body despite the cold air penetrating through his heavy puffer. You were both outside the library, about to trek to the convenience store when the sudden weather inclement put a hole through your plans. Delicate snowfall began raining upon the campus, fluttering down beautiful in a flashy array of flakes.

“It is,” he acknowledged, following after your hyper footsteps that began tracing a circle in the translucent sheet of snow that had already fallen onto the ground. You ran around, whooping and cheering as you basked in the icy sensation of snowflakes landing on your skin. Sunghoon could only watched, endeared by how excited and energized you suddenly were.

Suddenly, you ran up to him, burying your open fingers under his arms and around his waist. He laughed, caught off-guard by your abrupt hug, stumbling back a little. “What’s with you, hm?” He softly crooned, wiping your hair out of your face. You smiled up at him, eyes shining despite the overheard dark sky looming over you.

“It’s so pretty, Hoon! I didn’t think it’d snow this year!” You cheerfully exclaimed, eyes curling into crescents as your mouth parted with the sheer excitement coursing through your body. He pulled you in closer on instinct, and you let out a small “oomph!” from the impact of your bodies colliding into a tighter embrace.

“You know what they say, Hoon? If confess during the first snowfall, your love will last forever!” You spoke up. Your speech was murmured, but Sunghoon had heard every word perfectly.

“Yeah? Do you believe in that?” He looked at you fondly. You nodded.

“Sunghoon, I like you so much, let’s go out!”

His mouth fell agape as your confession rang through the snow air. You looked horrified immediately after, but Sunghoon had pulled you in impossibly closer, tight enough to where you almost couldn’t breathe. “Hoon,” you whimpered miserably, hiding your face inside your scarf. “This is so embarrassing…”

“You like me?” he breathed out incredulously before bursting out into laughter. Snowflakes landed in his dark hair as he laughed, falling off as quickly as they came from how hard his body was shaking.

“You’re so mean!” you accused.

“I’m not laughing at you,” he insisted between breaths.

“Then why are you laughing?!”

“You’re just so cute,” Sunghoon confessed, his voice so tender and blossoming with the unsurmountable affection he had for you. “I like you too,” he admitted softly, “ever since I saw you in the dining hall.”

You smiled, but when he blinked, suddenly he was in the middle of his apartment. The cold air dissipated, bringing in the warmth of the heater he left on in the living room. His arms were still wrapped around something, no, someone. No.

Nothing.

His hands clenched around empty air, and the snowfall transformed into the city lights outside of the apartment windows. Your scarf that was in between his fingertips disintegrated into the dust that he never cleaned. Your laughter was still ringing in his ears, so elated and bright and it was mingling with something so sharp jarring annoying–

His ringtone?

The sound grew louder and louder until it drowned out everything else, until your smiling face started blurring at the edges. You were still standing in front of him beneath the snow, cheeks dusted from the cold with flecks of flakes littering your face.

“Hoon?” you laughed softly. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

His phone kept vibrating.

“Hoon?”

The screen lit up across the dark apartment with an unknown number, and under the bold white digits in grey was the name of the university hospital. His breathing turned ragged instantly. His body moved before his brain could catch up, fumbling for the phone with trembling hands. But when he looked back up, you were still there. Snowflakes still landed in your hair. You were still smiling, cheeks puffed up and smile lines indenting your skin.

“I like you too,” he heard himself saying again, the memory replaying against his will. “Ever since I saw you in the dining hall.”

“Hoon?”

But this time your voice sounded farther away. His thumb shook over the accept button, and  when he pressed the green button, everything crashed together all at once, creating a collision in his mind. Your confession beneath the snowfall. Your wet toothbrush beside his in the apartment bathroom. Your warm hand in his while crossing the street. Your cold hand dangling under the white sheet in the morgue. Your voice whispering goodnight. The casket being lowered six feet deep in a hole that seemed too big for you.

Sunghoon doubled over violently, nearly dropping the phone as nausea twisted through him. It felt like someone had reached into his skull and ripped every memory apart before shoving them back in the wrong order. His head was pounding, throbbing violently as each memory churned in his head like butter. Then it curved into a dull ache, static on a television screen. 

“Is this Park Sunghoon?”

And just like that, the snow was gone, and the only cold he felt was the absence of your warm body.

“Sunghoon, you’ve been acting weird lately.”

“Oh, hm?”

Your face was suddenly in front of his, and you had a concerned pout on your lips. “You’ve been zoning out so much, it’s really worrying me… I know it’s just your personality, but you’ve been doing it so much…” You frowned, leaning forward, your shoulders hunching into your sides.

“I’m sorry– there’s– there’s just a lot going on…” He weakly replied. You let out a soft sigh.

“You know you can tell me anything, right? Me or Jake… I care for you a lot, you know. I hope you really know, Hoon…”

Sunghoon forced a tight-lipped smile and nodded. “I know,” he responded, his words sharper than intended. Your eyes were staring right into his, and before, Sunghoon would’ve felt the warmth. But now, all that he felt was the chills that Jay had instilled into his body. You stilled, before pulling away from the conversation, instead opting to grab your straw. Instinctively, he picked it up before you could, punching the plastic out of the wrapper and puncturing your drink for you.

“Oh, thanks Hoon. You really didn’t have to do that.” A sweet giggle escaped your lips, and the sound instantly grounded him.

“It’s not a big deal, let me do these things for you,” he easily said in response, the reply leaving his mouth naturally as it used to do.

“Sunghoon, do you act like this with everyone?” You suddenly asked. He looked at you, confused. “I mean– like, do you always act so sweetly towards everyone? Or is it just me…” you almost seemed embarrassed asking him this. 

“No, it’s just you?” He retorted, as if it was common sense that he would treat only you with the utmost care. Your face was warming up, and he could tell that you were flustered by his response.

“Really? So like, uhm, there’s no other girl that you’re, uhm… acting like this with, right?” Your voice was timid as you asked another question. Sunghoon scoffed, taken aback by how ridiculous your inquiry was. From the future and now in the past, you were the only girl for him, so why were you being so ridiculous now?

“Of course not,” he nearly snapped. He regretted it as soon as he saw your face falter and your posture shrink. No, what was he thinking? You didn’t know that. Of course you would ask. “I’m– I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me ba…” He trailed off as the nickname nearly slipped from his lips, so naturally that it was like calling you by your name. “Uhm, Y/N. I’m sorry. I think I’m just having a tough week. I promise you.”

You nodded, so patient as always, as you sipped on your drink. “It’s okay, Hoon. I hope things get better.” You smiled. He nodded, biting tentatively into the pastry. He didn’t like this cafe, and he knew that you didn’t like it either, but he didn’t want to ruin your first experience here. He half expected you to actually like the cafe if the past weeks were anything to go by, but he was pleasantly surprised when you instead scrunched your nose.

“This matcha is too milky…” You whispered. He smiled and nodded.

“Yeah? This pastry isn’t too good either. Wanna try?” He lifted up the dessert to your mouth, letting you take a bite right where he had previously taken one. You bit into it, lips curling into disgust.

“Should we just go and toss our stuff somewhere else? I don’t want to waste it, but it’s really not that good…” You whispered. Sunghoon laughed and nodded, holding out his hand. You hesitated, but took it, letting him lead you outside the cafe. You threw your drink and his pastry into the nearby trash can, just as you did before in Sunghoon’s original universe.

“Are you still thirsty? Should we get something from the convenience store instead?” He asked. You shook your head.

“No, I’m okay. Can we just walk a little?” You asked. Sunghoon nodded automatically.

You both began walking side-by-side down the sidewalk, your shoulders occasionally brushing together from how close you were. Autumn had left too soon, now bringing in the frigid weather of winter. The city was quiet, with everyone buried inside of their comforters during the early chilly morning. Some joggers and dog-walkers passed by, but it still only felt like you two were the only ones existing in that peaceful morning atmosphere. For a while, neither of you spoke. Sunghoon shoved a hand into the pocket of his coat while the other was still holding yours. He was trying not to stare at you again, but it was difficult when you were right there beside him, looking so soft beneath clouded skies.

“What I said back in the cafe… you’ve been treating me so differently,” you murmured suddenly. His stomach tightened.

“…Differently how?” He carefully asked back.

You slowed your pace slightly, looking down at the pavement. “I don’t know.” You laughed nervously. “You just… take care of me a lot. I remember when I first met you in Chem discussion, you were so shy. It was like you were scared of me. Then, you started crying in the library when you saw me… and now… it’s like you’re so much more mature than me… Does that make sense?”

“Is that bad?” he asked quietly.

“No– no, of course not. But, I don’t know Hoon. You stare at me… kinda weird,” the words carelessly slipped from your lips, and it was obvious with the way you let out a gasp and a flurry of apologies, before stumbling onto what you mean to say. “God, that’s not what I meant–! I meant… I don’t know. Like you take care of me so naturally, and you seem to already have a good sense of like–” you laughed nervously, rubbing at your face in embarrassment, “I don’t think you’re weird or anything, Hoon. I actually really like how caring you are.” Your voice softened at the end. “It’s just…” You slowed to a stop beneath the awning of a closed convenience store, your joined hands swinging slightly between your bodies.

Sunghoon turned toward you quietly, and you looked conflicted, with your mouth screwed and lips pressing up against each other so hard that the skin was jutting out uncomfortably. “Sometimes I think you’re so confident about knowing me that you forget there are still parts of me you don’t know yet? Is that too deep?” His chest tightened instantly, and he inhaled before he knew it, trying to regain the breath that you had just knocked out of him.

You kept talking before you lost the courage. “Like… you always know what I need before I say it. Like when I’m cold, when I’m tired, when I’m not feeling well…” You smiled faintly. “And it makes me really happy. It does.”

“But?” He pressed on, trying his best to hide his impatience.

“But sometimes it also feels like you’ve already decided who I am, in a way? Like, you seem to expect something differently than what I give you, Hoon. And sometimes…” you continued hesitantly, “I’ll say something that surprises you, and you get this look on your face like I said the wrong thing or something– and it’s kind of… okay, I’ll be honest, it’s kinda weird…” You laughed again, and the noise seemed like it was punched out of you like a soundboard.

“Like, you always try to guess what I like or what I don’t like or what I prefer– and at first I thought it was endearing, but it’s almost always wrong. And that’s fine, I guess. But sometimes you sound so confident that it’s– I dunno. That’s why I asked if there was another girl. Like, I don’t know, are you thinking of someone else?” You breathed out.

No, no, no, never. He always thought of you. He could never stop thinking about you. He inhaled and opened his mouth, wanting to defend himself, but you sputtered out something else so rushed like you were forcing it out of your throat, “I– I really want you to know me, Hoon.”

Sunghoon wanted to throw up. He had spent so much time trying to preserve the memory of the girl he lost that he had started overlooking the girl standing right in front of him. His skin was itching with the lovebugs crawling up it. He felt selfish. And suddenly, the image of him, nerdy and lanky and gushing to Jay with a flush on his pale cheeks struck his mind, hitting him bluntly on his noggin.

His fingers loosened around your hand before tightening again like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go completely. You looked nervous after your confession, eyes darting away from your intertwined hands immediately. “Sorry,” you laughed weakly. “That sounded way harsher than I meant it to.”

“No,” Sunghoon answered as soon as you stopped speaking, his voice coming out rough. “No, you’re right.” Your eyebrows furrowed slightly. He looked away before he could see your expression fully. “You’re right,” he repeated quieter this time. 

I really want you to know me. Not her. No. You? This version of you, the one standing beside him now. He looked at you, but was met with the sight of your side profile. The side profile that belonged to the same woman who he met at the dining hall, who moved in with him, who cooked him soup in the shared kitchen when he fell sick– memories hit him so violently he almost staggered, and he couldn’t tell where the lines were anymore.

Your favorite drink, your laugh, your habits. Were they yours? Hers? Was he loving you because you were you, or because he was desperately trying to keep the you that he remembered, alive?

Sunghoon felt sick. He felt saliva rapidly rise under the muscle of his tongue, and he kept swallowing and swallowing to keep it down. He felt like he was going to throw up.

“Hoon?” Your voice softened instantly at the sight of his face. Concern replaced your apprehension immediately. 

“You don’t have to apologize,” he muttered. You blinked. “You were honest.” He swallowed hard, nearly gasping for air as he opened his mouth to speak. “I think… I needed to hear it.” Your expression slowly softened, though puzzlement still lingered behind your eyes. Sunghoon stared down at the pavement.

For the first time since waking up two years in the past, his brain turned to mush, soft enough to let a thought penetrate his mind that he had been avoiding. Was loving you here ever supposed to be about getting his old life back with you? What was he here for? Images of him– not him, the him that you knew, came crawling back into his neurons.

Things wouldn’t have been like this if he had come. You and the right Sunghoon could’ve been where he was. The guilt began creeping down his throat and accumulating in his chest, weighing down his lungs with every shortened breath he took in.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure who he was apologizing to anymore. To you? To the girl he loved in the future? To himself? Or the other version of himself that he was living through?

You shifted slightly beside him, worry crossing your expression. “Hoon…? Sunghoon…?” You quietly spoke up, hesitant as your palm gently brought itself up to cup his cheek. He instinctively leaned into your warmth, but squirmed as his face rested in his palm. The ink of his guilt began to spread further as if his body was just dipped into water. He tightened his grip on your hand again on instinct, but it felt wrong, like was still trying to anchor himself into an ocean with waves that were too crashing upon each other.

“I didn’t…” his voice broke. “I didn’t mean to–” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. What was he trying to say? What was he even freaking out for, apologizing for? Because as much as he wracked his brain, he couldn’t grasp onto an answer still. For loving you wrong? For loving another version of you? For erasing you because you were right here, all alive and happy and oblivious? Sunghoon exhaled sharply, almost choking on it.

His hand finally loosened. “…I’m sorry,” he said again, but softer this time. You gently stroked his face with your thumb.

“Hoon, please don’t cry on me again.” You tried to lighten the mood. His eyes were shimmering with tears that built up in his ducts, but he simply shook his head, whispering out another apology.

“I’m not okay,” he admitted finally. You flinched, and the honesty honestly surprised him too, but you didn’t pull away. You just continued to comfort him, just as you always would. No. Sunghoon closed his eyes for a second. He shouldn’t think like this anymore. When he opened them again, he was looking at you. Just you, standing there, as you were.

“I think…” His voice cracked slightly, so he paused, forcing air back into his lungs. “I think I’ve been… confusing things.” Your expression softened, but you didn’t interrupt. “I thought I came back to something I lost,” he continued vaguely, “But I think I’ve just been standing in front of someone I never took the time to understand.”

His feelings felt like it finally had somewhere to go, not onto you, or even to him, but somewhere where Sunghoon couldn’t reach. It felt freeing, unraveling a tight knot of emotions that he didn’t have the energy to release before. Your hand lowered, as if drawn to pull off of his face. He let go of your other hand, finally loosening his grip.

“So then let me help you,” you whispered. His heart dropped. “Hoon…” Your voice trembled slightly now, heavy with the weight of the emotions pulsating between the both of you. “I know you’re confused right now, but I–"

He already knew what you were going to say, because you had the same hopeful look on your face that fateful winter night when you confessed under the snowfall. And before, selfishly, he would’ve let you. He would’ve let you pour out his feelings to him, accept them as easy as reciting ABC, and live without the burdens of the future weighing him down.

But this time, the words felt too important to take from you and from the other him that had been waiting for you.

“…Don’t,” he whispered. The hurt on your face was immediate, and he had to will himself to not take back his words. “No, no– not like that,” he corrected quickly, voice cracking. “I just… I don’t think I’m ready to hear it yet.” Snowy breath escaped your lips slowly into the cold air. “You deserve someone who can listen to you properly,” he said quietly. “Someone who can know you for who you are now. And I don’t think…” He inhaled shakily. “I don’t think I’ve been doing that.”

“Hoon…” You softly spoke up, but he interrupted you as soon as your mouth opened.

“I want to,” he admitted immediately. “I really do.” He wasn’t lying. Every part of him still wanted to hear you confess, to keep you close, to selfishly pretend like nothing was wrong. But loving you like this was beginning to feel cruel, so instead, he took a small step back.

“Will you…” He paused. “Will you meet me again another time?”

Your expression crumpled slightly in confusion. “When?” You whimpered. Sunghoon pondered for a moment, before he felt like he found the right answer.

“When I’m finally able to see only you.” He smiled. He had walked you back to your dorm, letting the silence loom over the both of you. He left you with an adjustment to your scarf and an endearing pat on your head.

That night, when he slept, he dreamt of your funeral.

The sky had been gray that day, with cumulonimbus clouds blocking any trace of sun. Just as your death had obstructed the access to the light of his life. People were crying around him. Jake had been sobbing openly beside Jay, shoulders shaking violently as he kept wiping at his face with trembling fingers, but Sunghoon remembered standing there completely still.

He hadn’t believed it yet.

Even as your framed photograph sat in front the altar. Even as your parents bowed their heads. Even as people whispered about how young you were. Even when he received consolations from everyone, telling him about how much you loved him. He remembered thinking absurdly as he stared at your altar.

How could you look so happy when his entire world had just ended?

The question echoed through the dream as Sunghoon stood frozen before your altar. Then slowly, memory after memory began surfacing around him. The first night you basked in your love after moving into your apartment, cuddling together so tightly that separating you guys would’ve been like pulling magnets apart. The night where you comforted him after his research symposium when he felt like he was the biggest failure in the world. The mundane moments where you laughed at him after burning rice and the soft moments where you whispered “I love you” so much that it was like you were reaching a quota.

The memories came so quickly that they stopped hurting individually. Instead, they melted together into something warm and alive. And suddenly, Sunghoon understood something he had been too devastated to realize before, that your death wasn’t the biggest thing about you. Your life was.

Not the funeral or grief, but just you as you were. The way you smiled, laughed, cried, and loved. The way you existed so brightly that even now, after death, you still filled every corner of him. Tears finally slipped down his face in the dream, but he wasn’t drowning in them anymore.

And standing there in the stuffy funeral home, Sunghoon quietly laughed to himself. “You’d be so mad that everyone’s crying this much,” he murmured. And he could hear the echoes of your voice scolding him for being so torn up when he should be moving onto better things because he was so young (just as you were.) The thought made him smile through his tears. Your memory no longer felt like a wound splitting open inside him. It felt like hands pressed gently around his heart. 

And when Sunghoon finally opened his eyes, he was no longer standing in the funeral home. He was home, in his apartment. Morning light filtered weakly through the curtains, warm gold spilling across hardwood floors and untouched, uncleaned furniture. The silence was familiar now. It wasn’t as sharp and reverberating against emptiness like it used to be, but quiet in the way winter mornings were quiet.

For a long moment, he just layed on the couch. The blanket you used to complain about because it “shed fuzz everywhere” was still draped over his body. One of your hair ties still sat around his wrist from weeks ago. The apartment still carried traces of you in every corner, soft remnants of a life that had once intertwined with his so naturally that even death couldn’t fully unravel it. Sunghoon slowly sat up after a while. For the first time since you died, the ache in his chest did not immediately make him want to chase after you. It only made him miss you.

A framed photo caught his eye from across the room. A snippet of a beach date where you both were smothered in sand and shattered seashells. He remembered that day now without feeling like his ribs were caving inward. He remembered it and smiled.

The sunlight continued pouring into the apartment little by little, warming spaces that had long felt frozen over. Sunghoon looked toward the empty side of the couch beside him. Then quietly, he whispered your name into the stillness, but for the first time, it wasn’t a plea to the Heavens. 

Winter took you from him, and Sunghoon spent the cold months treating his grief like something sacred, afraid that healing meant betraying you. But Spring came quietly, melting ice from sidewalks and blooming flowers through the cracks, and he finally learned that acceptance didn't mean loving you less.

You’ve been having strange dreams lately.

They felt so vivid, so clear to your vision that it felt like you could reach out and touch them. In these dreams, Jake’s cute nerdy friend, Sunghoon, was in them. He was in all of them, actually.

Visions of Sunghoon and you, on a date sipping on cola floats together. Visions of you both curled up in the library cubicle, giggling and sharing secrets instead of being productive. But oddly enough, he wasn’t wearing his thick-rimmed glasses and features grew into a more mature version, with a stronger jawline and deeper eyes. In these dreams, you could see the warmth in his eyes, hear the sounds of his soft laughter, and feel the intimacy of his affection.

Sometimes, the dreams were absurdly specific. Like mundane captures of you both arguing in the grocery store over what meat to buy, snapshots of an apartment you’ve never stepped foot in, and images that you don’t remember taking.  Sometimes, the dreams hurt. They echoed with the sound of anguished cries that made your chest ache when you woke up, made you feel empty like something was hollow from inside and like you were missing something that mattered so dearly yet you couldn’t remember. 

All he was to you was a boy in your Chem discussion and Jake’s close friend, so why did your dreams think differently, as if he was the most important person in your life?

You went to the library one night with Jake, and Sunghoon came later, only to end up crying as soon as he saw you. And for some reason, your heart signaled to your mind that, maybe he was, for some reason, because your chest began to ache with an odd sense of familiarity and endearance. So, it was only natural that you began to form a crush on him. But sometimes, your feelings felt deeper than just a mere crush, as if your feelings had roots that stretched somewhere your thoughts couldn’t reach.

You began hanging out with Sunghoon so much that you barely saw Jake anymore. Not that the Australian boy complained– after all, he was too busy trying to survive whatever war engineering majors had to go through that he didn’t even have time to hang anymore. But the more frequent your hangouts were, the more frequent the dreams were. You dreamt of tiny domestic things, like him stealing bites of your food and folding laundry terribly while you laughed at him. Falling asleep on his shoulder during movie nights. Listening to him hum quietly in the kitchen while making late-night ramen.

Eventually, you stopped trying to suppress what your heart already accepted. You liked him. (Maybe too much for someone you technically barely knew.)

So when the wintry season hit its peak, you saw Sunghoon again after texting him to meet you near the cafe where he initially rejected you. You both still hung out, but after that morning when you failed to confess properly, he seemed different. He looked lighter and full of life. Before, he seemed like a shell that was carrying an invisible burden that you couldn’t begin to understand. But now, he acted naively, as if there was nothing in the world that could dare drag him down.

“Hoon?” you called softly. He turned toward you immediately, expression warming the second he saw you approach. He smiled widely and adjusted his glasses. It was obvious he took some time to look good, with his hair styled up and his fashion seemingly taken from another closet. (Jay’s, you presumed. You heard his roommate had good fashion taste.)

“Hey, Y/N! Why did you want to meet me here?” He asked cheerfully.

You smiled as your fingers tightened around the straps of your bag before you finally blurted, “I’ve been having dreams about you.” His expression froze, and his eyebrows knitted together so adorably. You swallowed hard as you continued abruptly, realizing how bad that could’ve sounded. “Not wet dreams– shit, I mean, like– They’re weirdly specific. Like… really specific.” You laughed awkwardly. “Like dreams of us. Together. Dating…” You shyly trailed off.

Sunghoon stared at you silently, kindly waiting for you to finish as he listened intently.  “And sometimes,” your voice softened, “they’re sad.” Something flickered painfully across his face. You continued carefully, “In one of them, you were crying. Really badly.” Your chest tightened at the memory. “And I remember thinking that I wanted to comfort you more than anything, like that day you cried to me in the library…”

The breeze carried the scent of frost between you both. Sunghoon’s eyes began glossing over as he watched you, looking conflicted and a bit more confused. “I don’t really understand why this is happening.” You smiled faintly despite your nerves. “So…” You laughed softly.

“Maybe this is crazy, but I think I like you, Park Sunghoon. Do you want to go out with me?” You shyly asked. His mouth fell agape as his eyes widened.

“You– You like me? Like me, as in Park Sunghoon?” He sputtered out in disbelief, pointing a gloved hand at himself. You giggled and nodded.

“Yes, you idiot,” you laughed, cheeks warming from how genuinely stunned he looked. “How many Park Sunghoons do you think I know?” You teased, tilting your head to the right. His lips parted as stutters spilled from them unintentionally. And then, to your complete shock, his eyes immediately began watering.

“H-Hoon?” you gasped. “Oh my god, are you crying again?!”

“A– Again? When did I– snnfffh– When did I ever cry in front of you?” He choked out, sniffling away the snot that began to run down his philtrum, his voice cracking into two. He ripped his glasses off quickly, furiously wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. You burst into laughter at how offended he sounded despite the tears visibly collecting on his lashes. Sunghoon groaned softly under his breath, embarrassed, before hiding his face behind one hand.

“This is so humiliating,” he muttered miserably, “Yes– God, a million times yes– I want to go out with you. Please go out with me,” his voice curved into a plea. You giggled, slotting your body into his to form a warm lock of an embrace.

You looked up at him, and it began to snow.

[sunishake]

give this lover girl a chance ✦ psh

After years of being buddies, Park Sunghoon can’t seem to see you as anything more than one of his bros despite you being his girlfriend. afab reader x sunghoon ! smau ! angst ! cliffhanger ! highschool romance ! friends to lovers ! spontaneously written ! awkward hoon !

꒦꒷՞ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 ˎˊ˗

OO1 . Jacket issues ; OO2 . heart made of steel ; OO3 . Loveria ; OO4 . hair theory ; OO5 . pretty cookies ; OO6 . Coming soon...

©sunishake 2026

𝐄- taglist open !!

[bbrianawhatt]

Miss Me? 003

Summary 𑣲⋆- Your d1 yearner ex boyfriend Riki is absolutely shameless and will embarrass himself just to get you back, will it work? [ft. all of enha + stella from h2h and minji from njz!]

Content 𑣲⋆ - 19 ss | downbad!riki, suggestive jokes/language, delusion (ofc on riki’s part), swearing, insulting, lil angst, crack

my masterlist!

<-prev next->

A/N : i lowkey hate this chapter but it’s okay cs even tho i hated it it gave me hella inspo for the next chapters :p i hope you guys enjoy this one! [tags are open]

Taglist : @ni-kimyman4real @ellushic @voucearse @nishimur4s @fein4hoon @enhoonxx @seonghyeonsback @strwbysunoo @sahara1848 @jiwonangel @phonkdemon @erehkinnie30 @yangflavor1009 @kimmm002 @fluescentq @jaerisdiction @b1scuitwxngss @d0llddeonu @ddolleri @hyyhwriter @jakeycakeys @naaayyngelhhj @fshn-zip @raebaebears @eater4riki @maki45sblog @xeiramz @oikawabelongstome @jong-caprio @crzbss @goatedmiffyy @sunhrtss @heeheehee-hoe @nikiasaurus @juliesturn @enhaxlhs @rikiiss

[stllmnstr]

hesitation [masterlist]

pairing: yang jungwon x f reader

genre: university au, younger jungwon, slight age gap (reader is 3 years older)

In your second year of grad school, there are three constant truths. One, you hate Tuesdays with a passion. Two, you rely far too much on an ungodly amount of caffeine to get you through your day. And three, you absolutely do not have feelings other than mild annoyance for Jungwon, the entirely too persistent undergrad that can’t seem to leave you alone.

— or, a collection of younger university bf jungwon drabbles.

[see individual parts for warnings, summaries, word counts, and ratings! mature parts are linked here but published on mortaldreams.]

1. part one

2. part two (m)

3. part three (semi-m)

4. part four

story tag (picture, asks, random posts, etc. related to hesitation)

have an idea for future parts? send me an ask!

[lac4ygal]

SECRETS THROUGH PASSAGEWAYS yang jungwon

You come home from three years abroad not by choice but for your grandmother’s funeral and walk straight back into YANG JUNGWON — lead businessman at Yang Industries and standing beside a life that doesn’t include you. Your grandmother’s will fractures your family, though it was already fractured, the letters she left begin exposing secrets, and the manor starts unravelling everything it’s been hiding — affairs, business ties, and truths no one wanted uncovered. Every moment alone with him drags you back toward those buried feelings since you were teens and makes you confront the one thing you never said; your grandmother planned this. But did she really bring you back just to watch your family spiral — or to force the two of you to face what she always knew was ‘meant to be’?

parings. . . yang jungwon x female reader ┃ wc. 27.7k

⟡themes. . . childhood best friends to lovers, second chance romance, right person wrong time, mutual pining, slow burn, angst with payoff, unspoken feelings, complicated relationships, love vs duty, rich family drama, inheritance drama, toxic family dynamics, sibling rivalry, jealousy, family secrets, corruption, old money, forced proximity, shared history, emotional repression, house as a character, flashbacks, happy ending

⟡content warnings. . . mature content (18+), fingering, oral sex (f), slight repression of breathing (fingers in mouth), penetrative sex, multiple orgasms, cowgirl, missionary, eye contact, light restraint (wrists pinned), praise kink, slight dom/sub undertones, loss of a loved one, grief, infidelity, family dysfunction and manipulation, emotional repression, mild angst, morally grey side characters​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

⟡now playing. . . Wicked Games by Chris Isaac // To Love by Suki Waterhouse // she heart by Cameron Cabelo

⟡laceys note // I really loved writing this and how the grandmother is so present in the story while not being present, she controls the whole narrative. The family secrets always just a matter of time before they came out. I put a lot of heart into this and I hope it shows, i didn’t indent for it to be this long but oh well! I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing! Enjoy💞 (ps I’ve rebloged with all those who asked to be tagged bc tumblr has a limit 😫)

THE FLIGHT FROM BARCELONA LANDED FORTY MINUTES LATE.

You didn’t mind. Forty minutes was forty minutes less of being home, and you needed every one of them. You sat in your seat while the other passengers stood and jostled for overhead luggage and you looked out the small oval window at the grey Korean sky and you thought about your grandmother’s hands.

The way they looked when she shuffled a deck of cards. The way she’d lay one down on the table and look at you sideways and say what does that tell you before you’d even had time to see the face of it.

She’d been teaching you something your whole life. You were still figuring out what.

Your phone had forty-three unread messages by the time you turned it off airplane mode. Thirty-one of them were from your sister Haeun. You read the first one — the lawyer says the reading is Thursday, I need to know what grandmother told you — and put your phone face-down on your thigh and breathed through your nose until the seat belt sign dinged off.

She hadn’t told you anything. That was the thing about Han Sooja. She never told you anything. She offered, suggested, implied. She left doors slightly open and trusted you to be curious enough to walk through them. Every Sunday for three years you’d called her from your apartment in Barcelona — the one with the yellow kitchen tiles you hated and then grew to love — and she’d talk about the garden, about the house, about whatever book she was reading, and at the end she’d say something that didn’t make sense until weeks later.

The last call had been eight days before she died. She’d asked if you still had the book she gave you before you left. Italo Calvino, the one about invisible cities. You’d said yes, it’s on my shelf, and she’d made a small sound of satisfaction and said good girl the way she used to when you found a hidden room in the manor, small and proud and like she’d been waiting. You hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. The book was in your carry-on bag right now. You didn’t know why you’d packed it. It had felt necessary in the way that irrational things sometimes do.

The Han family estate sat forty minutes outside of Seoul, through the kind of countryside that looked different in every season and the same in all of them. Your father had arranged a car. You sat in the back and watched the city dissolve into hills and treelines and you felt the specific vertigo of returning somewhere that exists more fully in your memory than in real life.

You hadn’t been back in almost three years. Barcelona had been good to you. Your degree, your small studio, your Sunday markets and your terrible attempts at Catalan and the way the light hit the Eixample buildings at five in the afternoon like the whole city was on fire. You had built a life there from scratch, which was something, which was actually a lot. You had been proud of the distance.

Now the distance was just kilometres you’d swallowed in nine hours and your grandmother was dead and the estate gates were opening in front of you and you were twenty-three years old and somehow eight years old at the same time. The manor was lit from inside. Warm amber in every window, the way it always looked in winter, the way it looked in every memory you had of arriving home from anywhere. Your chest did something complicated.

You were barely out of the car when the front door opened. Your mother came down the steps first. She looked beautiful and exhausted and somewhere behind her eyes was a grief that was doing battle with something sharper. She held you and you held her back and she smelled like the same perfume she’d worn your entire life and for a moment you just let yourself be held. “You look thin,” she said, pulling back to look at your face. Her hands cupped your jaw the way she’d done when you were small.

“I’m not thin.”

“You’re thin.” She said it like a conclusion and took your bag from you before you could argue. Your father appeared behind her. Tall, silver-templed, the kind of handsome that photographs well. He kissed your cheek and said welcome home, sweetheart and squeezed your shoulder and you smiled and said thank you and the whole thing lasted four seconds and felt utterly normal and you pushed down the small unnameable thing it stirred in you and went inside.

Haeun was in the sitting room with her husband Minjae, who was tall and quiet and had the energy of a man who had learned to occupy as little space as possible to survive his marriage. She stood up when you came in and crossed the room and hugged you and over her shoulder her eyes were already doing the thing — already calculating, already moving pieces around a board.

“You look wonderful,” she said, and she meant it as something other than a compliment.

“So do you,” you said, and you sat down, and you accepted the tea someone put in your hands, and you listened to your family talk around the actual subject the way families do, and you thought about your grandmother’s hands again. The way she’d lay a card down. What does that tell you?

You were so inside your own head that you didn’t hear the second car arrive. You didn’t hear the front door. You didn’t hear the voices in the hall. The first thing you registered was your mother’s posture changing — a small straightening, a social smile replacing the real one — and then the sitting room door opened and Jungwon walked in.

He was wearing black. Of course he was, it was a house in mourning, but it suited him in a way that felt almost unfair. He’d grown into himself in the years since you’d last seen him — not taller, he’d always been tall, but somehow more present, like he’d learned to take up the exact right amount of space. His father walked in behind him and then a woman you didn’t recognise, and then you did recognise her, you’d seen her tagged in photos online the way you absolutely had not been keeping track of, and her name was Seo Yerin and she was very beautiful and her hand was in the crook of Jungwon’s arm like she’d grown there.

Jungwon’s father greeted yours with the practiced warmth of two men who had been doing business together for decades. Your mother offered Yerin tea. Haeun said something charming. Minjae stood slightly behind Haeun and looked at the ceiling. And then Jungwon looked across the room and found you.

There was a moment — just a moment, small enough that you could convince yourself later it hadn’t happened — where his face did something unguarded. Something that looked like there you are and oh no at the same time. And then it resolved into a smile. Warm, professional, genuine enough to be dangerous. “You made it,” he said.

“I made it,” you said. He crossed the room and hugged you and he smelled different — something expensive, cedar and something clean — but underneath it was the same, was him, was the boy who had eaten your grandmother’s good biscuits and blamed it on you and laughed so hard he’d fallen off the kitchen counter. You pulled back before you held on too long.

“How was Barcelona?” he asked. His voice was careful. Friendly.

“Cold right now,” you said. “How’s the company?”

“Growing,” he said. And then, quieter, under the room noise: “She talked about you. Every time I visited. Said you were doing well.”

Something lodged in your throat. “She talked about you too,” you said. Yerin appeared at his shoulder like a weather system. Her smile was lovely and precise. “You must be the friend,” she said. “Jungwon’s told me so much.”

You held her gaze for exactly the right amount of time. “Good things, I hope,” you said pleasantly.

“Of course,” she said. And her hand found Jungwon’s arm again. And the moment sealed shut.

Dinner was the thing it always was in this house — too much food, too much wine, too much history in the walls. You sat across from Jungwon and next to your father and you told yourself to eat and listen and feel nothing in particular.

Your grandmother’s chair at the head of the table was empty and remained empty the entire meal. Nobody had moved it. Nobody had suggested moving it. It sat there with its carved wooden back and the slightly worn armrest where she’d rested her right hand for sixty years and it was the loudest thing in the room.

After dinner, when the adults had migrated to the sitting room and Haeun was performing warmth at Yerin with the energy of a woman collecting intelligence, you slipped out. The hallway was quiet. The manor at night had its own sound — old wood settling, the particular silence of high ceilings, the grandfather clock at the end of the east corridor that had been six minutes fast for as long as you could remember and which your grandmother had refused to correct because she said she liked having six extra minutes that nobody else knew about.

You stood in the hall outside the library and pressed your hand flat against the wall. Old wallpaper. Pale blue, faded at the seams. You knew what was behind it. Third panel from the left, your grandmother had said when you were nine, crouching down to your eye level with absolute seriousness, you push at the bottom corner, not the middle, because the middle is what they expect. And then she’d winked at you and Jungwon and said the house has more rooms than anyone thinks. That’s true of most things.

You pressed the bottom corner of the third panel. Nothing happened for a second. Then the soft mechanical exhale of something old and well-made, and the panel gave, and the smell of cool air and stone and something faintly like old paper came out of the dark.

You stood there looking into it. Behind you, very quietly, someone said: “You remembered.” You turned around. Jungwon was leaning against the opposite wall with his hands in his pockets, watching you with an expression you couldn’t quite read in the low hall light.

“You followed me,” you said.

“I saw you leave.” He pushed off the wall and came to stand beside you, looking into the dark passage the way you both used to as kids — like it was a dare, like it was an invitation. “I used to come here,” he said. “After you left. With her” You looked at him. “She’d make tea and we’d sit in the passage room with a candle and she’d make me do the crossword and not let me leave until I finished it.” He had a smile on his face.

Your throat did the thing again. “She never told me that,” you said.

“She never told me she called you every week either,” he said. “I found out from the phone records when we were going through her things.” A pause. “She listed you as the Barcelona girl in her contacts.”

A sound came out of you that was almost a laugh. It hurt a little on the way out. The passage waited. Dark, familiar, smelling of everything unchanged. “We should go in,” Jungwon said quietly.

“Now?” He looked at you sideways and for a second he was twelve years old and the whole world was just this house and summer and whatever stupid adventure came next.

“She would have wanted us to,” he said. And the thing was — he was right. You both knew it. This was exactly the kind of thing she would have engineered if she could have. And the thought that maybe she had — maybe this was the beginning of something she’d set in motion from a long way back — made the back of your neck prickle. You reached into the dark for the torch she’d always kept on the inside ledge. It was there. Fresh batteries. Recently placed. Of course it was. What does that tell you, she would have said.

You clicked it on. “Come on then,” you said. And Jungwon followed you into the wall.

The passage room was exactly as you remembered. Small, stone-floored, with a ceiling low enough that Jungwon had to duck slightly now in a way he hadn’t needed to at fifteen. There was a wooden table, two chairs that didn’t match, a candle in a brass holder with a box of matches beside it, and a shelf of books along the far wall that had nothing to do with the library on the other side of it. Your grandmother had curated this room the way she curated everything — deliberately, privately, with a logic that only revealed itself if you were paying attention. Jungwon lit the candle without being asked. Old habit.

You swept the torchlight along the bookshelf. Calvino. Borges. A Korean translation of an Agatha Christie you’d never seen before. Three books on architecture that made your chest ache with something fond.

And at the end of the shelf, propped against the stone wall like it had been recently placed and not forgotten, a tin box. Small, olive green, the kind that used to hold biscuits. You both looked at it. “That wasn’t here before,” Jungwon said.

“No,” you agreed. Neither of you moved toward it immediately. That was something she’d taught you both without ever making it a lesson — patience. The instinct to look before you touched. To let a thing be what it was for a moment before you decided what to do with it. You sat down in one of the mismatched chairs. Jungwon took the other. The candle made the room flicker and warm and very small.

“When did you last come here?” you asked.

He thought about it. “Two weeks before she died. She wanted to do the crossword and said the library was too bright.” A corner of his mouth moved. “She said fluorescent lighting was an act of violence against the human spirit.”

“She said that about my university’s studio lighting on a phone call once,” you said. “I’d sent her a photo of my desk.”

“She printed it,” Jungwon said. “It was on her dresser.” You looked at the candle flame. Three years of Sunday calls and she’d printed a photo of your desk and put it on her dresser and filed Jungwon under the boy who visits in whatever internal registry she kept and said nothing to either of you about the other and you had both thought you were each grieving her separately and privately and it turned out she had been holding you both the whole time, one in each hand, like she always had. “I should have come back sooner,” you said. You hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Jungwon was quiet for a moment. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to. She was proud of you being there.” He paused. “She showed me your graduation photos.”

“She wasn’t at my graduation.”

“I know. But you sent them to her.” He looked at the table. “She showed me on her phone. Stood there in the garden and made me look at every single one and told me what each building in the background was.” A beat. “She knew all of them.” Of course she did. Han Sooja had read every book in this room and a thousand more and had never once made a performance of knowing things.

You stood up and crossed to the shelf and picked up the olive tin. It wasn’t locked. The lid lifted with the soft resistance of something sealed against air and inside was not another letter, not yet, but a folded piece of paper and beneath it a photograph and beneath that a single playing card.

The seven of spades. You picked it up. Turned it over. On the back, in her handwriting — small, precise, the handwriting of someone who had learned to write when paper was expensive: Not everything buried is lost. Some things are just waiting for the ground to be ready. — start with the east corridor, third door.

Jungwon leaned over and read it. His shoulder was warm against yours. “The east corridor,” he said.

“Third door is the old study,” you said.

“Your father and mine use it when they’re doing paperwork. She always hated that.”

Something shifted in Jungwon’s expression. Not much. Just enough. “Why did she hate it?” you asked.

He picked up the tin lid and turned it over in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. Which meant he knew something and wasn’t sure yet whether to say it. You let it sit. Patience. Look before you touch.

You folded the note back up, put it in your pocket, and placed the seven of spades carefully back in the tin. “Tomorrow?” you said.

He nodded. “Tomorrow.”

—

The will reading was at ten in the morning in the manor’s formal sitting room, which your grandmother had always called the room where people go to say things they’ve rehearsed.

The family lawyer, an older man named Mr. Oh who had been handling Han Sooja’s affairs for thirty years, sat at the writing desk with a folder open in front of him and his reading glasses pushed to the end of his nose. Your mother sat straight-backed in the good armchair. Your father beside her. Haeun on the small sofa with Minjae, who had the expression of a man attending something he had been asked to attend and was determined to survive neutrally. The Yang family were not present for this — this was immediate family, just yours, just the people your grandmother had chosen to name. And it surprised you that she hadn’t named Jungwon.

You sat in the chair nearest the window. Old habit. Whenever your grandmother held court in this room she’d saved that chair for you because it got the best light and she knew you liked to draw in the margins of things.

Mr. Oh read the preamble in the formal language of legal documents and your mother’s posture got incrementally straighter with each clause and Haeun’s hands in her lap were very still in the way that meant they wanted to be doing something else. The estate. The grounds. The property in full — to you and Haeun jointly, held in trust until such time as you both agreed on its future. Haeun’s shoulders dropped a fraction. Okay. Shared. That was manageable.

The financial holdings, the investments, the accounts — split equally between the two of you. Still manageable. Still even. Your mother’s face was carefully neutral.

And then: The personal correspondence, the private library, the contents of the third floor study, and sole guardianship of the estate’s architectural records and original documents — Mr. Oh paused in the way lawyers pause when they know what they’re about to say will change the temperature of a room — to my granddaughter, Y/N, who has always understood that a house is not a building but a living record, and who I trust to know what to do with what she finds.

The room was very quiet. You felt your mother look at you. You didn’t turn. Haeun said, lightly, carefully, as if the words hadn’t been sitting in her mouth for thirty years: “The architectural records.”

“All original documents pertaining to the construction and modification of the estate,” Mr. Oh confirmed. “Floor plans, correspondence, modification records. All to your sister, as specified.”

“I see,” Haeun said. Her voice was a closed door. Mr. Oh continued. There were smaller bequests — to staff, to a charity your grandmother had supported quietly for decades, to a cousin you barely knew. A piece of jewellery to your mother, significant and old and chosen with the precision of someone who knew exactly what a gift could mean and what it could also withhold. Your mother held the jewellery box in her lap and looked at it and you saw, briefly, the grief crack through the composed surface of her face.

She had loved her mother. Whatever else was happening in the register beneath that love, the love was real and it was enormous and she was going to feel both things at the same time for a very long time.

The reading ended. Mr. Oh gathered his papers. Minjae quietly offered to fetch tea as a reason to leave the room. Your father stood and shook Mr. Oh’s hand. Haeun stood up and came to you. “Congratulations,” she said. The word had nothing to do with congratulations.

“I didn’t ask for it,” you said.

“No,” she agreed. “You never have to.” She left the room. You watched her go and thought about the seven of spades in the tin box in the passage room and your grandmother’s handwriting and the specific, deliberate way she had chosen to distribute what she knew and what she owned. Not everything buried is lost.

Your father’s hand on your shoulder again. That same four-second warmth. “Your grandmother loved you very much,” he said.

“She loved all of us,” you said.

He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course,” he said. “Of course she did.”

Six weeks before she died — Sunday, Barcelona, 4pm

The light through your kitchen tiles was doing the thing it did in late autumn, coming in flat and amber and making everything look like the inside of a memory. You had your phone wedged between your ear and your shoulder and you were attempting to re-pot a plant that had been dying slowly since August.

“The Calvino,” your grandmother said. “You still have it?”

“On my shelf,” you said. “It’s been there for three years, Halmoni.”

“Good.” That sound of satisfaction. “I want you to read it again before you come home.”

“I’m not planning to come home.”

“I know,” she said. Not sadly. Just factually, the way she said most things. “Read it anyway. There’s a passage in the chapter about Octavia — the spider-web city — that I want you to think about.”

You looked at your dying plant. “About what?”

“About the nature of what holds things together,” she said. “And what happens when you finally look down.”

You’d laughed a little, because she was always doing this, always dropping things into conversation like seeds into soil. “You could just tell me what you mean.”

“Where would be the fun in that,” she said. Not a question. The plant lost a leaf. You caught it. “Jungwon came by yesterday,” she said, at the end, in the place where she always put the things that mattered most.

You were quiet for a second too long. “How is he?” you asked, carefully.

“The way young men are when they’re doing the right thing for the wrong reasons,” she said. “He brought me tangerines. He stayed for four hours.” A pause. “He asked how you were.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you were building something beautiful and that you missed home more than you admitted.”

“Halmoni—”

“I told him the truth,” she said serenely. “Goodnight, my girl.” The call ended. You stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen in Barcelona with a dead leaf in your hand and the flat amber light going dark around you and you thought about Jungwon asking how you were. You didn’t call him and you could almost see your grandmother's disarming look.

—

Your grandmother’s bedroom was at the end of the east wing. Nobody had gone in since she died. You could tell by the way the door resisted slightly when you turned the handle — not locked, just untouched, the air on the other side of it thick and still in the way that rooms get when they’ve been holding their breath. The staff had respected it. Your mother had respected it, or avoided it, and those two things looked identical from the outside. You went in alone.

The curtains were half-open the way she always kept them — enough light to see by, not enough to bleach the colours, she’d said once, about curtains and about most other things. Her bed was made with the precise, almost architectural tidiness of a woman who had made her own bed every morning for eighty-one years. On her nightstand: reading glasses, a glass of water someone had forgotten to remove, a library book three weeks overdue, and a small framed photograph.

You crossed the room and picked it up. It was the two of you. You and her, you couldn’t have been more than ten, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the passage room with a candle between you and a crossword spread out on the stone floor and your face screwed up in concentration. You had no memory of the photo being taken. You had no idea who had taken it. You stood there holding it for a long time. Then you put it down, carefully, exactly where it had been, and you looked at the room.

She had left it for you to find. Whatever it was. You knew that the way you knew the batteries in the torch had been fresh — she had arranged this, she had thought about you standing in this room, she had trusted you to look properly. So you looked.

Her desk first. Neat, deliberate. Correspondence in one pile, addressed and stamped and ready to post — you’d find out later she’d written them in the last week of her life, small notes to old friends, a letter to a charity, one to Mr. Oh with an addendum to her will that simply read make sure she gets the Calvino back if she doesn’t bring it herself. Her pen in its holder. A magnifying glass. A small jade figurine of a rabbit that had sat on every desk she’d ever owned since before your mother was born.

You moved to the wardrobe. Her clothes, her good coat, a shelf of shoeboxes at the top. You pulled each one down and opened it with the care of someone who understood that your grandmother did not waste containers. Shoes in most of them.

In one — the second from the right, which was the kind of specific detail only she would have noted — a bundle of letters tied with kitchen string, and beneath it a leather notebook, and beneath that a folded envelope. Your name on the front. Both names. For my granddaughter and for Jungwon-ah — to be opened together, in the house, when the time is right. You’ll know.

Your hands were very steady. That surprised you. You sat on the edge of her bed — something you’d done a thousand times as a child, sitting there while she brushed her hair or told you something she wanted you to remember — and you held the envelope and you didn’t open it. Not yet.

She’d said together. She’d written both your names. She’d trusted you to know when the time was right and you knew, the way she’d taught you to know things, that the time was not right alone in her bedroom at nine in the morning while the house was waking up around you. You put the envelope inside your jacket, against your chest, and you took the leather notebook too because it had no name on it and therefore belonged to you the way all unnamed things in this house now did, you put the shoeboxes back exactly as you’d found them, and you straightened the bed where you’d sat, and you took one more look at the photograph on the nightstand.

There’s a passage in the chapter about Octavia, she’d said. About the nature of what holds things together. You’d read it on the plane. You’d sat in seat 24A at thirty thousand feet over France and read the passage about the spider-web city suspended over an abyss and the people who lived in it who did not think about the abyss because to think about the abyss was not the point. The point was the net. The point was the thing that held. The life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than that of other cities, Calvino had written. They know the net will only last so long.

You left the bedroom. You pulled the door back to exactly where it had been.

The leather notebook turned out to be a record. You found this out that afternoon, sitting on the floor of the passage room with the candle lit and your back against the cold stone wall, and it was not what you expected and it was completely what you should have expected because this was Han Sooja and she had never done anything without documentation.

It was dated across seven years. Small entries, some only a few lines, written in the spare economical way she wrote everything. It read less like a diary and more like case notes — observations, dates, names, figures. The early entries were oblique enough that you had to read them twice. The later ones were less patient with their own obliqueness.

Your father’s name appeared on the fourth page. And then a name you didn’t recognise. A woman’s name, recurring, with dates beside it and in one entry a location — a restaurant in Gangnam, a hotel in Busan, a work trip that had not been a work trip. Your grandmother had written these things in the same tone she used to note the weather or the overdue library book. No exclamation. No fury. Just the facts, recorded with the quiet, devastating precision of a woman who had known for years and decided that the right time to use what she knew was not while she was alive to be argued with.

Your father, the last entry about him read, dated eight months ago, has made choices that your mother has chosen not to see. I have chosen not to intervene in my daughter’s choices. But I have chosen not to reward his with my silence after I’m gone. He will know, when the estate goes to you, that I knew. That is enough.

You read that three times. Then you turned the page. The next section was about the company. Your father’s company and the Yang family company and the specific way they were connected, which your grandmother laid out in the same case-note fashion — dates of agreements, figures, the shape of something that had been built quietly over decades. You didn’t understand all of it. You understood enough. You understood that it was the kind of thing that would matter enormously to Jungwon, who was now running his family’s side of it, who had taken over from his father without knowing everything his father had built. Or maybe knowing some of it. You didn’t know yet what Jungwon knew.

The last entry in the notebook was not about your father or the companies. It was short, just four lines, and it was the only entry in the whole notebook that had nothing to do with documentation. I have watched those two children for fifteen years and I have been patient because patience was what was needed. They are both very clever and very stupid in the way that people are when they are in the middle of something they can’t see the edges of yet. I am leaving them the house and each other and every door I can think to unlock. The rest is up to them. I trust them. I always have.

The candle burned. You sat on the cold floor of the secret room your grandmother had shown you at nine years old and you held a notebook full of everything she’d known and you pressed the back of your hand to your mouth and you did not cry, quite, but it was a near thing.

—

You found Jungwon at the edge of the garden. He was standing at the low stone wall that separated the formal garden from the fields beyond it, the ones where you used to chase the chickens, the ones that looked in winter like a grey-green painting of themselves. He had his coat on and his hands in his pockets and he was looking at the fields the way you’d been looking at the manor from the car yesterday — like something that was more inside him than outside. “Jungwon,” you said.

He turned. Registered your face. “What happened?” You hadn’t known it showed. You’d been careful on the way out of the house.

“I found something,” you said. “In her room.” You took the envelope out of your jacket. Held it out so he could see both your names on it. He looked at it for a long time without moving. The winter fields were quiet behind him. The house was warm and lit behind you. You were standing exactly between the two of them, which felt like something your grandmother would have arranged if she could have. Maybe she had.

Jungwon reached out and took the envelope from your hand. He turned it over. Ran his thumb across the handwriting. “She wrote both our names,” he said.

“She said to open it together. When the time was right.”

He looked up at you. “Is it?”

You thought about the notebook in your jacket. About the woman’s name recurring through seven years of entries. About the company and the figures and the connection between your families that neither of you had been told about. About the seven of spades and the east corridor and the third door. About the passage room, two chairs, a candle. About him asking how you were from three years and three thousand kilometres away through the relay of your grandmother’s voice. “Not yet,” you said. “But soon.”

He nodded slowly. He held the envelope for a moment longer and then he held it back out to you. “You keep it,” he said. “She gave you the house. She’d want it kept here.”

You took it. Put it back inside your jacket. “There’s something else,” you said. “The notebook. I need to tell you about it. Not now, not here—” you glanced back at the house, at the lit windows, at the shapes of people moving behind glass— “but soon. There are things in it about the company. Your family and mine.”

Something moved behind his eyes. Just a fraction. “How much do you know?” he asked. His voice was careful. Professional. The voice he used in the sitting room, not the voice from the passage with the candle.

“Enough to know you might know some of it already,” you said. He held your gaze. The wind moved between you.

“Tonight,” he said. “Passage room.”

“Tonight,” you agreed. He nodded and turned back to the fields. You stood beside him for a moment, not saying anything, looking at the same grey-green view, and it was almost like being ten years old again except that you were both carrying things ten-year-olds don’t carry and the weight of it was very quietly changing the shape of everything.

“She kept a photo of us,” you said. “In the passage room. Do you know who took it?”

“She did,” he said. “She had one of those cameras with the timer. She set it up on the shelf.” A pause. “She has about fifteen of them. Of us, from different years. She kept them in the tin.”

You thought about the olive green tin. The photograph beneath the note beneath the playing card. “I only found the one,” you said.

“There’s a second tin,” he said. “She showed me once. It’s in the east corridor study.” He paused. “Third door.” You looked at him. He looked back at you. Not everything buried is lost.

“Tonight,” you said again. And you both stood at the wall in the winter garden and looked at the fields where you used to chase chickens and neither of you said anything about the thing that had been living in the space between you for longer than either of you had names for it yet.

—

The Yang family came at seven. Your mother had spent the afternoon directing the staff with the focused energy of a woman who needed something to control. The good dishes. The good wine. Flowers on the table that were tasteful and seasonal and had been ordered from the florist your grandmother had used for forty years because some things you don’t change even when you are quietly furious at the dead person who used to order them. You’d spent the afternoon in your room with the notebook open on your bed and your laptop beside it, cross-referencing what your grandmother had recorded in her careful case-note hand against what you could find publicly about your father’s company and the Yang Group. You’d built a partial picture. Partial was enough to make your chest feel tight in a way that had nothing to do with the altitude change from Barcelona.

You closed everything at six-thirty and got dressed and looked at yourself in the mirror of your childhood bedroom. The room still had your things in it. Sketchbooks on the shelf. A poster from a Barcelona exhibition you’d sent home because you’d had no wall space. A corkboard above the desk with old photos and ticket stubs and a hand-drawn map of the manor’s ground floor that you’d made when you were twelve and that contained, you now noticed, three rooms that weren’t on it that you’d known about since you were nine. She’d taught you to keep secrets the way other grandmothers taught you to knit. Quietly. Practically. With the implication that the skill would matter someday.

You put your earrings in and went downstairs. Jungwon’s father, Yang Junho, had the big laugh and the easy warmth of a man who had learned early that charm was infrastructure. He embraced your mother, clapped your father on the shoulder, kissed your cheek and said look at you, all grown up and making us all feel old in the way that powerful men say things to young women — benevolent, slightly proprietary, not quite seeing you. Yerin arrived in something that was architecturally perfect for the occasion. You noticed it the way you noticed good design — involuntarily, with a kind of professional appreciation that sat alongside everything else. She was very good at this. At the surface of things.

She found your eyes across the hall and smiled. You smiled back. Jungwon was behind her, talking to your father, and you watched the two of them shake hands and exchange the warm professional pleasantries of men from families that had known each other a long time and you thought about the notebook in your room and the figures on page four and the way your father’s hand had been on your shoulder after the will reading, and you kept your face very still. Haeun arrived late, which was a statement, with Minjae in tow, which was a footnote.

Dinner was served at eight.The dining room in winter was all candlelight and dark wood and the accumulated weight of every meal that had ever been eaten in it. Your grandmother’s empty chair was still at the head of the table. Still nobody suggested moving it or filling it. It sat there and presided. You were seated between your father and Jungwon’s father, which was either an accident of place settings or your mother’s idea of diplomacy or the universe testing your ability to eat soup while sitting on top of a secret. Jungwon was diagonally across from you. Yerin beside him, her hand on the table near his, not quite touching. She had positioned herself with the precision of someone who understood rooms and sightlines and what it meant to be seen next to the right person. You understood rooms and sightlines too.

The first course arrived. Conversation did what conversation does at these dinners — it found the safe channels and moved through them. Business. The economy. A mutual acquaintance’s new venture. Your Barcelona degree, which Yang Junho asked about with genuine interest and which you answered clearly and concisely and felt Jungwon listening to without looking at you. “Architecture,” Junho said, nodding. “Your grandmother always said you’d do something with buildings.”

“She said I’d do something with spaces,” you said. “She made a distinction.” Junho looked pleased by this in the way people look pleased when they’re reminded of someone they miss. “That sounds like her.”

“She was very specific about words,” Jungwon said. He was looking at his wine glass. “She used to correct my crossword answers even when they technically fit.”

“Because fitting and being right are different things,” you said, before you could decide not to. He looked up. Found your eyes. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what she said.” Yerin reached for her wine.

Haeun chose the main course to begin her campaign. She did it beautifully. That was the thing about your sister — she was genuinely skilled at this, at the long game of dinner table conversation, at the way you could introduce a subject so casually that by the time people realized they were discussing it they’d already committed to a position. “It’s such a comfort,” she said, during a lull, with the warm sincerity of a woman who had rehearsed warmth until it became real, “that grandmother’s things will stay in the family. The records, especially. The architectural history of this place.” A smile at you. “I know how much it means to you.”

“It does,” you said.

“It’s just interesting,” Haeun said, tilting her head slightly, “that grandmother felt those should be — separated out. From the general estate. Don’t you think, Mum?” Your mother’s expression didn’t change. “Your grandmother had her reasons.”

“Of course.” Haeun smiled. “She always did. I’m just thinking about practicality. If we’re going to manage the estate jointly, having certain documents siloed with one person seems—”

“Haeun,” your father said. Quiet. Warning. “I’m just raising it,” Haeun said pleasantly. “This is family. We can talk about family things.” The table had gone the particular kind of quiet where everyone is pretending not to listen while listening completely. You set your fork down. “Grandmother specified it in the will,” you said. “Mr. Oh read it out. I’m not sure what there is to discuss.”

“I’m not disputing the will,” Haeun said. “I’m asking whether it makes sense.”

“She thought it made sense,” you said. “I trust her judgment.”

“She was eighty-one and she hadn’t left this house in two years.” The silence that followed that sentence was a different quality entirely. Your mother put her glass down very carefully. Yang Junho cleared his throat and said something about the food being excellent, which was what men like him did when a table needed rescuing and he was the one with the social capital to do it. Your father laughed too quickly at something that wasn’t funny. Minjae became deeply interested in his plate. Jungwon wasn’t looking at your sister — instead at you — with an expression that was too controlled to read and too attentive to be neutral. Yerin said, lightly, pleasantly, into the recovering silence: “It must be wonderful to have a place like this to come home to. Even under sad circumstances.” She was looking at you when she said it. Even under sad circumstances. “It is,” you said. You held her gaze. “I’ve missed it.”

“Barcelona must be quite the change,” she said. “All that sun. All that distance.”

“I like distance,” you said pleasantly. “It gives you perspective.” Her smile stayed exactly where it was. “I imagine it does,” she said.

like it owed him something. “Your sister,” he said.

“I know.”

“She’s going to contest it.”

“She’s going to try,” you said. “She won’t succeed. Grandmother was meticulous.”

“She was,” he agreed. A pause. “She was meticulous about everything.” You thought about the notebook upstairs. The passage room tonight. The envelope against your chest earlier, both your names in her handwriting. “How much do you know?” you asked. Quietly. The same question as the garden, but in here it landed differently. In here it was just you two and the too-loud clock and the chipped tile and fifteen years of history in the walls. He looked at his hands on the table. “About the company — some. Not all. My father has been—” he paused, choosing the word— “selective about what he’s handed over.”

“Jungwon.”

“I know.” He looked up. “I know there’s something. I’ve been finding the edges of it for six months.” He held your gaze. “What did she leave you?”

“A notebook,” you said. “Seven years of notes. Dates, names, figures.”

He was very still. “My father’s name is in it,” you said. “Yours is too.” He looked at the table again. The muscle in his jaw moved once. “Tonight,” he said. “Show me tonight.”

“I will.” The clock ticked. The kitchen held you both the way it always had — indiscriminately, warmly, without judgment or agenda. Through the door you could hear the distant murmur of the sitting room. Your families on the other side of a wall. All their history and all their secrets and all the careful surfaces they maintained. “She sent me a tangerine once,” you said. Not because it was relevant. Because you needed a second.

Jungwon looked up.

“From the tree in the garden,” you said. “She packaged it up and posted it to Barcelona. Just one tangerine, wrapped in tissue paper, with a note that said the tree had a good year. Thought you should taste it. Nothing else.”

He was quiet for a moment. “She sent me a crossword clue once,” he said. “Just one clue. In the post. No puzzle, no page, just the clue on a card.” He almost smiled. “Seven letters. What two people share when they stop pretending.”

You looked at him. “Did you figure it out?” you asked.

“Eventually,” he said. He looked away first. “Honesty.” The clock ticked. The sitting room murmured. Neither of you said anything for a while, and the kitchen held you both, and outside the window the winter garden was dark and the fields beyond it were darker and somewhere in the walls of this house there were secret rooms and hidden documents and a dead woman’s careful architecture and the net was holding, still holding, over an abyss neither of you had looked directly at yet.

The door opened. Yerin stood in the doorway. Her eyes moved from you to Jungwon and back to you in a fraction of a second and her face showed nothing and showed everything. “There you are,” she said. Just to him.

“Just getting water,” Jungwon said. He stood up. Straightened. The professional composure settling back over him like a coat. Yerin’s eyes found yours one more time. The smile was small and precise and had teeth somewhere inside it. “Of course,” she said. Jungwon followed her out. You stood in the kitchen alone and listened to the clock tick and looked at the stool he’d been sitting on and thought about seven letters and everything that word contained and didn’t contain and how your grandmother had sent it to him in the post like a key and trusted him to find the lock eventually. You finished your water. You went upstairs. You sat on your bed with the notebook and the envelope and the Calvino and you waited for midnight.

—

Midnight in the manor sounded like this: The grandfather clock in the east corridor striking twelve with the particular resonance of something that had been marking time in the same place for longer than anyone alive could remember. The house settling into itself, old wood finding its resting position. Wind against the north-facing windows. And underneath all of it, the specific silence of a building full of sleeping people who didn’t know what was happening in its walls. You’d waited until one in the morning to be safe. You’d sat on your bed with the Calvino open to the Octavia chapter and read it three times and then put it face-down on the duvet and stared at the ceiling and thought about the crossword clue. Seven letters. What two people share when they stop pretending. Then you’d picked up the notebook and the envelope and the torch and gone to the third panel from the left.

Jungwon was already there. He’d brought a second candle and a blanket from somewhere, which was so specifically him — practical, quietly considerate, the kind of thoughtfulness that didn’t announce itself — that it did something small and inconvenient to your chest. He’d pushed the two chairs closer to the table and there was a thermos between them that smelled like barley tea and you stood in the entrance of the passage and looked at all of this and thought about your grandmother writing I have been patient because patience was what was needed and understood, not for the first time tonight, exactly what she had meant.

“You found the second tin,” you said. On the table beside the thermos: the olive green tin, open. And beside it, spread out in a loose arrangement, photographs. You crossed the room and looked at them. Fifteen photographs. Maybe more. All of you and Jungwon, all taken in this house, spanning — you picked them up one by one — what looked like a decade. You at nine in the passage room, cross-legged over the crossword, face screwed up in concentration. At eleven, standing in the kitchen covered in flour from some disaster you vaguely remembered involving a recipe and overconfidence. At thirteen, outside in the summer fields, both of you caught mid-run, the chickens a chaotic blur in the background, your face turned back toward the camera mid-laugh. At fifteen, sitting on the stone wall at the edge of the garden, shoulders touching, looking at something outside the frame, both of you with the particular quality of stillness that means you don’t know you’re being watched.

At seventeen. The last summer before Barcelona. The two of you in the library, you on the floor with a sketchbook, him in the armchair above you reading something, and neither of you looking at each other but the angle of your bodies saying everything that the lack of eye contact was trying not to say. Your grandmother had taken all of them. Arranged them. Put them in a tin in a secret room in the house she left specifically to you. I am leaving them the house and each other and every door I can think to unlock. “She documented us,” Jungwon said. He was standing beside you, looking at the photographs spread on the table. His voice was careful in the way it got when he was feeling something he hadn’t categorised yet.

“She documented everything,” you said. You sat down. He sat down. You poured the barley tea because your hands needed something to do. Then you put the notebook on the table. You walked him through it methodically the way your grandmother had recorded it — chronologically, without editorialising, the way she’d taught you to present information. Let the facts be the facts. Let them land before you decide what they mean. He listened without interrupting. That was one of the things about Jungwon that had always been true — he knew how to be still while someone was talking, genuinely still, not the performance of patience but the real thing. His father had it too but in him it felt like strategy. In Jungwon it had always felt like respect. You got to the woman’s name. The dates. The hotel in Busan. Jungwon looked at the notebook. “Your father.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Seven years that she documented. Possibly longer.”

He was quiet. “Does your mother know?”

“She knows something,” you said. “I don’t think she knows the shape of it.”

“Haeun?”

“I don’t know. Haeun would have used it by now if she did.” He nodded slowly. You turned to the next section. The company. The figures. The structure of the agreement between your families that had been built quietly over decades in the particular way that men build things they don’t want scrutinised — in pieces, in separate rooms, in the gaps between what was documented and what wasn’t. You watched Jungwon’s face while you walked him through it. He was very still. “You knew some of this,” you said. Not an accusation. A calibration.

“I knew the shape of it,” he said. “Not the detail.” He turned a page, read something, turned it back. “My father told me when I took over that there were legacy arrangements with certain partners that were — grandfathered in. His word. He said they were historical and that I didn’t need to concern myself with the mechanics, only the outcomes.”

“Did you accept that?” A pause. The candle moved. “For about four months,” he said. “Then I started finding things that didn’t add up and I started asking questions and my father told me I was looking too hard at things that didn’t need looking at.” He looked at the notebook. “I stopped asking questions to his face. I kept looking on my own.”

“What did you find?”

“Enough to know there’s a liability,” he said. “Enough to know that whatever this arrangement is, it would not survive scrutiny. Not legal scrutiny.” He looked at you. “Enough to know that if it came out, both companies would be implicated. Both families.” The candle. The stone walls. The photographs on the table.

“She knew,” you said. “She knew all of it and she left the documentation to me and she left you the crossword clue and she trusted us to—” you stopped. “To what?” he said.

“I don’t know yet,” you said honestly. “But she didn’t do this so we’d bury it again.”

He looked at the notebook for a long time. Then he reached out and turned to the last entry. Read it. His expression did something very quiet and very complicated. I trust them. I always have. He sat back. Pressed his hand over his mouth for a moment. Dropped it. “She should have told us,” he said. Not angry. Just — something underneath anger that hadn’t found its shape yet. “She told us everything,” you said. “We just didn’t have the key yet.” He looked at the photographs again. The one from the library, you on the floor, him in the chair, both of you tilted toward each other without knowing it. “She saw everything,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” you said. The word sat between you. Everything had a weight in this room, in this house, with these photographs spread on the table between you and the barley tea going cold and your grandmother’s handwriting on the pages of a notebook she’d spent seven years filling for this exact moment. You reached into your jacket and put the envelope on the table. Both your names. Her handwriting. Jungwon looked at it. “Now?” he said. You thought about the Octavia chapter. About nets and abysses and the things that hold. About patience, and what it was for, and when it ended. “Not yet,” you said. “There’s still the east corridor. The third door.”

He looked at you. “You want to go now.”

“I want to go now.” He almost smiled. It was the almost that got you — the way it stopped just short, the way the boy who had chased chickens with you was right there behind the composed professional surface, three millimetres from the outside, held back by three years and a girlfriend and a company and everything that had accumulated in the space your absence had left. He stood up. Picked up the torch. “Third door,” he said.

The east corridor at one in the morning was a different place entirely from the east corridor in daylight. The wallpaper, pale blue, faded at the seams, turned grey in the torchlight. The portraits of your grandmother’s family watched you pass with the unsettling patience of people who had been watching things happen in this house for a very long time. You moved quietly, both of you, the old instinct from childhood — sock feet on the floorboards, weight on the outside of the step, don’t breathe past the third portrait because the floor creaks. You didn’t breathe past the third portrait. Jungwon didn’t either. The third door. It was heavier than the others — solid wood, original to the house, with an iron handle that your grandmother had refused to replace with something modern. You turned it slowly and pushed and the room opened up in the torchlight.

Your grandmother had called it the old study. Your father and Yang Junho used it when they met here — papers spread on the desk, the door closed, the polite fiction of privacy in someone else’s house. It smelled of old paper and woodsmoke and faintly, underneath that, the cedar and something clean that you’d noticed when Jungwon had hugged you in the sitting room two days ago and had been careful not to think about since. He’d been in here recently. “You came here,” you said. Not an accusation. “After she died,” he said. He moved into the room, swept the torchlight along the walls. “I wanted to understand what my father and yours were doing in here. What they kept here.”

“Did you find anything?”

“The desk was clean,” he said. “Whatever they kept here they took when she died. Or before.” He stopped the torch beam at the far wall. “But she was smarter than that.” The far wall was bookshelves. Floor to ceiling, the same as the library on the other side of the passage, filled with the kind of books that accumulate in old houses — mismatched, well-read, organised by a logic that was entirely your grandmother’s. You crossed to them and ran the torchlight along the spines and then you remembered something. Third door, her note had said. And then: start with the east corridor. Not the room. The door itself. You turned back. The door was solid wood, original to the house. Iron handle. And on the back of it — you moved the torch slowly — carved into the wood at hip height, almost invisible, a small symbol. A circle with a line through it. The same symbol your grandmother used to mark the starting square of any puzzle she set you. Start here.

You crouched down. Ran your fingers along the bottom of the door frame. A loose board. Not rotten, not accidental. Deliberately loosened, the nails removed and replaced with something that held the board in place but gave when you pressed the right spot. You pressed the right spot.nThe board lifted. Inside: a metal document box, dark with age, sealed with a combination lock. Three digits. Jungwon crouched beside you. His shoulder against yours again. “She changed the combination every year,” he said. “She told me that once. She said the only constant was the starting number.”

“Seven,” you said immediately. He looked at you. “She always started with seven,” you said. “Every combination, every puzzle. Seven was the beginning. She said it was the only number that looked like someone thinking.” He took the box. Turned the dial. Seven. Then you looked at each other. “Her birthday,” you said. “The month.”

“Four,” he said. Seven. Four. One digit left. “The crossword clue,” you said slowly. “Seven letters. She sent it to you. The answer—”

“Honesty,” he said. “Eight letters.”

“No,” you said. “Think about what she actually wrote. What two people share when they stop pretending.” You looked at the lock. “She wouldn’t use the answer. She’d use the question.” Jungwon was quiet for a second. “The number of the clue,” he said. “She sent me one clue.”

“Which number was it?” He thought. The candle from the passage room was far away now, just a distant suggestion of warmth. In the torchlight his face was all shadow and focus and the particular expression he’d had at nine years old whenever a puzzle was almost solved. “One,” he said. “It was clue one across.”

Seven. Four. One. The lock opened. Inside the metal box: A folder of documents. Financial records, correspondence, agreements bearing both your fathers’ signatures, dated across fifteen years. The architecture of the thing your grandmother had recorded in her notebook, now in primary source form — not her observations but the actual evidence, the originals, the paper trail that would make a lawyer sit up very straight. She had not just documented it. She had collected it. For fifteen years she had quietly, methodically, with the patience of someone who understood that the right time was not now but was coming, gathered every piece of paper that passed through this house and made copies and built a case and put it in a box under the floor of the room where the men who didn’t know she was watching met to do their careful, private business.

Jungwon sat on the floor of the study with the documents spread around him and read. You sat beside him and read. The candle burned down in the passage room. At some point you’d both ended up with your backs against the wall beneath the window, shoulders touching, documents in your laps, and the torch propped against the skirting board pointing at the ceiling and making the room dim and amber. Outside, the manor was completely silent. Inside, the only sound was the occasional turning of a page.

Around three in the morning Jungwon said, quietly: “He knew I’d find this eventually.”

“My father?”

“Mine.” He turned a page. “He structured it this way on purpose. Grandfathered it in so that when I took over I’d inherit the liability without inheriting the knowledge.” He paused. “He was protecting himself. He thought if I didn’t know the detail I couldn’t be held responsible for knowing and saying nothing.”

“He was wrong,” you said.

“Yes,” Jungwon said. “He was.” You looked at the document in your lap. Your father’s signature at the bottom of an agreement dated eleven years ago. Neat, confident, the signature of a man who did not expect to be looked at too closely. “What do we do with this?” you said.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But we don’t bury it.” She didn’t do this so we’d bury it again. Your own words from earlier, back to you. “No,” you agreed. “We don’t.” You sat on the floor of the old study in the dark with the evidence of your families’ careful deceptions around you and the envelope with both your names in your jacket and the photographs in the passage room and the clock somewhere in the east corridor counting its six extra minutes that nobody else knew about.

Jungwon’s head tipped back against the wall. He looked at the ceiling. “I used to think about what it would be like,” he said, “when you came back.” You were very still. “I’d built this whole — picture of it,” he said. “You walking in. Me being normal about it.” A short almost-laugh. “I was not normal about it.”

“You were professional,” you said. “You were very professionally warm.”

“I know,” he said. He sounded tired in a way that had nothing to do with three in the morning. “I’ve been professionally warm about a lot of things for a long time.” The torch light flickered. Steadied. “Jungwon—”

“Not yet,” he said quietly. He turned his head and looked at you and his face in the low amber light was very close and very tired and very much the face of someone carrying something he didn’t have a name for yet. “I know. I know there are — I know.” You looked at him. He looked at you. The house was completely silent. “Okay,” you said. Quietly. “Not yet.” He nodded. Looked back at the ceiling. You both sat there for another hour, reading your families’ secrets in the dark, shoulders touching, not saying the thing, the envelope in your jacket ticking like a clock. Outside, eventually, the dark began to grey at the edges. “We should go back,” you said.

“Yes,” he said. Neither of you moved for another minute. Then he gathered the documents with the careful deliberate hands of a man who had decided something, put them back in the box, locked it. Looked at the combination — seven, four, one — and then at you. “She really did plan everything,” he said.

“Down to the last detail,” you agreed. He almost smiled again. Three millimetres from the outside. “Infuriating woman,” he said. With so much love it wasn’t an insult at all. You put the box back under the board. You both stood up. In the corridor you walked in single file, sock feet, outside edge of the step, not breathing past the third portrait. At the point where the corridor split — your wing, his — you stopped. He stopped. “The envelope,” he said.

“Soon,” you said. He looked at you for a moment. The grey pre-dawn light from the window at the end of the corridor fell across half his face and left the other half in shadow and he looked like something your grandmother would have photographed — like something that belonged to this house, to this particular quality of light, to the specific hour before the world woke up and everyone put their surfaces back on. “Okay,” he said. He went left. You went right. You lay on your bed as the manor began to fill with the sounds of morning and you stared at the ceiling and you held the envelope on your chest over your heartbeat and you thought about seven letters and what they contained and you thought:

Soon.

—

You slept for three hours. It wasn’t restful sleep — it was the kind that happens to you rather than for you, pulling you under between one thought and the next and depositing you back on the surface before you’d actually recovered from anything. You dreamed about the passage room. About the photographs spread on the table. About your grandmother’s handwriting, the letters getting smaller and smaller until they were too small to read and you were pressing your face to the page trying to find the last thing she’d written and waking up with your cheek against the envelope. You lay there for a moment with the morning light coming through the curtains at the angle your grandmother had approved of and you listened to the manor breathing around you.

Somewhere below, the kitchen was already alive — the smell of rice and something warm coming up through the house the way it always had, the particular smell of this house in the morning that had lived in your memory for three years like a frequency you couldn’t quite tune out. In Barcelona your mornings smelled like coffee and exhaust and the bread from the bakery two streets over. You had loved that smell. You had also, on certain mornings, stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen and closed your eyes and tried to remember this one.

You got up. Showered. Dressed. Put the envelope in the drawer of your childhood desk beneath a sketchbook, which felt both insufficient and like exactly what your grandmother would do — hiding things in plain sight, in the most obvious containers, trusting the right people to know where to look. Then you went downstairs. The kitchen at eight in the morning held your mother, a cup of tea, and the particular quality of silence that meant she’d been sitting there long enough for the silence to have settled into something deliberate. She looked up when you came in. Her eyes moved over your face the way mothers’ eyes do — reading something, calibrating, deciding how much to say. “You were up late,” she said.

“Couldn’t sleep,” you said. Which was true. She nodded. Looked at her tea. “Your grandmother used to do that. Walk the house at night.” A pause. “She said the house was different in the dark. That you could hear it thinking.” You poured yourself tea and sat down across from her.

In the morning light your mother looked her age in a way she rarely allowed. The grief was closer to the surface now, unguarded, the performance of composed widowhood resting somewhere else for the hour before the house fully woke up. She had loved Han Sooja with the complicated ferocity of a daughter who had never quite understood her mother and had spent sixty years trying to. That love was real. You had never doubted it. “Are you alright?” you asked.

She looked at you for a moment. Something moved across her face — an assessment, a decision. “I’m managing,” she said. Which was not the same as yes and they both knew it. You wrapped your hands around your mug and thought about the notebook. About the woman’s name and the dates and Busan. About your grandmother sitting in this house for seven years watching your father’s careful second life and recording it and saying nothing to your mother because your mother had chosen not to see and Han Sooja had respected that choice while quietly preparing for the consequences of it. You thought about how to carry what you knew and not let it show. You were apparently not as good at this as your grandmother. “What is it?” your mother said.

“Nothing,” you said. “I’m just tired.” She looked at you for another moment. Let it go. “Haeun called a lawyer this morning,” she said. Conversational. Almost. “Her own lawyer. She says it’s just to understand her options.”

“Of course she did,” you said.

“She’s not—” your mother stopped. Started again. “She’s not wrong that your grandmother could have been clearer about her reasoning. For the records. The architectural documents.”

“She was very clear,” you said, carefully. “She put it in the will.”

“I know she did.” Your mother’s hands moved around her cup. “I know.” A pause that had more inside it than its length suggested. “Your grandmother kept a great deal to herself. I accepted that. I spent my whole life accepting that.” Something small and old in her voice. “I sometimes wonder what she knew that she didn’t tell me.” The kitchen clock ticked. You looked at your mother’s face. At the grief in it, and underneath the grief the older, more weathered thing that had been there longer. The thing that had learned to sit next to an absence and call it marriage. She knows something, you’d told Jungwon. I don’t think she knows the shape of it. “She loved you,” you said. “She just loved you in her own way.” Your mother smiled. Small, tired, true. “Yes,” she said. “She did.”

You found Haeun in the formal sitting room at nine with her laptop open and a woman you didn’t recognise sitting across from her — late forties, professional, the kind of person who carries a briefcase as a personality trait. The lawyer. Already here, already seated, already opening something on her tablet. Haeun looked up when you came in. Her smile was immediate and warm and about as genuine as a show home. “Good morning,” she said. “You look tired.”

“Good morning,” you said. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Just preliminary conversations,” Haeun said lightly. “You know me, I like to understand things properly. This is Ms. Bae, she specialises in estate law.”

Ms. Bae nodded at you with the professional neutrality of someone being paid to have no opinions. “Haeun,” you said. “Grandmother has been dead for three weeks.”

“I know that.”

“Her body is barely—”

“I know that,” Haeun said. Her voice didn’t change. Didn’t sharpen. Stayed exactly where it was, which was somehow worse. “I’m not doing this to hurt anyone. I’m doing this because grandmother made decisions that affect this whole family and I think it’s reasonable to—”

“She made her decisions very deliberately,” you said. “Specifically. With full possession of everything she knew and everything she was.”

“She was eighty-one and isolated and possibly—”

“Don’t,” you said. Quiet. “Don’t say it, Haeun. Not in this house.” A silence. Ms. Bae became deeply interested in her tablet. Haeun looked at you for a long moment. And then, beneath the performance of reasonableness, you saw something real — something that wasn’t greed, not exactly, but the older wound underneath it. The child who had grown up knowing their mother had a favourite. Not unloved but not — first. Never quite first. You understood it. You even felt for it. But you had a notebook upstairs and an envelope in a drawer and a dead woman’s trust and you were not going to let that be dismantled because your sister was still trying to win an argument with someone who was no longer here to have it.

“I’m not going to fight you,” you said. “But I’m also not going to make it easy. Whatever grandmother left me she left me for a reason and I intend to honour that.” Haeun held your gaze. “Fine,” she said. The warmth had gone down to its lowest setting. “Then we’ll let the lawyers talk.” You left the room.

Yerin found you at eleven. You were in the garden — the formal part, the clipped hedges and the stone paths, where you’d gone to be outside and think and be somewhere that wasn’t a room full of someone else’s agenda. You had your sketchbook with you out of habit, but you hadn’t opened it. You were just sitting on the bench near the old sundial, which had been telling the wrong time since the seventies and which your grandmother had also refused to correct. She came down the path alone. No Jungwon. That was intentional — you registered it immediately, the way you registered everything about Yerin, with the involuntary alertness of someone in the presence of a thing that requires careful watching. She was dressed impeccably even at eleven in the morning in someone else’s country house garden. She sat down on the other end of the bench without asking and crossed her ankles and looked at the hedge in front of her and said nothing for long enough that it became its own kind of statement. You waited. “You grew up here,” she said finally.

“Yes,” you said. “The families are neighbours.”

“But you treated this house like yours.”

“My grandmother lived here,” you said. “She made it feel like ours. Mine and Jungwon’s.” The name landed. You’d done it deliberately, put it out there plainly, because you were tired and had slept for three hours and were not in the mood for the slow-motion version of this conversation. Yerin turned and looked at you directly for the first time. She had remarkable eyes — dark, steady, the eyes of someone who had decided a long time ago that she would not be the one to look away first. “He talks about this place like it raised him,” she said.

“It did, partly,” you said. “His family’s estate is half a kilometre that way.” You gestured. “We were back and forth constantly. His mother and mine were close.” A pause. “He and I were close.”

“Were,” she said. “We haven’t seen each other in almost three years,” you said. “People change.”

“Do they,” she said. Not a question. You looked at the sundial. “I’m not here to cause problems,” you said. “I came home because my grandmother died.”

“I know why you came home,” Yerin said. And then, very precisely: “It’s not why you’re staying that I’m thinking about.” You looked at her. She looked back. That steady, unblinking gaze. “I know what you two were,” she said. “Not because he told me — he’s very careful about what he tells me. Because of the way he is in this house.” She paused. “He’s different here. He laughs differently. He moves differently.” Something moved across her face that was not quite hurt and not quite anger and was instead something more complicated and more honest than either. “I’ve been with him for a year and a half and I have never seen him laugh the way he laughed in that kitchen two nights ago.” The garden was quiet. You didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say that wouldn’t be a lie or a cruelty. “I’m not stupid,” Yerin said. “I know what his father wants. I know what my family wants. I know what this relationship is built on and I know what it isn’t built on.” She turned and looked at the hedge again. “But I’m also not going to simply—” she stopped. Started again. “I have worked very hard to be what he needs. What everyone needs him to have.”

“That sounds exhausting,” you said. Quietly. Without any edge. She was quiet for a moment. “It is,” she said. Which surprised you. The honesty of it, the sudden flatness of it, stripped of the careful surface. “It really is.” You sat with that. The sundial gave its wrong time to the grey winter sky. “I don’t have a plan,” you said. Truthfully. “I don’t know what I’m doing here beyond what I’ve told you. I came home for the funeral. I’m dealing with the estate. I’ll go back to Barcelona.”

Yerin looked at you. “Will you.”

“I have a life there,” you said.

“Yes,” she said. “You do.” She stood up, smoothed her coat, looked down at you with those steady dark eyes. “And he has one here. One that was built very carefully. One that a lot of people are depending on.” A pause. “I want you to remember that.” She walked back up the path toward the house. You sat on the bench and watched her go and thought about what she’d said and what she hadn’t said and the specific way she’d said I have worked very hard to be what he needs with the exhaustion of someone describing a job they are very good at and do not love. You thought about Jungwon laughing in the kitchen. The three millimetres. You thought about a net over an abyss and what it meant to finally look down. You opened your sketchbook. You didn’t draw anything. You just sat with the blank page.

He found you there at noon. He came down the same path Yerin had come down an hour earlier and you watched him come and thought about what she’d said — he moves differently here — and looked for it and found it immediately, the thing she’d named. He walked like the house was familiar to him at the cellular level. Like his body remembered it even when the rest of him was trying to be someone who’d moved on. “Yerin talked to you,” he said. Not a question. “How did you know?”

“She told me,” he said. He sat down on the bench — the middle of it, not the far end. Closer than Yerin had sat. “She said she needed to talk to you and I asked her not to and she did it anyway.”

“She loves you,” you said. He looked at the sundial. “I know.”

“And you—”

“Don’t,” he said. Quietly. You stopped. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, looking at the ground between his feet. His jaw was tight. The professional composure was not all the way up this morning — three hours of sleep and a garden and nobody watching except you and it had slipped. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were going to ask if I love her.” He paused. “The answer is that I care about her and I respect her and I have not been—” he stopped— “I haven’t been fair to her. I know that. I’ve known it for—” another stop. Longer.

“Jungwon,” you said. He looked up. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” you said. “We’re not—” you gestured vaguely— “I’m not owed that.”

He looked at you for a long moment. “That’s the problem,” he said. His voice was very quiet. “That’s exactly the problem.” The wind moved through the formal garden. Somewhere across the grounds a door opened and closed. The manor held its breath. You looked at him. He looked at you. Three millimetres. “The envelope,” he said.

“Tonight,” you said. “Passage room.” He nodded. Looked away. Looked back. “She told me,” he said, “that you’d go back to Barcelona.”

“I have a life there,” you said. The same words.

“I know,” he said. He stood up. Straightened. The composure coming back up like a tide. “Tonight,” he said.

“Tonight,” you said. He went back up the path. You sat on the bench with your blank sketchbook page and the wrong-time sundial and the specific feeling of being someone standing at the edge of something enormous trying to decide whether enormous things were better walked toward or run from. Your grandmother had never run from anything. You closed the sketchbook.

—

The house went quiet at eleven. You heard it happen the way you always had — the gradual diminuendo of a building settling into night, the last doors closing, the last lights going off under the gap at the bottom of the corridor, the grandfather clock doing its twelve-stroke accounting of the hours. Your father had gone to bed early. Your mother had sat up reading, or pretending to read, until ten. Haeun and Minjae had retired without saying goodnight to you, which was its own kind of statement. Yang Junho had gone back to the Yang estate after dinner, taking his easy laugh and his careful warmth with him. Yerin was in the room at the end of the east guest corridor.

Jungwon was — you didn’t know exactly. His footsteps had gone past your door at ten-thirty and not come back. You sat on your bed with the envelope in your hands and the Calvino face-down beside you and you waited until the house was completely still.

Then you went to the third panel from the left.

He was already there. Both candles this time, placed at opposite ends of the small stone table, and the photographs still spread from two nights ago, and the barley tea thermos again because apparently this was something he did now — thought about whether you’d be cold, acted on it, said nothing about it. The second mismatched chair was pulled out at the angle that meant this is for you. You sat down. He sat down. You put the envelope on the table between the two candles.

Both your names. Her handwriting. The paper slightly worn at the fold from the number of times you’d handled it without opening it. You both looked at it. “I keep thinking,” Jungwon said, “that once we open it that’s it. Whatever she says becomes the thing she said. You can’t—” he paused— “you can’t unknow it.”

“We already know most of it,” you said.

“Not what she meant to do with it,” he said. “Not what she wanted from us.”

You looked at the envelope. “She wanted us to be ready,” you said. “That’s why she didn’t just leave it with the will. That’s why she put the notebook in the bedroom and the box under the floor and the photographs in the tin.” You turned the envelope over in your hands. “She was building up to this. She wanted us to find everything else first so that when we read this we’d—”

“Have the context,” he said.

“Be ready,” you said again.

He looked at you. “Are you?”

You thought about three years in Barcelona. About Sunday calls and tangerines in the post and the Calvino on your shelf and the way you’d stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen with a dead leaf in your hand and almost called him and didn’t. About the photograph on your grandmother’s dresser — your desk, your lamp, your small evidence of a life being built somewhere else. About the library. Seventeen years old. Him in the chair above you, you on the floor, neither of you looking at each other. “No,” you said honestly. “Open it anyway.”

He broke the seal. His hands were steady. Steadier than yours would have been — you knew that about yourself, that you went very shaken when things were enormous, that shakiness was your version of bracing.

He unfolded the paper with the care of someone handling something irreplaceable and laid it flat on the table between the candles. Her handwriting. Small, precise. Three pages, front and back, in the blue ink she’d used your entire life. You both leaned in and read.

To my granddaughter, and to Jungwon-ah.

I am writing this in October, which is the best month in this garden, and I am sitting at my desk with the window open and I can hear the tree. I want you to know that I am well as I write this. Clear-headed, if slower than I used to be. I have thought carefully about what I want to say and I have decided to say it directly because I am eighty-one years old and I have spent enough of my life being indirect and while I believe indirectness is an art form and frequently undervalued I think you two have earned something plainer.

First: the house. I am leaving it to you, my girl, because you understand what a building is. Not the walls or the deeds or the history that other people will try to tell you it represents. You understand that a house is a record of what happened inside it. That the walls remember. You will know what to do with what you find here and you will know what to do with the house itself when the time comes. I trust this completely.

Jungwon-ah: I am not leaving you the house because you already know where everything is. You have spent fifteen years learning its rooms and its passages and its particular way of holding secrets. You don’t need the deed. You need the person who has it.

Now. The harder things. I have kept records for seven years. You will have found them by now — the notebook, the box, all of it. I want to be clear about why I kept them. Not for revenge, though I will not pretend there is no satisfaction in the idea of your father finding out that I saw everything he thought he was doing privately. Not for leverage. I kept them because the truth was happening in my house and I refused to let it happen without a witness. Someone had to see it. I decided that person would be me. What you do with the records is your decision, not mine.

I have opinions, which I will share: the arrangement between the companies is not survivable in its current form and the longer it is maintained the larger the liability becomes. Jungwon-ah, your father built something with good intentions and poor judgment and the combination is always more dangerous than either alone. You are more careful than he is. You are also more honest, which he would consider a weakness and which I consider the only thing that will save you.

As for your father Y/N, I have watched him for twenty-two years. I have watched your mother choose not to watch him. I will not make that choice for her. When the time comes — and it will come, these things always do — she will need you both. Not to fix it. You cannot fix it. Just to stay.

And now the thing I have been working up to. I have watched you both for fifteen years. I have taken photographs and kept crosswords and sent tangerines in the post and asked questions I already knew the answers to and I have been, I think, excessively patient. I want to explain why. I was not waiting for the right moment. I was waiting for you both to become the people who could survive the right moment.

You were children and then you were young people and there is a specific kind of damage that happens when the right thing arrives before a person is ready to hold it and I was not willing to risk that with either of you. I believe you are ready now. I am saying this plainly because I am eighty-one and I have earned the right to be plain: I have never in my life seen two people more thoroughly and more stubbornly fail to see what was directly in front of them. I say this with tremendous love and only moderate exasperation.

You grew up beside each other. You ransacked my kitchen and chased my chickens and ran through my house with muddy shoes and I watched you do all of it and I watched what happened in the spaces between the noise, which is where the real things were. I watched you learn each other. I watched you become the people each other needed. I watched you not say it and not say it and not say it and I thought: they are seventeen, they have time.

And then you left, my girl. And I understood why, and I respected it, and I watched Jungwon-ah come and sit in my garden and not say anything about it for three years, and I watched you call me every Sunday from Barcelona and not ask about him directly, always sideways, always carefully, and I thought: they are going to need some help. This is the help.

I am giving you the house and I am giving you the records and I am giving you the passages and the photographs and the puzzles and the box under the floor. I am giving you October light through an open window and barley tea and two chairs in a room nobody else knows about. I am giving you every door I can think to unlock.

The rest is yours. I love you both. I have loved watching you. I am not afraid of where I’m going but I am sorry to miss what comes next. Take care of the tree.

— Halmoni.

P.S. Jungwon-ah; the seven of spades. You will remember what that means. It was always yours.

The candles burned. You read it once and then you sat back and looked at the stone ceiling and blinked several times in rapid succession. Your grandmother had said she was going to be plain and she had been plain and it had landed exactly as she’d intended it to, which was with the force of something that had been true for a very long time and had simply been waiting for someone to say it out loud.

Jungwon had not moved. He was still leaning forward, elbows on the table, reading the last page. Or re-reading it. Or sitting very still the way he did when something was enormous.

You looked at the side of his face. At the candlelight on it. At the line of his jaw and the way his eyes moved across the page and the three millimetres that had been there since you’d walked into the sitting room and found him across the room and felt your stomach drop straight through the floor. He sat back.He looked at the letter for another moment. Then he looked at you.

“The seven of spades,” he said. His voice was different. Quieter. Stripped of something.

“What does it mean?” you said. He reached into the pocket of his shirt. And he put something on the table. A playing card. The seven of spades. The one from the first tin, that you’d left there — or a second one, identical, worn at the edges with age.

“She gave it to me,” he said, “when I was sixteen. We were playing cards in this room and she dealt us both a hand and when I turned mine over there was a seven of spades on top and she said—” he paused— “she said that one’s yours. Keep it. And I didn’t know what she meant, I thought she was just being—” a brief sound that was almost a laugh— “herself. Being her. So I kept it.” He turned the card over in his fingers. “I’ve had it in my wallet for seven years. I take it out sometimes. I never knew what it meant.”

You looked at the card. “Seven of spades,” you said. “In cartomancy—”

“I looked it up eventually,” he said. “Three years ago. Right after you left.”

“What does it mean?”

He put the card down on the table. Looked at it. “Unfinished business,” he said. “Something that was set in motion and hasn’t resolved. Something that’s still—” he stopped.

“Still in motion,” you said.

“Yes.” The candles. The stone room. Fifteen photographs on the table. Your grandmother’s handwriting on three pages of blue ink telling you both the plainest truth she’d saved for last. I have never in my life seen two people more thoroughly and more stubbornly fail to see what was directly in front of them. “She was right,” you said quietly. “About the thoroughly and stubbornly part.”

“Infuriating woman,” he said again. But his voice broke slightly on the last word and it wasn’t exasperation at all, it was grief, it was the specific grief of missing someone who knew you completely and there was nothing to do with that kind of grief except let it be exactly as large as it was.

You reached across the table. Your hand over his. He looked down at it. He didn’t move for a moment. Then he turned his hand over beneath yours and held it. Just that — palm to palm, his fingers closing around yours, the simple warm weight of it. You sat like that for a while. “Jungwon,” you said eventually.

“I know,” he said.

“There’s—” you started. “There’s a lot happening. The records, the companies, Haeun, your father—”

“I know.”

“And Yerin.” His hand tightened slightly around yours. Not pulling away.

“I know,” he said. A third time. A different weight each time.

You looked at the letter. At the last line before the postscript. I am not afraid of where I’m going but I am sorry to miss what comes next. “She would have loved this,” you said. “Being right.”

“She would have been unbearable about it,” he said.

“She would have been so restrained,” you said. “She would have just looked at us and not said anything and somehow that would have been worse.” He made that almost-laugh sound again. It was closer this time. It was getting closer. “She sent me one tangerine,” you said.

“She made me finish the crossword,” he said.

“She kept fifteen photographs in a tin.”

“She put fresh batteries in the torch.” You both looked at the candles. “She planned everything,” you said.

“Everything,” he agreed. His thumb moved. Once, across your knuckles. The smallest possible thing.

The candle on the left burned down to its base and went out. The room got smaller. The remaining candle made everything amber and close and the stone walls pressed in gently and the photographs were spread on the table and his hand was in yours and outside the manor the winter was doing whatever winter does at two in the morning.

“Tell me something about Barcelona,” he said. Quietly. Like he was asking for something he’d wanted for a long time and had finally decided to ask for. You thought about it.

“There’s a building,” you said. “In the Eixample. Not famous, not on any list, nobody goes specifically to see it. But at five in the afternoon in autumn the light hits the facade in this particular way and it looks like—” you paused, finding the words— “it looks like it’s remembering something. Like the building is having a memory.” You paused. “I used to walk past it on the way home and think about this house. About how old buildings hold things.” He was quiet. “I used to think about you,” you said. Because your grandmother had spent three pages telling you to stop not saying things. “When I walked past it. About showing you.”

He looked at your joined hands. “I used to drive past the airport,” he said. Not looking up. “When flights from Barcelona came in. Not to meet anyone. Just—” he stopped.

“Just,” you said.

“Just,” he said. The last candle flickered. In the amber half-dark you looked at each other and everything your grandmother had written was true and had been true for longer than either of you had been willing to name it and the net was still holding, still holding, and below it was the abyss which you were both finally, for the first time, looking directly at.

He leaned forward. You leaned forward. The candle went out.

In the dark: his forehead against yours. His breath. Both your hands on the table between the photographs. Just that. Just the weight of it. The held thing, finally held between two people instead of inside one. “Not yet,” he said. Against your forehead. His voice was barely sound.

“I know,” you said.

“I have to—” he stopped. “There are things I have to do first. Things I have to say. To her. To my father. I can’t—” he exhaled. “I won’t do this like it’s something to hide. I won’t do that to you.”

Your eyes had adjusted to the dark. You could just see the shape of him. The outline. “Okay,” you said.

“Soon,” he said. And it was your word back to you, the one you’d been handing back and forth for days, and in his mouth it meant something different now. It meant a door about to open rather than one being held closed.

“Soon,” you said.

You stayed like that for another minute. Foreheads together in the dark. Hands on the table. The letter between the extinguished candles.

Then you both sat back. He found the torch. Clicked it on. The room came back. He looked at you in the white torchlight and you looked at him and there was something different in the air of the room now, something that had been there all along but had finally been acknowledged, and it was terrifying and it was also — underneath the terrifying — the most settled you had felt since you’d stepped off the plane.

He folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope. “Keep it with the notebook,” he said.

“I will.” He stood. You stood. He looked at the seven of spades on the table. He picked it up. Held it for a moment. Then he put it in your hand.

“She said it was mine,” he said. “I think she meant it was ours.” You closed your fingers around it. He picked up the torch. You followed the light out of the secret room and back into the walls of the manor, and the house held you both the way it always had, and somewhere in the east corridor the grandfather clock ticked through its six extra minutes that nobody else knew about, and the walls remembered everything.

—

Morning came in like it hadn’t been briefed on what happened the night before. Pale winter light through the curtains. The kitchen smell rising through the house. The grandfather clock doing its eight-stroke announcement of an hour you’d technically only slept through three of.

You lay on your back with the seven of spades on the nightstand beside the Calvino and the envelope in the drawer and you stared at the ceiling and felt the specific quality of a day that was going to be significant before it had done anything yet. Forehead against yours. His breath. Soon.

You got up.

You didn’t see Jungwon at breakfast. His seat was empty. Yerin’s too. You registered this with the carefully neutral expression of someone who had been trained by their grandmother to reveal nothing at inopportune moments and you ate your rice and drank your tea and listened to your father talk to Yang Junho about something that had nothing to do with anything your grandmother had documented and you watched your father’s face and thought about the woman’s name recurring through seven years of entries.

Yang Junho was in good form this morning. Easy, expansive, filling the room the way he always did. He’d stayed over — the guest room on the second floor, the one with the good view of the garden. He spoke warmly about your grandmother, about the estate, about the families’ long history together and what a comfort it was to be here, to be among people who understood the weight of a loss like this.

Your mother smiled at him. Your father nodded. You watched the space between the three of them and thought about what your grandmother had written. Your father built something with good intentions and poor judgment and the combination is always more dangerous than either alone. She had meant Yang Junho. But sitting here watching your own father nod along, the sentence fit like a coat made for two people.

Haeun arrived at half past eight with the bright eyes of someone who’d slept well because they’d externalised all their feelings into legal strategy. She kissed your mother’s cheek and sat down and accepted coffee and was charming to Yang Junho and you watched her work the table and thought: she has no idea. She is fighting about the wrong things entirely. None of them know what’s in this house. None of them know what’s in the walls.

You found out where Jungwon was at nine-fifteen when you were coming back from the garden and heard voices in the east corridor. Not arguing. Not quite. But the specific register of a conversation that was trying very hard not to become an argument and was losing. Yerin’s voice, low and controlled: “I just want to know if something changed.”

Jungwon’s voice, careful, deliberate, the voice he used when he was being honest and it was costing him: “Nothing happened.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

A pause. “Yerin—”

“Don’t.” A silence. “Don’t say my name like that. Like you’re managing me.” You had stopped walking. You were standing three metres from the bend in the corridor with your hand flat against the pale blue wallpaper and you were not moving.

“I’m not managing you,” he said. “I’m trying to—”

“You’ve been trying to say something since we got here,” she said. “I’ve been watching you try to say it for three days. And last night you didn’t come to bed until four in the morning and you thought I was asleep but I wasn’t.” A long silence.

When he spoke again his voice was different. Quieter. The professionalism gone all the way down. “I know,” he said.

“Is it her,” Yerin said. Not a question. The wallpaper under your hand was cool and slightly rough, the texture of something very old.

“It’s not—” he started.

“Jungwon.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “It was never—” a pause— “I didn’t come here intending for anything to—”

“I know you didn’t,” she said. And the thing in her voice was not what you expected. It wasn’t fury. It was the exhausted, clear-eyed honesty of someone who had known something for a long time and had chosen not to name it and had now run out of reasons not to. “I’ve known since we arrived. I think I knew before we arrived. I think I’ve known for—” she stopped herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said. And he meant it. You could hear that he meant it completely.

“Don’t apologise for having feelings,” she said. “Apologise for letting me come here. For letting me stand in that sitting room and meet her and pretend I didn’t see it immediately.” Her voice wavered once, precisely once, and then steadied. “Apologise for making me the person who had to see it clearly while you were still pretending.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. Different weight.

“Is it real?” she said. “Or is it just — this house, the history, grief making everything feel—”

“It’s real,” he said quietly. “It’s been real for a long time. Before Barcelona. Before the company. Before any of this.” A pause. “I should have known that before I—” he stopped. “I should have been more honest with you from the beginning. About what I was carrying.” You closed your eyes.

“Your father is going to be furious,” Yerin said. Not bitterly. Just factually.

“I know.”

“Mine too.”

“I know.” Another silence. Longer. You could hear the quality of two people recalibrating.

“I don’t hate her,” Yerin said finally. “I wanted to. It would be easier.” A short sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “She’s exactly what I expected her to be. Which is somehow the worst part. I’m going to need some time,” she said. “And I’m going to need you to not be — kind about this. I can’t do kind right now.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Go sort out whatever you need to sort out,” she said. “I’ll handle the rest.” Footsteps. You moved. Fast, silent, back around the bend in the corridor and into the doorway of the linen room, pressing yourself into the shadow of it, heart going considerably faster than was dignified.

Yerin came around the corner and walked past you without seeing you. Her face was composed and dry-eyed and very, very tired and she walked like someone who had made a decision and was now simply executing it, one step at a time, down the corridor and around the next bend and gone. You stood in the linen room doorway and breathed.

You didn’t go to him. That was the right thing and you knew it was the right thing — he needed time, she needed time, the corridor needed to stop being the corridor where that conversation had happened before it was the corridor where you appeared. So you went to the library instead and sat in the armchair — his armchair, seventeen years old, the photograph, you on the floor — and opened the Calvino and read three pages without taking in a single sentence.

The library was the warmest room in the house in winter. South-facing windows, old rugs, the smell of paper and wood and decades of accumulated reading. Your grandmother had called it the room that minds its own business, which was the highest compliment she gave to spaces. You put the Calvino face-down on your knee and looked at the ceiling.

He’d said it. It’s been real for a long time. Before Barcelona. You thought about being seventeen in this room. Him in the chair above you. Neither of you looking at each other and both of you angled toward each other like plants toward light, so obvious in retrospect, so invisible from the inside. You thought about the morning you left for Barcelona. Five-thirty, still dark, your father loading the car. Your mother with tea in a thermos for the journey. And Jungwon — he’d come over, you hadn’t expected him, you’d seen the lights of his car in the driveway and felt something lurch in your chest and he’d gotten out and stood there with his hands in his pockets and said text me when you land and you’d said I will and the distance between you had been three metres and had felt like something that would grow and that you were choosing to let grow and that you were not going to say anything about.

You’d landed. You’d texted. He’d replied immediately: good.

That was all. Three years of Sundays with your grandmother and not once had you called him directly. Thoroughly and stubbornly, she’d written. I say this with tremendous love and only moderate exasperation. You pressed the book against your face and made a sound into it that was not your most dignified moment.

The knock on the library door came at eleven. Not Jungwon. You knew by the knock — two short, businesslike, the knock of someone who had decided they were coming in regardless of the answer. “Come in,” you said.

Your father. He came in and closed the door behind him with the careful quietness of someone who wanted this conversation to stay in the room. He was dressed well, as always, silver-templed, handsome in the way that photographs well, and this morning there was something different in the way he was holding himself. A tension in the shoulders. Something behind his eyes that was working too hard to look like nothing. “I thought I’d find you here,” he said.

“It’s a good room,” you said. He looked around it. Nodded. Came and sat in the chair across from you — not Jungwon’s chair, the other one, lower, the one your grandmother had used when she wanted to read facing the garden.

“How are you doing?” he said. “Really. With all of it.”

“I’m managing,” you said.

“The business with Haeun and the will—”

“I can handle Haeun.”

“I know you can.” He smiled. The practiced warmth of it. “You’re the most capable person in this family, you know that. You always have been. Your grandmother always said so.” You looked at him. He was too eager to know what the letter said, too careful about the manor.

“She mentioned you in the letter,” you said. You hadn’t planned to say it. But you were your grandmother’s granddaughter and you had learned from the best and sometimes the direct approach was the one that told you the most. His face did not change. That was the tell — a different face would have changed, would have shown surprise or curiosity, would have asked what did she say?

His face stayed precisely where it was, which meant he’d been expecting this, which meant he’d been thinking about what she might have known and deciding how to handle it. “That’s kind,” he said. “She was a remarkable woman.”

“She was,” you said. “She was also very thorough.”

“What do you mean?” he said. Light. Careful.

“She kept records,” you said. “Of the house. Of the people in it. Of — everything, really. You know how she was.”

“Of course,” he said. The smile staying exactly where it was.

“Dad,” you said. Quietly. Not an accusation. Just his name. And something shifted. Something small but real — a crack in the surface, so quick you’d have missed it if you weren’t watching carefully, if you hadn’t been trained your whole life by the woman who’d taught you that the truth lived in the space between what people said and what their face did when they said it.

“Whatever you think you know,” he said. Still quiet. Still composed. “I want you to understand that things between your mother and I are—”

“Complicated?” you said.

“Adult,” he said. “They’re adult. They’re not—” he stopped. Reorganised. “Your grandmother had opinions about my marriage that she never fully expressed to me but which I was always aware of. Whatever she wrote—”

“I haven’t decided what to do with it yet,” you said. That landed. He looked at you. Really looked at you, for the first time in the conversation, with the eyes of a man recalibrating what he was dealing with.

“You’re very like her,” he said. Slowly. And it wasn’t a compliment exactly and it wasn’t a threat exactly and it sat in the space between those two things doing something complicated.

“Thank you,” you said. As if it had been a compliment.

He stood up. Straightened his jacket. Moved toward the door. At the door he stopped. “The architectural records,” he said. Without turning around. “The original documents. The floor plans.” A pause. “Is there anything in them that would be — relevant to current matters.”

You thought about the metal box under the floor of the third room. The fifteen years of documents. His signature at the bottom of an agreement dated eleven years ago. “I haven’t gone through everything yet,” you said. He nodded. Once. And left.

—

The thing about a house full of people keeping secrets is that the secrets create pressure. And pressure, sustained long enough, finds the weakest point. The weakest point turned out to be the sitting room at two in the afternoon when the families had reconvened in the way they kept reconvening, pulled together by the gravity of the occasion and the shared fiction that everything was normal, that this was simply a gathering of old friends in mourning, that the ground was solid.

Yang Junho was telling a story about your grandmother — a good one, genuinely funny, about a business meeting she had attended thirty years ago and dominated completely without ever raising her voice. Your mother was laughing. Your father was laughing. Even Haeun was laughing.

Jungwon was sitting across the room. He’d come in ten minutes ago and taken the chair by the window and met your eyes briefly when he sat down and then looked away. He hadn’t spoken much. Yang Junho had put his hand on his son’s shoulder when he came in and Jungwon had not visibly reacted and you had watched the specific quality of that not-reacting and understood that something had already happened between them this morning.

Yerin was not in the room. Nobody had asked where she was.

You were watching the fire when Haeun’s phone rang. She glanced at it, made a small apologetic gesture, and stepped out. Two minutes later she came back in and her face had done something you hadn’t seen it do in a very long time — it had gone genuinely, unperformatively still. The stillness of shock. She looked at your father. “I need to speak with you,” she said. “Now.”

The room shifted. Your father’s laugh ended. “Haeun—” your mother said.

“Not you,” Haeun said. Still looking at your father. Her voice had no warmth in it at all, no performance, nothing. “Just him.”

“Whatever you need to say—” your father started.

“I was just on the phone with Ms. Bae,” Haeun said. And something in her voice made everyone in the room go very still. “She’s been going through the estate filings. The things that were submitted publicly as part of the probate record.” She paused. The pause was a grenade with the pin already pulled. “She found a company filing. Seven years ago. A subsidiary registered under a holding name.” She looked at your father. “Your name is on it. And so is the name of a woman who is listed as a joint director.”

The fire crackled. Your mother turned to look at your father. And on your father’s face — just for a moment, one unguarded moment before the composed surface came back up — was the expression of a man who had known this day was coming for seven years and had convinced himself it wouldn’t. “Haeun,” he said. Warning.

“Her name is Park Jooyeon,” Haeun said. She said it clearly, without hesitation, the way you rip off a plaster because fast is kinder than slow. “She’s been listed as a director of your subsidiary for seven years. The filing also shows a residential address which is—” she glanced at her phone— “not this house.” Your mother said nothing. The room held its breath.

“I think,” Yang Junho said, standing up with the practiced authority of a man who had been managing rooms for forty years, “that this is perhaps a family conversation—”

“Sit down, Junho,” your mother said. He sat down. Everyone looked at your mother. She was looking at your father. Her face was doing something you had never seen it do and hoped never to see again — not anger, not shock, but the specific expression of a person watching something they already knew become something they could no longer choose not to know. The shape of it finally arriving. The avoidance finally over. “How long,” she said. Your father opened his mouth. “Don’t lie to me,” she said. Very quietly. “I have lived in the shape of this lie for long enough. Don’t make me hear another one.”

“Mum—” you said.

“Not now,” she said. Without looking at you. Still looking at him.

“At least twenty years,” Haeun said. She’d gone very pale. Her voice had lost its edge — she’d wanted ammunition and she’d gotten a detonation and they were different things and she was just now feeling the difference. “Ms. Bae found earlier filings. Different company name. Same address.”

Twenty years. The number went around the room. Your mother stood up. “I would like everyone to leave this room,” she said. With the composure of someone who had spent sixty years learning from Han Sooja how to be still when everything was breaking. “Except for my husband.”

People stood. Moved. Yang Junho put his hand briefly on your mother’s shoulder as he passed and she didn’t acknowledge it and he didn’t require her to. You stood in the doorway. Your mother looked at you. Her eyes were dry. They would probably stay dry — that was her way, the Han way, grief and fury going inward first and only surfacing when she was ready to let them. You recognised it because you did it too. She gave you the smallest nod.

The corridor outside the sitting room. Jungwon was there. He’d come out just ahead of you and he was standing at the window at the end of the corridor with his back to the room, looking out at the winter garden, his hands loose at his sides. You came and stood beside him.

Below: the formal garden, the stone paths, the sundial giving its wrong time. The bench where Yerin had sat beside you. The path where you’d watched him walk back to the house with his composure settling over him like a coat. “She planned this too,” you said quietly. “Not the sitting room. But — she knew this would happen. Eventually. She wrote it in the notebook. It will come, these things always do.”

“Yes,” he said.

“She wanted us here when it did.”

“Yes,” he said again. You looked at the garden.

“Your father,” you said. “This morning.” He exhaled. Not a sigh — something more deliberate than that. Something he’d been holding since before breakfast.

“He came to me at eight,” he said. “He’d already spoken to yours. Some kind of warning system they’d apparently arranged.” His jaw tightened. “He told me there might be some questions raised about the companies in the coming days and that I should be prepared to manage the narrative.”

“Manage the narrative,” you said.

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him,” Jungwon said carefully, “that I’d been looking at the companies for six months and that I thought what he’d built with your father was a liability and that I wasn’t prepared to manage any narrative that involved me pretending I didn’t know what I knew.”

“How did he take that?”

“About as well as you’d expect.” You looked at his profile. The set of his jaw. The tiredness in him that was different from yesterday’s tiredness — this was the tiredness of someone who had said the honest thing to their father and was living in the aftermath.

“Yerin left,” he said. “An hour ago. Her driver came.”

“I know,” you said. “I heard — I was in the corridor. This morning. I didn’t mean to hear.”

He looked at you. “How much?”

“Enough,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He looked back at the garden. “She was right about all of it. I wasn’t fair to her.” A pause. “She deserved better than what I gave her.”

“She’s going to be alright,” you said. Because it was true — you’d seen it in Yerin’s face, that hard clear-eyed competence. She would grieve this in private and then she would be formidable again. Women like Yerin always were.

“I know,” he said. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“No,” you said. “It doesn’t.” Below, the sundial. The wrong time. Your grandmother’s unrepentant refusal to correct anything that she’d decided was fine as it was. Inside the sitting room your mother was having the conversation that had been twenty years in the making.

In the walls of the house the passages waited, the photographs on the table in the candlelit room, the seven of spades somewhere in your jacket. “What happens now?” you said.

He turned from the window and looked at you directly and his face had none of the professional composure on it and none of the careful distance and was just — him. Tired and honest and present in the way he’d been at one in the morning on the floor of the old study and in the way he’d been at seventeen in the library and in the way he’d always been when it was just you and the house and none of the surfaces required. “Now,” he said, “everything falls apart for a while.”

“And then?”

He looked at you for a long moment. “And then we see what’s left,” he said. From behind the sitting room door, muffled and distant, your mother’s voice. Not loud. Never loud. But with an edge in it like a clean cut, precise and final, the voice of a woman who had decided that the shape of this particular truth was one she was done living inside.

The house held it all. The grief and the reckoning and the long-delayed arrivals of things that had been on their way for years. The walls remembered. They always had. Your grandmother had known that. She’d counted on it.

—

The house didn’t sleep that night. Not really. It had the shape of sleeping — quiet corridors, dark rooms, the grandfather clock marking hours into silence — but underneath it was awake the way houses get when something significant has happened inside them. Like the walls were still processing. Like the rooms needed time to absorb what they’d held that afternoon.

Your mother had come out of the sitting room at four o’clock. She’d walked past you in the corridor with her back straight and her face composed and her eyes doing the thing they did — grief going inward, fury going inward, everything going inward to be dealt with in private on her own terms in her own time. She’d touched your face with one hand as she passed. Just that. Her palm against your cheek for three seconds, warm and dry, and then she’d gone upstairs.

Your father had left the sitting room twenty minutes later. He’d taken his coat from the rack by the front door and gone outside and you’d watched from the corridor window as he walked down the front drive and stood at the gate and made a phone call and you had not needed to wonder who he was calling.

Haeun had found you at five and said I didn’t mean for it to come out like that and you’d said I know because you did know — she’d wanted leverage and had accidentally dismantled the family instead and the gap between those two things had clearly shaken her more than she’d expected. You’d made her tea. You’d sat with her in the kitchen while she held the mug and stared at the table. That was the most honest you’d been with each other in years, sitting in silence while your family reconfigured itself in the rooms above you.

Yang Junho had left at six. Businesslike, minimal. He’d shaken your father’s hand when your father came back in and something had passed between them in that handshake — something that looked like a renegotiation — and then he was gone.

Jungwon had stayed. You’d seen him at dinner, which was quiet and reduced and nothing like the dinners this house was built for. Your mother had come down and eaten and said almost nothing and your father had sat at the opposite end of the table from her and the distance between them had the specific quality of a distance that had always existed but had only just been measured.

Haeun and Minjae had left after dinner. Minjae had squeezed your shoulder on the way out, which was the most he’d ever communicated to you directly and which you’d appreciated. And then the house had gone quiet. And you had lain on your bed and stared at the ceiling and waited for sleep and sleep had declined the invitation.

The clock in the east corridor struck two when you were already in the kitchen. You hadn’t turned the overhead light on. Just the small light above the stove, the one that had always been there, the one that turned the kitchen amber and warm and made it look the way it looked in every memory you had of it.

You were standing at the counter with both hands wrapped around a mug of tea you hadn’t drunk yet and you were looking at the window above the sink and the darkness outside it and you were thinking about your mother’s palm against your cheek. Just to stay, your grandmother had written. Not to fix it. You cannot fix it. Just to stay.

You heard him before you saw him. The particular sound of his footsteps — the outside edge of the step, old habit, the way you moved in this house at night without deciding to. The door opened. You didn’t turn around. He came in. Stopped. Registered the amber light and you at the counter and said nothing for a moment. Then he crossed the room and stood beside you at the counter and looked at the dark window and also said nothing. You handed him your tea. He took it. Drank. Handed it back. “How is she?” he said. Quietly.

“She went to bed at nine,” you said. “I don’t think she’s sleeping either.”

“No,” he said.

“He’s in the guest room,” you said. “The east one. He didn’t try to go to their room.”

“Small mercies,” Jungwon said. The clock in the east corridor was very faint from here. Just a suggestion of ticking. The kitchen had its own sound — the refrigerator’s low hum, the settling of the old pipes, the back door with the broken latch occasionally sighing in the wind.

“Your father,” you said.

“We talked again after dinner,” he said. “When you were with your mother.” He paused. “I told him I’ve been building a case for six months. That I know what the arrangement is. That I’m going to have to restructure the company’s position and that it’s going to require disclosure and that he needs to be prepared for that.”

“How did he take it?”

“He told me I didn’t understand business.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him I understood it well enough to know that what he’d built was going to collapse eventually and that the only question was whether we were the ones who dismantled it carefully or whether it fell on us.” A pause. “He said I sounded like your grandmother.”

“Good,” you said. Something moved in Jungwon’s face. Almost a smile. You put the mug down. Turned around and leaned against the counter with your arms crossed not as a defence but as something to do with your hands. He turned too, mirroring you, and you stood there facing each other in the amber kitchen light and the house was completely quiet and you were both in old clothes — him in a dark t-shirt and soft trousers, you in whatever you’d put on when sleep became definitively not happening — and there were no surfaces up at two in the morning in this kitchen. There never had been. That was the thing about this room. It didn’t allow for them.

“She’s going to be alright,” you said. About your mother. About the specific quality of her composure.

“I know,” he said. “She’s a Han woman.”

“Don’t let her hear you say it like that or she’ll take it as an insult.”

“She’d be right,” he said. “It was completely a compliment.”

You looked at him. He looked at you. The refrigerator hummed. “Jungwon,” you said.

“Yes,” he said. Not a question.

“What you said this morning. To your father. About the company.” You held his gaze. “That was the hard version. The harder version than anything I’ve asked you to do.”

“It needed to be done,” he said.

“I know. I’m saying — I know what it cost.” He looked at you for a moment. Something in him settling, like a weight redistributed. “She would have approved,” he said.

“She would have handed you the crossword and not said anything and that would have been the approval,” you said. He made that sound again, the almost-laugh, and this time it came all the way out — quiet, real, and the boy who had chased chickens was fully present in it and the three millimetres collapsed entirely and you felt it in your sternum like a struck bell.

He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. His hand stayed. Cupped the side of your face. You went very still. His thumb moved along your cheekbone. The same gesture your mother had used in the corridor except that this one was slow and deliberate and asking something.

“I talked to Yerin,” he said. Quietly. “She called tonight. We — it’s done. It’s properly done. I wanted you to know that.”

“Okay,” you said. Your voice was not entirely steady.

“I told you I wouldn’t do this like something to hide,” he said. “I meant it.”

“I know you did.” His eyes moved over your face. Unhurried. The way he moved in this house — like he knew every room and had time.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about what to say. Since the passage room. I had things arranged. Sentences.” The corner of his mouth. “They’re all gone.”

“Say it without sentences,” you said.

He looked at you. “I drove past the airport,” he said. “Every time a flight came in from Barcelona. I did that for three years. I told myself it was nothing. I told myself I was just—” he stopped. “I didn’t tell myself anything, actually. I just drove there.”

Your hand came up and covered his where it held your face. His breath shifted slightly. “I have my grandmother’s crossword clue for you in my head,” you said. “Seven letters. I keep thinking about it.”

“Honesty,” he said.

“Honesty,” you said. And then neither of you said anything else.

He closed the distance — not rushed, not after all this time, not after three years and this house and fifteen photographs and both your names on an envelope — he closed it like he’d been planning the exact geometry of it for longer than either of you were going to admit, one hand still cradling your face and the other coming to rest at your waist and his mouth meeting yours with the specific quality of something that had been waiting long enough that when it arrived it felt less like a beginning than like a return.

You kissed him back with every Sunday call you hadn’t made and every time you’d almost said something and every seven of spades and every tangerine in the post and the whole accumulated weight of it came through in the way your hands went to the front of his shirt like they already knew where they were going.

He made a quiet sound against your mouth. His hand moved from your waist to the small of your back and pulled you closer and you went, easily, completely, like a thing that had been resisting gravity for three years finally letting go. He tasted like tea and the faint ghost of something warmer and he kissed the way he did everything in this house — like he knew the rooms, like he had time, thorough and unhurried and devastatingly present.

His hand slid from your face into your hair and tipped your head back and you made a sound you didn’t intend to make and felt him inhale sharply at it. “Hi,” he said against your mouth. His voice low and a little wrecked already.

“Hi,” you said.

He pulled back just enough to look at you. His hand still in your hair, yours still twisted in his shirt, both of you breathing like you’d been doing something more athletic than standing in a kitchen.

In the amber light his eyes were dark and his mouth was slightly swollen and he was looking at you with an expression that had nothing professional or composed or carefully maintained about it whatsoever. He was looking at you the way he looked at the passages when they opened — like something that had been there all along and was finally, finally being seen. “Three years,” he said quietly.

“More than three years,” you said. He kissed you again and this one was less careful — his hands moving down your back, yours sliding up to his shoulders, the counter behind you taking your weight as he pressed closer.

He kissed down the line of your jaw and you tilted your head back and looked at the amber ceiling and thought distantly that your grandmother had planned everything except possibly this specific configuration in her kitchen at two in the morning and that she would have been insufferably pleased about it.

“Upstairs,” you said. He lifted his head. Looked at you. Checking.

“Yes,” you said, to the question he hadn’t asked.

Your childhood bedroom with the sketchbooks on the shelf and the Barcelona exhibition poster and the corkboard above the desk looked different at two in the morning with Jungwon closing the door behind him and turning to look at you across the room. He looked at the room first. The way he always looked at rooms — registering, cataloguing, the thing your grandmother had done too, the thing you did.

Then he looked at you. “I used to stand outside this door,” he said. “When we were kids. Waiting for you to come out.”

“I know,” you said. “I could always hear you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I liked knowing you were there,” you said. Something in his face. Something very warm and very undone. He crossed the room. There was a quality to being undressed by someone who had known you for fifteen years that had nothing to do with unfamiliarity and everything to do with its opposite — the specific intimacy of someone who already knew the shape of you in other ways and was learning this one slowly, like a new room in a house they’d lived in for years.

His hands were unhurried. His attention was total. He treated each thing like it mattered and it made your chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with sadness. You pulled his shirt over his head and put your hands flat against his chest and felt his breathing. “Still thinking in sentences?” you asked.

“Not even close,” he said. He took your chin between his fingers and tilted your face up and kissed you properly — deep and unhurried and completely in charge of it — and you felt the dynamic settle into place like something clicking. Jungwon had always had this quality. This absolute certainty. In every other context you’d spent years watching it from the outside.

You pushed him back onto the bed. He pulled you with him, one hand at your waist, and you landed against his chest and he rolled you gently and hovered over you and looked at your face again with that same thoroughness, like he was memorizing you. Then he moved down your body and the careful part began.

He took his shirt off first — unhurried, watching your face while he did it — and then he came over you and looked down and something in his expression was focused and warm and entirely certain. “I’m going to take my time,” he said. Like a statement of intent. Like he was informing you.

“Okay,” you managed.

“You’re going to let me.” Not a question.

“Yes,” you said.

He kissed your cheek again — that specific tenderness, completely at odds with the authority in his voice — and then his mouth moved to your throat and the careful, methodical dismantling began. He learned you like a map he intended to memorize. His mouth at your collarbone, the inside of your wrist — pausing there when your breath hitched, pressing his lips back to the same spot twice — your stomach, the soft curve of your hip. His hands moved with his mouth, cataloguing, noting, and every time you made a sound his eyes came to your face briefly. Checking. Watching. “Good?” he murmured against your ribs.

“Yes,” you breathed. “Yes.”

“Good girl,” he said quietly, and continued. His fingers found the edge of your underwear and he looked up at you from where he was and raised an eyebrow. Asking without asking. You lifted your hips. He drew them down slowly, dropped them, and settled between your thighs and looked at your pussy with an expression of complete, focused attention that made you want to press your thighs together out of sheer overwhelm.

He didn’t let you. His hands pressed your thighs apart, firm and certain. Held them there. “Don’t,” he said simply. Then his mouth found your clit and your back left the mattress.

He ate you out like he had nowhere else to be and no interest in being anywhere else — long slow strokes of his tongue through your folds, his lips sealing over your clit and applying exactly the right pressure, his eyes coming up to your face every few moments to read your expression and adjust accordingly. He was thorough in the way that only someone genuinely paying attention could be, cataloguing every hitch of your breath, every clench of your thighs against his hands.

The sound that left you was embarrassingly loud. His eyes came up. “Shh,” he said against your folds — not unkind, just certain. Then he pressed two fingers against your lips. Firm. “Here.”

You opened your mouth and took them in. “Good.” His voice low and approving. He pressed them deeper against your tongue and returned his mouth to your cunt with noticeably more intent — like your compliance had unlocked something — his tongue working faster, two fingers from his other hand pushing slowly into your hole and curling upward. You moaned around his fingers and clenched around the ones inside you and he made a low sound against your pussy that you felt everywhere.

He worked you with complete focus — his tongue on your clit, his fingers curling inside your hole, your wetness absolutely everywhere and him making quiet reverent sounds about it that were muffled against your folds. Your hand went to his hair and gripped and he let you, kept going, his fingers in your mouth pressing down on your tongue every time you got too loud.

“Look at me,” he said against you. You looked down at him. Dark eyes looking up at you from between your thighs. That eye contact while his mouth was on your cunt was almost more than you could process. “Stay with me,” he said. “Right here.”

When you came it crashed through you in deep rolling waves, your cunt clenching hard around his fingers, your moan muffled completely by his hand, your thighs pressing around his face and his hands not letting them close. He worked you through every single pulse — not stopping, not slowing — until you were pulling at his hair and trembling. He pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to your inner thigh. Then another.

Then he was kissing up your stomach, your ribs, your collarbone, the corner of your mouth. “There she is,” he murmured against your cheek. “How are you doing?”

“I’m—” You laughed weakly. “I’m good. Really good.” He kissed your cheek.

“Yeah you are.” He reached for the bedside drawer himself, sorted himself out, and came back to you and looked at your face and brushed your hair back from your forehead with both hands like you were something worth being careful with.

Then he took both your wrists and pressed them above your head, his hand wrapping around them, pinning them to the pillow. “Keep them here,” he said quietly.

“And if I don’t?” you said. The look he gave you was patient and very slightly dangerous.

“Keep them here,” he said again. He pushed inside you slowly — that long, aching stretch — and the sound you both made was simultaneous and involuntary, his a low broken groan, yours a gasp that turned into his name.

He held there for a moment, fully seated, his forehead dropping to yours, his hand still pinning your wrists above your head. “Okay,” he breathed. Like a reset. Like he needed a second.

“Jungwon—”

“I know.” He kissed the corner of your mouth. “I know. You feel—” He stopped. Pressed his lips to your cheek. “Perfect. You feel perfect.”

He started to move. Long and deep and measured, his hips rolling in that deliberate rhythm, his cock filling you completely with every stroke and withdrawing slowly — the kind of pace that was specifically designed to make you lose your mind.

Your hands stayed above your head because he’d told them to and because his hand around your wrists was warm and present and you weren’t going anywhere. “Good girl,” he murmured. Watching your face. “Look at you.”

“Jungwon — harder—”

“Not yet.” Steady. Infuriatingly steady. “When I say.”

He kept the pace exactly where he wanted it — deep and thorough, hitting somewhere inside you that made your toes curl — and his free hand found your clit and worked it in slow circles and you arched up into him. “There,” he said. Dark and satisfied. “Feel that?”

“Yes—”

“Yeah.” The circles on your clit tightened. His hips snapped forward once, harder, and you gasped. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He built you up carefully and completely, his cock and his fingers working in tandem, his eyes on your face the entire time — that absolute quality of attention that dismantled you, that had always dismantled you, fifteen years of it turned toward this single purpose.

“Close,” you managed. “Jungwon, I’m—”

“I know.” He didn’t slow down. “Give it to me.” The second one rolled through you deep and long and he watched your face through every second of it — your mouth falling open, your back arching, your hands straining against his grip above your head — and he kept going through all of it, his fingers not stopping until you were clenching and crying his name and he said “there she is, good girl, there she is” against your cheek like a quiet litany.

Then he released your wrists and pulled you up.

“Your turn,” he said. He lay back and you understood immediately. You swung your leg over him and his hands went to your waist — not guiding, not yet, just there — and you sank down onto him and the sound that left him was the most gratifying thing you’d ever heard. Low and wrecked and completely involuntary.

You rolled your hips. “Fuck,” he breathed. His hands tightened. “Do that again.” You did. Set your own pace, slow and grinding, finding the angle that made your vision blur and staying there.

His head pressed back into the pillow, his jaw tight, his eyes on your face with that dark focused expression cracking at the edges into something rawer. “Look at you,” he said, rough and quiet. “You’re perfect. Do you know that?” His jaw went tight as you clenched around him. “God.”

“Don’t stop talking,” you said breathlessly. “Please—”

“You feel incredible.” His hands moved you faster without asking permission. “Your pussy is—you have no idea. No idea what you—”

He sat up suddenly, arms wrapping around you, and kissed you deep and you rolled your hips and he held you through it and you came for the third time with your face in his neck and your nails raking down his back and he groaned at the sting of it — not pulling away, pressing closer, like he wanted that, like he’d been waiting for your nails.

He rolled you back down. Both of you past careful now — his cock driving into you deep and purposeful, your legs over his shoulders, his hand pinning your wrists above your head again. His other hand pressed flat to your lower stomach and he felt himself moving inside you and his expression went somewhere completely undone.

“Eyes on me,” he said. You looked at him. He looked at you. Dark and certain and something underneath it — something fifteen years old — looking out. “You’re mine,” he said quietly. Not possessive. Just true. Like he was finally saying something he’d always known.

“Yes,” you said. “Yes, Jungwon—”

“Good girl.” Driving deeper. “My good girl.” Your nails went to his back again — raking down — and he hissed through his teeth and his rhythm stuttered and then he was coming, buried as deep as possible, your name in his mouth, his whole body shuddering through it in slow waves while you held him and felt every pulse of it.

Afterward you lay in the narrow single bed of your childhood bedroom with his arm around you and your head on his chest and his heartbeat slowing gradually back to something normal under your ear. The house was very quiet.

Outside the window the winter garden. The sundial. The stone wall at the edge of the fields where you’d stood together three days ago and looked at the grey-green view and said nothing about the thing that had been living in the space between you.

“The tree,” you said. Against his chest. Almost asleep.

“What?”

“Her letter. At the end. Take care of the tree.” He was quiet for a moment.

“The tangerine tree?” he said.

“I don’t know how to look after a tangerine tree.”

“I do,” he said. “She taught me.” Of course she had. You made a sound into his chest that was grief and fondness and exhaustion and something newly made and warm all at once. His arm tightened around you. “Sleep,” he said. Quietly. Into your hair.

“There’s still so much to sort out,” you said. “The companies. Your father. Mine. The records. Haeun—”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “All of it tomorrow.”

You were quiet. “She would have liked this,” he said. “She would have smiled like she’d won something.”

“She did win something,” you said. He made the sound — the real laugh, quiet and warm, in the dark.

“She won everything,” he said. The house breathed around you. The walls remembered. The tree stood in the winter garden under the wrong-time sundial and the six extra minutes ticked by in the east corridor and outside the window the fields were dark and still and the net held, the net held, it had always been holding.

—

Morning came differently. Not the grey reluctant morning of the days before — this one had actual light in it, thin and winter-pale but present, coming through the curtains at the angle your grandmother approved of and landing across the bed in a way that felt almost deliberate. Like the house had decided something had shifted and was adjusting its lighting accordingly.

You were awake before him. This was not surprising. You had always been the one who woke first — in Barcelona, in studio all-nighters, in every version of your life you’d constructed away from this place. Your brain came online quickly and completely and then immediately started cataloguing everything that needed to be dealt with, which was both a useful quality and an exhausting one.

You lay still and let it catalogue. Your mother down the hall. Your father in the east guest room. The notebook in your desk drawer and the metal box under the floor of the third room and fifteen years of documentation that was going to require very careful decisions made by people who were currently in various states of devastation. Haeun, who had driven home last night after dismantling the family dinner table and was presumably now sitting in her very expensive apartment feeling something she didn’t have a script for. Yang Junho, who had been told by his son that the careful architecture of his business legacy was going to be pulled apart and rebuilt into something honest. The tangerine tree in the garden.

You turned your head. Jungwon was asleep. This was — notable. He slept with the specific quality of someone whose body had been running on insufficient rest for days and had finally been given permission to stop. On his back, one arm still loosely around you, his face completely unguarded in a way it almost never was when he was awake. The professional composure was entirely absent. He looked like the boy in the photographs on the passage room table.

You looked at him for longer than was strictly necessary. Then you carefully moved his arm, and got up, and got dressed, and went to find your mother.

She was in the garden. Not the formal garden — the kitchen garden at the back, the working one, where your grandmother had grown things with the same methodical attention she gave everything. It was winter-bare now, the beds turned over, the herbs cut back, but your mother was standing at the edge of it with a cup of tea in both hands and her coat over her pyjamas and her hair not yet done and looking at the dormant beds like they owed her a conversation. You came and stood beside her. She looked at you. Her eyes moved over your face the way they had yesterday in the corridor — reading, calibrating. This morning they stilled on something and she looked at you for a beat longer than usual and you thought: she knows. Of course she knows. She is a Han woman and she has been reading rooms since before you were born.

She said nothing about it. “The mint comes back every year,” she said instead. Nodding at one of the beds. “No matter what. Your grandmother never planted it twice.”

“Persistent,” you said.

“Invasive, she called it,” your mother said. “But she never pulled it out.”

You stood beside her. The kitchen garden in the early morning, both of you in coats, tea and no tea. “How are you?” you said.

“I’ve been better,” she said. Dry. Almost wry. A Han woman’s version of honesty.

“Mum—”

“I’m not broken,” she said. “I want you to know that before you start.” She looked at the mint bed. “I’ve known the shape of this for a long time. Not the detail. Not the name, not the company, not the—” she stopped briefly— “not all of it. But the shape.” She turned her mug in her hands. “Your grandmother knew I knew the shape. We never discussed it because discussing it would have made it real in a way I wasn’t ready for.”

“I know,” you said.

“She left you the records,” your mother said. “Because she knew you’d know what to do with them.”

“I’m still figuring that out,” you said honestly. Your mother nodded slowly.

“Whatever you decide — about the companies, about the documentation — I want you to know that I don’t expect you to protect him on my account.” She looked at you directly. “I’ve done enough of that for both of us. You don’t inherit that.”

You looked at her. “She wrote about you,” you said carefully. “In the letter. She said you’d need us to stay. Not to fix it. Just to stay.”

Your mother’s face did something very small and very real. “That sounds like her,” she said.

“She loved you,” you said. “The jewellery she left you — she chose it specifically. I know she did.”

“She chose everything specifically,” your mother said. And then, quietly: “She was infuriating.” Her mouth curved, just slightly, just for a second, the specific curve of someone who misses a person and is furious at them and loves them all at once. “She was the most infuriating woman I have ever known and I have been her daughter for sixty years and I would give almost anything for one more conversation with her.”

Your throat. You put your arm around your mother’s shoulders. She leaned into it. Just slightly. Just enough. “The mint will come back,” you said. “It always does,” she said.

—

Your father found you at nine. You were in the library — the room that minded its own business — with the notebook open on the table and your laptop beside it and three years of your grandmother’s documentation laid out in the order you’d decided to present it. You’d made decisions in the kitchen garden with your mother’s shoulder under your arm and the winter light coming up over the dormant beds, and the decisions were clear and final and felt like the most your grandmother’s-granddaughter thing you had ever done. Your father came in and looked at the table and went still. “Sit down,” you said.

He sat. He looked at the notebook. He looked at the laptop. He looked at your face. “I’ve been through all of it,” you said. “The notebook, the financial records from the box, the subsidiary filings that Haeun’s lawyer found. I have a complete picture.” You held his gaze. “I want to tell you what I’m going to do with it before I do it, because she would have done that. She would have told you directly.” He was very still.

“Jungwon and I are going to work with our respective company counsel to restructure both companies’ positions and make the necessary disclosures. The arrangement your father and his built — the liability your grandmother documented — will be unwound properly. Not buried, not managed. Dealt with.” You turned a page in the notebook. “There will be consequences. Probably financial, possibly regulatory. We’re going to take them straight rather than sideways.”

He opened his mouth. “I’m not finished,” you said quietly. He closed it.

“The personal documentation — your relationship with Park Jooyeon — is not something I intend to make public or use. That’s not mine to use. That’s between you and Mum and whatever comes next for the two of you.” You looked at him steadily.

“But I want you to know that I have it. That grandmother had it. That she saw everything and chose the moment and the recipient very carefully.” You paused. “She trusted me with it because she knew I’d tell you directly rather than use it as leverage. So I’m telling you directly.”

Your father was quiet for a long time. He looked older than yesterday. Something had come down overnight — a structure he’d maintained for twenty years, load-bearing, invisible until it wasn’t. “She always knew,” he said. Not a question.

“Yes,” you said.

“Your mother—”

“Is dealing with it on her own terms,” you said. “In her own time. That’s between you and her and I’m not going to be in the middle of it.” You closed the notebook. “But I am going to be here. For her. For as long as she needs.”

He looked at the closed notebook. “You’re very like her,” he said again. The same words as the library yesterday, same tone — not compliment, not threat, something that had moved past both into something more complicated and more honest.

“Good,” you said again.

He stood up. He looked at you for a moment with the eyes of a man who was reassessing something fundamental and finding the reassessment uncomfortable and necessary in equal measure. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For — all of it. The parts that touched you.”

“I know,” you said. He left. You sat in the library for a minute after he’d gone, in the room that minded its own business, and you breathed and looked at the ceiling and thought about your grandmother writing case notes in her precise blue hand for seven years and choosing you and trusting you and leaving you every door she could think to unlock.

I trust them. I always have.

“I know,” you said to the empty room. “I know you did.”

—

Jungwon was in the kitchen when you came down at ten. He’d made breakfast — actual breakfast, not just tea, the kind of breakfast that required navigating someone else’s kitchen and finding things and making decisions about eggs. You stood in the doorway and looked at this and something in your chest did a quiet complicated thing.

He looked up. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” you said.

“I found the eggs,” he said. “I hope that’s alright.”

“It’s very alright,” you said. You came in and sat at the kitchen table — the big scrubbed one, the one you’d sat at a thousand times — and watched him move around the kitchen with the ease of someone who had been in it almost as often as you had, who knew which drawer had the spatulas and which cupboard had the good salt, who knew to use the second burner because the first ran hot.

“I talked to my father’s lawyer this morning,” he said. Back to you, watching the pan. “Started the process. It’s going to take months. There’ll be restructuring costs, probably some regulatory disclosure, definitely some uncomfortable conversations with the board.” He turned around. “But it’s started.”

“I talked to my dad,” you said. “The personal side — I left that between him and my mother. But the business — he knows what’s coming.” Jungwon nodded.

He brought two plates to the table and sat across from you and for a moment you both just looked at the food. “She would have had opinions about the eggs,” you said.

“She would have said I used too much butter.”

“You absolutely used too much butter.”

“The correct amount of butter,” he said, “for a kitchen that has been through what this kitchen has been through in the last four days.” You looked at him. He looked at you. The kitchen held you both in its amber morning warmth and the back door sighed in the wind and the clock ticked its slightly-too-loud tick.

“Barcelona,” he said. Your fork stopped. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. “About what you said. The building at five in the afternoon. The light.” He looked at his plate. “I want to see it.” You looked at him. “I want to see where you’ve been. What you’ve built. The studio, the yellow tiles, all of it.” He looked up. “I’m not asking you to come home. I’m not — I know you have a life there and I’m not going to be the person who asks you to fold that up.”

“Jungwon—”

“I’m saying I want to come to you. If that’s—” he stopped. “If you want that.”

You thought about your Barcelona apartment. The yellow tiles you’d hated and grown to love. The building in the Eixample at five in the afternoon. The Sunday light coming flat and amber through the kitchen window and you standing there with a dead leaf and almost calling him. “When?” you said.

Something shifted in his face. The last of the composure, the very last of it, releasing. “As soon as I can arrange it,” he said.

“The companies—”

“Will take months to sort out. I can do that from anywhere with a phone and a laptop.” He looked at you steadily. “I’ve been doing everything from this house and this office and this city for three years and I think—” he paused— “I think I’ve been using that as a reason to not go anywhere I actually wanted to go.”

You held his gaze. “There’s a market on Sundays,” you said. “Near the apartment. They have good tomatoes even in winter, I don’t know how.”

“I’ll need to know where to get good coffee,” he said.

“I know three places,” you said. “Ranked.”

“Of course you do,” he said.

“The first one is wrong,” you said. “Everyone thinks it’s the best and they’re wrong. The second one is correct.” He smiled. The real one, the full one, no millimetres of distance at all. You smiled back.

Outside the kitchen window the winter garden was pale and still. The tangerine tree stood at the edge of the formal garden where it always had, bare-branched, patient, waiting for the season that would bring it back. The sundial offered its wrong time to the thin morning light. The fields beyond the stone wall were grey-green and quiet.

Inside: two plates of eggs with the correct amount of butter, and the kitchen clock ticking, and the back door with the broken latch, and the house breathing around you in the way old houses breathe when something they’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.

“Take care of the tree,” you said.

“I will,” he said.

“She’ll want a report,” you said. “I’ll take notes,” he said.

“In a small book,” you said.

“Obviously,” he said.

You ate breakfast in the warm kitchen of your grandmother’s house while the morning came properly through the windows, and the walls remembered everything, and somewhere in the passage behind the library fireplace the candles had burned down to nothing and the photographs were still on the table and the letter was in your desk drawer with both your names on it in blue ink, and Han Sooja had been right about all of it, every last word, and the tree would come back in spring and so would you.

SPRING

The tangerine tree bloomed in April. Jungwon sent you the photograph at seven in the morning Barcelona time, which meant he’d been in the garden at eight Korean time, which meant he’d gone specifically to check and then specifically to tell you. No caption. Just the photograph — pale blossoms on the bare-becoming-green branches, the stone wall behind it, the edge of the formal garden catching the early spring light.

You were in bed with your phone and the yellow morning light coming through the kitchen tiles and you looked at the photograph for a long time.

Then you typed: she knew it would.

He replied immediately: she knew everything.

Then: flight lands Friday. Is the second coffee place still correct?

Still correct, you typed. I checked yesterday.

Of course.

You put the phone down and looked at the ceiling of your Barcelona apartment and listened to the street coming alive below and thought about the building in the Eixample at five in the afternoon and the light that made it look like it was remembering something, and you thought about what it meant to show someone the life you’d built from scratch in a city that had been yours alone, and you thought about your grandmother in her garden in October with the window open writing three pages of blue ink to two people she trusted to be ready.

You were ready.

You went to the kitchen and put the coffee on and stood at the window with the yellow tiles warm in the morning light and outside the bakery two streets over was already sending its bread smell into the world and somewhere behind you on the shelf the Calvino stood between its neighbours and in the back of it, tucked where it had always been, the recipe card with the hand-drawn map of a house full of secret rooms.

Not everything buried is lost. Some things are just waiting for the ground to be ready.

The coffee finished. You poured two cups out of habit and then looked at the second one and smiled and didn’t move it.

Friday.

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[jungwonslover]

| 4POISON.1 ft. YJW

You return to Hogwarts expecting everything to feel the same — especially him. Yang Jungwon, your best friend of four years. Your constant. Until a love potion changes everything.

PAIRING: gryffindor!jungwon 𝓍 slytherin!femreader WORD COUNT: 20k+ — series ★⋆ CONTENT: fluff ⋆ angst ⋆ eventual smut hogwarts au, love potions, jealousy, yearninggggg, possessive!won. avoidant!reader, miscommunication.. a lot of it, plot twists, feat. beomgyu of txt, enhypen & my beautiful wife @hueningskais ⦸ alcohol, love potion drugging, masturbating (m).

| PLAYLIST | LIBRARY | PART 2

V𓄧 I did not want this to be two parts . .forgive me juseyo. the second part is coming shortly. i'll make it up to you. thank you soo much @hueningskais and miss anna for proof-reading and doing so much for me, i appreciate it so so much MWAH. thank you miss @heedimples too, your input was soo helpful my girl⋆

The castle was a home like no other. You had never felt so welcome in a place that belonged to all — portraits that often gossiped to you, halls that invited you to explore them, passages that opened in time of need. The castle was a friend you welcomed into your heart without protest.

You were not someone who let things in easily, never had. People came with expectations, questions, and noise you did not always have the energy to answer. Hogwarts came naturally to you it all settled around you so easily it stopped feeling new almost immediately. Portraits whispering like bored aunties with nothing better to do, staircases shifting as if they had moods, doors opening for you like they were in on something you were not. You let it all in.

You received your letter at eleven years old. Being a half-blood — it was simply standard procedure. You stayed on for university like a lot of people did, but unlike most of them it didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like returning to something that had already claimed you.

And somewhere in the middle of it, you met him. It was annoying at first because your life was perfectly fine. Up until then it was quiet, controlled with minimal emotional risk — exactly how you liked it.

You had known Yang Jungwon for four years now, but it had not always been that way. You met in your sixth year after being paired up by Professor Snape for a three day run on Felix Felicis.

Snape paired you together like it was funny, like he didn’t just throw a Slytherin who avoids eye contact like it’s a sport with a Gryffindor who… looks.

The moment your names were called you had looked across the room, already mildly irritated, to the black-haired Gryffindor — only to find he was already looking at you. You vaguely recognized him. He was someone you had passed in corridors, one of those people who existed in your peripheral vision. You two had never spoken as there had never been a reason to, until then.

His expression did this small thing — eyebrows lifting, like he expected literally anyone else. The moment your eyes met, he looked away, offering a small, tight-lipped smile. He looked a little nervous.

You weren't too bothered to be paired with him, he seemed to be a good enough partner — at least he wasn’t Seamus.. low bar, but still.

The seat beside you was already taken. So you gathered your things without hesitation and moved — sliding into the empty space next to him instead. As you settled into the seat you had looked over to your old table. You were only a seat behind — with a perfect view of your previous place.

"Y/n right?" His voice pulled you out of your thoughts. You turned slightly, catching the way his eyes couldn’t decide where to land, like looking at you directly might be too much. Flickering between you and the chalkboard at the front of the room. You almost smiled.. almost.

"Yeah," you answer, a little softer than intended. He nods, almost immediately, like that confirms something for him. Even though he already knew.

Yang Jungwon was popular, though not in the loud, attention-seeking way others were. Known as the composed, hard-working Gryffindor, he carried himself with a kind of steady confidence that people trusted. Down to earth, reliable, kind but not soft. Never someone you could easily push around. He had made that clear and yet sitting beside you now, with your attention fully on him, he felt something in that composure slip.

He had never been someone easily taken by others. He had never found himself captivated by someone’s presence, never caught himself returning to the same person in his thoughts without reason, until you.

The first time Jungwon had noticed you, he had been half-listening in Herbology. His attention slipping as the professor droned on about Venomous Tentacula. His gaze had wandered, unfocused — until it landed on you.

You were seated a row ahead. Not directly in front of him but just off to the side, angled enough that he could see the curve of your profile. Your head rested against your hand, posture relaxed in a way that suggested you were not entirely paying attention either. Looking like you could not care less about Venomous Tentacula trying to eat someone two tables over.

All he knew about you was your house, Slytherin. Obviously. He had his own assumptions about you, but not in the obvious way. Most people assume all Slytherins are calculated and cold. They decide before you even utter a word — that you are aloof and detached. It's not that you don't feel things — it's that you feel them too much and learned the hard way that not everyone deserves access to that.

But you didn't seem to care for what others thought. You let them have their assumptions about you.

The plant in front of you swirled around your fingers as though it had chosen you. You did not react nor did you pull away either. You just let it weave between your fingers. Watching like it was mildly interesting at best. It was subtle.

The kind of moment no one would notice unless they were already looking.

Jungwon raised an eyebrow with something alike to curiosity flickering across his expression. Before he realized it, his own lips mirrored yours without his knowledge. Afterwards, it became a habit.

Not an intentional one — he never sought you out but his attention found you anyway. His gaze would drift in the middle of lessons, between notes, during long stretches of nothing. It would settle on you without a second thought.

Often times, he didn’t even let himself think about it long enough to question it. It was easier to let it exist as it was — something small and unspoken. You existed in his subconscious.

Which is why, when he heard your name called alongside his — it didn’t feel real. You were not supposed to exist like this, not in front of him, not real in the way everything else was. Not close enough to talk to or look at properly.

"Jungwon?" you said his name like it wasn’t a big deal, like he wasn't suddenly aware of everything. The way you tilted your head, the almost-smile you gave him as if you were being polite, not trying too hard.

"Oh! yeah, that's me." he replied rather fast. Realization settling in that he had spent more time thinking about you as an idea rather than as a person.. and now you were both.

You nodded, turning back to your notes and pulling out the correct pages as Snape rambled about ingredients.

You fell into a comfortable rhythm. Passing ingredients without speaking, writing notes like you shared a brain cell for a few hours. You had found yourselves to be great partners. Often times passing things between you wordlessly or having the answers the other didn't have.

By the second day, conversation came easier. You talked about things that had nothing to do with potions, debated topics you didn’t need to care about...and agreed on almost all of it. Almost.

"You Gryffindors and your pride" you rolled your eyes in faux annoyance as he passed you a serrated knife, a quiet scoff leaving him in return.

"I do not have pride! Besides you lot are practically evil." he shot back, leaning slightly against the desk. You dropped your jaw, exaggerated and offended like he had just personally offended your entire bloodline.

"That is a serious accusation." you deadpan. The Murtlap tentacle squelched unpleasantly under the blade — you winced at the texture, just a little, trying not to let it show. He noticed.

"Your stereotyping wounds me." you added flatly, beginning to write notes into both your books without thinking.

"Yeah, that was bad rage-bait," He grinned sheepishly while waiting for the knife, "Besides," you said flatly, glancing up at him with deliberate intent, "do I look evil?" you teased.

Jungwon scoffed automatically, ignoring the way he couldn't look away, fingers fumbling as you handed him the blade, just slightly in a way he hoped you didn’t notice.

"Yeah," he said, clearing his throat as he adjusted his grip on the knife, "Completely. The devil in disguise." he responded as he added the cut up ingredients into the cauldron, focusing a little too hard on the task.

You laughed under your breath and smacked his arm, with no real force behind it. He laughed too but quieter.

From that day forward, you were rarely apart. It wasn’t something either of you planned, it just happened. One day turned into the next and suddenly it felt natural to look for him without thinking. The unregistered expectation of him beside you like he had always been there.

In the library, you would sit across from each other with books spread out between you, the intention to study long forgotten. He would kick your foot under the table just to get a reaction. Which, annoyingly — you let him.

Other times, he would be sprawled across your bed, entirely too comfortable in your space, half-listening as you rambled about assignments, deadlines, anything that crossed your mind.

You found yourself seeking him out without realizing it. Waiting for him and measuring parts of your day by whether or not he was there to share them.

Even on the days when everything felt slightly off, when something sat heavy in your chest or doubt crept in quietly — you found yourself at his door. Not to soothe you or to push your burdens on him, but to exist beside someone who didn’t need you to explain anything for it to feel easier. Because his presence made you feel better without trying.

You didn’t rely on people like that. Didn’t need people like that. Well, apparently you did.. at least when it came to him, which is… deeply inconvenient.

When you'd show up at his door, quieter than usual, a little distant, eyes not quite focused — he would let you in, something in his chest tightening at the sight of you like that. Because your upset, somehow always became his.

He wouldn't speak to you different nor did he make you speak, he would just sit besides you as you watched the life outside his window. You always said his view was better along with some bitter comment about Gryffindor privilege. He’d laugh every time, and just like that.. something would lift, just enough.

It scared him how easily you fit into his life. He found himself looking for you without meaning to, glancing toward the places you usually were, expecting to see you there like it was a given.

When he would find you, a grin would take over before he could stop it, because somehow — no matter how big the castle got, no matter how many people filled it, Jungwon always found you.

One time, he found you in your common room. He’d walked in with Ni-ki, half-listening to whatever he was saying. His attention had already started drifting, and then it landed on you.

You’d picked the far corner sofa — the one slightly too close to the fireplace, where it was warm enough to make people leave you alone after five minutes. You were curled into it, book open, fully committed to looking unapproachable. Which, ironically, had never worked on him

"Hey, miss," Jungwon greeted as he made his way over, dropping onto the sofa beside you without hesitation, close enough that your shoulders brushed.

You didn’t look up immediately. You let the page sit there for a second longer, like you were deeply invested in whatever paragraph you hadn’t actually been reading.

You shifted just enough to turn your knees toward him, the book still half open in your lap. "Hey, Won." you'd return lazily, not thinking about it. He did.

That was the first time you had called him that. He stiffened — just for a split second, as though he hadn’t just short-circuited internally over one syllable. You hadn't noticed because he had pulled his arm free between you and rested it along the back of the sofa, fingers brushing against your shoulder like it was nothing. Tracing small, idle patterns against your sleeve as his gaze dropped to the pages.

He also didn’t comment on the fact you hadn’t turned a page in five minutes.

Over time, you became familiar with his friends and him with yours. It just happened, the way everything else between you did. Conversations overlapped with introductions blurring into inside jokes. Before long, there wasn’t really a separation between your friends and his.

Your "friends" being Kenny, she was your best friend from day one, she was the type of friend that would go to war for you — loud where you weren’t, reactive where you were measured. The kind of person who would absolutely escalate a situation on your behalf without hesitation. If you felt something, she felt it louder.

And then there were Jungwon’s friends. Jake, a Ravenclaw Astronomy nerd. Somehow capable of making constellations sound like gossip. You didn’t understand half of what he said, but you listened anyway.

Ni-ki, a Slytherin Quidditch Seeker. Sharp and quick in a way that kept everyone on their toes.

And Heeseung, a Gryffindor Transfiguration major. Annoyingly perceptive, he always carried himself with an ease that made it seem like he understood more than he let on.

The two of you fell into an easy friendship with the group, however they did question your new found friendship. "You two look good together." Heeseung said casually, like he was commenting on the weather, tossing the words into the air without warning.

Jungwon choked — coughing as he turned too quickly, nearly twisting his neck to stare at him. "We're friends," Jungwon managed, the words coming out uneven, far less composed than he usually sounded.

A chorus of groans followed immediately. "Yeah, obviously," Ni-ki muttered. "Painfully obvious," Jake added under his breath. Jungwon frowned, defensive now. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Heeseung said easily, though the look he exchanged with the others said otherwise. They didn’t press it because, technically Jungwon was right.

You were just friends.

Then, quieter this time, "So," Heeseung started, leaning slightly forward, voice low enough that it didn’t carry beyond them, “What’s her friend’s name?”

Jungwon blinked, "…Kenny?" Heeseung hummed and Jake smirked faintly.

"So.. you don't like him?" Kenny’s voice came from somewhere behind you as she sprawled across her bed. She’d been watching you for months now, watching the way your friendship with Jungwon had unfolded and she wasn’t quite convinced there wasn’t any foul play going on between you.

"Kenn," you sighed, not even looking up from where you lay on your own bed, "How many times do I have to say it? He’s just a friend." She groaned and turned over to stare at you upside down. Her hair falling messily over the edge.

"Sure. Yeah." she muttered, entirely unconvinced. You rolled your eyes, used to this by now. "So what’s the pink-haired guy’s name?" she added, quieter this time.

You blinked. Then laughed loud, thanking her mentally for switching the topic as she grinned, unapologetic.

As your groups grew closer, so did Kenny and Heeseung who had fallen into something of their own. It hadn’t been sudden, by the time it became official, it felt almost expected. A year after you met Jungwon, they started dating. And somehow nothing really changed. Not in the ways that mattered, at least. Other than your teasing.

She once said "You know, I thought you and Jungwon would have gotten together before me and Hee— " she paused, catching your bewildered look.

"Jungwon?" you said suddenly feeling your oxygen supply run out, "Nah it's not like that." you said simply, even then she didn't press — only pressing her lips together in response.

At first people also thought your friendship with Jungwon was something else entirely, tossed out with knowing smiles and raised brows. "You two look really good together." And every time you both reacted the same way. With immediate denial, you'd dissolve into small shakes of your heads, overlapping explanations, a little too quick to correct them. It became routine.

Sometimes people didn’t ask you at all. They went to Kenny. "Is Jungwon actually taken?" someone had asked her once, leaning in like it was some kind of secret. She had only blinked at them, unimpressed. "Ask him yourself," she replied simply. She never clarified and never denied it either.

Jungwon got it too. Only he had no idea how to respond. Guys would approach him casual, like it meant nothing and he’d pause because he didn’t know how to answer. The obvious response was easy, "No, we’re just friends. Go for it."

But Jungwon didn't want to say that, nor did he enjoy the thought. Didn’t like the idea of someone else approaching you, talking to you like that, looking at you like that. So instead, he’d shut it down."We're friends." he’d say, not waiting for a follow-up, not giving them space to ask more. Not that they ever went through with it, because where you were, so was he.

Over time, the questions faded. People stopped asking and not because they stopped noticing but because they’d already decided. After all you'd been best friends for 4 years and you were together more often than not. And neither of you corrected them anymore.

You returned to Hogwarts after two years. This time as a University student or survivors, in a way. Those two years hadn’t been spent learning in classrooms or complaining about assignments. You had stayed —worked alongside the professors, helping keep the castle standing in the shadow of Lord Voldemort.

Even if no one had seen him. Even if he had vanished again like smoke slipping through fingers — the disappearances said enough.

Those two years had changed everything. Not loudly, not in ways anyone else could fully understand — but in the quiet, constant ways that mattered. You had learned each other in survival. It brought you all closer in ways no one else could comprehend. Every worry was shared, every fear met halfway. There was no space for pretending and no room for distance. The Room of Requirement became something more than just a hidden space. It became yours, it offered escape when the rest of the castle felt too exposed.

Jungwon knew where to find you, he always did. If you weren’t checking the protective shields or burying yourself in work no one else wanted to touch, you were there, trying to keep yourself busy, trying not to think and he never let you stay like that for long.

"Enough," he’d say, quieter than it sounded and you’d argue, of course. But he didn’t listen, he’d drag you back to his dorms if he had to, ignoring your protests until the exhaustion settled in properly. Watching over you after you'd finally given in. You always did.

Over the years, you had both grown into yourselves. It wasn’t something you noticed all at once it came in passing glances, in the way people started looking at you a little longer than before.

"Do I have something on my face?" you muttered to Kenny as you walked through the halls toward your dorms. Hogwarts University students no longer had to share quarters within their houses, they could room with whoever they like. Which is how you’d ended up at the very top of the university tower with Kenny.

She turned to you immediately, eyes narrowing as she scanned over your features — eyebrows knit in concentration. "Nope," she concluded after a moment, straightening. "You’re good."

You hummed, only half-convinced as you continued up the winding staircase beside her. You waved at a passing portrait that greeted you by name.

"—You’re just hot," she added casually. You scoffed turning to her, "Be serious."

"I am serious," she insisted, nudging your shoulder. "Did you not see the way Beomgyu was staring at you earlier?"

"Heeseung's friend? the Quidditch player?" you said as you turned your head slightly. Kenny groaned at your reaction. "Yes, that Beomgyu."

"He was totally eyeing you earlier." she winked as you reached the top floor. You hummed, any retort dying on your tongue when you saw that there were only two dorms on the top floor, most the other floors had 4 or more on each of them. You had no idea what you’d done to deserve that kind of luck but you weren’t about to question it.

Two doors stood opposite each other, a large curved window decorated the space at the end of the hallway, the light spilled through, inviting and warm. Making the space feel almost intimate.

You had both arrived early, eager to settle in — to decorate, to breathe in the castle before the chaos of the Sorting Ceremony began. As you neared the doors you heard voices from one, men specifically. You and Kenny slowed at the same time, sharing a look as if to say oh god. Kenny, unfortunately, looked far more interested than she should’ve been.

You, on the other hand? Already considering turning around and pretending you got the wrong floor. As if on cue the door swung open, a blonde haired boy walked out. You barely spared him a glance at first, too focused on reaching your own door until he made a noise.

"Y/n??" he gawked, you froze for a moment, then turned. "Jungwon?" you both spoke with raised voices. He laughed still a little startled but there was no hesitation in what he did next — he stepped forward and pulled you into a hug. It was immediate, familiar and not.

Because the second his arms wrapped around you, you noticed it. His arms felt, stronger.. broader. There was more of him than you remembered. His frame filled out, solid in a way that made your breath hitch just slightly.

Since when was he built like this? And then you breathed in. Bad idea.

He had always smelled good.. annoyingly so but now it was something warmer, deeper… addicting. As though someone had personally curated a scent just to mess with your composure.

"How did you guys know we're here?" he asked as he pulled back from you, still grinning. His hands lingering on your arms like he wasn’t quite ready to let go. You smiled automatically, your body was on autopilot while your brain was still catching up.

Your eyes instinctively scanning over him. You hadn't seen him in what felt like forever, your only form of communication had been letters, since you had been on holiday with Kenny for the summer. Letters didn’t prepare you for this version of him.

His hair caught your attention next. Once dark, now an ashy blonde that fell just enough into his eyes to make him blow it away every few seconds. It softened his features in a way that made him look different but still him. He caught you staring and smiled — smaller this time, almost shy. Like he knew and didn’t at the same time.

"We didn’t," you said, letting out a quiet laugh as you nodded toward the door behind him. "That’s our dorm." His smile only widened. Beside you, Kenny raised an eyebrow, her gaze flicking between the two of you, lingering on where his hands still rested against your arms. Clocked, immediately.

Before he could respond the other boys filtered out, coming to investigate the commotion — his hands left your arms almost reluctantly. "This year is going to be so good." Jake declared the moment he saw you both, his excitement immediate and infectious.

You huffed out a quiet laugh, leaning back slightly against the wall as the hallway filled with noise — overlapping voices, half-made plans, people talking over each other like they hadn’t just had an entire summer to do exactly that.

It was easy, like slipping back into something that already fits and yet — your eyes flicked back to Jungwon without meaning to. He was already looking at you. Of course he was. You looked away first, because you were not about to unpack that in a hallway at like… 10am. Still, your lips pressed together to hide a smile.

This year was definitely going to be something.

After greeting everyone you opted to decorate your room and unpack. Deciding unpacking was safer than socialising for more than ten minutes straight.

Barely 5 minutes had passed with your absence when you heard the door open. You were midway through murmuring an enchantment, flicking lazily as your clothes lifted from your suitcase and sorted themselves into your wardrobe.

You didn’t even need to turn to know who it was but you glanced over your shoulder anyway. Jungwon stood there, grinning like he’d been waiting for this exact moment.

"Hey Won." you hummed, turning back like your heart didn’t just do something weird and unnecessary. Another flick of your wand sent books gliding into place on a shelf.

He stepped inside slowly, he noticed your posters already stuck around the walls — most of your possessions already found their home in your room. The fact that you’d basically moved in within five minutes because you hated living out of a suitcase.

"It feels like I haven't seen you in years." he said, stopping in front of you. You paused, setting your wand down before turning to face him properly. He was already looking at you. Not casually either — like he was actually looking, as though he was updating some kind of mental file on you. Or like he was taking note of everything he hadn’t been able to see through letters alone. Stop that.

Jungwon had always been like that though. Quiet about it, but present. He didn’t need a room full of people — just one. You.

He was the kind of friend who showed up without being asked, the second something felt off. The kind who would sit with you through your half-finished thoughts, letting you find your way to the point without rushing you there.

No pressure, no "Just say it already." Just there, annoyingly perfect. He knew he had a soft spot for you, you're his best friend. The one who challenged him without hesitation. The one who never raised her voice, even when hurt. The one he had missed more than he’d expected over the summer.

"I know," you said, a lazy smile pulling at your lips. "I missed you." you added. He tilted his head slightly, something softer settling into his expression.

"Come here." he murmured, it wasn’t really a request, he pulled you into him, arms wrapping around you before you could respond, and you melted into it almost instantly — a quiet, content sigh leaving you.

"I missed you too," he murmured into your hair. You hummed, your fingers drifted up to play with the soft blonde strands at the back of his head — like it was muscle memory.

He slid his hand from your back to your waist, his grip tightening around it. Just for a split second, but you felt it. He pulled back, and your arms fell away reluctantly as you stepped out of his space. He looked over you with narrowed eyes as though something wasn’t adding up.

"What are you looking at?" you teased stepping forward just to mess with him. Just enough to throw him off, he faltered before rolling his eyes in faux annoyance. You almost laughed.

"You look different." he spoke, not moving despite you being close enough you could see every detail on his sun lit face. The light spilled over half of his face, highlighting the soft curve of his lips as they parted in quiet amusement.

"Is that good or bad?" you questioned, he’d always thought you were beautiful but now there was something more. You were almost glowing — confidence and charisma, you’d grown into yourself in a way he hadn’t been there to see.

"Good," he said. "You look pretty—" he paused, then added quickly, "I mean, you’re always pretty." Right.

You turned your head, hiding the smile that tugged at your lips. You were not letting him see that.. he saw it anyway and exhaled through his nose at your reaction.

"Your hair…" you started, glancing back at him and looking over the strands falling over his forehead, the light catching in them.

"What about it?" he challenged.

"Suits you, it's pretty" you nodded. He gasped dramatically, falling back onto your bed. You laughed, shaking your head as you went back to finishing your room.

Conversation came easily after that. "Also, Kenn and I went clubbing, and I got so paranoid at one point because of this guy—" you started, pacing slightly as you spoke, wand flicking absentmindedly as objects whizzed past. Jungwon watched you.

"He was a muggle, I think… anyway, he kept trying to get between me and Kenny, and I got so pissed I could’ve hexed him—" you continued.

That was all Jungwon heard before he zoned out. Something tight had settled in his chest, something he didn’t want to name. "and then I went to get a drink and he just followed us—"

"Won?" He blinked, refocusing, still leaning back against your bed, propped up on his elbows. "Mm?" he hummed. "So he’s dead now, right?"

You rolled your eyes. "Yeah, we killed him Dexter style." He huffed out a quiet laugh as the last of your belongings floated into place.

You heard a knock and a chestnut head peeked around the corner. "Heyy guys." Jake spoke with a goofy smile as he stepped into the room, "Hi Jake." you greeted, settling onto your bed beside Jungwon. "We’re all going to The Three Broomsticks, if you want to come," he said, his eyes flicking briefly to Jungwon — who was playing with the hem of your sleeve.

Since when does he do that. Jungwon glanced at you, he was surprised to see your eyes already on him. "Yeah I'm down." you said, dragging your attention back to Jake before your brain can start over analysing like it's paid to do so.

"Won?" you added, quieter now, turning back to him — searching, though you didn’t know for what. For the little time you'd been back in his presence, you had felt a shift — it was was barely noticeable, like the world had tilted slightly off its axis. It wasn't something you listened to, even as your brain screamed that things were different. Even as it grabbed you by the arms and shook you, you ignored it.

Throughout your friendship you hadn't dated. Not seriously. Not even accidentally. It’s not that you couldn’t, you just… didn’t care to. There had been moments — people who almost asked, words that almost formed but something always stopped them.

You hadn't seen Jungwon staring holes into their eyes, his fingers curling into his palms. One boy had spewed apologies as he scrambled off, leaving you with an eyebrow raised and a "That was weird."

"Yeah, let's go," he hopped up, extending his hand out for you and without thinking, you took it.

But he didn't let go. Instead, he guided you gently behind Jake, your hand still in his, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like it’s nothing and it should have been, but something unfamiliar threaded through the familiarity. His hand in yours felt comfortable but now you were aware of it. Which is annoying because you were perfectly fine not being aware.

You also had never over-thought anything physical with him before, not that that's what you were doing…

Kenny looked between you both, her eyes immediately dropping to your hand in his loosely. Her smirk was instant, like she just unlocked a new form of entertainment.

"You okay?" Jungwon murmured, leaning down so his voice brushed against your ear. He pulled back, just enough to look at your lips as you talked.

"Mhm," you nodded quickly and then, you slipped your hand from his — stepping forward to urge the others along. You didn’t look back at him, didn’t see the way his hand lingered in the air for just a second longer than it should have.

Didn’t know if he noticed the way your fingers had twitched before you pulled away. Definitely didn't think about the fact that for the first time in four years — being around him doesn’t feel simple, and that might be a problem.

The air was crisp, fresh in a way that made everything feel lighter, clearer. The hills stretched endlessly in the distance, and the pristine lake sat below you as you walked along the bridge.

You slowed, falling a step behind the others without realizing it. Your gaze softened as you took it all in, a small smile settling on your lips at the quiet beauty of it. You breathed out, shoulders dropping a little.

Jungwon looked around mid-conversation, half-listening to Jake ramble about something irrelevant, and when you weren’t there, something in his chest did this annoying tight thing. Like when you forget something but don’t know what.

Until he turned and there you were, a few steps behind, walking like the world had paused just for you. It was the same thing that had caught his attention the very first time. He hated how that got him, as though every time was the first time.

He slowed without thinking, letting the others move ahead as he fell back into step beside you. He didn't speak — his arm brushing lightly against yours as he followed your gaze out toward the horizon.

The Three Broomsticks had a comfortable amount of people wandering in and out, it smelt faintly of butter-beer and a woodsy scent you couldn't quite put your finger on.

Your group took to the corner booth as usual, you sat besides Jungwon at the end of the booth and ordered a butter-beer as you all settled into chatter and laughs sipping your beers. As your cup emptied, you leaned back with a quiet sigh, the warmth of it settling heavily in your chest.

You slumped sideways until your weight rested against Jungwon’s shoulder. His shoulder shifted just slightly to fit you better, like it was muscle memory. His voice kept going, talking to the others, but softer now, closer. He smiled small, fond but you didn’t see. You felt the faint vibration of his voice and his hand settle on the small of your back against the seat.

"Sleepy?" he asked, brushing against your hair. "Mm, no," you mumbled, lifting your cup slightly before setting it down with a quiet clink. "Just recovering from this, it was so filling." You pushed yourself upright, pulling away from his shoulder — acting like your heart didn’t just do a weird little thing.

But his hand didn’t move. He just hummed, fingers moving in slow circles like it was the most normal thing in the world, and the annoying part? It was normal, it’s always been normal.

The front door swung open, the bell chiming lightly as a group of Quidditch players walked in, their voices loud and easy, already caught up in talk of the upcoming season. Many of them were back with hopes of becoming successful professional players.

That included Choi Beomgyu. Heeseung and Ni-ki were up instantly to greet the Chaser, shoulders knocking together in greeting. As their chatters died down he was pulled into your table and then into the seat beside you.

"Hey Y/n." he sent you a lazy smirk as he settled into the seat "Hey." you returned with a slight tilt to your head. You’d always known him — never closely, but enough. Passing smiles, casual greetings. You'd often see him around since he was also a Slytherin — he always sent you a boyish smile if he saw you sat in the Quidditch stands.

His eyes flit from yours to your lips and then over the rest of you. You noticed that too. "How was your summer?" he asked after taking a long sip of his butter-beer. "It was great, How was yours?" As he spoke, you felt it.

Jungwon's hand had stopped its lazy motions and now rested fully against your lower back, fingers spread like he’s anchoring you there without making a show of it. Your eyes flickered to him for just a second. He was leaning closer now.

"Hey, you guys wanna get going?" Jake called, breaking the moment. Voices overlapped in agreement, chairs scraping as everyone stood. Heeseung invited Beomgyu along without hesitation. Jungwon said nothing.

He bumped against you as you walked, your friends gathered ahead of you as the path stretched back toward the castle. Beomgyu glanced back once, eyes flicking between the two of you. Taking in the space, the distance, the way it didn’t quite feel like distance at all.

Jungwon looked to you and while you took in the world, he took you in.

"I’m doing the re-run on potions tomorrow," you groaned, dragging your attention back to him. He barked out a quiet laugh. "Me too."

"Snape?" he added — amused. "Hey! Snape loves me." you laughed swatting at his arm. "Of course he does!" He teased, "his bias towards you Slytherins is too obvious."

"Whatever." you rolled your eyes, yelping as he poked your sides. "I really missed this," he spoke low.

"I missed this too." you responded easily, he smiled flashing his dimples and for a moment, you just looked at him — really looked. Eyes catching on the curves of his cheeks and the flicker of mischief in his eyes. He seemed to have to same idea, looking over the details on your face. Pupils dragging side to side, you both looked away after a moment without a word.

As you reached the dorms your friends all turned, stopping you in your tracks "Thoughts on going to the lake, we have time to kill before the sorting ceremony?" Heeseung suggested, glancing between you all.

"…Yeah, okay," you nodded with the others, like you weren’t internally negotiating with yourself. Everyone else agreed easily, except Beomgyu who waved it off with something about joining later. You all filtered into your rooms.

You pulled out a bikini you’d bought over the summer, layering it with loose joggers and a top. Low effort, high reward. Soon enough, you were all heading down together arms full of towels and drinks, laughter echoing through the halls.

"Give that here." Jungwon’s voice came from behind you as he took the bag from your shoulder, without waiting for permission. He looked almost offended that you’d been carrying it yourself.

"Thanks, Won," you said glancing back and sending him a smile. You didn’t see Jake’s smirk. Kenny, however, absolutely did. "You’re getting boyfriend privileges," she sang under her breath.

You rolled your eyes, "He’d do that for anyone." Even as you said it, something in your brain went …would he though? She only groaned, unconvinced.

The Great Lake stretched endlessly before you, framed by rolling hills that dipped into the distance. It had been a while since you'd been here, not by choice. Between N.E.W.T.s and those two years confined to the castle, moments like this had been rare — almost unfamiliar.

But now the air was light, warm — the sun was out. It hung high above you as you laid out blankets, dropping your things with a satisfied sigh before standing over one of them — kicking off your joggers, pulling your top over your head.

You stretched, rolling your shoulders, fingers combing through your hair — completely unaware of anything beyond the sun on your skin.

Jungwon had been standing near the water, looking out across the lake and zoning out like he does when he’s thinking too much. Until he turned and saw you. He just, stopped.

His gaze locked without meaning to and dragged, slowly, over you as you moved — unthinking, unguarded. He didn’t even notice Jake walking up behind him. He followed his line of sight and smirked.

"She looks good, hm?" Jake murmured clapping a hand on Jungwon's shoulder, "Shit— don’t do that," Jungwon exhaled, his body jolting slightly, a faint flush crept up his neck.

Jungwon turned back toward the lake quickly, "She always looks good," he said, too fast, too dismissive like he needed to neutralise it. "Just friends?" Jake asked incredulously. "Yeah."

"So you wouldn’t care if I tried something with her?" That did it. Jungwon turned fully, deadpan. The look he gave Jake was enough. Jake laughed, clapping his shoulder. "Thought so. What are you waiting for?"

"I’m not— that’s not—" Jungwon cut himself off, jaw tightening. "We’re friends, Jake." he finalised. He opened his mouth and then stopped when he saw you walking towards them.

You weren’t paying attention to any of that, obviously. You were looking at the water, already halfway mentally in it, and you reached out, fingers wrapping lightly around his wrist, then slid down intertwining with his fingers like it was muscle memory.

His breath caught for a second, before he tightened his grip, grounding himself in it. You stepped into the water first, testing it with your toe before wading in fully. When you deemed it safe you stepped in completely. Then you turned back to him, smiling. He followed without hesitation.

Jake watched for a moment, turning around with a shake to his head "Idiots."

"Ah— fuck," Jungwon muttered as the water climbed higher, soaking through his clothes. You laughed, pulling him further in until the water reached your waist, he wrapped his other hand in yours.

The breeze danced through your hair, sunlight catching on the ripples around you as you tilted your head back slightly, eyes closing for just a second. The water was warm and inviting, the blonde in front of you inched closer. Without thinking his hand slipped from yours only to rise to your face. Your brain went very quiet. Which was rare, concerning, even.

He brushed a stray piece of hair away but his fingers lingered at your jaw. Careful, like he didn’t quite trust himself. Your lips quirked at his touch, then he dropped his hand and a drop of rain hit your shoulder. Another followed.

"Do you wanna go back inside?" he asked. You shook your head immediately, a grin spread across your face and before you could act normal about it you stepped back and splashed him square in the chest.

He gasped dramatically standing there for moment in shock. "Oh.. you’re dead." you barely had time to laugh before he lunged forward, sending water crashing back toward you, enough to make you shriek.

"Jungwon!—" you huffed, you stumbled backwards through the lake while your hands flew up too late to defend yourself. "You started it!" he shouted back, his laugh cracked loudly across the lake, messy and breathless and so stupidly pretty it made your chest hurt a little.

The others sat near the shore watching like this was the most entertaining thing they’d seen all week. Which, to be fair, Hogwarts was basically just academic trauma and near death experiences, so your standards for fun got weird here.

Both of you were soaked within seconds. The rain picked up, steady now — but the sun hadn’t disappeared, casting everything in a strange, golden haze, like a memory while it was still happening.

By now all of you were completely drenched, you waded through the water to the shore and grabbed your wand — relief settling in as you saw your belongings still dry beneath the shield you’d cast earlier.

You flicked your wand, casting a shield overhead to block the rain like a makeshift umbrella. The others immediately crowded underneath it with grateful groans, wrapping towels around themselves, you opted to do the same but Jungwon had beat you to it.

He picked it up and wrapped it around your shoulders rubbing against your arms. Your breath caught slightly and only then did you notice how his black shirt clung to him, soaked through — defining the lines of his arms, his shoulders, the shape of him in a way you hadn’t seen before.

You looked away, back to his face. This was safer.. right. Not really, because he was staring at you with this soft concentration that somehow felt worse. He was entirely too focused on drying your arms, still rubbing. You shivered, exaggerating it just slightly with teeth chattering sounds as you leaned into him, wrapping your arms around him.

"So dramatic," he snorted, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, he held you closer — his hands moving up and down your back, warming you through the fabric.

"Wait— I’m an idiot," you laughed after a few moments, suddenly pulling back. He blinked. "That’s not new—"

You ignored him and grabbed your wand, flicking it with practised ease. A warm gust of air spilled out, surrounding you instantly. Everyone huddled around you like a pack of penguins, they all groaned in relief.

"Thank fuck for you" Jake sighed as he leaned against you without thinking. The flicker in Jungwon's expression was brief but it was there.

After a hot shower you changed into your new robes, which were a lot more flattering than the school attire. Still house colours, still mildly humiliating, but at least you only had to wear them in classes.

You made your way down to the Great Hall with your friends, the familiar hum of voices growing louder with every step. As usual, you all split at the entrance — murmured "See you laters." and fleeting touches before heading toward your respective house tables. Jungwon gave you his signature smile, his hand brushing over your shoulder in passing. Then he was gone, slipping toward Gryffindor's table.

Kenny slid in beside you as Ni-ki took the seat across, already reaching for something on the table. A moment later, another presence settled at your side, Beomgyu.

"Hey," he greeted, offering you a soft, easy smile. "Hey," you returned, turning toward him.

He asked about the lake, about the afternoon, interested in a way that didn’t feel forced. You didn’t notice the way Jungwon’s eyes had already found you across the hall or see his gaze narrowed slightly, settling on the back of Beomgyu’s head. Lingering there, unmoving, even as the Sorting Ceremony began.

The first student was sorted into Slytherin. Which had you turning to stick your tongue out to Jungwon — how you usually would. Only he was already looking, his expression softened the second your eyes met, a small smile tugging at his lips. You faltered for a moment and then he threw you an eye-roll at the announcement.

Beomgyu had watched the exchange, curious. He leaned in close to your ear, "Are you and Jungwon dating?" he whispered. The question hit differently this time, it felt louder, like a ringing in your ear. You felt as though you'd been snapped out a daydream.

No, Jungwon isn't your boyfriend, it had never been discussed between you. Never defined but then your brain, traitor that it is, starts listing things.

You didn’t let anyone act the way he did with you. No one else held you like that. Looked at you like that or knew you the way he did and yet that didn't change the fact that, the label had never wavered.

Four years. No confusion. No weirdness. No “What are we?” conversations at 2am like some tragic situationship. Just… him and you.

Which, logically, should’ve been comforting but lately it felt like wearing something that used to fit perfectly and now it sat just slightly wrong — not enough to throw it away, but enough that you couldn’t stop noticing it.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe you were overthinking like a normal person who refuses to be embarrassing out loud. And you weren’t about to be the girl who ruined a perfectly good thing because she couldn’t keep her thoughts in check.

"No," you said finally, shaking your head. "We’re just friends."

Beomgyu’s grin widened slightly. "Okay." he replied, leaning back in his seat.

Jungwon had of course seen your exchange. Not the words but enough. His jaw was tight, teeth grinding faintly as his gaze flicked between you and Beomgyu, something restless settling beneath his skin.

The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur. By the end, you were full, tired, and mildly overwhelmed by your own thoughts, which was honestly rude. You all trudged back to your dorms with light chatters. At the doors you said your goodnights and split off again.

Sleep came easily. It always did when your brain decided to emotionally clock out instead of process anything.

The morning came quietly. Soft light filtered through the windows as you got ready, rubbing at your eyes and stifling yawns as you moved through your routine. Half on autopilot, hair, robes, minimal effort because you refuse to be perceived this early in the morning.

By the time you made your way down to the Great Hall with Kenny, the familiar buzz of voices had already settled in.

You slid into your usual place, picking at fruit and sipping your tea as conversation drifted lazily between your friends. Jungwon sat across from you at some point, without asking, he reached over taking your cup and bringing it to his lips.

He hummed satisfied, before setting it back down in front of you like it was his to begin with. You stare at him for a second. Right. We’re doing that now.. You nudge his foot under the table anyway, because apparently you love enabling it.

Beomgyu slid in besides you, all easy smiles and bumps your shoulder “Morning.”

"Morning." you replied. "We should get going." Jungwon said suddenly, his tone firmer than necessary.

"Yeah, lets go." you agreed, already standing. "See you guys later."

Kenny gave you a pointed look, knowing, you ignored it. Jake didn’t miss the shift either, his eyebrow lifted slightly as his gaze flicked toward Jungwon.

The classroom felt the same as you settled into your seat beside Jungwon, a strange sense of deja vu washed over you. You turned your head slightly, studying him. He was already looking at you, his head tilted in recognition, almost curious.

"Deja vu." you whispered, he nodded, lips catching briefly between his teeth, like he felt it too.

"Hogwarts University students," Snape’s voice cut cleanly through the room, "you are here for a two-week re-run course on unnecessary, ineffective, or unneeded potions." His chalk scratched sharply against the board as he listed them.

"Babbling beverages. Stupid potions. Confusing concoctions." A pause. "And Amortentia. An arguably unneeded and unethical love potion."

Beneath the title, bold and unmistakable, he wrote,

"NOTE THAT AMORTENTIA DOES NOT CREATE TRUE LOVE BUT A TEMPORARY OBSESSION."

Your eyes lingered on it. Temporary, right. The first class was simple, babbling beverages and unsurprisingly, you were paired with Jungwon.

You fell into your usual rhythm of cutting the ingredients and writing in turns as though no time had passed at all. You stewed the Alihosty leaves first and added the Billywig stings as Jungwon stirred counter-clockwise, then went in the bile and leech-juice.

You potted the light brown substance into a vial and handed it to Jungwon so he could cork it properly. Snape sauntered over past each station with sharp disinterest. Sniffing and prodding at the goop in each pot. He sent some glares with flares to his nose until he reached yours.

"This is.. sufficient." he spoke looking between you both, "Thanks sir." you both hummed in return.

"Think that's the nicest he's ever been to me." Jungwon murmured in your ear as Snape retreated to the front desk. That earned him a laugh.

The next classes blurred together in similar patterns. You went through the same motions except Beomgyu lingered more and talked more, finding reasons to be near your group. You didn't mind, he was easy to talk to.

But Jungwon was becoming almost restless, he lingered more. Looked at you like he wanted to say something like the words were right there but he just… didn’t.

By the time you made it to the Quidditch stands, the air had turned crisp. You sat with your friends, eyes following the players as they darted across the sky. Jungwon besides you as usual. It was Slytherin vs Ravenclaw, which meant Ni-ki and Beomgyu were playing.

Beomgyu slowed mid-air as he passed your section, hovering just long enough to wave but then he waved again. Smaller, directed at you. You smiled back automatically because… you’re not rude and also because it would be weird not to. Social norms are exhausting.

You didn’t notice Jungwon’s quiet huff, didn’t feel his gaze settle heavier on you. You sniffed a little at the cold before turning to him. "What?" you asked with amusement tinged in your voice. He didn't falter, if anything his lips curved just a little more.

"Nothing," he said. "You cold?" You nodded, about to say you’re fine but before you could do anything about it, he was already pulling you closer.

Your side pressed against his, your hand lifted and placed in his lap, his fingers threading through yours like it was instinct. Oh okay.

He rubbed slow circles into your skin, then lifted your hand slightly, bringing it closer to his lips blowing warm air against your fingers. His eyes never left yours. You bit the inside of your lip without realizing, holding something back — something you couldn’t quite name.

His gaze dropped to your lips and stayed, for a second too long. Then he tore it away, lowering your hand back to his lap — but not letting go. By now you were mentally somewhere else entirely.

Above you, the game continued. People were yelling, Jake was probably commentating like he’s being paid for it, Ni-ki was doing something illegal on a broom but neither of you were really watching anymore.

At some point Beomgyu circled back around and this time — he noticed. The way you were pressed into Jungwon’s side. The way your hand rested, laced with his, something in his expression shifted.

His jaw tightened slightly, eyes narrowing as he flew past. You didn’t notice but Jungwon did and for a brief second, his lips quirked up.

The fourth and last class was on Amortentia, the strongest and deadliest love potion. As Snape had so bluntly put it, the most unethical and you're just.. casually brewing it on a random Tuesday.

You stood at your usual station with Jungwon sleeves pushed up, already moving before you even think about it.

You started by heating the water, steam curled softly into the air as the scent of something faintly sweet lingered beneath it. Jungwon added the bruised peppermint flower heads and you added the peppermint leaves. The two of you moved in quiet sync.

"Apparently it smells different for everyone," you murmured, glancing over your shoulder briefly. Like you’re not even slightly curious what his would be.

He hummed in response, tipping the crushed moonstone into the cauldron as you stirred anti-clockwise, adding the rose thorns with careful hands. The potion shimmered faintly, suspiciously pretty and definitely illegal in at least five countries.

From then it was a waiting game, he placed the cauldron in a dimly lit closet as instructed. Snape’s voice cut through the room once more. "You’ll return later," he said. "Let it settle."

You pack up your things, already halfway out the room, when you heard her.

"Jungwon," Penelope Clearwater’s voice slid in, sweet but sharp around the edges. She talked of him helping her in potions. You didn’t need to hear the rest, you already knew.

And then you decided… yeah, no. You were not doing this today, so you didn’t wait, didn’t interrupt. You just left. It wasn't dramatic — it was just easier.

Because she has this way of talking that makes you feel like background noise and you don’t do that. Not for anyone, but Jungwon had noticed too late. He was already suppressing a sigh as Penelope spoke, his patience thinning. "Can you just ask Snape?" he said flatly. "Or your partner."

"Seamus?" she scoffed. "That bloody idiot couldn’t tell a moonstone from a bezoar." she huffed in annoyance. Jungwon barely heard her, he was already looking around for you but you weren’t there.

"I’ve got to go,” he cut in, not waiting for a response. "I hope you find the help you need."

You hadn’t meant to go anywhere in particular. Your feet carried you toward the dorms out of habit, your mind quieter than it should have been until you heard a noise, low and grinding almost — like bricks moving.

You paused and stepped back and there it was. The Room of Requirement. Waiting for you, you exhaled slowly before stepping inside.

Bookshelves lined every wall, filled to the brim. A fireplace crackled softly along one side, casting a golden glow across the room as though the room was actively telling you to relax. In the far corner was a nook, carved into the wall like it had always been there. Soft blankets, scattered pillows, a large window framing the view beyond — rolling hills, the lake stretching endlessly beneath the sky.

You walk over, running your fingers along the spines of books until one caught your attention — Extinct Creatures. Good enough. You then kicked off your shoes and climbed into the nook, the cushions sank beneath you, welcoming, familiar.

You barely made it a few pages in before your eyes began to drift. Your breathing slowed.

Jungwon had walked back into the classroom in search of you, and then he tried the dorms. As he went back to the stairs, he saw it, the outline of a door that hadn’t been there before.

He stood directly in front of it and closed his eyes thinking you. The next moment he opened them the door had changed — larger now, curved, silver handles gleaming softly under the light. He didn’t hesitate. His eyes moved quickly, scanning the bookshelves, the fireplace and then you.

Curled with your knees against the window, your head against a fluffed pillow. As he walked closer he felt relief wash over him — your chest moved up and down gently as you breathed deeply in sleep. He couldn’t help it. The way his eyes moved over you as he climbed into the nook beside you — careful, deliberate, like even the smallest movement might wake you.

Not touching you, not until you stirred and turned. A soft sound left you, something content — unaware as your head found his chest. Your hand rested against his hip like it had always belonged there. Jungwon’s breath hitched, uneven now — completely out of sync with your slow, steady breaths.

He froze completely. Unsure where to put his hands, what to do, how to exist without disturbing you. One arm was trapped beneath you, already beginning to go numb. The other hovered awkwardly at his side.

Then you moved again, your leg slid over him, settling across his lap as you buried your face into his neck, exhaling softly against his skin. He sucked in a quiet breath, sharp and careful like even breathing too loud might ruin this.

He shifted slightly, freeing the arm pinned beneath you and finally he hesitantly wrapped it around your back, holding you.

You mumbled something incoherent, your voice warm and drowsy against his neck, and he let his head fall back slightly trying, desperately to relax into it.

Trying not to think and trying not to feel everything all at once. He didn’t know how long passed, minutes maybe more until you stirred again. You groaned quiet against him as you shifted, pressing closer without meaning to.

Your eyes didn't even open yet but your brain caught up real fast. You don’t panic, you're not someone who panics, you process and pretend you meant to do this. Fuck.

"Jungwon?" you murmured, your voice thick with sleep. "Hm?" he replied softly, forcing a lazy smile into his tone. "Morning."

You shifted again, this time pushing yourself up just enough to swing your leg fully over him, settling on top of him without hesitation. Chest to chest. Your head dropped back into the crook of his neck like it was instinct.

His jaw clenched, a quiet, strangled sound left him as though you'd wounded him. You lifted your head slightly, brows knitting. "You okay?"

His cheeks were flushed now, his breathing uneven and shallow. You didn’t understand. Couldn’t. Your hand came up, cupping his cheek gently, your thumb brushing against warm skin. "You’re so hot," you murmured, frowning slightly as if trying to figure it out. Then you shifted again and he exhaled sharply.

"Don’t— move," he said quickly, his hands gripping your thighs — firm, grounding, tense. You blinked at him, slowly.

He forced himself to breathe through it, his hands sliding slightly higher before stilling again, like he didn’t trust himself to move any further. Before you can even decide how to recover your dignity, the door creaked open.

Kenny stepped in and froze. Her eyes landed on you and then on him, then back again. Her jaw dropped — slowly giving way to a smirk. "Oh?" she said, dragging the word out. You stilled as heat creeping up your neck.

"What are you guys doing?" she asked, her gaze flicking over Jungwon’s dishevelled state with barely concealed amusement. You sit up like this is completely normal behaviour.

"We’re actually about to check on our Amortentia," you replied and you slide off him like nothing happened.. because nothing happened.

Completely unaware of the situation you’d just left him in. Jungwon sat up behind you, hunched slightly, hands braced at his sides. His shoulders tense, like he’s trying to reboot his entire system.

Kenny hummed, clearly entertained. "Right," she said, already turning. "Have fun with that." Something about a date followed as she disappeared through the door, laughter lingering behind her. "Won, are you good?" you tilted your head. He nodded quickly, a tight-lipped smile pulling at his mouth.

"Yeah— I’ll meet you there," he said, voice just slightly off. You don’t question it. You should but you don’t. "Don’t take too long," you added lightly, offering a small wave as you stepped out. The second you left Jungwon had sighed, loud and harsh — almost frustrated. He checked the corridor, making sure you were gone, before heading straight for his room.

He locked the door and stripped himself of his clothes — which were uncomfortably sticking to him.

He had successfully hidden his raging boner from you b ut he couldn't find it in himself to enjoy it — he groaned as he looked down at the reddened angry tip of his length which was refusing to go down. He turned on the shower and stepped in. The water ran cold, biting against his skin as he stepped under it, bracing his hands against the glass. His head dropped forward.

"Fuck…" he muttered under his breath, voice low and strained. His lip caught in his teeth as his hand wrapped around the base of his cock, his mind wandered to your chest flush against his.

Everything about that moment replayed too vividly. He pumped his hand up and down, slowly — a groan caught in his throat. His eyes were knit shut, the image of your body on his urged him to fasten his hand. You looked so fucking pretty on top of him — his teeth bit down harder.

He turned so his head was now leaning back, pressing his weight against the glass. He released his lip as his hand sped up — small fast breaths echoing through the room.

One image in particular was stamped in his head, his hands gripping your thighs like they were his to claim. The way your skin felt on his, the warmth of your touch — your breath against his neck. His hips stuttered as the coil snapped, his jaw slacked with shaky breaths as his high took over, ropes of his cum leaking out onto his hand and stomach.

He breathed heavily trying to catch his breath, he felt guilt flood his mind. He had thoughts of you before — thoughts of how you'd sound, how you'd taste, but he had never let himself do this. That restraint he had before had snapped in one moment.

His breathed in harsh again, sharper this time, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. He stayed there longer than he needed to. By the time he walked back into the classroom, his hair was still damp, water clinging to the ends as it curled slightly at his neck.

You stood at your stand, writing in the notes you hadn't done earlier when Jungwon walked in. He kept his eyes anywhere but you at first.

"Hey," he said, stepping up beside you, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to look casual. "Hey," you replied lightly. "Good shower?" you asked with your eyes still on the pages in front of you.

He froze for half a second, too quick for you to notice. His eyes flicked to you — searching your face for something, any sign that you knew, "Er— yeah," he said, forcing a small, sheepish grin. "Woke me up."

You hummed in response, like that made sense. Still focused on your notes, Snape swept back into the room — robes trailing behind him. "Go get your cauldrons" he drawled as he wiped the chalk board.

Jungwon moved instantly like he needed something to do and grabbed the cauldron from the shelves — setting it down with a thud.

You removed the lid and sighed in relief at the pearlescent liquid staring back at you. The potion had settled perfectly. Pearlescent and smooth, it shimmered with soft spirals of steam curling into the air like something almost alive.

Jungwon leaned over the cauldron and took in the scent, his head tilted for a second, "Vanilla musk…" he murmured, almost to himself. He paused and breathed in deeper, "Star jasmine… and…" his voice softened, quieter now, "fresh parchment." he finished, it was almost enchanting, he found his eyes fluttering shut, to completely seal himself into the confinement of the aroma.

When he opened them again, they found you. Then the potion, then you again.

"That smells so, so good." he exhaled, tipping his head back slightly. He watched you for a second as you stood in front of him towards the cauldron, without thinking he stepped closer. Resting his chin lightly against your shoulder. Your hair brushed against his face, soft familiar.. and there it was again.

The same aroma from the cauldron hit his nose, subtle and alluring but unmistakable. His breath catching as he leaned just slightly further in, his nose brushing the side of your neck. You felt it more than you saw it, the slight pause in his breathing. The way he didn’t pull back straight away.

"That tickles— what are you doing?" you laughed turning toward him but before your brain could overanalyse it into oblivion, he had jerked back.

"Wha— nothing!" he said too quickly, scratching the back of his neck as he stepped away. His mind was racing, of course it smelled like you. Of course it did, and the potion didn’t lie. No matter how much he had tried to.

You shook your head in amusement as you leaned over the cauldron and let the aroma seep into your nostrils. "What can you smell?" he asked, you knit your eyebrows together.

"It smells like, autumn" you started slowly, "Fresh strawberries— and rain.." you trailed off. "Smells good," you added, almost absentmindedly. "That good?" he spoke as he potted the substance. Needing something to ground himself. You nodded with a hum.

Snape once again walked over each station and arrived at yours, he took one look at the potion and nodded once — then walked back to the board. You looked at each other at the same time and broke into quiet, stifled laughter.

And then you noticed Penelope, walking over, you sighed internally. She had a stack of papers in hand, posture perfect as though she rehearsed this in a mirror beforehand. "We’re having a party tonight," she announced, placing a flyer neatly in front of Jungwon like she’s presenting a case. "Room of Requirement, for whoever wins the game."

She doesn’t look at you and you don’t look up. Mutual understanding, or maybe sly hatred. You focus on the vial in your hands instead, like you cared deeply about whatever you were pretending to do. "You’ll come, right?" she added, her tone shifting — directed only at him. Shock.

Jungwon barely glanced at the paper before his eyes flicked to you. Your brows are pulled together slightly — not dramatically, just enough that someone paying attention (him, apparently) would catch it.

"Y/n are you coming?" he asked instead. That caught you off guard, you looked up to see Penelope smiling at you. "Everyone's invited." she added with that strained smile, "I’ll think about it," you said, returning your attention to the vial in your hands.

"We'll be there." Jungwon said easily, still scanning the paper. Penelope seemed satisfied with that so she turned and walked off and you looked at him immediately. "Who says I'll be there?" you challenged. "C’mon," he grins, completely unbothered. "I’ll drag you if I have to."

"Yeah?" you shot back, arching a brow. "Try it." He leaned in slightly, voice dropping just enough "Don’t start whining when I do." Your stomach did a small, very annoying flip. You scoffed, nudging him lightly. "I don’t whine." He hums like he knows better.

You both walked back to the dorms as you talked, conversation was light, easy as it drifted between the upcoming game and whatever else came to mind. Jungwon split off to his room to change, and you did the same — stepping into your dorm and closing the door behind you.

Your hands were slower than usual as you picked out something to wear — something casual, but fitted just right. Something that sat on you well. Your favourite jewellery settled against your skin and a quick swipe of lip-gloss, a glance in the mirror and then you were out again.

The living room was already alive when you stepped in. Voices overlapping, laughter spilling out between your friends as drinks were passed around and poorly mixed concoctions were tested. Your eyes found him instantly. Jungwon sat sprawled against the sofa, one arm thrown lazily over the back, a backwards cap resting low on his head. Grey hoodie, black pinstripe pants — effortless.

Dangerously so. He looked—

No. We're not doing that. You averted your thoughts and slipped in beside Kenny at the counter instead. Across the room, Jungwon’s voice faltered mid-sentence, Jake kept talking but Jungwon had stopped. His eyes found you the second you walked in and stayed and they moved slowly, taking you in like he was trying to memorize something he hadn’t noticed before.

Like you were different or maybe like he was. You tipped the drink back with Kenny and immediately scrunched your nose, pulling a face. "Fuck, that’s disgusting," you laughed, nudging the glass away. Kenny snorted beside you.

"Yo, Jungwon?" Jake’s voice cut in, barely holding back laughter. "Hm?" Jungwon responded, not looking away from you. "You’re staring." you turned. Their expressions shifted instantly too quickly to catch fully, but enough to notice something. You walked over anyway, slipping into the space beside Jungwon like it was second nature.

"What’s wrong with you?" you grinned, your leg brushing his as you sat. His breath hitched barely and the gloss on your lips caught the light. You leaned in without thinking nudging the glass near him. "Nothing," he said, a little too quick. "Thanks." He reached for your drink, taking a sip — his eyes still flickering back to you. You didn’t stay long and you stood again, moving back toward the kitchen to fix the drinks for the others.

"I'm doing it later." Jungwon’s voice was low, almost absentminded. Jake turned to him slowly. "…And just so we’re clear," he said carefully, "by it you mean—"

"I’ll tell her." he said quieter this time like he was certain. Jake blinked, he breathed out a laugh. "Wow," he muttered. "didn’t think I’d see the day." He then slumped back against the sofa with a breath of disbelief.

Jungwon didn’t respond, he was still watching you because lately it had become impossible not to. Every day, it got harder to ignore. Harder to pretend, harder to act like you didn’t pull him in without even trying.

Across the room, you laughed softly at something Ni-ki said — but your attention shifted when you caught Kenny’s eye. "Can you help me with something?" she asked already moving, you nodded following behind.

"I’ll be right back," you called over your shoulder. The door clicked shut behind you and Kenny turned immediately, leaning back against it — arms crossing as she stared at you. For a moment she just looked at you, perplexed. "Kenny?.." you said cautiously, a nervous smile tugging at your lips. "What the fuck is going on with Jungwon?" she asked, her voice sharper than intended. Your brows lifted, "Jungwon?"

"That man is staring at you like he’s never seen you before," she continued, watching you closely. You exhaled slow, because you knew. You’d noticed it too, you had felt it and avoided it. Hearing it out loud was too much and yet somehow relieving. "It’s nothing," you start.

"Y/n, he’s crazy about you, he—"

"What if you’re wrong, Kenn?" you cut in, quieter now. Your expression tightened but Kenny didn’t hesitate. "And if I’m right?" she asked. "Can you live with that?" The question landed heavy, like they had an ache behind them. You paced, hands restless at your sides because you saw it. The way he looked at you. The way everyone else looked at you both and the way your chest flood with something warm when he got too close and worse, it feels right. That’s the problem.

To answer her question, no. You couldn’t live with not knowing, with pretending. "Okay." Your voice was sudden and firm. Kenny blinked. "Okay?" she echoed. You nodded, the slight buzz running through your body did nothing but assure your current thought process.

"Yeah," you said, more certain now. "I’m going to test it." Kenny narrows her eyes. "How?" You shrug lightly. A small smirk pulling at your lips. "Observation," you say. "Field testing." She didn’t interrupt or move. "And by the end of tonight," you continued, "If I feel like he does — if there’s anything there…"

"I’ll confess." She stood still for a moment as though any sudden movement would change your mind then she broke. A grin spread across her face, wide and disbelieving. "Wow," she laughed. "Did not see that coming."

The conversation with Kenny had been playing on your mind as you walked towards the kitchen. No matter what, tonight would change everything.

You had a plan for the night, not a good one and it was not a foolproof one but it was something. How to figure out if your best friend of four years has feelings for you—101.

Eyes. Jungwon loves eye-contact he fiends for it. He held it longer than most people, like he was always searching for something just beneath the surface.

Body language. He was subtle with everyone else but not with you. He leaned in, closed space without asking, existed just a little closer than necessary like proximity was instinct when it came to you.

Touch. Initiating more contact, that was the biggest one. He'd nudge your shoulder, brush against your arm, pull you forward when you lagged too far behind.

Jungwon was always the one to initiate it, so tonight you’d flip it. You'd hold his gaze longer than usual. You don’t look away first. Close the distance before he can, be the one to reach for him.

It made your stomach twist just thinking about it, because this isn’t just observation anymore. It’s risk and if he pulls away, or if he hesitates. You’ll have your answer.

Your friends made it to the game a couple minutes early to get the best seats for the upcoming game, Slytherin V Gryffindor. You hang back just long enough to knock back a shot, purely medicinal.

Once you made it to the game there were a few empty seats besides your friends. He sent you a small wave, like he hasn’t been subconsciously tracking your existence since you walked in. You settled besides him — making a point to sit with your leg flush against his. He paused briefly and relaxed, this wasn't unusual. Not yet.

You then turned to him looking between his brown feline eyes. "Hi Won," you said. He looked between your own, his eyes widened for a flicker of a moment. "Hey Y/n," he returned with a mischievous smile, confusion twisting into his brows.

"What are you up to?" he said leaning in slightly. You leaned in even closer and tilted your head, just a little. Play dumb, "What do you mean?" you replied, eyes still trained on his.

"I- What?" he stammered. You only feigned ignorance, perplexing him further. Was it always this obvious?

Jungwon had been convincing himself he'd been thrown into an alternate dimension, the one he'd dreamt of once where you would flirt, shameless.

It was the kind of reality he’d never let himself linger on for long, too aware of how easily it could blur into something dangerous. Something that would make it impossible to go back to what you were.

So instead of questioning it, he leaned into it. A small grin graced his lips, your eyes dilated as they looked into his and you pulled back to sit back in your chair. He sat back with the sleeves of his hoodie rolled back — his forearms on show. He watched as you shook your head in amusement and disbelief, trying your best to focus on the game that was about to begin.

Shortly after, the balls were released into the air along with a whistle to signal the start of the game. As the players all flew around the pitch you couldn't help but notice Jungwon's gaze when he was convinced you weren't looking.

You turned to face him watching as his eyes flit over your face in response, "What are you looking at?" you asked holding his eyes with yours again. "You" he said simply, you rolled your eyes at his words, but despite that you felt it. That warmth spreading in your chest, traitorous and loud.

You look back at the blurs of red and green in the distance. Relishing in the warmth, instead of filing it away. You all talked about the game as the breeze picked up and your shoulders caved in, as if to shield yourself from the cold.

You then felt an arm snake around your shoulders, Jungwon pulled you into him and rubbed up and down your arm, you pressed further into his warmth. "Comfy?" he smiled looking down at you. You nodded looking up at him, "Me too." he said, with a sheepish grin — making a point to rub harder against your arm for a moment.

Your friends snickered at the two of you, but neither of you noticed — too caught up in the quiet little world you always seemed to fall into together. Conversation flowed easily, effortlessly, the kind you’d forget the details of later but remember the feeling of.

His chest vibrated under you as he spoke, sneaking glances at you. Every so often, his voice would dip, like he was saying something just for you — even when it wasn’t anything important at all.

It's not like you hadn't been in this position before, you had been enough times that this wasn't new. Only it was. Your heart beat faster now, harder against your chest. You were certain he could hear it.

You also knew, somewhere along the way, that this was another shift — another quiet turning point in something that had always felt steady. A new line drawn without either of you acknowledging it, one that would change the shape of everything after.

The game blurred by, you and Jungwon cheered and whined at each-others teams as each of them scored points. He would never admit it but he was secretly rooting for Slytherin to win. For… morale. Just so Ni-ki could come back flashing that boyish grin you all inevitably cooed over, that was the reason.

Not the way you leaned forward with every play, eyes lit with excitement or the way your hand tightened in his sleeve whenever the score shifted. Not the way your voice carried just a little louder when it was your house pulling ahead. Definitely not that.

The commentator was drowned out by Jake's own commentary, full body reactions, dramatic gasps, like he was personally responsible for the outcome. It’s funny, it is, but you’re only half there because Jungwon’s hand is still on you. "Oi, focus!" Jake’s voice cut through as he pointed wildly at the pitch, "Ni-ki’s about to lose his mind—" You laughed softly, but your attention didn’t fully leave Jungwon.

Not when his hand slid just a little further down your arm — not unfamiliar, just more intentional than before as though he was testing something too. The last few minutes of the game had you all perched at the edge of your seats — tension coiling tighter with every second, every pass, every near miss.

It peaked when Ni-ki suddenly dipped — sharp and brutal, a near 90-degree dive as his eyes locked onto a fleeting glint of gold. "OH—" Jake practically folding over the railing, "—HE’S GONE—WHERE IS HE—" Just as you all stood up to look over the banister. He shot back up, a grin splitting across his face, fist clenched tight around the Golden Snitch.

The stadium erupted as the Slytherin team crowded around the blonde seeker, Beomgyu pulled him onto his shoulders and they all chanted the house name. But somewhere in the chaos, Jungwon grabbed your hand, you hadn't even register when it happened.

One moment you were cheering, the next — his fingers were laced with yours, his other hand thrown into the air with the crowd. The cheers mellowed like it had been pushed underwater. Your eyes trained on the space connecting you both, like they might explain themselves. He looked over at you, noticing your silence following your gaze to your hand in his. Your eyes snapped up to his, he didn't let go, he didn't pull away. He only looked over your expression carefully.

"Hey." he spoke softly, quietly — just for you. "Hi." you returned, feeling that familiar flutter in your stomach, the one that the buzz of alcohol had barely dampened.

"Is this okay?" he asked squeezing your hand for a moment, your heart stuttered. "This is okay." you nodded. A smile stretched onto his face as his thumb circled your skin. Enough to quiet the doubt that had been clawing at you all day.

As the players all made their way back inside and the cheers had subsided you all hurried inside, to the warmth. "The party then?" Heeseung said making you groan. "You don't whine remember?" Jungwon said catching your wrist as you pulled away.

"Wasn't whining." you muttered, he rolled his eyes. "You're not actually gonna drag me?" you scoffed, your voice trailed off with a hint of doubt as you watched an evil grin mould onto his lips.

"You can make this easy and just come with me— us." he tilted his head with a hint of a pout on his lips. You stared at him for a second.. debated your life choices.

"Whatever." you rolled your eyes letting him drag you along to the Room Of Requirement because apparently your free will stopped working around him. The doors of the Room of Requirement opened to something entirely different this time vast and open, the ceilings stretching high above with dark stone beams crossing overhead. Fairy lights draped between them, casting a warm, golden glow that softened everything it touched.

Sofas were scattered across the room in uneven clusters, already claimed by groups of students, laughter spilling between them. In each corner, makeshift bars lined the corners, bottles everywhere, drinks being poured like consequences weren’t real.

"See?" he murmured, leaning slightly toward you, his voice low enough that it barely carried past your ear. "Not so bad." But he wasn’t looking at the room. He was looking at you.

The soft buzz that had been carrying you through the evening was starting to dull at the edges, thinning out into something far less convincing. You needed more than this half-hearted warmth for what you had planned. You grabbed a couple of bottles and some glasses from the bar, weaving your way back to the corner your friends had claimed earlier.

"I was about to come look for you," Kenny said the second she spotted you, her voice half-laughing, half-knowing. "Thought you’d already wandered off."

When you drank, you wandered. That was just a fact. Slipped away from conversations, from rooms, from people. Chasing distraction wherever it led, no real destination in mind. Your laugh came out as a exhale through your nose as you set everything down. "Not yet," you murmured, already reaching for a glass.

Everyone was sprawled out on a corner sofa, Jungwon sat at the edge with a twinge of amusement playing on his lips — he watched as you topped some unknown liquid off with some coke. You took a safety sip. Your sip turned into another as you deemed it drinkable. The room pulsed with low, bass-heavy music, something nostalgic bleeding through the speakers as your friends broke into loud, overlapping chatter about the game.

You looked up from your glass and caught his eye, and just like that — he tilted his head, a quiet invitation. Come here. You hate that it works. You moved without thinking, slipping into the space beside him at the edge of the couch. It was closer than usual.

His hand snaked around your back settling on your hip. "Got enough space?" he murmured, leaning in close enough that his voice brushed against your skin instead of reaching your ears. You blinked once. twice, suddenly your brain wasn’t keeping up with your body. "Yes— yeah I do" you said softer than you'd anticipated. Your voice had given you away. His eyes held yours for a second too long, lips curling up. "Good."

His gaze dipped, catching on the dark liquid in your glass. You followed it, then nudged it slightly toward him, tilting your head just a fraction. He took it, fingers brushing with yours, eyebrows furrowing for a moment as he sniffed experimentally. His eyes were on yours the whole time, he took a sip from where your lips touched the glass — expression morphing into subtle delight at the taste.

"Strong," he muttered, lips quirking slightly. You nodded like you hadn’t just noticed that and let your gaze drift across the room, swaying slightly to the music as the alcohol settled warm beneath your skin.

Jungwon didn't look away once, not when you turned, not when you laughed, not when you lost yourself in the rhythm. His eyes stayed on you like you were the only thing in the room worth watching.

It didn’t take long for the winning team to burst through the doors, loud and electric with energy. Ni-ki and Beomgyu led the way, the golden trophy gleaming under the soft glow of the fairy lights as cheers erupted around them. You smiled easily, stepping forward with the others.

"Your drop was insane, Riki," you added, nudging him lightly. He broke into that familiar boxy grin, pulling you into a quick side hug before being dragged into more congratulations. You poured another drink not long after, feeling the buzz deepen as the night went on. Enough to make the world feel lighter, hopefully enough to make you braver.

You got up at some point as someone asked the room to create a dance floor in the centre of it. The room shifted, glowing softly as it cleared, colours flickering across the floor like something alive. People flooded in almost instantly, laughter rising with the music. You were about to stay exactly where you were because, realistically, dancing in a crowd wasn’t usually your thing — but then you felt Jungwon stand beside you.

"You wanna dance don't you?" he grinned reading you. You turned to him, a small laugh slipping out. "I think I’m at that point." He reached for your hand and you let him. He guided you to the floor with a smile that was tugged between his teeth, one you couldn't see as you walked hand in hand. You also didn't notice the figure that stood somewhere along the side of the room with a glare directed at you.

Jungwon turned as he reached the dance floor and pulled you closer, you took his other hand in yours. Whatever this feeling was, you concluded you liked it and then the music switched and you gasped.

[ SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK > JOJI ]

"Fuck, I love this song." you smiled. Jungwon pulled you closer, hands now safely on your waist. "I know." he said, softer now. "Did you—" you started, but he cut you off with a playful roll of his eyes, spinning you once before pulling you right back in. A laugh slipped out of you anyway, bright and unfiltered, dying the second your body met his again. Your arms found their place around his neck without a second thought.

"Hi." he whispered. So close, close enough that you could feel his breath, see the way his eyes flickered not steady but blown out and uncertain in a way you’d never seen before. "Hi," you echoed, your fingers drifted to the hair at the nape of his neck as the lights shifted over his face in soft, changing colours.

"You've been different today" he started carefully. You tilted your head slightly, studying him. "Good or bad?" you asked. "So good" he said with no hesitation, "Yeah?" you murmured, a hint of a smile pulling at your lips.

"Yeah," he nodded, hands pressing lightly into your waist — like he needed to be sure you were still there. Jungwon’s thoughts tangled over themselves, something settling in his chest but not from the alcohol. It had him finally thinking, what if she feels what I feel?

"C'mon let's grab a drink." you said stepping back and taking his hand. He pouted just for a second, at the loss of your weight against him but it vanished the moment your fingers slipped into his. His grip tightened instinctively, like it settled something in him. You caught Kenny’s smile as you walked back, that knowing one she usually threw at you. This time, you didn’t brush it off. You smiled back.

You were halfway through your drink when you felt it, that familiar prickle of being watched. The universal experience of someone staring at you too hard, with one look around the group your eyes met Beomgyu's.

Too late to pretend you didn't notice. He tilted his head slightly, subtle, motioning toward the door. You hesitated for half a second, stomach dropping and then you nodded.

You turned to Jungwon, whose eyes were already on you, like he’d been waiting.

"I'll be right back." you said to him, squeezing his hand. A silent promise more than anything, he nodded once — squeezing back, thumb brushing lightly against your knuckles before letting go.

You got up and headed to the door, walking through and leaning against the wall as you and Beomgyu settled outside — the sound of music being drowned into silence as the door swung shut. You leaned against the wall as Beomgyu joined you, hands shoved into his pockets, a sheepish grin tugging at his lips.

"Hey," you said, tilting your head. "What’s up?" He exhaled through a small laugh. "I just—" he scratched the back of his neck, glancing at you, "I wanted to ask about you and Jungwon. Again." You huffed out a quiet breath, already knowing where this was going. "I noticed things felt… different," he added.

You looked down at your hands for a moment, fingers fidgeting slightly. "Yeah.. there has been a development" You glanced back up at him. "On my side, at least" Beomgyu didn’t even hesitate. "It’s reciprocated," he said with a small laugh, nodding like it was obvious. "Like— painfully obvious." You breathed in sharp at that.

Good to know you’ve been the only one missing that for four years. "But I just wanted to make sure," he added quickly. "I wasn’t lying before," you said, frowning slightly. "I just— didn’t realise," You started.

"No, no," he cut in, shaking his head with a small smile. "You’re good. We’re good." Relief flashed across your face "Okay, I'm glad."

"You should say something to him though." he added. "I will," you murmured, more to yourself than to him.

"Soo," he dragged out, nudging your shoulder lightly, "what are you waiting for?"

That question followed you all the way back inside. Through the noise, past the lights and the crowd that blurred around you as your eyes searched and found him.

Jungwon. Stood with Penelope, not too close. Nothing anyone else would question but close enough that it feels intentional. Close enough that you noticed. "You came," she said, soft, almost relieved like his presence meant something specific. Like he came for her. Your stomach turned and something bitter ran up your throat.

Your chest ached in this dull, persistent way like something was pressing there, not hard enough to break anything, just enough to be constantly noticeable. Which was worse, honestly. You could deal with sharp. You told yourself it was nothing. Jungwon’s expression was neutral — polite, attentive in that way he is with people he doesn’t want to be rude to. He’s listening, nodding slightly, but there’s no real weight behind it.

She says something else, quieter this time, leaning in just slightly like she doesn’t want anyone else to hear. He glances around for a second — quick, then back at her, responding with something short.

He’s not pulling away or shutting it down. He wasn’t doing anything that would let you go oh, I’m being dramatic. That’s what got you, not what he did, but what he didn’t do.

Your jaw tightened as you turned away, slipping back into your group like nothing had happened. As though you hadn’t just stood there analysing every second of that interaction like it meant something. You grabbed a drink, didn’t even register what it was — just needed something to do with your hands.

Don’t look, not at her handing him a drink. Not at him hesitating, then taking it anyway. You didn’t see him notice you were back or the way he excused himself with something vague, already moving before she could respond. "Hey," he said, quieter now, like the room had shrunk down to just the two of you. "Hi," There was a beat. A shift.

"I didn't see you come in," he started, sitting besides you. Wonder why. The thought came automatically, dry and sharp, but you didn’t let it show. Your eyes flicker to her, just for a moment. He followed your line of sight, not obviously. "Just got here a couple minutes ago." you said.

"Yeah, I—" he huffed a small breath, like he’d rather skip over whatever explanation he could give. "She just stopped me." You didn’t respond, didn’t ask. "She was asking about something for class," he added anyway, quieter this time.

Your fingers tightened slightly around your glass. "Right," you said, like it mattered. He paused watching you, "I wasn’t… staying." He said, softer. That made you glance at him properly. He looked like he wanted you to understand something he wasn’t fully saying. Your chest tumbled in that same dull, frustrating way and you looked away first.

"Okay," you said, a little too quick. He didn’t call it out, he just nodded once, like that was enough — for now. "I was looking for you, actually," he added after a second, almost like it was an afterthought.

"Yeah?" you said, trying to keep your tone even. "Yeah," he repeated, quieter. That was all it took, the quiet certainty in his voice, the way he looked at you like you were the only thing he’d meant to find — for that nagging ache in your chest to loosen, easing just enough to finally let you breathe.

"I was—" he started, then stopped, huffing a small breath. "Do you wanna—"

"The balcony?" you said at the same time. You both paused and then laughed, caving into each other a little. "Yeah," he nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. "The balcony."

He walked quieter than usual with that drink he had already taken a few sips from. Tonight, you were going to say it. Penelope doesn't matter, that didn't mean anything. You closed your eyes briefly, inhaling. Nerves crept in as you reached the balcony behind the tinted glass doors. He reached for your hand as you stood before the stone railing of the balcony. You had never felt so vulnerable, never entrusted something as fragile as your feelings to another person.

The cool air kissed your skin, a relief against the heat crawling up your neck and then you turned to him. Your fingers curled into his, his grip tightened almost instantly. "Y/n," Jungwon breathed, there was a flush across his cheeks, spilling down his neck. His hand held yours too tightly, almost desperate. "Yes?" you said, unaware you were holding your breath

"I don’t know how to say this…" he murmured, more to himself than to you, a quiet, almost shy smile tugging at his lips. "I think you know what I’m going to say," he added, letting out a small, breathy laugh. He took a sip of his drink and placed it down the stone railing. "I think I do too," you replied carefully, a smile breaking through despite yourself.

He mirrored your smile pulling you a little closer. For a second, everything aligned, like maybe all the overthinking, avoidance and quiet longing hadn’t been one-sided delusion. Then, something shifted. His eyes flickered. Not to you, but past you. Through the glass doors as though something had caught his attention. Your brows knit, your gaze followed his instinctively — but you didn’t understand what he was looking for.

You just knew you’d lost him for a second, his attention had slipped through your fingers. Your brows pulled together, your brain already scrambling to justify it. When he looked back at you, his expression had changed. Brighter, a full smile broke out, stretching across his face. Like whatever he’d been working up to wasn’t heavy anymore.

It was contagious, you couldn't help but smile at his smile, only yours came with a tilt to your brow. "Right— sorry, where was I?" he said, voice suddenly lighter, confidence replacing the earlier nerves like they’d never been there. "I think…" he started, taking a quick sip of his drink, like he needed it, like he couldn’t quite stay still, "I think I really like someone."

Your chest tightened but not in a bad way. Not yet, because obviously he meant you. You nodded, amused "Right, who is she?" you spoke, still smiling — even as something inside you began to sink.

"Ah, you know our potions class?" he said, almost fond. "Penelope." He looked over at the glass again, at her. You faltered for a moment, then you held your smile for a second longer, letting it settle into something softer, something that took effort to be there. Hope is so rude. It shows up uninvited and then ruins your life.

You didn’t shatter or explode or break in any loud, dramatic way. You just felt, disoriented — like missing a step in the dark. That sudden, disorienting lurch where your body forgets where it’s supposed to land.

"Oh." you exhaled letting your hand drop. Your heart ached in a way that felt… unauthorised, almost. As though it had no right reacting this strongly to something you were never promised in the first place.

He didn’t seem to notice. "Yeah," he continued, almost giddy now. "I noticed her a while ago… sometimes it feels like she just — lives in my head." Eyes soft and sparkly. How they would be for someone in love. That look, the one you thought meant something. The one you thought was yours.

You thought you were being smart. You had the upper hand because you weren’t saying anything but now you don’t even get to be angry. There’s no betrayal, he didn't lie or trick you. You had built something out of moments of eye contact and hope, which is actually humiliating when you put it like that.

And you smile, of course you do. You ask questions and play the part you’ve always played. The best friend, the one who listens because that’s what you are. That’s what you’ve always been.

Push it down before it has the chance to become visible, before it turns into something he might notice — because the last thing you want is for him to look at you and realize. That you’re not as unaffected as you’ve spent years pretending to be and somewhere between him talking about her eyes, her laugh, the way she made him feel — your mind drifted. Your gaze lifting past him, to the clouded night sky, stretched out above the castle.

"Y/n?" Jungwon laughed softly, the sound light and open. "Yes?" you breathed. Something in your chest had gone strangely still. "I think I love her" he said almost dazed. You felt sick, It wasn't even just jealousy. It was the realization, that whatever you were holding onto — hope maybe or just the possibility of more, it didn't exist how you wanted it to. The realization that you were never part of the equation.

"You should tell her." you said, in a voice you barely recognised as your own, stepping back towards the door. He didn't register anything you said, he just stared through that same glass and gawked. For a moment you stood still and forced your eyes to his profile, his parted curved lips, his glittering eyes.

Your heart ached at how easily he held that look for her. It was steady, unguarded. There was no hesitation, no flicker of self-consciousness, no quick glance around to see who might notice. It was simple. Just him and her. It was real, and it wasn’t you.

You turned on your heel and walked, because you were not about to let him see what that did to you. Not now, not ever. Past the dancing students and past your friends who weren't aware of anything that had happened.

Your stomach flipped in slow, nauseating waves and suddenly you were too aware of everything. Your voice. Your hands. How long you’d been avoiding eye contact with the world. You kept your expression neutral on autopilot, years of practice kicking in. Survival instinct, if you don’t react, it didn’t happen.

You wondered if you saw him clearly at all, or if you were just filling in the blanks with what you wanted to see. You found yourself in a barely lit abandoned classroom and sat down on the steps near the window. The window was cracked open, letting in cold air that didn’t help but felt deserved somehow. It probably hadn't been long, probably minutes, but it felt you had been there for hours.

At some point your hands had started shaking, small at first, then enough that you had to press them flat against your thighs to make it stop. Your jaw locked, teeth pressed together like you could grind the feeling out of your system if you tried hard enough.

You were angry, you didn’t do anger. You did quiet and distance You did the slow, controlled kind of detachment where things stopped mattering because you decided they didn’t but you were angry, because you had allowed this. You let yourself believe it meant more, more than friendship but this this was different. This was sharp, embarrassing because none of this was technically his fault.

You let the lines blur. You let yourself sit a little closer, stay a little longer, read into things you knew you shouldn’t. You let your friends talk, let Kenny look at you like she’d already written the ending, let Jake’s stupid comments sink in like they meant something, like it wasn't just in your head.

You sat with your shoulders slightly caved in, your leg bounced repeatedly. In the time you were sat dissociated you were stuck. Cutting your thoughts off as they crowded in, not letting them finish their sentence. Redirecting them to something, anything else but it kept coming back.

He didn’t hesitate. You tried focusing on anything else, the rough breaths you could barely manage. You swallowed hard, blinking rapidly when you felt pressure build behind your eyes. No, I'm not doing that. You ignored it, even when your vision blurred slightly — even when a tear slipped free anyway, trailing down before you could stop it.

You didn’t wipe it right away, you just let it happen like it didn’t belong to you. Eventually, you stood because sitting there felt worse and staying meant thinking and thinking meant feeling.

Jungwon felt as though someone had dimmed the lights in his head, except nothing felt wrong, in fact it all felt overwhelmingly right. At some point his thoughts had narrowed quietly, to her. Penelope. She became his centre without him allowing it. His body followed without his mind understanding or questioning the reality of why. Which is why he didn't notice your faux smile the way he would have, the way it held a second too long.

He would have once, you knew that. He would’ve tilted his head, narrowed his gaze just slightly, like he was trying to read something between the lines. He would’ve asked, "What’s wrong?" even when you insisted nothing was.

He sauntered into the room with the kind of confidence only deeply intoxicated people and stupidly pretty boys possessed. Music pulsed through the room walls, low enough to feel in your chest more than hear properly. Everything looked slightly blurred around the edges, Jungwon placed his half-empty cup down on the nearest table carelessly, some shimmering pearlescent liquid sloshing over the rim.

He then walked over to her with a set of nerves he had no memory of harbouring. She stood glancing over at him with a knowing smirk. The type of girl who looked like she collected secrets for entertainment. "There you are," she hummed and Jungwon smiled instantly, helplessly.

"Hey," Jungwon said, eyes wide in that soft, open way — the same ones she had wished, not long ago, had been on her instead. The one you’d spent weeks trying not to fall apart over.

"Hey handsome," Penelope replied smoothly, like she’d tested it beforehand. She set her drink down and passing him a refilled cup of the same pearlescent liquid, he took it without even looking.

It was around then that Jake and Heeseung had circled back after getting some air, expressions already exhausted from dealing with drunk idiots all night. Jake was mid-sentence when he noticed Jungwon, Heeseung followed his line of sight and both of them went quiet for a second. "Oh, for fuck’s sake," Jake muttered under his breath.

"Heyy Jungwon.." Heeseung started carefully, voice cautious in the way people spoke to someone standing too close to the edge of a cliff. His gaze flicked to the girl beside him — unfamiliar, unimpressed by the interruption.

"Hi guys." he grinned looking between them. The grin alone was enough to concern everybody involved. "This is Penelope!" he added, gesturing toward her as he shifted slightly closer, like it was obvious.

"Oh… hi?" Jake said slowly, exchanging another look with Heeseung.

"Uh—where’s Y/n?" For a fraction of a second, Jungwon went still — he inhaled, sharp as though he was discovering your existence for the first time and then it slipped away again. Gone so quickly Heeseung almost thought he imagined it.

"Oh, Y/n?" he said vaguely, already turning his attention back. The way he said your name made Jake’s eyebrows cock immediately, like he was recalling someone from a class roster.

"I don’t know, she left earlier." he mumbled unbothered before turning right back toward Penelope again, already distracted by whatever she whispered next. She giggled beside him and he looked at her like the sound made perfect sense. Jake physically recoiled, "What the fuck." Heeseung stepped in immediately, pulling Jungwon slightly aside. "Hey- what are you-"

"Did something happen?" Heeseung asked carefully, watching him with increasing concern. "Like before this. With Y/n or something?" Jungwon blinked at him, like the question was irrelevant. "Realised I'm in love with her" Jungwon said nodding, his eyes didn’t even leave Penelope. Heeseung shot him an appalled look, open mouthed and on the edge of annoyance.

"What?" he said flatly, disbelief breaking through. "In love with who?" Jake whisper-shouted, leaning in sharply. Jungwon barely reacted, his eyes held a softened mushy glint as he waved dozily at Penelope, who was giving his friends pointed looks. Jake immediately pushed Jungwon's head back down.

"Who the fuck is that?" he snapped, gesturing toward her. "Penelope," Jungwon repeated patiently like Jake was struggling academically (he was not). Jake snatched the cup out of his hand immediately.

"Alright. Enough, come with us." Heeseung said grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the exit, ignoring his whines and pleas. Penelope stepped forward quickly. "He wanted to stay—"

"Didn’t ask,” Jake snapped instantly." Jungwon continued whining the entire way out while Jake muttered increasingly aggressive threats under his breath, clutching the cup like evidence in a murder trial. Somewhere beneath all the haze clouding his mind, buried deep enough to almost disappear entirely, your name still sat quietly in Jungwon’s chest.

Jake also did the damage control, he spotted Kenny near the drinks table laughing at something Jay said, entirely unaware her night was about to get violently worse. "Kenny." Something in his tone made her smile drop immediately.

"We found Jungwon with some girl," Jake whispered quickly, glancing over his shoulder like he expected the walls themselves to start listening. "Talking about being in love and shit and Y/n is nowhere to be found." Her face shifted rapidly through about seven different emotions in under three seconds.

They both ran out the room, in opposite directions. Heeseung and Jake practically hauled Jungwon down the dungeon corridors toward the nearest empty potions classroom while he complained the entire way.

"Guys! Let me go-"

"Shut up." they snapped. The classroom door slammed shut behind them loudly enough to rattle the shelves, bottles clinking around the room. Jungwon stumbled slightly as they shoved him into a chair near one of the worktables.

Jake lifted the glass to his nose and inhaled, immediately pushing the glass away once the smell hit his nose. "It's Amortentia." he concluded, letting out a long suffering sigh before setting it back down. "Jungwon?" Heeseung crouched in front of him. "Can I see Penelope now?" Jungwon groaned dramatically, throwing his head back against the chair.

"If you tell us what happened with Y/n," he said steadily, holding his gaze, "then yes." he lied, Jake nodded supportively anyway.

He made a concentrated thinking face at the ceiling "I took her to the balcony, I think- I wanted to tell her.. about Penelope and I did and then I looked back and she was gone." he rambled.

Jake and Heeseung looked at each other with pained expressions. "Fuck." Jake breathed, because suddenly he could picture it too clearly — you standing alone on that balcony listening to Jungwon talk about loving another girl after everything, after the lingering touches, all those painfully soft moments neither of you knew what to do with, and worst of all. Jungwon probably sounded sincere when he said it.

You probably stood there hearing every word and believed him completely.

"Can I see-" "—No!" they shouted immediately.

You lent against the cold stone of one of the many balcony's around Hogwarts, the air was sharp and prickly — you could feel the goosebumps, it soothed you. "Y/n." Kenny’s voice cut through the silence gently, though there was an edge of exasperation underneath it. You don’t turn immediately, didn't trust your face yet, your eyes bored into the stillness of the night — across the Great Lake.

"Y/n." she repeated softer this time as she approached. A hand settled carefully against your shoulder, you turned around meeting her worried eyed with your tired ones. "It's just me," she spoke quieter, taking in the exhaustion behind your eyes. "Oh, sorry." you said, "No," Kenny sighed almost instantly, offering you a small smile. "Don’t apologise."

You didn't answer, the wind pushed through your hair softly as your eyes drifted back toward the lake. Kenny leaned against the railing beside you after a moment, careful not to crowd you too much.

"Where did you go?" she asked eventually. "A walk." you replied simply. Kenny hummed softly, "You always come back weirdly philosophical after walks." Her eyes moved over your face carefully, like she was trying to piece together what kind of damage had already been done.

"He told you about her, didn't he." you said as though you were talking about something casual. She paused, "Yeah. Well.. Jake did," Kenny replied gently, turning to you. You nod softly, attempting to look unbothered. "Don't do that," she murmured immediately, tilting her head. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened," you say, too quickly. "He just likes someone." Kenny blinks "Wait," she frowned. "Like actually?" You shrugged lightly like the conversation bored you. "Yeah." like it’s nothing. "He told me earlier."

"And you’re just… fine with that?" You lets out a short breath that almost sounds like a laugh. "Why wouldn’t I be?" Kenny turned toward you fully now, leaning forward slightly against the railing. "Because, you like him." The thing everyone apparently knew except the one person you wanted to know it. You shake your head, eyes dropping back down.

"It doesn’t matter."

"It does matter."

"He doesn’t feel the same," you say, firmly this time. "So it doesn’t matter." There’s something in the way you say it, like you're trying to convince yourself more than anyone else. She watches, carefully "Who is it?" You hesitate, just barely "Penelope."

"Who?" She raises a brow "She's in our potions." You say calm straight to the point. "And you’re okay?"

"Yeah." You shrug small "I told him he should tell her." The words tasted awful coming back out but that’s what a friend says, that’s what you are. Kenny's expression shifts "You told him that?"

"Of course I did," you say, like it’s obvious "That’s what you’re supposed to say."

"Not if it hurts you." You finally looks up at that, and there’s a flicker of something raw before it dulls. "I’m not hurt," you say. It’s quiet and you almost believe it. Kenny doesn’t call you out on it right away, she just studies you for a moment, then asks softly.

"What did you expect him to say?"And that was the question you weren't ready for, because your brain instantly reminds you how sure you were.

Your throat tightens, and for a second you can’t answer. Can’t even form the words without everything else slipping out with them. "Nothing," you says eventually. "I didn’t expect anything." A lie.

"Right." Kenny frowns almost sadly. A silence forms between you. Uncomfortable and loud, you clear your throat. "It's not a big deal," you add, stepping back, already closing the conversation before it can open into something dangerous. "So let’s not… do this again." You both know it’s not okay but it’s enough, for now. So instead she nods, "Let's go inside, get you warm."

The night blurred by the time you made it back to your room. You moved through it on autopilot, same routine, same steps, as if nothing had shifted or as if something hadn’t.

It took significantly more effort than either Jake or Heeseung would ever admit out loud to get Jungwon back to his dorm. Mostly because he would not stop talking.

And by the time they finally shoved him through the dormitory door, all three of them had looked seconds away from collapse. Jungwon stumbled toward his bed dramatically while Jake slammed the door shut behind them.

"I hate this school," Jake muttered immediately, "You say that every week," Heeseung replied tiredly, preparing something in the bathroom, "Because every week this castle invents a new problem." Jungwon dropped face first onto the mattress with a groan. "Penelope would understand me." he said muffled, Jake actually lunged towards him, "Don’t make me hit you."

Heeseung returned a moment later from the bathroom holding a glass filled with something dark purple and deeply suspicious looking.

"Drink," He said, pressing a glass of something dark and purple into his hand, Jungwon looked up slowly. "What is that." he frowned.

"Drink the fucking potion before I throw you into the Black Lake myself." Jake huffed, Heeseung nodded once in agreement. "Honestly at this point I’d help him." Their expressions — tired, worn down, entirely over it, left little room for argument. He sighed and drank it.

"Goodnight," Jake said flatly, the effect was instant, his body went slack as he dropped back against the pillows, breath evening out into a heavy, unnatural sleep.

Both of them exhaled, Jake dragged a hand down his face while Heeseung pushed Jungwon’s legs properly onto the bed. "That should keep him out until morning," Heeseung muttered. "It’ll wear off by then." Jake only nodded, quieter than usual.

Something about the entire situation sat heavily in the room now that the chaos had died down. The silence after disaster always felt worse somehow.

Morning came too loud, too bright. Jungwon groaned, dragging a hand over his face, pressing the heel of his palm into his eye as a sharp, splitting ache pulsed at the back of his skull. His mouth tasted awful, he blinked once, twice. Then he froze.

He sat up abruptly, breath catching as the night came rushing back in fragments — words, expressions, the certainty he’d felt. It had felt real, so real.

The party, Penelope’s face.. the overwhelming certainty sitting inside his chest every time he looked at her, intense enough to make him dizzy even now in retrospect. He remembered saying he loved her. Remembered meaning it in the moment with horrifying sincerity. His stomach turned. Did I mean it? No. No, that’s not right. Why did I say that?

And then, you. The thought hit harder than the headache and a mix of emotions followed in — anger, sharp and immediate at the realization that someone had drugged him.

Embarrassment, heavier, settling in his chest as he replayed what he’d said. How he’d said it, but beneath all of that, one stray thought, quiet and devastating in its simplicity.

She told me to tell her.. She didn’t care. Jungwon stared blankly at the floor now, jaw tightening slowly as another ache spread through his chest entirely separate from the headache splitting his skull open.

She doesn’t feel the same.

V 𓄧 lore accurate jungwon and riki ^. once again im sorry for making this 2 parts pls i wasn't going to i had no choice don't hurt meimsorry. she's alr at least 70% done. DAS RED RED DAS RED U SHOULD COME MESS WITH THE TEAMM EEE.

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𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐒 𓇬 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃!!

[miyasmagnolias]

𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 | 𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐤𝐲𝐮𝐮 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

miya osamu x f!reader

➢ synopsis: when your daughter starts kindergarten at the quirky all-girls school across town, you form an alliance with the only other solo parent in her class: hot single dad miya osamu. what ensues is a year's worth of chaos — and a love you didn't think you deserved.

➢ what to expect: friends-to-lovers, slice of life, found family, tooth-rotting fluff, occasional angst, y/n struggles with mom guilt, any 18+ nsfw content will be tagged!

➢ how to read: each installment stands on its own, but there's an ongoing story that unfolds if you read it chronologically!

➢ listen while you read: ufo, better than, worth it

➢ status: in progress!

1. lunch boxes

➢ when you get a call from your daughter's teacher that a classmate ate her lunch, you're determined to give the parents a piece of your mind — only to meet hot single dad miya osamu instead.

2. bake sale

➢ at your first pta meeting of the school year, osamu ropes you into running the fall bake sale with him.

3. on the house

➢ osamu treats you to lunch at onigiri miya — and grows determined to change your half-hearted relationship with food.

4. bug fair

➢ osamu finds out about his daughter's school project the night before it's due. in a rare moment of panic, he calls you for backup.

5. pick-up lines

➢ you meet osamu's twin in the pick-up line of your daughter's school.

6. stage fright

➢ osamu comforts your daughter before her first music recital of the school year.

7. the fiancé

➢ your ex-fiancé comes into town with a favor to ask. meanwhile, osamu struggles to keep his own feelings in check.

...stay tuned for more!

please note: there is no taglist for this series! i wish i had time to maintain one, but alas, adulting is hard. feel free to turn on post notifications for my blog instead!

@miyasmagnolias, 2026

[bambiens]

MR. POSSESSIVE ⋆˚࿔ — [p. sunghoon] part one

SYNOPSIS ⟢ Park Sunghoon can easily be described in three words: stuck-up, picky, and overly critical about everything and everyone. That was until he met you, who ticked off everything he liked in his head. One problem, he's got too much pride and ego to do anything about it. The other problem? His best friend, Jake, swooped in and took action before he could even build up the courage––and Sunghoon really hates when people take what's his.

pairing ⟢ grumpy downbad! sunghoon x fem! reader

genre ⟢ written, friends to lovers (?), university au

content warnings ⟢ smut with plot (18+), humour, profanity, use of alcohol, reader is with jake for a certain period in the story, sunghoon has a one-sided rivalry with jake, mutual pining but they don't know, sunghoon is stubborn in the beginning but should lowkey be prescribed xanax later on, everyone in the story kinda makes poor decisions (depending how you view it), homie hopping lol, softdom! sunghoon, unprotected p in v sex, multiple rounds, overstimulation, fingering, oral (m & f. receiving), mild ass play, nipple play, bulge kink, dirty talk, squirting, use of petnames (just baby), sunghoon is downright filthy in bed.

featuring ⟢ all of enhypen (7), giselle of aespa & anton of riize cameo(s)

word count: ~12k

author's note: official bambiens comeback with my first EVER full-length fic!! (please be kind to me), i genuinely didn't think i'd ever post a full-length fic –– let alone this one, like i thought this shit was gonna get sent straight into the basement. anyways, i hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing this!! also i haven't proofread this yet let me know if there are any mistakes please!

MR. POSSESSIVE PLAYLIST ⊹˚♬₊⋆

reblogs appreciated ♡

PARK SUNGHOON was always a hard guy to please. 

Exhibit A (extracted from age 5): As a child, he’d make a fuss whenever his mom forgot to cut the crusts off of his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

To this day, he still tells his mom that he didn't throw tantrums over bread crusts because he was “picky,” but simply because he had “food sensory issues.”

Exhibit B (extracted from age 10): He liked his toy figurines organized in a certain kind of way –– aligned on his shelf, standing upright, facing forward. Nothing else, no exceptions. 

One day, he found his limited edition Superman action figure fallen face flat on the shelf. 

His parents earthquake-proofed all of their furniture. 

…he later found out that his sister was secretly playing with his toys while he was at school.

Sunghoon didn’t come out of his room for three days after that.

Exhibit C (extracted from age 15): There were even instances in high school where he would get his grades appealed if he believed they were “marked incorrectly,” which, by the way, always got re-corrected in the end. Even if he really was wrong in the first place.

It was either his way or the highway.

In other words, Park Sunghoon was a complete perfectionist, and this fastidious behaviour followed him well into his adulthood. 

Somehow along the way, he managed to score himself a scholarship and landed himself a place in a prestigious university.

But even when he got there he was sensitive about the minor details. He was extremely particular about his class timetable, stuck to a tight-grit schedule, and even had certain criteria of who could be his friend and who couldn’t. 

And when it finally came down to choosing his university friends, he managed to pick people who were all in the same major, shared the same humour, had the same hobbies, and followed similar daily schedules as him –– but before you think of anything, no, they definitely weren’t as hypercritical as he was. 

Don’t get him wrong though, despite his meticulous and seemingly strict nature, he still found time to fool around and have fun whilst in school. 

If anything, Sunghoon considered himself as… quite the witty guy. 

He kept a mental list of things he likes. He likes watching funny cat memes on his feed, playing games on his computer during his free time, going clubbing with his friends every weekend, and he also really likes how the shawarma shop beside his place always had a buy-one-get-one deal on Thursdays.

He also had a list of things he hates. He hates when he has to share his food, or anything, really; he hates when people chew with their mouths open, he hates when freshmen walk too slowly on campus, he hates when his roommates “forget” to clean their dirty dishes –– honestly, the list could go on and on.

But, for the past couple of months, what he hated most was his best friend, Sim Jake.

Sunghoon didn’t always hate him though. If he hated him from the beginning, one, he wouldn’t have befriended him in the first place, and two, he wouldn’t have asked him to be one of his roommates –– which, this entire living situation soon became an issue with him. An extreme issue, he would call it, even.

So, what was the catalyst to the start of Sunghoon’s immense hatred towards Jake, you may ask? 

Well, it was you. 

At this point, Sunghoon’s heard it all. With people constantly calling him “nit-picky” and “extremely demanding,” always complaining that he has these crazy high standards for everything and that there’s nothing — better yet, no one — he ever liked from the get-go.

How exhausting does that sound?

Though he can admit, they’re all right about him being nit-picky, extremely demanding, and right about him having those “crazy high” standards. But, they were a bit wrong about that last part.

Park Sunghoon wasn’t sure about a lot of things, but he knew he was sure he liked you.

He guessed he always, at least, subconsciously knew he liked you from the second the two of you met during freshmen orientation –– he hadn’t realized it back then, but you kind of just checked off all the boxes in his mind.

With his personality though, he had never admitted it out-loud –– even if it was pain-stakingly obvious to all of his close friends.

It honestly really was just a little crush to him at first. He started looking for your face around campus, teasing you whenever you were around, occasionally texting each other. You know, doing the usual shit slightly delusional people always do to cope with their minor infatuations who don’t like them back.

Surprisingly over time, the two of you eventually became a lot closer and hung out with each other more.

…and also became a little more flirtatious with each other (at least that’s what Sunghoon thinks, but he’s not too sure). 

It got to the point where Sunghoon’s friends could tell whether he was in a good mood or not depending on whether he got a text from you that day.

You and Sunghoon were good, he thought things were going well –– he’s got game… right? 

Until one day, Sunghoon’s fairytale-princess-dream of living a life with the two of you together all came crashing down. 

To be honest, you’d never met Sunghoon’s so-called “best friends” the past two years you had been friends. You started to wonder whether they were real or if Sunghoon was just faking it and actually has no friends.

Eventually, you came to meet them –– Heeseung, Jay, Sunoo, Jungwon, Riki, and Jake.

Sunghoon really hated that. He never even wanted to introduce you to his friends, you guys just bumped into each other by accident.

In his mind, he kind of just wanted to keep you as his little secret. After all, he met you first, befriended you first, and liked you first. And again, Sunghoon really hated sharing.

And, it sounds a teensy bit toxic but he’d always been competitive to the bone, maybe a little too much. So when he saw you started getting a lot closer to Jake than you were with him, it honestly felt like a two-faced betrayal. But he couldn’t say anything –– his ego and stubbornness wouldn’t let him.

Sunghoon kind of just watched and let it happen, so he honestly shouldn’t even be that mad. At first, he tried to bury the thought of you and Jake being “best friends” in the back of his head. But it didn’t help when you started coming over to his shared apartment to hang out with stupid, freaking Jake.

He always wondered why you chose Jake and not him.

All of Sunghoon’s friends had just adjusted from the fact that they thought he liked you... to Jake being the one pursuing you instead. 

You and Sunghoon never “fell out,” however, the friendship felt a bit more distant. But what was Sunghoon supposed to do about it? Beg you to become best friends with him instead? Whenever he thought this way, he’d always feel like he reverted back into a kid.

When you’d come over, you would say “hi,” and engage in like, three-minute small talk with Sunghoon, and then go into Jake’s stinkin’ room and giggle with him and probably have so much fun with whatever the fuck Jake is doing. 

Sunghoon wouldn’t really know though, he couldn’t bring himself to ask what the two of you did when you left their apartment.

The most information he could get was when his other roommates would tease Jake about you. There was one particular time, however, where Sunghoon was royally pissed off over the two of you. According to him, this conversation was just so juvenile and hard-to-listen to this day. 

Sunghoon was in the kitchen fixing their coffee machine while silently eavesdropping on his roommates by the couch. Jay lightly nudged Jake’s shoulder, “So, you and y/n, what’s up with that?”

The second Sunghoon heard Jay drop the first vowel of your name, his ears immediately perked up.

Jake chuckles, staying focused on the game in front of him, “Nah man, chill. It’s nothing like that.”

Liar.

Heeseung tsks, tossing his controller down after losing a match against Jake, “If it was just ‘nothing’ then you wouldn’t be texting her all day and hanging out with her more than your own roommmates.”

Right? Heeseung’s so right. If it really was just “nothing” then he wouldn’t have caught Jake kicking his feet up and down while on the phone with you.

“Guys, leave it, we’re just best friends.” Jake laughs.

Yeah right, that’s such bullshit cause Sunghoon had found out you two started dating, like, exactly a month later.

That was essentially the beginning of his own hell, agony, and his pure hatred towards Jake.

Sunghoon would see you waltz into his –– their, sorry –– apartment almost every day with a huge smile plastered on your face like shit was all sweet and rainbows and butterflies when he was suffering every waking minute.

Daily he’d see your annoyingly gorgeous face, hear your stupidly adorable laughter through the walls, and watch you and Jake be all lovey-dovey right in front of him. Sunghoon didn’t even know he could like a person to this extent, you just made him like this.

It actually made him sick in the stomach. That should’ve been him.

One morning, he genuinely contemplated jumping off of their balcony when you stepped outside of Jake’s room wearing his clothes. He wanted to shout, he wanted to remind you that you were his friend first, he wanted to ask you, “what do you see in him that you don’t see in me?”

But all he managed to spit out was, “Morning, you want coffee?” while gripping onto his penguin-shaped coffee mug so tight that it was on the brink of shattering into pieces.

Now, Sunghoon knew it was wrong, and that you’re now quite literally his best friend's girlfriend but what ever happened to “dibs?” He knew you way before than dumbass Jake did.

One night, Sunghoon couldn’t fall asleep. He had been tossing and turning for the past two hours trying not to lose his mind over the fact that you were sleeping over at their place, again.

He thought some tea might help soothe his worries and ease his anxiety a little bit, eventually bringing him to sleep, so he got up and made his way over to the kettle in the kitchen. He got his favourite mug out and had the peppermint tea bag sitting nicely inside when he heard a small pip-squeak coming from the rooms.

At first he couldn’t actually tell if that sound was coming from the rooms or if it was just the steam from the kettle, but then a pip-squeak turned into a muffled gasp –– a seemingly sexual sounding one, he believed.

Sunghoon couldn’t bear to stick around longer to figure out whether you and Jake were having sex. That was enough for him to abandon his cup of tea and trudge his way over to Sunoo, Jungwon, and Riki’s place in his house slippers and pajamas. 

He even bought ear-plugs at the convenience store on the way there.

Sunghoon honestly doesn’t really remember much after he bolted out of his apartment that night. But according to them, he got to their place and sat in the corner of their living room with his knees to his chest –– refusing to tell any of them what the matter was –– eventually falling asleep on the floor. 

Riki also did keep mentioning how Sunghoon started rocking back-and-forth while whispering to himself quietly, but everyone knows Riki has a thing for theatrics.

While yes, Sunghoon had thoughts about you that were most definitely against the bro-code, he never actually acted on them.

Like, yeah Sunghoon hated his best friend for stealing the love of his life, but that’s still literally his best friend –– whom he hates. It’s complicated, he can’t really explain it.

Over the course of a couple months, Sunghoon thinks he’s seen and heard it all, especially the arguments you and Jake would have. On those nights, he prayed he’d wake up to news that you guys finally broke up –– which never happened by the way.

Those arguments were usually petty and small, but a particular argument was unlike the rest. 

One day, you ran out of Jake’s room in tears. Sunghoon was on the couch watching the evening news with the volume turned up so high at the time, he couldn’t even hear you guys arguing anymore.

But this was just usual protocol whenever you and Jake would argue, it felt almost invasive so all of the guys agreed to blast the TV and drown out the yelling sound.

At first, Sunghoon didn’t notice you crying hysterically –– not until he looked up and saw your face.

Sunghoon’s body reacted by itself. Without even meaning to, he found himself chasing after you to make sure you were okay. You two were still friends regardless of the fact that you were in a relationship with Jake, so he thought this was totally justifiable.

When Sunghoon finally caught up to you, he grabbed your arm, “Hey,” he spoke softly, “I can’t let you leave until I know you’re okay. What’s wrong?”

You finally turn to look at him, and he sees you: mascara running down your rosy cheeks, eyes all puffy, your nose running a little. It wasn’t long till you shrugged Sunghoon’s hand off your arm.

“Stop acting stupid,” you spat, “you guys are best friends, I know you that you know already. Really, what are you even here for? To seem like some good-guy-hero? Like, what, you’re gonna go on a whole tangent about how Jake is a great guy, that this is just some miscommunication, how he’ll apologize or that, maybe even I should be the one to apologize––”

Maybe Sunghoon shouldn’t have said what he said next, because it just made things worse.

“Is that really what you think of me, y/n? Like I’m just Jake’s loyal fucking lapdog running after you so I can take his side? He’s my friend, yeah, but why would you ever think that lowly of me?”

At this point, you started to feel really bad for snapping on him when in reality, he was just trying to help.

Sunghoon speaks in a tiny voice, “I don’t even know what’s going on in your relationship. I don’t even ask about it because it hurts.”

Your face of dishevelment slowly turns into confusion as you keep listening to Sunghoon, “What are you talking about?”

Sunghoon knows he probably shouldn’t be talking about this right now, that he should just end the conversation there and maybe try to gaslight you into thinking that he actually said something else –– but it all slipped out.

He lets out a frustrated sigh accompanied with a quick eye-roll, almost like he can’t believe the words that he’s about to say, “I met you first. We were friends first. I liked you first. But I just let you slip away and now you’re his –– and I can’t do anything about it. I’ve been forced to just watch you with him. You don’t even know how bitter I get seeing you guys together. He knew I liked you first, and he took you away from me. You were supposed to be with me instead.” 

You have a boyfriend, this is your boyfriend’s best friend. This whole situation is fucked up. All you do is shake your head in disbelief, “What are you trying to say, what’s the whole point of this Sunghoon?”

A pause of silence passed by, and in those seconds of quietness, Sunghoon really tried hard to think, what is the whole point of him telling you this now? What did he think would even happen?

“I–I don’t know,” he stutters, “just– nothing. Just forget everything I said please, just forget about it. Let me get you an Uber home.”

The truth was, you understood what he meant completely and you couldn’t just simply forget about it.

But you had to pretend.

Just in time, you saw Jake jogging towards you two in your peripheral vision. It wasn’t long until Sunghoon noticed.

The second Jake came to you, Sunghoon took a step back and left.

You honestly forgot about your argument with Jake until he apologized and insisted he drove you home. The drive back to your place was silent. Your head was leaned against the car window with your hands between your thighs the entire ride.

Jake turned onto your street, eventually pulling up to the entrance of your apartment. The two of you sit there for a while, the only sound coming from his fingers lightly drumming on the console. Your gaze stays fixed on a tree outside, too embarrassed to break the ice first.

He moves his hand onto the steering wheel, “y/n, I’m really sorry.”

You turn your head slightly to look at him before pushing the car door open, “It’s fine, just don’t let it happen again.”

Jake watches you slam the car door shut, making your way inside and up the elevator before he drives away.

That night, you had a lot to ponder about –– not just because of the argument you and your boyfriend had, but also because of what his best friend had just confessed to you...

Fuck, why are you even thinking about Sunghoon again? Jake’s right here. Jake is your boyfriend… yeah.

⋆˚࿔

Mondays were always the worst for Sunghoon. At 8 a.m., he has Theory of Computation, then once that ends at 10, he has an hour to himself before he’s got three back-to-back classes till 4 p.m. On top of that, he also told Sunoo and Riki that he’d meet them at the library at 6:30 p.m. to get a headstart on their group project. 

Great, he thought, so now he’s able to schedule an hour-long nervous breakdown before he has to compose himself like a normal citizen and attend to his responsibilities again. 

Once he got home after his final lecture of the day, he sat on his desk chair (not his bed, he had his outside clothes on) and pulled out his phone from his backpocket.

“Google am I a bad person?”

Sunghoon’s staring at the searchbar waiting for the results to load on his phone, the floorboards creaking loudly because of how much he kept bouncing his legs out of anxiety. 

All he’s done the past 24 hours was replay the conversation he last had with you, and the more he kept thinking about it, the more he started to feel like he really fucked up this time. 

His first worry was you possibly telling Jake that he had just confessed his undying love for you –– but when he heard Jake say good morning the next day while making an omelette, he crossed that fear off the list.

'Cause like, what guy who's mad would make omelettes in the morning?

His second worry was that he might actually be a horrible person. Sunghoon always understood he was insufferable since birth, but never once has he thought he was a bad guy… until now.

Like, it’s a really fucked up situation right? He put you in a difficult position, and if Jake finds out then that’s goodbye to his best friend too –– oh god, what about his roommates? Will he have to find a new place to live next year?

A plethora of different worries began to plague his mind until he realized the search results had finally loaded on his phone. He saw countless people asking the same question on different forums, where he eventually found himself on r/AmItheAsshole, reading excerpts from literally Lucifer(s) themselves in attempts to make him feel better about his own situation.

At that moment Sunghoon came to the realization that, yeah there are definitely a lot of worse people in the world with way more questionable morals than him –– and that if he was considered a bad person, then the people of this Subreddit must think he’s made out of unicorns and sunshine.

Before he left his apartment again, he took a deep breath, tried to push his feelings down and go about his day.

When he finally arrived at the library, he found Jungwon and Riki at their usual spot. Jungwon spots him walking towards them first, prompting him to move his backpack on the seat beside him to the ground, “Hey, we saved you a spot.”

Sunghoon falls into the chair, “Thanks man.”

In front of Jungwon, Riki lays his head flat on the table, “Guys, can we rethink this. We have a month till this project is due. Isn’t doing this real early almost unnecessary?”

Jungwon continues typing on his keyboard, not once looking up, “It’s just in case, and there’s nothing wrong with starting early.”

Riki rolls his eyes and releases a big sigh before raising his head to look back up at his JavaScript for the nth time today.

Once Sunghoon had opened up his computer, Jungwon left no time to waste, “I forgot to ask, have you ever used a graphical interface for designing SQL queries before?"

“Yeah, have you?”

Riki looks up at the two of them like they’re speaking a completely different language, when in reality he’s supposed to be in the same major as them –– therefore he probably should know what Sunghoon and Jungwon are talking about.

“No,” Jungwon shakes his head, “But, that’ll aid us while building this thing.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Riki groans and shuts his laptop, “Sorry Won, but I’ve been busting my ass learning this code for the past three hours we’ve been here –– I haven’t even eaten anything yet!”

He pulls out his phone, face immediately lighting up green, “Fuck it, I’m ordering UberEats, y’all want something?”

Sunghoon declines, “Nah, I’m good I ate before I left.”

Inside his backpack, Jungwon pulls out a tupperware filled with fruit and a bag of half-eaten beef jerky, “It’s fine, I packed myself some food.”

“Dude, what the hell,” Riki exits from the app, “Why didn’t you tell me you had food, my stomach has been grumbling for a whole hour.”

“Yeah, I know, I heard.”

Riki snatches the bag of opened beef jerky as a form of opposition against Jungwon, stuffing a handful into his mouth.

“Wait,” pausing mid-chew to swallow his food, “Anton just texted me, apparently his frat’s hosting a houseparty, mixer-thingy –– whatever the fuck –– on Friday.”

Sunghoon holds back a laugh, “Hell nah, remember what happened when their frat threw a party last semester?”

Unlike Sunghoon, Jungwon has no shame and bursts out in laughter causing the rest of the people on the floor to hush him, “Yo, we gotta go, Jake was legendary that time.”

Riki’s face falters as if he were recalling a traumatic memory, “Man, I don’t think Jake’s gonna act out, he’s been a different guy ever since he got a girl. Kinda miss the old him.”

After hearing your name being brought up in the conversation, Sunghoon looks up from his computer, fully immersing himself in the topic –– yet, he can’t bring himself to speak.

“Don’t make assumptions that he’s boring yet, I don’t think this guy has gone out since then, the guy’s a beast when he’s fucked up. Ya never know. Maybe he’ll surprise us.” Jungwon chuckles.

“Do you still have that video of him from last year?”

“Bro, of course I do. Chill, let me find it on my camera roll.”

At this moment, all of Sunghoon’s thoughts began racing. 

He can’t help it but those feelings of resentment towards Jake are all coming back again. Maybe he really is a bad person after all, because the only thing he could say was, “I think we should go.”

This is the reason why Sunghoon thinks that he might actually be a horrible person –– because why would he want to see his best friend potentially fuck up?

From then on, Sunghoon decided that this was the last time he would be selfish ...he thinks.

⋆˚࿔

It was around 10 p.m. when Sunghoon had gotten home from the library. All of the lights in the apartment were turned off, which was kind of odd to him but he didn’t really pay much attention to it. He figures his roommates just went somewhere –– he honestly doesn’t care where. 

In fact, he liked it when he was the only one home. It gave him some peace and solace. He never liked to admit it, but sometimes being with other people is exhausting. 

Not that he doesn’t like being around his roommates, he does. It’s just a little daunting for him to be around people for extended periods of time. He really hates the way he thinks. He finds it a little embarrassing that he thinks it’s anxiety-inducing and overwhelming to be around other people sometimes.

He thinks his logic is flawed, and almost wishes he wasn’t like this. Look at Park Sunghoon, uptight, picky, critical, no-good-for-anyone –– yet he can’t stick around long if he’s surrounded by people or else he’ll freak out? 

Whatever, he doesn’t have time to host his own pity party when he’s got bigger fish to fry. 

In hopes of seeking relaxation after the day he’s had, he grabs a towel and heads toward the bathroom. Waiting for him was a nice, steamy-hot shower, preferably one that’s a little too hot that it makes his body physically produce steam.

What he expected to see when he walked into the bathroom was a fucking toilet, shower, and sink. But when he opened the bathroom door, he was greeted with a fucking toilet, shower, sink, and you who just happens to be brushing your teeth oh-so conveniently at the same time Sunghoon wants to shower.

Truthfully, you almost scared the shit out of Sunghoon when he saw your face, cause first of all, no one’s even supposed to be home right now (allegedly).

Your eyes widen when you come face-to-face with Sunghoon. This was the first time the two of you had seen each other since last night. He didn’t rehearse this meeting happening and now he’s internally freaking out.

Instead of the awkward encounter Sunghoon had anticipated, you spit out your toothpaste, finish brushing your teeth, and flash him a smile, “Hey, sorry I was just quickly brushing my teeth, you can use the bathroom now.”

A smile that almost convinced Sunghoon that maybe last night was all just a dream and didn’t actually happen in real life.

Straight-faced, he nods, clearing the doorway for you to step out. He watches you walk past his bedroom door and go into Jake’s room before he steps inside the bathroom. 

Under the showerhead, Sunghoon lets the water run down his head, staring down at the drain. He had numerous thoughts running through his mind, but what stuck out most was why you just acted like nothing had happened between them?

When he looks up to grab his shampoo, he sees all of your shower products in the corner with Jake’s toiletries –– which made him come to the realization that actually, maybe nothing had happened between you two at all.

At the end of the day, you’re still Jake’s girl. Nothing changed that. Not even his stupid confession of love for you.

When he stepped out of the shower, he concluded that what really happened was: he shared his feelings for you on a whim, you basically rejected him, and now you’re probably just being nice to him, acting like everything is fine because he’s still Jake’s best friend after all.

Fuck, now he’s embarrassed. He should just forget about this whole ordeal –– right?

⋆˚࿔

For the rest of the week, Sunghoon was lucky enough to not bump into you anywhere –– not even inside their apartment. There were days where he knew you were over, but you never came out of Jake’s room whenever he was around.

All Sunghoon had been looking forward to all week was Anton’s frat party. It was basically an excuse for him to abuse alcohol and make bad decisions.

Once he came home from his last lab at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, he found his quiet sanctuary (his shared apartment) filled with all of his friends, quickly grabbing a beer from one of the cartons before ducking into his room to change.

Sunghoon tried to act nonchalantly, pretending like he didn’t actually care about what he was gonna wear to the frat party. It’s not even like he has clothes that would upstage anyone’s outfit, he was really overthinking it for no reason.

Knock knock.

“Yo, just come in, why’d you have to fucking knock?” he yells.

A small voice spoke through the crack of his door, “Oh, sorry, um, it’s just me, y/n, the guys need help picking up the keg stand.”

Sunghoon almost got whiplash from how fast he turned his head around to look at you; you hadn’t stepped a foot into his room, the door was slightly creaked open, and your head was down –– which he soon realized it’s because he doesn’t have a shirt on.

He swiftly grabbed the first shirt that was within vicinity and threw it on, “Oh sorry, I thought you were one of the guys, you caught me off guard.”

You flail your hands, finally looking up now that he’s fully clothed, “No! It’s okay! They told me to go and get you –– wait.”

Sunghoon furrows his eyebrows, wait for what?

All he could hear was your laughter, one that he recognized all too well, “Maybe you should change your shirt, Hoon.”

He immediately dropped his head down to look at what he was wearing.

…of course the shirt he had to grab happened to be the stupid t-shirt Heeseung gave him for Christmas that says “Mike Who Cheese Hairy” in bold.

Great, could Sunghoon’s life get any worse?

That night, he had a little too much to drink, actually maybe way more than he anticipated. But Sunghoon wasn’t the messy type of drunk –– at least that’s what he thinks.

He was never the type of guy who let himself get too intoxicated. He usually knew what his limits were. Oftentimes, he thought that overly drunk people in public settings were making a fool of themselves and that maybe those people just had a humiliation kink.

But as of right now, Sunghoon’s kinda having trouble holding his balance at Alpha Epsilon Phi’s mixer.

In his defence, he only got this fucked up because him and Jake were going back-to-back on that keg stand trying to outdo the other –– which only got the both of them hammered.

What made things even worse for Sunghoon, however, was the fact that 15 feet away from him were you and Jake.

Sunghoon was consumed in jealousy. How could he not? He can’t bring himself to look away from the painful scene in front of him, Jake wobbling against the island table with his hands wrapped around your waist while you fix his scruffy hair.

All he could think was: I’m drunk as fuck too. Where’s my help?

He scoffed and decided he’s had enough and went up the stairs. Using all of his strength, he managed to lock himself in a bathroom and finally took a deep breath out.

Sunghoon kept blinking his eyes while staring at his reflection in the mirror –– trying to desperately convince himself he’s not seeing double right now. 

Thinking that he might be able to sober up, he turned on the faucet, cupping his hand and drank from the sink (he also splashed a bunch of water on his face, slapped himself 10x, and tried to pull trig, which he failed to do). 

After 15 minutes had passed by and a hundred knocks later, Sunghoon decided to finally come out of his lavatory dungeon –– and of course the first person who he sees is Jake.

At this point, he’s just silently preparing himself to see you and him be all flirty and couple-y again.

Except, when Sunghoon gets closer, he realizes that Jake isn’t with you –– but another girl?

He immediately paused in his tracks, watching what was happening in front of him. Sunghoon was confused, where were you? Why weren’t you with Jake? And most importantly, what is Jake doing with another girl?

Should he say something? He should go up to him and stop him, right? But is that the best thing to do? What even is Jake doing?

The longer Sunghoon looks, the more uncertain he becomes. Jake seems a little too close to the girl, even if they aren’t kissing or doing anything… but why doesn’t this seem right to him?

Would this be considered cheating? Nothing sexual seems to be happening, just a bunch of teasing arm grabbing and touching.

But that wasn’t you, and you’re his girlfriend. If it wasn’t cheating, it still had to be fucking weird. Sunghoon was infuriated. Jake got the girl but can’t even treat her right? 

He knew then that he had to leave before he made a scene.

When he came back downstairs, he couldn’t help but feel suffocated. There were too many people, the air was stuffy, it reeked of alcohol, and the soles of his shoes were too sticky to stay inside any longer. So he decided to step outside instead. 

Sunghoon sat on a curb a couple of feet away from the fraternity, but still far enough that he wouldn’t be disturbed by booming bass or intoxicated party-goers. He figured he’d stay outside till his friends decide they’ve had enough with partying –– he wasn’t really feeling the vibe of the function anyways.

At one point, Sunghoon decided to just lay down on the pavement because he was drunk and he can. Out of boredom he began counting how many streetlights ran up and down the street, eventually dozing off in the process.

Coming out of a hazy state, all Sunghoon could hear was his name being repeated multiple times. When he opened his eyes, he came face-to-face with you.

You give a big sigh of relief, “Oh thank god, I thought you died for a second dude. Don’t scare me like that!” 

“What? …y/n?” Sunghoon rubs his eyes, “Sorry, I accidentally um, fell asleep I think.”

You laugh while Sunghoon fixes his posture and sits up right again, “Can I sit beside you?”

To be honest, Sunghoon still kinda feels foggy in his half-woken drunk state, so he can’t really think properly, “Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” He pats on the ground beside him. You take a seat, bringing your chin to your knees, playing with the gravel beneath you.

“Are you not having fun?” You ask.

Sunghoon looks straight ahead and shakes his head, “Not really feeling it today.”

You nod in agreement, continuing to collect pebbles with your right hand.

After a beat, Sunghoon turns to look at you, “Hey, I, um, need to tell you something important.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

He lets a deep exhale out before bringing himself to speak again, “I saw Jake inside with another girl. They weren’t like, doing anything but it’s just weird –– I don’t know if this is cheating but I thought I should tell–”

Your eyes stay fixed on the ground, “I know.”

Sunghoon furrows his eyebrows at you, “What do you mean?”

“That’s why we were arguing last week. This has always been an issue with him, even if it isn’t physically cheating.”

Sunghoon didn’t know this. All he could hear during your arguments with Jake was the volume of the TV on max. Carefully, he asked, “Is this… not the first time?”

“No.”

You almost feel ashamed that you’re confessing this all to Sunghoon. You’re scared of what he’d think of you. You already know what he’s like, what he’s probably thinking of you at this moment. You’re aware of how pathetic you sound right now.

Before he could even think about what he was saying, he blurted it all out, “I don’t get it, then why don’t you just break up with him? Isn’t what he’s doing bothering you?”

That night, you and Sunghoon found out something about each other: the two of you probably shouldn’t be together while drunk.

“...I don’t know. Wouldn’t breaking up with him mean that I won’t be able to see you anymore?”

“What? Why are you saying that?”

“If me and Jake end on bad terms, does that mean that you won’t be there for me anymore?”

⋆˚࿔

After Jake had dropped you off at your apartment that night last week, you realized you were more angry than sad. All of those tears had dried up, and now you were yelling on the phone.

“Why would he do this now when he had all that time last year and make a proper move! It’s not my fault he didn’t man up sooner!” You ranted on the phone.

You didn’t know what else to do except call Giselle and ask for some advice. 

“I don’t get Sunghoon, he never did anything about us for so long and now he wants to tell me that he wanted me first?”

“Well, what are you going to do about it? You’re with his best friend now,” Giselle asks on the other side of the speaker.

You wipe your mascara-streaked eyes with a cotton pad, “I would have loved it if he told me all of that a year ago, that’s what I wanted. He missed his chance and now I’m just stuck in a sticky situation.”

“But, you love Jake right?”

“Yeah...” you murmured, “Right.”

Before you were with Jake, Sunghoon was the one you wanted most. 

To you, Park Sunghoon was like this shiny, perfect Ken doll that you wanted so badly but couldn’t get no matter what.

Contrary to popular belief, you had made your advances towards him –– just in different ways. So you actually never knew if he caught on or not. Over time it seemed like Sunghoon really had no interest in you at all, and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t heartbroken over it at all.

You decided to move on after being sure that nothing would happen with you and Sunghoon. In all honesty, you were never that interested in Jake at the beginning.

It was always him starting conversations, making plans. And after a while, you started getting used to Jake’s company.

But for some reason, the closer you got with Jake, the further Sunghoon seemed to get. At the time, you knew not to think any more about you and Sunghoon –– it wasn’t happening and that’s final.

You came to learn that Jake was a pretty outgoing and talkative guy, the complete opposite of Sunghoon. 

When Jake finally asked you to be his girlfriend, you won’t lie. You were taken aback. It’s true, you do like Jake… but what about Sunghoon? Were you really over this crush? Are you going to have to be around him all the time because he’s Jake’s best friend? You didn’t know if you could do that.

You snap back into reality when you remind yourself that Sunghoon just doesn’t like you like that.

And it wasn’t like you didn’t like Jake at all. So, you gave him a chance.

Sim Jake was extroverted, polite, and friendly –– maybe a little too friendly. Being in social settings with him almost felt exhausting sometimes. He was the kind of guy that was able to go up to anyone and be able to talk to them.

The first time he ever got too friendly with a girl, you tried to ignore it. You made excuses for him like, that’s just the way he is, maybe I’m being an overbearing girlfriend.

But then it happened a second time, then a third time, then it just kept going.

This was the main reason for most of your arguments.

The start of your arguments often looked like this: the two of you would go somewhere, Jake would get a little too close, a little too talkative to a girl, and you had to wait till you guys were alone to bring up your concerns.

“Jake, I just really don’t like how overly friendly you are with other girls. It makes me feel weird as your girlfriend.”

Jake doesn’t seem to be taking the conversation seriously, “C’mon, y/n you’re the only girl I have eyes for.”

You shrug, sitting on the edge of his bed, “Can’t you just, I don’t know, not… do that? I really don’t like it.”

He tenses his forehead, fixing his position on the bed, “...do you not trust me?”

Your eyes widen in shock, “No! That’s not what I’m saying at all!”

And that’s essentially how you and Jake got into that huge argument last week.

What a mess.

⋆˚࿔

When Sunghoon woke up the day after the frat party, he was met with constant panging in his head. He only remembers little bits and pieces of the night and genuinely cannot, for the life of him, remember how he even got home that night. 

It was only till after breakfast that he found out Sunoo had called him a Uber home after he spotted him crying alone on the curbside.

Why was he even crying? He can’t remember, no matter how hard he tries to pull it out of his memory, nothing comes out.

Sunghoon’s roommates were usually out and about on Saturdays, so he decided to dedicate his Saturdays to self-care –– which in Sunghoon’s case, means watching cute videos of animals and yelling at his teammates over the mic that they suck ass all day.

He couldn’t even do that because of all that banging inside his head. Even after taking some Tylenol, it just wouldn’t stop pounding. So Sunghoon decided he should try to sleep it out on the couch.

After a couple of minutes of tossing and turning, Sunghoon finally found some tranquility –– but this was ruined the second he heard their apartment door slam shut.

Sunghoon almost fell out of the couch due to the sound, “What the fuck are you slamming doors for in the afternoon?”

When he looks up to see which one of his roommates almost broke their door down, he sees Jake –– his expression annoyed and Sunghoon’s presence totally ignored. Jake slams his own door shut without saying a word.

Sunghoon always knew not to bother Jake when he was upset and to just wait for him to feel better, so instead he sent a couple texts to Heeseung and Jay asking what’s up with Jake.

SUNGHOON What’s up with Jake He just came in slamming doors looking pissy and my head fucking hurtssss

JJONGSAENG think he and y/n broke up

HEESEUNG U being deadass?

JJONGSAENG yeah but jake didn’t tell me tho heard thru the grapevine  u know how fast rumours spread on campus but pretty sure they did i’ll ask him later

Upon reading these texts Sunghoon sat up immediately. All those times he prayed for you and Jake to break up finally came into fruition. But was it right for him to be celebrating like this? Jake’s still his best friend after all.

His thumb hovers over your contact on his phone –– but what was he even going to do? Say, hey heard you and Jake broke up, I’m sorry. If you ever need a shoulder to cry on, I'll be waiting?

He felt incompetent and stupid thinking about this, so he just turned off his phone and kept trying to sleep.

Later that night, Sunghoon found out that you broke up with him and not the other way around. Sunghoon tried really hard not to smile when Jake was explaining what had happened between the two of them to their roommates. 

They found out that you had broken up with him after he said, quote, “...she saw me with another girl at the frat and got so fucking upset about something and the fact that I was ‘acting out’ at the party, then she left without a word. It wasn’t until this morning she texted asking me to come over to talk. I didn’t know she was gonna break up with me?!”

At the frat? Was it the one Sunghoon had seen him with when he left the bathroom?

Truthfully, Sunghoon had been waiting for a text from you even though he knew it wouldn’t happen. After a week went by without hearing from you, he gave up on waiting.

Jake was up and running again in no time. He was the kind of person that could easily bounce back from adversities. He did admit, however, that he tried reaching out to you multiple times but never got a reply.

Sunghoon kept getting deja vu, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what’s so familiar –– until it clicked. Remnants of the night slowly started popping up again.

“What do you mean ‘I won’t be there for you anymore?’” Sunghoon asked you on the curb.

You turn your head on your knees to face him now, “I mean, would I lose you for good if Jake’s not in the picture anymore?”

Sunghoon didn’t know if he was absolutely plastered or if these words were actually coming out of your mouth right now.

“No,” Sunghoon shook his head, “No you won’t.”

The corners of your mouth turn upward, “Okay.” You stand up and brush off all the gravel from your clothes, “Are you going to be alright?”

His eyes stay fixed on you, nodding.

“Well,” you sigh, dusting your hands off, “I have to go back to the party. Text me, okay?”

Sunghoon was even more confused now –– on top of already being drunk and overly emotional –– so he burst out in tears. He tried his hardest to keep the tears from spilling out but the floodgates just wouldn’t close.

It wasn’t even just the whole him, you, and Jake situation that caused this –– it was also all the emotions that he had been building up for years.

Being Park Sunghoon –– stuck-up, critical, nitpicky, and insufferable since birth –– was hard. 

⋆˚࿔

Sunghoon found himself stuck in a dilemma. On one hand, he has Jake, his best friend, and on the other hand he has you –– but he wants both.

It seems like an easy decision, right? Jake’s his best friend, so ultimately he’s gotta kick the girl to the curb –– except Sunghoon doesn’t want just anyone, he wants you. 

He knew trying finding someone like you would be impossible.

It was truly a newfound feeling when he had experienced butterflies for the first time. He’s honestly never felt this deeply about a girl before. 

So what else can he do but text you when you ask him to? …two weeks later after mustering up the courage to open up your messages on his phone.

SUNGHOON Hey How have you been?

YOU hey!!!! u finally texted me i’ve been good thanks for asking

Sunghoon taps his foot on the ground, biting his nails, thinking about what else he could say to you to keep the conversation going.

SUNGHOON That’s good I know a lot has happened the past two weeks

You assume he’s referring to you and Jake breaking up. The two of you haven’t seen each other since Alpha Epsilon Pi’s mixer.

Admittedly, the last conversation you had with Sunghoon really cleared a lot of the looming thoughts you had stuck in your brain.

It’s been two weeks since you broke up with Jake.

It’s also been two weeks since Sunghoon told you that you wouldn’t lose him for good.

YOU yea  we should catch up let’s have a drink together like old times :))

⋆˚࿔

Like old times.

Sunghoon sat in a booth at his local university pub, just like he would last year. Waiting for you all the time.

In truth, Sunghoon couldn’t shake off the nerves of seeing you again after a while –– so to curb his anxiety he ordered two beers. One for you and one for himself. Well, at least that’s what he intended at first, but after he finished his bottle he still felt nervous so he drank “yours.”

You aren’t even late to meet him, he’s just way too early.

Ah fuck, he thought. If you still weren’t here and he’d already drank his own beer and “your” beer, and the two of you were meeting for drinks –– wouldn’t that suggest they were going to get multiple drinks?

Sunghoon covered his mouth, murmuring to himself silently, “Oh my god, how drunk am I gonna get. I can't embarrass myself” (Spoiler alert, he wasn't actually that drunk throughout the night, definitely just the placebo effect).

You actually arrive 10 minutes before your meeting time thinking you’d be early, but you were surprised when you saw Sunghoon sipping beer by himself, “Hey! You’re really early.”

“Yeah,” Sunghoon grins, “I guess you are too. How have you been?”

You seat yourself on the other side of the booth, “Well,” you sigh, “you already know what’s been going on with me and Jake.”

Sunghoon flinched at the mention of Jake’s name. Oh god, now he really was going to have a nervous breakdown. In the midst of this all, Sunghoon actually forgot about Jake in the equation.

Is it appropriate to be meeting his now ex-girlfriend for drinks? Like, just two of them? But wait, Sunghoon was friends with y/n way before him so would this be justified? Whatever, he needs a drink.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.”

You figured you probably shouldn't have brought that up and sheepishly smiled, “Why would you be sorry? Let’s order some drinks!”

After three more beers, a long island iced tea, and a mojito later, it was safe to say you and Sunghoon had all the alcohol courage you could get.

The two of you were laughing about, god knows what, for the past two hours –– but the topic of conversation never mattered between you and him. You could talk to him about anything. 

You stretch your arms up, “Do you think we should leave?” you and Sunghoon turn to look around the pub and realize they’re getting ready for closing.

Sunghoon ended up paying for all the drinks which made you feel giddy and thankful because your drinks were $15 each and you weren’t planning on going broke that night.

Outside of the pub, you and Sunghoon kept the laughter going. God, it’s been so long since you’ve hung out with him like this. You never realized how much you missed him.

“So…” Sunghoon drags out, “is this goodbye?”

You fish for your phone in your purse to check the time, “Wanna keep talking and have drinks at my place?”

He smiles at you, gesturing to the sidewalk ahead, “Lead the way Missy.”

When you finally arrive at your apartment, you push the door open and welcome him in, “My humble abode.”

Sunghoon had never been to your apartment before. Back then he thought it would be creepy and invasive if he asked to hang out at yours instead. He always knew you were a nostalgic and sentimental person, but your apartment unit really personified it. You kept all of the cheerleading medals you had stacked up in high school years ago, your fridge filled with photos of you and your loved ones, you even had a pile of every birthday card you’ve received in the corner of your desk.

Without meaning to, Sunghoon found himself meddling around your apartment inspecting everything you possessed. He wanted to know what you were like before he met you –– he wanted to know everything he could about you.

A finger taps on Sunghoon’s shoulder making him jolt, “You snooping around?” you tease.

He stammers, “No– sorry, I– I was just curious.”

You chuckle and walk towards the kitchen to grab some more drinks, “I’m just kidding, Hoon.”

Exactly like a loyal golden retriever would, he followed behind you quietly. You pass him a bottle of beer and take a sip of your seltzer. You prop yourself up the counter, legs lightly swinging from the ground, “So…”

In front of you, he puts a hand in his pocket and takes a swig of beer with the other, “...so” he repeats.

At this point, the alcohol wore off from the walk back to yours. Both of you were the right amount of buzzed –– giggly drunk.

“But seriously, how have you been? Like truthfully.” you ask.

Sunghoon tries to think hard about it –– but he’s always stuck to the same routine he’s had for the past three years. He scratches the back of his neck, “I dunno, life’s been the same as always. Wake up, eat, sleep, repeat all over again.”

You tilt your head, “Same old Sunghoon, doesn’t it get tiring sometimes?”

“What does? The routine?”

“No,” you fiddle with your fingers, “bottling everything up.”

Sunghoon’s surprised by your answer. He wonders what makes you think that, “What do you mean?”

You chug the remaining of your seltzer, “It’s just– it seems like you had a lot on your plate recently.”

At first, he wonders what you’re referring to. If he thinks hard about it, all he does is study, go to the gym, and play games. But when he finally realized what you were talking about he started getting flustered.

“...are you asking me this because of the conversation we had three weeks ago?”

He still remembers that night vividly. It had rained during the day, releasing the smell of petrichor and wet grass. The pavement hadn’t dried up yet where they stood –— he remembered because he kept his head down after Jake came to console you. He also remembers how he felt when he heard Jake come back from dropping you off. Straight guilt.

He laid in bed that night wondering what kind of “best friend” he was to say all of those things to you as if you weren’t dating Jake then. 

But now he’s standing in front of you, at your apartment, in your cramped kitchen, a little too close to each other.

“...yeah, sorry,” you apologize, “it seemed like you had a lot on your mind then.”

Sunghoon steps a bit closer, slightly wedged in between your legs, “I did have a lot on my mind then.” he confessed.

Not once breaking eye contact with you, he takes a final swig of his beer before he lightly places the empty bottle on the counter.

“Would you tell me if I asked?” you let him slide in between your thighs.

He boxes you in when he places both hands on the counter beside you, “I’d do anything you ask, y/n. You know that.”

You could hear the water drip from the kitchen faucet with how quiet it was.

“What about now? Do you still have a lot on your mind?”

Sunghoon pretends to ponder about it for a second before answering.

“Yeah.”

“...what are you thinking about right now?”

He only looks at you, fixing your hair before tucking a strand behind your ear.

“Whether this is a good idea or not.”

Sunghoon slowly leans in, almost as if he’s asking for permission before making a move –– and when you wrap your arms around his neck, he takes it as a green light and presses his lips against yours.

He thinks he’s dreamt about this moment his entire university career; what it would be like kissing you. Well now he knows. He knows that your lips taste like the cherry chapstick you always wear, that you kiss him softly, and that you get all handsy while making out. 

You drag your hand gently down Sunghoon’s chest and you assume he liked that considering you can feel him smiling on your lips. 

So you begin to outline his entire body. You trace your fingers along his jaw, the curvature of his abs, his biceps. You gently tug on his hair which elicits a small groan from him. You’re everywhere, you were ravenous.

All that time back then, when you’d pine over ice prince Park Sunghoon and throw hints at him here and there –– he never got the message though. 

But now you’re here, kissing Sunghoon, and you just can’t get enough –– and it seems like he can’t either.

Sunghoon caresses the outline of your waist, fingers slightly skimming up your skin, when he pulls away to pepper light kisses on your neck, “you know,” he mumbled, "I've been waiting for this moment ever since we first met.”

A small moan escapes your lips when he starts licking behind your ear, “Hoon,” you breathe out, “...do you want to go to my bedroom?”

He swears he can see stars now from how lightheaded he feels right now. He can’t even process that what’s happening is actually happening. 

Is this real life? 

Instead of exchanging words, he lets his body talk, picking you up from the counter walking towards your room, where he lays you down with the utmost care –– like you were his most prized possession. 

Cautiously, he asks, “Do you really wanna…”

“Yes. I do.” You shut him up with a kiss, fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt. You knew he understood the memo when he pulled away to throw his shirt to the ground.

He falls back into you, moving his knee between your thighs when he cups your face to kiss you again. This time, it’s messy, it’s desperate. Sunghoon wants to explore every inch of you, learn how your mind works, what you’ve experienced in life, what you haven’t, what you want to. He slides his tongue like he’s going to devour you.

Slowly, he peeled off all your clothes one-by-one until you’re left in your undergarments. You wish you had known what your plans were gonna be tonight otherwise you would’ve surely put on some better lingerie.

Sunghoon doesn’t give a fuck though, you were laying in front of him undressed and beautiful, how could he focus on something so miniscule when he has you all to himself? …but he also didn’t care because it’s going to come off anyways.

He unclasps your bra, exposing your bare chest. His kisses trailed from your throat all the way to your inner thighs. Now he was perched in between your legs next to your clothed pussy. He smirked when he saw how soaked your panties were, “You get this wet for me?”

You cover your eyes using your forearms out of embarrassment, “Just stop teasing, Hoon.”

“Hoon.”

God he loved hearing you call him by that nickname, he could feel his dick getting impossibly hard in his boxers. He’s going to absolutely destroy you.

Sunghoon delicately took off your panties before spreading your legs wider. He could see the slick from your pussy drooling onto the sheets already, and he swore he almost moaned.

You bite your bottom lip when he starts to place light kisses onto your pussy. He dragged his tongue from your fluttering hole to your clit. Park Sunghoon was a starved, starved man. He attaches himself onto your clit. He works his tongue until he gets you moaning, and when he’s decided he wants to hear you moan louder for him, he plunges two fingers in without warning.

Now he was knuckle deep inside of you, and those moans just kept escaping from your mouth, gradually getting louder and louder –– you pray you don’t get a noise complaint by the end of tonight. He pumps his fingers with vigor, eventually finding your most sensitive spot. 

He’s still lapping at your pussy while he massages your spongy G-spot. Sunghoon assumes he’s doing a great job since your legs are shaking …and also because you keep cheering him on like he’s a D1 athlete, “Ffffuck… Hoon– Please just– don’t stop. K–keep going!”

When you start to thrash around he tightens his grip on your plush thigh, continuing to work his tongue and fingers inside of you. He could tell you were about to cum from the fact that your pussy kept pulsing while his fingers were in deep.

“W– Wait,” You grab onto the sheets, “Hoon wait, I think– I feel like I’m gonna pee.”

“So what? Just relax and let it out.”

You do what he says, your juices coating his tongue. You watched him suck up every drop. The squelching sound was filthy, his fingers still scissoring you open. He brings himself up to lick at your neck while his fingers stay buried inside of your pussy, “You like that?”

What a freak. 

You never expected Park Sunghoon of all people acting this way in bed.

Your mouth drops open, nodding in agreement, “Uh huh…” Your breathing pattern still off from your last orgasm, “I fucking love it.”

He sucks at your neck, “Atta girl,” his fingers finally pull out of your cunt, dragging his hand up to one to fondle with one of your titties, “You gonna let me fuck you then?”

“Please.”

His lips curled into a devilish smirk, pulling out his cock out from his sweatpants. Teasingly, he raises his eyebrows at you, hand holding his cock –– silently curious about whether you could take the dick or not.

Saliva started pooling on the corners of your mouth and he hasn’t even fucked you yet. Sunghoon takes one good look at your swollen clit and puffy lips before he aligns himself at your entrance.

You’re horny and throbbing, you can barely hold your patience while Sunghoon seems to look extremely entertained taunting you by slightly pushing the head in before pulling out. He grabs ahold of your hips, bringing you closer to him. 

You laid there biting your nails wondering if he’s ever going to actually fuck you when he slides his cock inside your pussy inch-by-inch without warning. He starts thrusting in and out, grabbing your face to sloppily kiss you. All that drool you’ve accumulated from your past orgasm had been licked clean from your mouth to your chin. 

Sunghoon was insatiable. He started kneading your titties, his dick still fucking you nice and open. You probably still don’t know that he hadn’t even put the entire thing in yet. He starts rolling your nipples in between his knuckles before pinching them –– bottoming out completely at the same time.

You just had to lay there and take it. Everything hurt but felt so good at the same time. You hear the schlick-schlick-schlicking sound coming from his dick relentlessly pounding into your drenched pussy.

“Mmphf! Wait, Hoon it f– feels ssoo… good.” You manage to whimper out.

“You just–” thrust, “take it–” thrust, “so fucking well.” thrust.

He was inside so raw, so deep. You thought he was inside of you to the hilt, but when he pressed your thighs against your chest, he found a new angle and somehow managed to fuck you even deeper. You could feel his fat tip battering up against your cervix with every pump –– genuinely becoming scared at one point that his cock would slide into your womb. Your moans echoed throughout your apartment unit. It honestly sounds like pornstars having sex in here.

When Sunghoon felt your walls clamp down on his dick, he knew that you were about to cum soon. He began to really pound into you now, using his thumb to rub on your clit. It felt like he really did stretch you out. You look down at where the two of you connect and you cum at the sight of his cock plunging into you, forming a ring of milky white cum during the process. 

Sunghoon groans at how tight your pussy walls squeeze him in as he fucks you through your second orgasm. You were already so overstimulated; his pelvis rubbing against your sensitive clit, his cock deep inside you, your nipples being rolled and pinched. You couldn’t take it anymore.

Your whole body is quivering at this point and Sunghoon is still spearing you in half. You push at his chest, “W– Wait, hold on.”

He pulls out and looks at you with a cocky smirk on his face, “What’s wrong, baby? Can’t take the dick?”

You pant out, “I just…” You bring your hands to your legs, attempting to stop them from shaking, but it’s no use, “...I just need a second.”

“You tapping out?” he tuts.

Despite having to take a quick breather, you quickly shake your head no.

You crawl towards him now, wrapping your warm hands on the base of his cock. He groans at your touch and revels in it. You lick the tip like it’s candy.

You wait till he lets out a couple more groans before you finally wrap your lips around him and slowly slide his cock down deeper into your throat, stroking the rest with a hand.

A sense of satisfaction washed over you when you looked up to see Sunghoon with his hair tussled, head thrown back, mouth agape. It only pushed you to do more. You relax your throat to prepare for the intrusion, gliding his cock down lower and lower. Sunghoon gently grabs a fistful of your hair enough to keep his balance. All you could hear were his groans of pleasure. 

You try to keep all of him in your mouth for as long as you humanely could before pulling away from his shaft, sucking a big breath of fresh hair in.

You could see his eyes darken, “Turn around for me.”

Confused but still compliant, you follow his orders and turn your back against him. He places his hand on your lower back, moving it up your spine to delicately push you back onto the bed. He grabs ahold of your hips, perching them up.

Now you were face down, ass up on your bed. 

Sunghoon smoothed the arch of your back with his calloused palm, finding its place at the nape of your neck. He growls lowly in your ear, “You gonna be good for me?”

“Uh huh,” you manage to get out.

He removes his hand at your neck, giving your ass a squeeze before entering inside you again. He hammers into you with the same drive and vigor, steadying your legs when he feels them start to tremor again.

You melt under his touch, the curve of his dick hitting that sensitive spot once again. The sound of your moans pushed him to go even further. He lands his two hands on the moons of your ass, spreading them wide open to see his wet dick pound into your dripping pussy, sliding deeper till he feels the resistance.

“Aargh,” he groans, swiping his thumb over the rim of your other hole.

“Fuuuck…” you whine out loud.

Sunghoon watches himself disappear in between your glistening pussy lips. The sheets beneath you two were pooled with your slick, you couldn’t control your moans anymore –– you knew you were about to give out and cum again any minute now.

Your pussy just squeezes him in right, he could keep fucking you all night. You push against him, fucking yourself on his cock when he starts laughing, “How bad do you want it, baby?”

You roll your hips on him, “I want it… bad.” you mewl.

He presses himself balls deep inside of you just to watch you struggle and grind on him to desperately reach your nth orgasm tonight. He caresses your asscheek when he’s decided he’s had enough fun watching you use him like a fuck toy.

Sunghoon starts thrusting into you again, slow and deep this time, jolting your body forward on the bed with each pump of his dick. When you feel him twitch inside of you, you knew his release was close –– his groans getting louder.

He starts pounding into you again relentlessly, feeling your gummy walls hugging him tight. You could feel him chasing his orgasm. His hand snakes its way to your lower stomach, brushing against the bulge of his bulbous cockhead before he presses down on it. The added pressure made your eyes roll back, gripping onto anything you could.

“Hoon… I’m gonna– I’m gonna cum.” you cry out.

“Then do it.”

You let yourself go, cumming so hard on his cock, you swore you were about to blackout from the feeling of immense pleasure.

He fastens the speed of his thrusts; you feel them become messy and sloppier. You hear his breathing getting ragged when he pulls out, stroking himself as thick ropes of sticky, white, cum spill onto your ass. You lay still on the mattress, still panting when Sunghoon finishes milking out every drop of cum.

Sunghoon uses the back of his hand to wipe off the sweat dripping down his forehead, “Wait,” he breathes out, promptly leaving the room to come back with a towel. He cleans you up when you start chuckling out loud.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, moving your hair out of your face.

“No, it’s just I haven’t had good sex in a while.” you giggle.

Confused, he asks, “Wait but, haven’t you…”

“Me and Jake never had sex.” you confessed.

Sunghoon’s eyes widened, “But– I heard you… in his room–”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you look at him, face puzzled, “Maybe we were watching a movie?”

He decides to drop the topic and just be glad instead. He wraps his arms around you and pulls you closer to him, “I wish I’d done something sooner.”

Snug against his arms, you chirp, “Well, why didn’t you? I was throwing hints all the time!”

Now Sunghoon didn’t know this, “...what do you mean ‘throwing hints?’”

You playfully slap against his chest, “Freshman and sophomore year I was waiting for you to make a move but you never did! So I just assumed you didn’t like me like that and tried to move on…”

One thing about Sunghoon was: he wasn’t really good with social cues. He was always in his own little bubble doing his own thing. But now that he thinks about it, you were pretty obvious –– it just didn’t click to him back then.

The two of you ended up dozing off after talking for hours, and before you knew it, the sun was up again.

Both of you were awoken by a couple of hard knocks at your door.

Sunghoon yawns, “Who’s at your door this early?”

Half-awake, you slip into some clothes you find scattered on the floor, “I’m not sure, maybe a package I ordered?” You rub your eyes, “These FedEx guys always deliver packages so early.”

You quickly leave the room to see who’s at your apartment door. While waiting, Sunghoon props himself up against your headboard, reaching for his phone. He placed a hand behind his head while he started scrolling through his missed notifications. For some reason, Sunghoon felt like he was forgetting something –– he wasn’t sure what.

Something was off, but he couldn’t quite pin what it was. Was he just being paranoid? He bagged the girl of his dreams, he just had amazing sex, and now he’s waiting for you in your bed shirtless, boxers on.

He tries to run through his mental to-do list in his head: he already submitted his assignments, it’s the weekend so he doesn’t have any classes, his rent isn’t due till next month, he did his laundry yesterday –– so why did he feel like he was forgetting something?

Sunghoon hears your voice echo throughout the apartment, “Jake! What are you doing here?”

Oh shit.

kay's note: r/amitheasshole which one of them do you think is the biggest asshole: sunghoon, jake, reader, or all of them, cause i was lowkey thinking about it myself but i'm not too sure either

copyright © bambiens 2026.

[bambiens]

2k notes🥹 thank you so much! this means a lot to me, especially since this is my first time writing a fully written fic. i’m glad that people have been enjoying mr. possessive so far. i can’t wait for you all to see what’s to come in part two! 💝💟💕💖💞💓💘💗

[mortaldreams]

shadows (m) — an echoes companion piece.

pairing: yang jungwon x f reader

genre: royalty au, soulmate au, fantasy elements, smut

word count: 8.4k

warnings: smut, swearing

note: Echoes girlies and prince jungwon enthusiasts, this one is for YOUUUUUU!! This is a follow-up to my story echoes, published on my main blog stllmnstr. Read that first! This takes place a few months after the events of the main story but before the events of the epilogue. It’s also the most intimate smut I think I’ve ever written in my life, so buckle in, friends! And as always, enjoy 🤍

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

The weight of the crown is heavy, even for someone as dedicated as Jungwon. But in the sanctity of quiet moments between closed doors, even things as demanding as duty can be forgotten.

or, we could be in the shadows where nobody else could follow.

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

Sprawled across the left side of your bed, the light from the candle burns low.

Gaze trained on the misshapen wax, your eyes start to glaze as the flame dips lower and lower.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Wax falls onto the table below, hardening as soon as it hits the surface. 

You sigh. On the sheets next to you, a thick novel lies open, its pages bared to the chill of the room. On the table beside your bed, a half-finished letter to your sister sits equally discarded. 

It’s not as if palace life has left you bored — quite the opposite, in fact. Your days are full of reports and meetings and appearances that leave you drained long before the sun sets. 

In the castle, perhaps the only person with a schedule more crammed than yours is the king.

Jungwon. 

Your eyes fall shut for a moment, as if imagination alone can conjure him. You almost wish it could. These days, the king is a difficult person to come across. Even for you, and you’re afforded far more privileges than most. 

Still, the last time you laid eyes on him was yesterday morning, and that was only for the brief moment your paths crossed in the dining hall at breakfast. 

The last time you actually spoke with him properly was… thoughts trailing, you sigh out loud to no one in particular. It must have been nearly two weeks ago now.

You have never been naive enough to think running a kingdom, especially one entrenched in the turmoil of transition, would be an easy task. But stolen moments underneath the branches of a weeping willow and the shadows of forgotten hallways have only made you crave his presence more. And, much to your disappointment, notice his absence that much more acutely.

Lying on your back, your fingers thread though your hair that splays over your pillow. The action is absentminded, a feeble attempt to distract your wandering thoughts.

The end of autumn is approaching. The air has a chill to it these days, one you recognize well. One you know the kingdom will need to prepare for. 

There is work to be done. Plenty of it. Food rations that need to be sorted. Preservation and storing that needs to be taken care of before the chill becomes deeper, before the ground starts to frost. 

The large inventory of winter coats, a new initiative you helped oversee, needs to be allocated for mass distribution among the people in the most vulnerable districts. 

You have things to do. Plenty of important tasks and work to keep you busy.

But at the end of yet another long day, it’s always this. You, a candle you’ve burned down to its bones, and a bed that’s entirely too large.

Your new chambers were a gift from your king himself. A gesture of goodwill, a thoughtful attempt to make the castle feel more like your home instead of a begrudged fulfillment of a prophecy. But it’s so much larger than the tiny bedroom you had before. With all the space, your thoughts have nothing to do but wander.

You should sleep. The sunrise always comes earlier than you think it will, and tomorrow is a busy day. Foreign dignitaries from the western kingdom will arrive sometime after breakfast, and you imagine discussions with them will take up most of your day.

Besides that, Jaeyun’s been begging you to visit. It’s been weeks, nearly a month, since you last took Nabi out to your once familiar hilltop.

You should pay him a visit in the evening, perhaps. Find out if there are any updates on the fire that broke out at the schoolhouse last month. If it was just an accident of chance or the work of the small band of dissenters that have been wreaking havoc since the transition in rulership. 

Your mind feels heavy with the weight of it all. Again, sleep calls to you. Lulling with that sense of promised comfort. A reprieve from the thoughts swirling around your brain like wind on a stormy day.

Your candle is nearly nothing now. It will be extinguished soon whether you blow out the flame or not.

Still, like every night, a part of you hesitates. 

Your graveyard of candles is growing at a rather alarming rate, but every night it’s the same thoughts that torment you. 

Perhaps tonight, hope and temptation and that feeble prayer of maybe whisper against your ear, perhaps tonight will be the night he comes. 

You can see it in your mind, all too clearly. The way it will sound, loud in the silence, as he raps his knuckles gently against the wood of your door. 

The way he’ll enter. Softly, slowly. But never unsurely. He’ll know what he’s here for, even if propriety makes it difficult to put a name to. 

Your candle, low but steady, will provide just enough light. His crown will be the first to go, and the rest will follow soon enough. 

In the secrecy of your imagination, Jungwon’s eyes never leave yours. 

The young king, consumed by duty and honor and the troubles of the kingdom he’s inherited, for at least a few moments longer, will only be thinking of you. 

It’s a thought so vivid, so terribly tempting, that you almost consider calling to him through your connection. 

You could. It would be so easy. Even in your half conscious state, reaching for him through the recesses of your mind would feel like second nature. 

But every time you think to tug at that tether between the two of you, something in you hesitates. Reconsiders. And ultimately, resigns. 

It’s not that you don’t want to. You do. Even apart from your more illicit thoughts, the truth is that you miss him. 

The man you once spent long nights with, trading secrets and unraveling misconceptions under the cover of moonlight.

Your prince and now your king. Something in you aches whenever you remember that night in the stables, the one where he insisted you drop all pretenses and propriety and just call him Jungwon. 

What you wouldn’t give to do it again now. To look in his eyes and let the castle and your duties fall away to dust as you whisper his name in the sanctity of your bedroom. 

Rolling suddenly, you press your face into your pillow, as if the pressure alone can stifle your errant thoughts. Then, after a long moment, you turn back around, sitting up to reach for your candle. Warring with your thoughts will only make your feet drag slower in the morning, after all. You need to sleep. 

Moving your half finished novel from your bedsheets to your bedside table, you let your lips hover just above the dying fire for a minute longer. 

Another night. Another smothered flame. It’s nothing new, but you hesitate yet again.

Lips parting, your breath has just begun to pass through them when the sound of your name stops you dead in your tracks.

You’re so startled you nearly lose your balance, hair coming dangerously close to the last remnants of your still burning candle. 

There’s no one else in your bedroom. Your name wasn’t spoken, at least not out loud. 

Immediately, a molten urgency begins to burn deep within you. It’s him. It has to be.

Half afraid you’ve imagined it, you’re hesitant to try reaching back out. You reach for the connection in your mind tentatively, as if the last months have meant nothing. As if this is little more than an illusion crafted from glass. As if one misstep will shatter it.

Jungwon. You’re holding your breath, terrified that the ripple effect from any of your actions will become a beast to contain.

But your connection is not an illusion. And your name was not a figment of your imagination. 

He’s quick to respond.

You’re awake. It’s not a question. Even though the bond, you can sense it, his conflicted mix of relief and disapproval. 

I am. You return immediately. A moment of silence passes then. Another. Finally, you venture back out, Do you… do you need something?

You can almost see it, the way he shakes his head. It has a small surge of panic rising in your throat. As if he’s suddenly become sand, and all you can do is watch helplessly as it slips through your fingers. 

No, I… I’m sorry. It’s late. 

But you won’t lose him now, and especially not to feeble excuses. He sought you out. He won’t break away so easily. The hour, you exhale, hardly daring to move, is the least of my concerns. 

To your immediate relief, Jungwon’s response comes quickly. 

Where are you? 

Less than a beat later, you tell him, My chambers. 

Again, he’s silent for a long moment. Afraid his responses will stop entirely, you fill the silence in his mind again by returning his question. Where are you?

It must be past midnight by now. He should be free of his meetings, although some particularly pedantic ones have been known to extend this late into the evening.

If you had to guess, though, he’s dropped his official duties for the night. You don’t think he’d run the risk of distracting himself if his attention were still required elsewhere. 

This time, nearly a minute of silence passes. Another handful of wax drops harden against your table. Your breath is shallow in your chest. 

Maybe he’s fallen asleep, you finally concede. You do your best to be relieved at the thought. Rest is a fleeting thing these days for the king. If he’s sleeping, you shouldn’t disturb him further.

Still, this is the most you’ve had in weeks. You aren’t quite ready to let it go. 

Quietly, as if your mind itself were whispering, you try one last time.

Jungwon.

For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of your breath and the silence of your bedroom. 

And then you hear it. This time, the sound doesn’t resonate inside your mind. No, it rings out into the space of your bedroom, coming from your right. 

It’s the unmistakable rap of three muted knocks against your bedroom door. 

Head turning so fast you’re afraid your neck will be sore in the morning, you scramble, standing up from your bed. 

It has to be him. He’s here. 

Come in, you send through your bond, still not thinking entirely straight. 

Your hair is a mess around your shoulders, you’re sure. The nightgown crafted from fabric meant to provide comfort more than structure is hardly proper attire in the presence of a king, but these realizations come too little, too late.

Before you can so much as smooth down the front of your crumpled night clothes, the door to your bedroom is opening. 

And in walks the king, pushing the latch closed quietly behind him. Then, he turns to you.

The ample size of your bedroom is something you curse again now. Even with him near, the distance between the two of you still feels like an abyss, an uncrossable thing. 

Jungwon stands at your door, candlelight flickering over his features. 

It never fails to strike you, especially in quiet moments like these, just how beautiful he is. Dark hair falls over his forehead, kissing the tips of long eyelashes. His cheekbones, sharp and defined, glow warm in the low light. 

And his eyes. By the gods, his eyes. Even from a distance, you can see the shadows beneath them. Born from long nights in the throne room and the duty that weighs heavy on his broad shoulders. 

Still, they're full of light, a keen sense of alertness where they meet yours across your bedroom. 

Jungwon wears no crown, no regalia. He’s come to you as himself, the barest version of it he can muster with so many responsibilities to his name.

You watch, breath rising shallow in your chest, as his eyes trace the planes of your face. As if he’s seeing how well memory has served him these past weeks. As if he’s been dreaming of this too. 

And then his eyes fall lower, ghosting over your neck. Your exposed collarbone, revealed by the neckline that sits just above your chest. They trace you, slowly, steadily, all the way to where the hem of your nightgown brushes against your ankles. 

His gaze returns to your face. You watch as his throat works through a swallow, jaw tightening. 

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says to you out loud. “It’s late.”

You shake your head, repeating the same sentiment you told him earlier. “The hour matters little.”

“I just,” he continues, as if he’s under the incorrect assumption that his presence in your bedroom needs justifying. “I wanted to see you.”

You look at him again, then. Take in the shadows beneath his eyes. Just how deep they’ve become, even since you last saw him. The set of his shoulders. Still broad, still proud, but unmistakably weighed down by exhaustion. 

Your candlelit fantasies, then, whatever indistinct, sensation-driven form they’ve taken, start to shift. Into something softer, more delicate.

You nod, infused suddenly with a new sense of purpose. A stroke of bravery. 

“Come here,” you urge, motionting him closer.

Jungwon hesitates for only a moment. But the magnetism that tethers you pulls at him too. And eventually, even the king is bending to your requests. 

He approaches slowly, with the careful, even footsteps of a hunter trying not to startle its prey. But when he comes to stop, still an arm’s length away, you’re not sure which of you is truly in pursuit. 

Reaching, you let your fingers encircle his wrist. Then, you sit back down on your bed, pulling him along with you. 

You’re not sure if it’s the sleepiness or something else that makes him so pliant in your hold, but Jungwon offers no resistance. 

Moving backwards until your spine is pressed against the expanse of your headboard, you meet Jungwon’s gaze. He still sits with respectable distance between the two of you, hovering at the edge of your bed. 

Reaching out, you intertwine your fingers with his. 

Pulling gently, you search his eyes for any sign of hesitation. There’s none to be found. Just a wide-eyed, glassy reflection of desires that match your own. Your candle, bare flame that it may be, reflects in his gaze like starlight. 

“Come,” you urge, guiding him gently until his body is a mirror image of your earlier position, splayed across your bedsheets. His head, however, never reaches your pillow. Instead, you guide it into your lap.

He’s tense, you can tell. He won’t relax fully into you, even as he lets himself be pulled to a lying position, his head resting against your thighs. 

Tentatively, as if pressing at an invisible boundary, you thread your fingers through his hair. 

You can’t see his expression. His eyes face away from you now, but his sigh of relief is immediate. Audible. 

Your fingers press deeper into his hair and he sighs again, this time against your nightgown, as some of the tension begins to ease from his shoulders. As he relaxes further into your touch. 

Absentmindedly, you begin to trace patterns against his scalp, letting your fingertips ghost through his dark hair in soothing repetitions. His head is warm in your lap, a comfortable weight that settles over the tops of your thighs. You’re hyper aware of every shift in position, every miniscule movement he makes under your ministrations. 

You spend long moments like that, basking in the quiet, in the stillness. Your fingers continue to work through his hair, chasing the small sounds he makes whenever you come across a particularly sensitive spot. 

After long minutes, his breath becomes more even. You wonder if he’s fallen asleep. 

A sudden movement answers your question. Slowly, but absent of inhibition, his hand comes to rest on your thigh, just beneath his chin. 

It doesn’t remain motionless for long. Like you, Jungwon begins to trace patterns. He draws his with his thumb, pressing gently against you as he rubs small, even circles. 

Even through the thin layer of fabric, his touch sends a coil of heat pooling just under your skin. You’re suddenly grateful for your position. Thankful that he’s facing away from you so he can’t see the way color begins to bloom on your cheeks. 

Suddenly overcome with the need to fill the silence, you ask, “What’s on your mind?”

Jungwon’s touch continues as he thinks for a moment. Finally, he answers quietly, “At the moment? Very little.”

“I’m serious,” you urge, a frown pulling your lips down. “You seemed… tense earlier. Did something happen?”

“I was,” he admits. “A meeting with the royal advisors ran late and no one could be reasoned into agreeing with anything.” He pauses for a moment, swallowing once. “But I’m not thinking about them now.”

“You’re not?” you ask, fingers still in his hair, tracing his skin like you can soothe away any errant thoughts through touch alone.

“No,” he confirms. You feel his head shake gently against your lap. “I’m not.”

“Good,” you nod, voice so quiet it’s almost lost to the stillness of your bedroom. 

You’re both silent for a moment, breaths mingling as your candle dips impossibly lower, light flickering more erratically as it reaches its final moments. As if the wick itself isn't quite ready to let go. Can’t give into the finality of being extinguished. 

You’re whispering now, but he still hears you. He always does, whether your voice reaches his ears or his mind directly.

“Jungwon,” you breathe. 

“Mm,” he hums, vibrations sinking through your skin and settling near your bones. 

“I miss you.” It’s a strange thing to admit, perhaps, when you share a home. When he’s here now, lying in your lap, connected in more ways than one. 

When you agreed to live in the castle, now a handful of months ago, you thought it would be disarming, distracting, just how often you saw Jungwon. You never imagined you’d be spending sleepless nights aching for moments like this. That your time together would almost always have to be stolen. 

Back then, whatever was beginning to bloom between the two of you felt like hope, like possibility. But as summer gave way to autumn, reality began to root itself more firmly into the ground. As the leaves turned from green to golden and began to fall from the trees, so did the illusion that you and the newly crowned king would have nothing but time to explore the budding connection between you. 

You don’t blame him. You can’t resent him. You admire Jungwon’s dedication to bettering the world around him, to keeping his promises and seeing things through. And you know he feels the same towards you. Every solidified plan, every treaty and agreement you’ve helped draft into law has only made him more fond of you. 

But you’re long past pretending that admiration is the only feeling you harbor for your king. Here in your bedroom, the weight of it all sits heavy on your chest. 

You mean it. You want him in ways that extend beyond duty. You miss him, even when he’s right in front of you. 

For a moment, his fingers still. Their weight still presses against your skin, but his movement has stopped. You wish you could see his expression. You’re thanking every one of the ancient gods that you can’t. 

A million and one contradictions. But it always comes back to this. To him. 

“You miss me?” he echoes. There’s no accusation in his voice, nothing but a small sense of wonder. 

Still, it has a tendril of guilt blooming in your gut. He already has so much on his plate. Stretched so thin from the immense sense of duty that’s always pulling him in every direction. You can hardly be selfish enough to ask that he add something as frivolous as your feelings to his list of concerns. 

“I’m sorry,” you try to retract. “I know—”

Don’t apologize.

He whispers it into your mind this time. Mostly because his lips are occupied elsewhere. Turning slightly, he presses a long, gentle kiss against the top of your thigh, just above where his fingers have resumed their ministrations. 

It’s embarrassing, perhaps, how immediately it has heat pooling in your gut. His mouth isn’t even moving. It’s just pressed to your skin, warmth overwhelming even through the small barrier of fabric. 

You feel his lips part against you, jaw brushing your thigh as he moves higher, pressing another kiss against you. As if your nightgown is nothing to him, as if he’s imagining the taste of your skin beneath it.

“Jungwon,” you whisper, still using what’s left of your voice. In the quiet of your bedroom, with his mouth warm against your skin, it sounds scraped raw. Whether you’re urging him or begging for reprieve, you’re not entirely sure. 

He doesn’t respond out loud. His lips remain occupied with the taste of silk as his mouth begins to draw higher, carving out a trail of soft kisses. 

You’ve kissed him before, yes, but his mouth has always been on yours. Or perhaps the length of your throat, in particularly desperate moments. But those moments have become increasingly rare. And this is different. This is new. 

This has muscles tightening beneath his touch, your legs clenching, all the way down to your toes. Your fingers tangle tighter in his hair, and he exhales harshly against you, silk fluttering at the movement. 

Don’t tell me you’re sorry. He reaffirms in your mind, lips still working against you. You think I haven’t missed you too? Do you think that this hasn’t plagued every last one of my waking thoughts?

Jungwon. This time, you speak in your mind. You’re afraid of what your voice will sound like if you try to find it now.

He’s not done wreaking havoc on your last threads of coherence. 

I dream of you, you know. His mouth is on your hip now, leaving a trail of slow, deep kisses. The number of nights I’ve waited just outside your door like this… apologies are the last thing I want from you.

“Jungwon,” you urge. Somewhere in the haze, in the heat, you manage to find your voice. It’s raw, yes, but it’s there. You disentangle your hands from his hair, and he groans at the loss of contact. 

The sound is nearly your undoing. Vibrations, low and deep, spread from where he still has his mouth on you, reaching untouched places, parts of you that are beginning to ache. 

“Jungwon,” you try again, hands sliding to his jaw. Gently, you press a finger beneath his chin, urging him to look up at you. 

Pliant under your touch, his mouth leaves your skin. You mourn the loss of contact for only a moment before his eyes finally, finally meet yours. 

Wide and glassy in the low light, you can practically see your reflection in them. Forgetting your earlier embarrassment at just how easily he affected you, the sight beneath you proves that Jungwon is far worse for wear.

Pupils blown, he looks up at you like a man starved. Lips swollen and glossy from his ministrations, it’s as if he’s indulged in too much of the palace’s wine. A deep, violent flush dusts the top of his angular cheekbones, exhaustion in his eyes replaced by something entirely new. 

If the ache in your bones is beginning to sing, you imagine his must be screaming with the way he looks at you, gaze leaden with want. 

There’s a shiver of thrill that chases your spine, the same flicker you felt that afternoon in the moments just before you ducked beneath the willow tree. Only now, it’s intensified a thousand times over. 

You have his attention now, and you’ll use it well. 

Come here, you plead.

A ridiculous request given how entangled you already are, but he understands. And he doesn’t need to be told twice. 

Sitting up, Jungwon rises until it’s him who hovers above you, crowding you further into the solid expanse of your headboard. The sudden pressure against your spine makes you wince, an unintentional expression that doesn’t escape his notice. 

“Here,” he urges. His voice is low, gentle in its command even as it roughens around the edges. “Like this.”

He moves again, this time leaning back until he’s the one sat resting against your headboard. With a gentle grip that spares no urgency, he reaches for your wrists, pulling until you’re settled across his lap, legs splayed on either side of him. 

It’s a change in position, an adjustment from earlier, but it still puts your eyes above his. He looks up at you with that same glassy gaze, heavy with the weight of his desire. 

Hands against his chest, you feel the depth of his breath as it rises and falls slowly. Captivated by the way he seems almost inebriated from this, from you, you watch as the flush spreads further across his cheekbones. His gaze, locked on you, fills with a sudden intensity. Under the weight of his undivided attention, you feel a sudden flash of shyness. 

Alone in your bedroom, deep in the forgotten hours of night, there’s no one to admonish you for your actions, no one to scold you for your lack of propriety. 

It’s only you, Jungwon, and that ever-pulsing thread of desire that’s taken root deep within you, wrapping around your body, your mind, until you feel consumed by it. 

Between the deep, tightening waves of sensation and the heat simmering just under your skin, eye contact becomes a difficult thing to maintain. It’s too much. He’s only looking at you now, fingers still against the outsides of your thighs, but the combination of it all is overwhelming in ways you can’t entirely explain. 

A renewed flash of heat blooming across your features, you dip your chin, looking down at where your body rests on his. 

Immediately, one of his hands leaves the expanse of your thigh. Raising it, he gently soothes back hair that’s fallen over your eyes, tucking it behind your ear. His fingers go back to your temple, then. Retracing the same pattern even though your hair’s already been adjusted. He’s not trying to fix anything now. He’s just soothing you. 

You don’t have to say anything. Even though this breaches new barriers between the two of you, he can read every expression, every breath, like an open book. He recognizes how unmistakably overwhelmed you’re quickly becoming. 

Slowly, quietly, he lets his hand fall to the side of your neck. You can’t suppress the shudder that runs the length of your spine when it settles there. He feels it too, the way you shake, and his next exhale is a bit rougher, a bit more labored. 

With the reverence of a worshipper, his thumb begins to trace gentle lines, a repeated motion up and down the overly warm skin of your neck. 

He’s patient, even though the effort strains. Even though his own desires have started to near a boiling point. 

Still, he waits until you’ve adjusted to his touch. Until you’ve begun to relax into it.

Only then does his hand start to splay. Thumb still rubbing comforting strokes against one side of your neck, his fingers extend to the other. Until his hand covers the base of your throat.

His fingers wander, searching until they find what they’re looking for. Eventually, they come to rest in the dip above your collarbone, feeling the way your pulse hammers there. It quickens, then. Becomes impossibly more erratic. 

He’s doing it on purpose, you realize. Measuring your physical response to him. Surveying just how deeply his effect on you extends. 

Your heart skips a beat, then. A telltale sign of just how much his touch had already begun to unravel you. 

He sighs, brow creasing, breath catching like he’s in pain. 

But it’s not himself that he’s concerned with. Are you okay? he asks. Even in your mind, he’s whispering. As if you’re a skittish kitten he’s trying not to startle. As if that alone will be enough to calm your frayed nerves.

Searching for your voice, you come up hopelessly blank. His hand still sits around your throat like a promise. A reminder of his presence. 

All you can do is nod. You’re not sure you could even form your thoughts into something coherent now. 

Do you want me to stop? Stop what, you’re not entirely sure. He’s not really doing anything. Even his thumb has stilled now. His hand is wrapped loosely around the base of your throat, your thighs spilling on either side of his.

It’s not as if you’re entirely clueless, but you’ve never been here before either. None of your inexperienced fumbling or horribly awkward explanations from the castle midwives of what womanly flowering entails prepared you for the sensations you’re feeling now. They made it sound so… clinical. Detached. A simple repetition of motion. A clear start, middle, and end. 

Never once did they mention the intensity of it all. The way your nerves are all flowing into one another and you can’t quite tell where things begin and end anymore. The way having Jungwon in front of you, beneath you, makes you feel like a torch light filled with too much oil, on the verge of exploding at any given moment. 

You don’t know exactly what comes next. But you know the answer to his question. 

Silently, resolutely, you shake your head. 

But Jungwon isn’t willing to take his chances on your silence. He wants, needs to be sure. 

Tell me, he pleads. 

So you do. 

No, you assure him, finding your last train of sensible thought. No, I don’t want you to stop.

His fingers flex against your throat. Not tightening, just… there. 

Will you look at me? Even in your mind, something in his words sings with desperation. Like he needs it. Like he’ll fall apart without it.  

So slowly, gathering every last ounce of bravery, you let your eyes trace the band of his belt, the planes of his chest, the set of his jaw, before you acquiesce to his request. Taking one final, steadying breath, you bring your gaze to his. 

You don’t think any amount of time or preparation or damn breathing would make you feel ready for what you find. 

His eyes are wide, full of longing so poignant you imagine it must be painful. His fingers twitch against your neck again, and you realize then just how much restraint he holds you with. You can see it now, the rippling threads of tension evident in his shoulder, his brow, the swallow he forces down. 

Eyes on yours, he asks, somewhat hesitantly, Do you… Your mind is silent for a moment. Have you ever…

You understand what he means now. Deciding pride is a better sacrifice than honesty, you shake your head. 

He closes his eyes for a moment, eyelids tightening like the idea affects him more than he thinks it should. More than he wants you to know.

Subtly, almost as if involuntary, he shifts beneath you, hips moving slightly. Even the miniscule adjustment sends a fresh wave of heat plummeting through your veins. His gaze finds yours again. You do your best to maintain it, even as your eyelids start to flutter. 

Looking at you as if everything he has hinges on your response, he parts his lips. And then he asks slowly, almost as if he’s afraid of your answer, Does it feel good?

It takes you a moment to respond.

Good is an insufficient word for the way warmth is spreading through your body so quickly you can’t contain it. For the way you can feel your heartbeat everywhere. In your chest, against his fingers at your throat. Pulsing, low and deep, in the place beneath you where your bodies connect. 

It’s almost terrifying, the way you can’t predict what sensations you’ll be assuaged with next, the way you don’t know how your body will react to his ministrations. 

But this is Jungwon. Your Jungwon. You trust him in a way that makes your fears feel small. You want him in a way that has you desperate to chase the unknown instead of hiding from it.

Your spinning, spiraling thoughts are surely too much to tell him. You’re not even sure how to put most of them into words that he’ll understand. 

So instead, you say, Yes. Eyes locked on his, you nod. It feels good. A bit more shyly, you add, You feel good.

His eyelids shutter at that. His exhale is shaky, barely holding on by a thread. 

Opening his eyes again, he nods. Good. You don’t… you don’t have to think so hard. Just let it feel good. Do what feels good.

He’ll follow your lead, is what he means. Part of you wants to protest. You feel unsteady, unsure. You don’t know what to do. Wouldn’t it be better if he just showed you?

But his words play in your mind again. It’s exactly what he told you, isn’t it? Don’t think so hard. Just… do. 

Closing your eyes for a moment, you let your mind run a full scan of your body, all the way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, searching for the most prominent sensations to follow. 

With all of your attention on them, they’re easy to pinpoint. Most of all, your focus snaps to that deep, pulsing ache in your gut that seems to start and end between your splayed thighs. 

Brow creasing, you adjust your weight slightly. The effect is almost instantaneous. Friction, pressure. You identify them immediately, effortlessly, as the things to chase. The shaky breath that spills from your parted lips breaks into a tiny, audible whimper. 

Jungwon’s fingers nearly spasm against your throat at the sound. 

“Yeah,” he whispers aloud, more breath than sound. “Like that.”

Your hips move slowly at first, trying to commit every angle, every new sensation to memory. 

Beneath you, Jungwon is true to his word. For long minutes, he only watches, thumb resuming its soothing patterns against the side of your neck as you chase sensations. As he lets you use his body as you please, following the pathways of your own pleasure. 

You feel him lean forward, your eyes still closed tight, as he puts his mouth on your throat, lips pressing softly just under your jaw. The added sensation has a high, helpless sound rising in your throat. It spills through your lips, without your permission, and Jungwon’s loosening grip on restraint slips further. You feel his tongue hot against your skin in response. 

So beautiful. You can’t tell if he means to send the thought to you or not. So fucking pretty.

Either way, his praise has another whimper falling through your lips. This time, Jungwon moves his mouth to yours the second it begins, as if he wants to swallow it whole. 

It’s the first time tonight he’s had his mouth on yours, but it can hardly be called a kiss, with the way your lips are practically slack against his, still a slave to the sensations unfurling beneath you. 

Jungwon doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, he works at you like a man starved, as if he wants to count just how many more of those sounds he can swallow straight from your lips.

Your hips chase relief on his thigh for minutes longer, but eventually, the sensation starts to lose its edge. The friction you feel from your movements alone is no match for the ache still building deep within you.

“Jungwon,” you whisper, lips moving against his as he presses his forehead to yours. You’re both so warm. The heat of proximity is almost as unbearable as the thought of breaking it. 

You don’t know how to tell him, the way it still feels good, but you can’t quite seem to get it just right. The way you're practically falling over yourself in search of the right angle, the right pressure, the perfect movement, but you can’t seem to find it no matter how hard you try. 

It’s so frustrating — like you’re nothing but an endless jumble of nerves. With too much energy, sensations that still ebb but you can’t maneuver into flowing. 

“Jungwon, I can’t—” your voice breaks. “It’s not—”

Even in your incoherence, even without you finishing the thought, he understands.

“Sh,” he soothes, “I have you.”

And he does. Immediately, his hand leaves the dip in your neck, breaking contact with your pulse point. Jungwon lets it wrap around your body, settling at the base of your spine instead. He uses his new leverage to pull you further onto his lap. Closer into his burning heat. Up, up, up, all the way until you feel him, feel a man, for the first time. 

Immediately, every stalled sensation begins to flow again. 

And Jungwon isn’t so still anymore either. His own body, once a tool for your pleasure, begins to take some of its own, too. He moves with you now, hands at your waist as he guides you over his lap. Angles his hips in well-timed motions that have you seeing stars. Whimpering his name until your voice sounds like sobs.

Your hands fall to his shoulders now, trying to erase any last fragment of space that still exists between the two of you as he works you over his body. 

His lips return to your throat, this time trailing further downwards. You feel his tongue press against your collarbone, following the dip of your neckline, teasing just beneath it. The air sings cooly over the path of damp kisses he leaves on your skin, a welcome reprieve from the fire burning everywhere else in your body. 

Jungwon’s breath becomes more labored, more erratic as you continue. The groan he releases on a particularly sharp uptake sends your mind spinning, a sound of your own breaking through your lips to join it. 

Jungwon, you send to his mind this time. You don’t know what to ask for, don’t know how to explain it, but you just need— more, Jungwon. Please. I can’t— 

Again, he reads your thoughts like they’re his own. 

“Okay,” he nods. Your hips still move with his, but the frantic pace he’s helped you build begins to subside. The two of you are moving slower than before, with more intent. “Okay, baby, just—” He presses a small, delicate kiss to the center of your chest, like he needs one more touch before leaning back.

Eyes meeting yours, his fingers come to rest on the ties that line the front of your nightgown. Looking up at you, hair mussed, cheeks flushed, lips swollen, he asks for permission, “Can I?”

“Yes,” you nod immediately, mind already spinning at the idea of his skin against yours, no barrier or fabric between you. “Please.”

His long fingers are slow, deliberate, as they begin to unravel the ties holding your bodice together. You watch him as he works, sighing as he leans in, covering every inch of newly exposed skin with his mouth, as if there’s no part of you he’s willing to leave untouched. 

Finally, when the last of his work is done, your nightgown pools at your waist. Bare before him, you feel exposed in the low light. Shy as his gaze travels from your eyes to your navel and then back again. 

You try not to let the discomfort take root, but it makes you fidget. “Jungwon, I—”

“You’re beautiful,” he repeats his earlier words. This time, he says them out loud, his eyes never leaving yours. In the dying light of your bedroom, he decides that your bodies aren’t the only thing worth baring. 

There’s a distinct touch of vulnerability, of pure, raw truth, when he tells you, “You cannot begin to understand the number of times I’ve imagined this. How soft you’d be.” His fingertip traces the curve of your cheek as you lean into his touch, chasing his warmth. “The way you’d look at me while I touch you.” His eyes meet yours, a new kind of heat burning in them. “The sounds you’d make while I’m inside you.”

Your eyes widen on his last admission, and he misreads it for panic, for trepidation, for uncertainty. 

“We don’t have to,” he assures you. “As I said, we’ll do whatever feels good.”

But you don’t feel any panic or trepidation. There’s no trace of uncertainty left anywhere in your bones. You’re too far down this path to not see it through until the end. Besides, you’re starting to find that the tendrils of your own pleasure are wonderful to chase, but his…

Something about knowing that it’s your body, your voice, your mind that Jungwon takes his pleasure from is satisfying in an entirely different way. If it’s something he’s imagined, you’re sure it must be worth living. 

Eyes low, you take his hand in yours. Playing with his fingers, the momentary distraction fuels your bravery. Makes what you’re about tell him a bit easier to work through your mouth. 

“I want to,” you whisper. “I want you…” your voice trails off, heat blooming anew against your cheeks as you slowly admit, “I want you inside of me.”

And you do. After all, it feels only right. He’s already carved a space for himself inside your mind and within your heart. Your body only feels like a natural progression. A final affirmation of the feelings you already have, of the declarations you’ve already made. 

Gently, he slides his fingers beneath your jaw, turning your face until you have nowhere to look but him. 

His breath falters as he takes you in again. Assesses the mess he’s already made of you. His eyes are wide as he searches your expression for any hint of hesitation. 

“Are you sure?” he whispers. “There are other ways I could—”

You shake your head. “I’m sure. Please. I want—” you admit to him what you couldn’t before. “I want you to make me feel good.”

Then Jungwon’s the one closing his eyes, forcing an exhale through his lips like your admission physically pains him. 

“Okay,” he finally says, opening his eyes to look at you again.

“Okay?”

“Gods, yes,” he affirms, already moving. “I’ll give you anything. Anything you ask for, it’s yours.”

Despite the urgency, despite the still aching heat between the two of you, Jungwon vows to take his time. To commit every expression, every miniscule movement to memory. To savor sensations instead of just chasing them to completion.

His movements are gentle, as measured as they can be as he helps you rid your nightgown entirely. There’s reverence in his gaze as it traces the expanse of your body. Silent prayers he says as he takes in every uncovered inch of skin. 

Jungwon follows suit, his hands covering yours as you help rid him of his clothes. Dark and simple, they provide just enough warmth for the light chill of the turning seasons. Now, they lie scattered across the floor near your bed. Forgotten, unnecessary. 

This time, Jungwon guides you onto your back, hair fanning over your pillow. It’s a mirror image of your earlier position. Only this time, you aren’t alone in your room anymore, wallowing in your loneliness. 

Now, he cages you in, pressing impossibly closer until your breaths are mingled, heartbeats intertwined.

Your bed doesn’t feel so terribly big now, not as he covers your body with his own, skin against skin everywhere you can reach. 

You’re so warm. Overwhelmed in a new way even as the pace begins to quiet. 

He’s gentle. Intentional. Slow as he presses his fingers against you. Inside you.

Jungwon takes his time with you. Alternates between covering every inch of you with his lips and watching the expressions that play out across your features every time he discovers a new way to touch you. 

It’s quiet. Full of breathy whispers, long sighs. And then, it’s anything but. 

Hushed whimpers, heady groans. The broken gasp that falls from his mouth to yours when he finally, finally presses his way inside of you. 

The way he soothes your hair back from your face as you wince at the unfamiliar intrusion. 

Shhh, he whispers into your mind as he holds his body still, letting you adjust. Giving you time to relax around him. You’re okay. Doing so well, aren’t you? So full and still taking it all.   

Then your hands are back in his hair, and his are back on your thighs, this time pulling them upwards as he gently encourages you to wrap them around his waist.

He starts to move, and it’s so much, so fucking overwhelming, that you think you might die.

It’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt, beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. You can feel him everywhere. 

From your fingers to the tips of your toes to the inside of your mind, and it all converges back to that place deep inside of you that he presses against every time he moves. 

Your mind is filled with him. With the two of you tangled in one another, your connection sings. He doesn’t have to send his thoughts to you. You can feel them, as if they were a part of you already. 

Look at you, he insists, reveling in the way you tug against his hair, something surging in his chest at the way your eyes screw shut in another wave of pleasure so deep you’re nearly drowning. 

Perfect, he insists when another breathy whimper spills from your lips.  

Mine, he decides when he hopes you’re too wrapped up in sensation to remember. 

Before long, something starts to build inside of you, slow at first and then impossibly fast. A new feeling, one that starts deep in your gut, imbued with a renowned sense of urgency. You chase it, running blindly even if you don’t yet know what waits on the other side. 

It’s as if you’re climbing. Higher, higher, higher. And then you’re falling. Suspended in midair. Falling. Floating. Flying. 

Jungwon is there, working you through it, talking you through it. Whispering sweet nothings in your ear and in your mind. Words blend into one another, and you can only half understand him through the way your body still trembles slightly. You can feel yourself pulsing around where he still sits inside you, stronger than anything you felt before. 

It must have the same effect on him. Only seconds later, Jungwon buries his face in your shoulder, releasing one final groan before warmth fills your body. 

For long moments after, the two of you lie motionless, still connected as his weight settles over you, either unwilling or unable to move. You suppose it doesn’t really matter which of the two it is. 

And even later still, long after the urgency has transformed into something sweeter, the two of you are awake. 

Now, your head rests against Jungwon’s still bare chest, his fingers threading through your hair. Your body feels heavy with satiation, a kind of deep, physical contentment foreign to you until now. The ghost of his touch lingers. You can still feel everywhere he was inside of you. 

Eventually, Jungwon is the one to finally break the silence. His voice is small, but it rings clearly in the quiet of your bedroom. “I don’t want you to miss me.” 

You sigh, sleepy as you curl further into his warmth. “It’s inevitable.” You’re not angry. Even if the loneliness stings on occasion, you’ll continue finding ways to make your peace with it. Although it might prove more difficult now that you know what it is to have him like this. “A king will always be bound by duty. And duty will always find a way to call at the most inopportune of times.”

You can feel the way he shakes his head. “Duty calls to everyone. We all just have different names for it.”

“Perhaps,” you agree, fighting a yawn, “but your responsibilities will always look a bit different than everyone else’s. It’s okay,” you add, sensing his lingering unease. “I understand. I don’t know what it feels like to wear a crown, but I can’t imagine it would be easy.”

For a moment, he’s silent. His fingers go still in your hair. And then— “Would you ever?”

You frown. “Would I ever what?”

There’s a tremor of hesitation in his voice now, a betrayal of his nerves. “Wear a crown.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I’m asking you.”

“I know what you’re implying,” you agree. “But don’t ask me now.” Pushing yourself up, you turn until your hand is splayed across his chest, your chin resting on top. From this angle, you can look him in the eye. “Don’t ask me when you’re afraid I’ll say no.”

Jungwon holds your gaze. Exhaling slowly, he admits, “I think I’ll always be at least a little afraid you’ll say no.”

“No,” you shake your head, a glimmer in your eye. “I promise that you won’t be.” Leaning up, you press a chaste kiss to the skin just below his chin. “Sleep,” you urge, settling back into your original position. Bare skin still pressed to his, you pull your blanket up over both of your bodies. “We’ll both need our strength for tomorrow.”

So Jungwon doesn’t ask you, not tonight. Not the next night. Not until nights have begun to bleed into one another, the frequency with which he greets you with a voice in your head and a knock against your door only growing. 

He waits, until he knows every inch of your mind. Until he understands your dreams, your hopes, your fears just as intimately as if they were his own. Until the time he’s spent learning you in the privacy of your bedroom means he knows your body just as well. 

For tonight, he does his best to follow your instructions, to put his wandering thoughts to rest and just sleep. 

Only once more does he work his way into your mind with the gentle presence of someone who’s been invited, of someone who’s grown to be welcome. 

Good night, he sends to you, and you shudder as if he’s whispered it against the shell of your ear. 

Good night, Jungwon, you return before drifting off into a dreamless sleep.

[lac4ygal]

SECRETS THROUGH PASSAGEWAYS yang jungwon

You come home from three years abroad not by choice but for your grandmother’s funeral and walk straight back into YANG JUNGWON — lead businessman at Yang Industries and standing beside a life that doesn’t include you. Your grandmother’s will fractures your family, though it was already fractured, the letters she left begin exposing secrets, and the manor starts unravelling everything it’s been hiding — affairs, business ties, and truths no one wanted uncovered. Every moment alone with him drags you back toward those buried feelings since you were teens and makes you confront the one thing you never said; your grandmother planned this. But did she really bring you back just to watch your family spiral — or to force the two of you to face what she always knew was ‘meant to be’?

parings. . . yang jungwon x female reader ┃ wc. 27.7k

⟡themes. . . childhood best friends to lovers, second chance romance, right person wrong time, mutual pining, slow burn, angst with payoff, unspoken feelings, complicated relationships, love vs duty, rich family drama, inheritance drama, toxic family dynamics, sibling rivalry, jealousy, family secrets, corruption, old money, forced proximity, shared history, emotional repression, house as a character, flashbacks, happy ending

⟡content warnings. . . mature content (18+), fingering, oral sex (f), slight repression of breathing (fingers in mouth), penetrative sex, multiple orgasms, cowgirl, missionary, eye contact, light restraint (wrists pinned), praise kink, slight dom/sub undertones, loss of a loved one, grief, infidelity, family dysfunction and manipulation, emotional repression, mild angst, morally grey side characters​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

⟡now playing. . . Wicked Games by Chris Isaac // To Love by Suki Waterhouse // she heart by Cameron Cabelo

⟡laceys note // I really loved writing this and how the grandmother is so present in the story while not being present, she controls the whole narrative. The family secrets always just a matter of time before they came out. I put a lot of heart into this and I hope it shows, i didn’t indent for it to be this long but oh well! I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing! Enjoy💞 (ps I’ve rebloged with all those who asked to be tagged bc tumblr has a limit 😫)

THE FLIGHT FROM BARCELONA LANDED FORTY MINUTES LATE.

You didn’t mind. Forty minutes was forty minutes less of being home, and you needed every one of them. You sat in your seat while the other passengers stood and jostled for overhead luggage and you looked out the small oval window at the grey Korean sky and you thought about your grandmother’s hands.

The way they looked when she shuffled a deck of cards. The way she’d lay one down on the table and look at you sideways and say what does that tell you before you’d even had time to see the face of it.

She’d been teaching you something your whole life. You were still figuring out what.

Your phone had forty-three unread messages by the time you turned it off airplane mode. Thirty-one of them were from your sister Haeun. You read the first one — the lawyer says the reading is Thursday, I need to know what grandmother told you — and put your phone face-down on your thigh and breathed through your nose until the seat belt sign dinged off.

She hadn’t told you anything. That was the thing about Han Sooja. She never told you anything. She offered, suggested, implied. She left doors slightly open and trusted you to be curious enough to walk through them. Every Sunday for three years you’d called her from your apartment in Barcelona — the one with the yellow kitchen tiles you hated and then grew to love — and she’d talk about the garden, about the house, about whatever book she was reading, and at the end she’d say something that didn’t make sense until weeks later.

The last call had been eight days before she died. She’d asked if you still had the book she gave you before you left. Italo Calvino, the one about invisible cities. You’d said yes, it’s on my shelf, and she’d made a small sound of satisfaction and said good girl the way she used to when you found a hidden room in the manor, small and proud and like she’d been waiting. You hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. The book was in your carry-on bag right now. You didn’t know why you’d packed it. It had felt necessary in the way that irrational things sometimes do.

The Han family estate sat forty minutes outside of Seoul, through the kind of countryside that looked different in every season and the same in all of them. Your father had arranged a car. You sat in the back and watched the city dissolve into hills and treelines and you felt the specific vertigo of returning somewhere that exists more fully in your memory than in real life.

You hadn’t been back in almost three years. Barcelona had been good to you. Your degree, your small studio, your Sunday markets and your terrible attempts at Catalan and the way the light hit the Eixample buildings at five in the afternoon like the whole city was on fire. You had built a life there from scratch, which was something, which was actually a lot. You had been proud of the distance.

Now the distance was just kilometres you’d swallowed in nine hours and your grandmother was dead and the estate gates were opening in front of you and you were twenty-three years old and somehow eight years old at the same time. The manor was lit from inside. Warm amber in every window, the way it always looked in winter, the way it looked in every memory you had of arriving home from anywhere. Your chest did something complicated.

You were barely out of the car when the front door opened. Your mother came down the steps first. She looked beautiful and exhausted and somewhere behind her eyes was a grief that was doing battle with something sharper. She held you and you held her back and she smelled like the same perfume she’d worn your entire life and for a moment you just let yourself be held. “You look thin,” she said, pulling back to look at your face. Her hands cupped your jaw the way she’d done when you were small.

“I’m not thin.”

“You’re thin.” She said it like a conclusion and took your bag from you before you could argue. Your father appeared behind her. Tall, silver-templed, the kind of handsome that photographs well. He kissed your cheek and said welcome home, sweetheart and squeezed your shoulder and you smiled and said thank you and the whole thing lasted four seconds and felt utterly normal and you pushed down the small unnameable thing it stirred in you and went inside.

Haeun was in the sitting room with her husband Minjae, who was tall and quiet and had the energy of a man who had learned to occupy as little space as possible to survive his marriage. She stood up when you came in and crossed the room and hugged you and over her shoulder her eyes were already doing the thing — already calculating, already moving pieces around a board.

“You look wonderful,” she said, and she meant it as something other than a compliment.

“So do you,” you said, and you sat down, and you accepted the tea someone put in your hands, and you listened to your family talk around the actual subject the way families do, and you thought about your grandmother’s hands again. The way she’d lay a card down. What does that tell you?

You were so inside your own head that you didn’t hear the second car arrive. You didn’t hear the front door. You didn’t hear the voices in the hall. The first thing you registered was your mother’s posture changing — a small straightening, a social smile replacing the real one — and then the sitting room door opened and Jungwon walked in.

He was wearing black. Of course he was, it was a house in mourning, but it suited him in a way that felt almost unfair. He’d grown into himself in the years since you’d last seen him — not taller, he’d always been tall, but somehow more present, like he’d learned to take up the exact right amount of space. His father walked in behind him and then a woman you didn’t recognise, and then you did recognise her, you’d seen her tagged in photos online the way you absolutely had not been keeping track of, and her name was Seo Yerin and she was very beautiful and her hand was in the crook of Jungwon’s arm like she’d grown there.

Jungwon’s father greeted yours with the practiced warmth of two men who had been doing business together for decades. Your mother offered Yerin tea. Haeun said something charming. Minjae stood slightly behind Haeun and looked at the ceiling. And then Jungwon looked across the room and found you.

There was a moment — just a moment, small enough that you could convince yourself later it hadn’t happened — where his face did something unguarded. Something that looked like there you are and oh no at the same time. And then it resolved into a smile. Warm, professional, genuine enough to be dangerous. “You made it,” he said.

“I made it,” you said. He crossed the room and hugged you and he smelled different — something expensive, cedar and something clean — but underneath it was the same, was him, was the boy who had eaten your grandmother’s good biscuits and blamed it on you and laughed so hard he’d fallen off the kitchen counter. You pulled back before you held on too long.

“How was Barcelona?” he asked. His voice was careful. Friendly.

“Cold right now,” you said. “How’s the company?”

“Growing,” he said. And then, quieter, under the room noise: “She talked about you. Every time I visited. Said you were doing well.”

Something lodged in your throat. “She talked about you too,” you said. Yerin appeared at his shoulder like a weather system. Her smile was lovely and precise. “You must be the friend,” she said. “Jungwon’s told me so much.”

You held her gaze for exactly the right amount of time. “Good things, I hope,” you said pleasantly.

“Of course,” she said. And her hand found Jungwon’s arm again. And the moment sealed shut.

Dinner was the thing it always was in this house — too much food, too much wine, too much history in the walls. You sat across from Jungwon and next to your father and you told yourself to eat and listen and feel nothing in particular.

Your grandmother’s chair at the head of the table was empty and remained empty the entire meal. Nobody had moved it. Nobody had suggested moving it. It sat there with its carved wooden back and the slightly worn armrest where she’d rested her right hand for sixty years and it was the loudest thing in the room.

After dinner, when the adults had migrated to the sitting room and Haeun was performing warmth at Yerin with the energy of a woman collecting intelligence, you slipped out. The hallway was quiet. The manor at night had its own sound — old wood settling, the particular silence of high ceilings, the grandfather clock at the end of the east corridor that had been six minutes fast for as long as you could remember and which your grandmother had refused to correct because she said she liked having six extra minutes that nobody else knew about.

You stood in the hall outside the library and pressed your hand flat against the wall. Old wallpaper. Pale blue, faded at the seams. You knew what was behind it. Third panel from the left, your grandmother had said when you were nine, crouching down to your eye level with absolute seriousness, you push at the bottom corner, not the middle, because the middle is what they expect. And then she’d winked at you and Jungwon and said the house has more rooms than anyone thinks. That’s true of most things.

You pressed the bottom corner of the third panel. Nothing happened for a second. Then the soft mechanical exhale of something old and well-made, and the panel gave, and the smell of cool air and stone and something faintly like old paper came out of the dark.

You stood there looking into it. Behind you, very quietly, someone said: “You remembered.” You turned around. Jungwon was leaning against the opposite wall with his hands in his pockets, watching you with an expression you couldn’t quite read in the low hall light.

“You followed me,” you said.

“I saw you leave.” He pushed off the wall and came to stand beside you, looking into the dark passage the way you both used to as kids — like it was a dare, like it was an invitation. “I used to come here,” he said. “After you left. With her” You looked at him. “She’d make tea and we’d sit in the passage room with a candle and she’d make me do the crossword and not let me leave until I finished it.” He had a smile on his face.

Your throat did the thing again. “She never told me that,” you said.

“She never told me she called you every week either,” he said. “I found out from the phone records when we were going through her things.” A pause. “She listed you as the Barcelona girl in her contacts.”

A sound came out of you that was almost a laugh. It hurt a little on the way out. The passage waited. Dark, familiar, smelling of everything unchanged. “We should go in,” Jungwon said quietly.

“Now?” He looked at you sideways and for a second he was twelve years old and the whole world was just this house and summer and whatever stupid adventure came next.

“She would have wanted us to,” he said. And the thing was — he was right. You both knew it. This was exactly the kind of thing she would have engineered if she could have. And the thought that maybe she had — maybe this was the beginning of something she’d set in motion from a long way back — made the back of your neck prickle. You reached into the dark for the torch she’d always kept on the inside ledge. It was there. Fresh batteries. Recently placed. Of course it was. What does that tell you, she would have said.

You clicked it on. “Come on then,” you said. And Jungwon followed you into the wall.

The passage room was exactly as you remembered. Small, stone-floored, with a ceiling low enough that Jungwon had to duck slightly now in a way he hadn’t needed to at fifteen. There was a wooden table, two chairs that didn’t match, a candle in a brass holder with a box of matches beside it, and a shelf of books along the far wall that had nothing to do with the library on the other side of it. Your grandmother had curated this room the way she curated everything — deliberately, privately, with a logic that only revealed itself if you were paying attention. Jungwon lit the candle without being asked. Old habit.

You swept the torchlight along the bookshelf. Calvino. Borges. A Korean translation of an Agatha Christie you’d never seen before. Three books on architecture that made your chest ache with something fond.

And at the end of the shelf, propped against the stone wall like it had been recently placed and not forgotten, a tin box. Small, olive green, the kind that used to hold biscuits. You both looked at it. “That wasn’t here before,” Jungwon said.

“No,” you agreed. Neither of you moved toward it immediately. That was something she’d taught you both without ever making it a lesson — patience. The instinct to look before you touched. To let a thing be what it was for a moment before you decided what to do with it. You sat down in one of the mismatched chairs. Jungwon took the other. The candle made the room flicker and warm and very small.

“When did you last come here?” you asked.

He thought about it. “Two weeks before she died. She wanted to do the crossword and said the library was too bright.” A corner of his mouth moved. “She said fluorescent lighting was an act of violence against the human spirit.”

“She said that about my university’s studio lighting on a phone call once,” you said. “I’d sent her a photo of my desk.”

“She printed it,” Jungwon said. “It was on her dresser.” You looked at the candle flame. Three years of Sunday calls and she’d printed a photo of your desk and put it on her dresser and filed Jungwon under the boy who visits in whatever internal registry she kept and said nothing to either of you about the other and you had both thought you were each grieving her separately and privately and it turned out she had been holding you both the whole time, one in each hand, like she always had. “I should have come back sooner,” you said. You hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Jungwon was quiet for a moment. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to. She was proud of you being there.” He paused. “She showed me your graduation photos.”

“She wasn’t at my graduation.”

“I know. But you sent them to her.” He looked at the table. “She showed me on her phone. Stood there in the garden and made me look at every single one and told me what each building in the background was.” A beat. “She knew all of them.” Of course she did. Han Sooja had read every book in this room and a thousand more and had never once made a performance of knowing things.

You stood up and crossed to the shelf and picked up the olive tin. It wasn’t locked. The lid lifted with the soft resistance of something sealed against air and inside was not another letter, not yet, but a folded piece of paper and beneath it a photograph and beneath that a single playing card.

The seven of spades. You picked it up. Turned it over. On the back, in her handwriting — small, precise, the handwriting of someone who had learned to write when paper was expensive: Not everything buried is lost. Some things are just waiting for the ground to be ready. — start with the east corridor, third door.

Jungwon leaned over and read it. His shoulder was warm against yours. “The east corridor,” he said.

“Third door is the old study,” you said.

“Your father and mine use it when they’re doing paperwork. She always hated that.”

Something shifted in Jungwon’s expression. Not much. Just enough. “Why did she hate it?” you asked.

He picked up the tin lid and turned it over in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. Which meant he knew something and wasn’t sure yet whether to say it. You let it sit. Patience. Look before you touch.

You folded the note back up, put it in your pocket, and placed the seven of spades carefully back in the tin. “Tomorrow?” you said.

He nodded. “Tomorrow.”

—

The will reading was at ten in the morning in the manor’s formal sitting room, which your grandmother had always called the room where people go to say things they’ve rehearsed.

The family lawyer, an older man named Mr. Oh who had been handling Han Sooja’s affairs for thirty years, sat at the writing desk with a folder open in front of him and his reading glasses pushed to the end of his nose. Your mother sat straight-backed in the good armchair. Your father beside her. Haeun on the small sofa with Minjae, who had the expression of a man attending something he had been asked to attend and was determined to survive neutrally. The Yang family were not present for this — this was immediate family, just yours, just the people your grandmother had chosen to name. And it surprised you that she hadn’t named Jungwon.

You sat in the chair nearest the window. Old habit. Whenever your grandmother held court in this room she’d saved that chair for you because it got the best light and she knew you liked to draw in the margins of things.

Mr. Oh read the preamble in the formal language of legal documents and your mother’s posture got incrementally straighter with each clause and Haeun’s hands in her lap were very still in the way that meant they wanted to be doing something else. The estate. The grounds. The property in full — to you and Haeun jointly, held in trust until such time as you both agreed on its future. Haeun’s shoulders dropped a fraction. Okay. Shared. That was manageable.

The financial holdings, the investments, the accounts — split equally between the two of you. Still manageable. Still even. Your mother’s face was carefully neutral.

And then: The personal correspondence, the private library, the contents of the third floor study, and sole guardianship of the estate’s architectural records and original documents — Mr. Oh paused in the way lawyers pause when they know what they’re about to say will change the temperature of a room — to my granddaughter, Y/N, who has always understood that a house is not a building but a living record, and who I trust to know what to do with what she finds.

The room was very quiet. You felt your mother look at you. You didn’t turn. Haeun said, lightly, carefully, as if the words hadn’t been sitting in her mouth for thirty years: “The architectural records.”

“All original documents pertaining to the construction and modification of the estate,” Mr. Oh confirmed. “Floor plans, correspondence, modification records. All to your sister, as specified.”

“I see,” Haeun said. Her voice was a closed door. Mr. Oh continued. There were smaller bequests — to staff, to a charity your grandmother had supported quietly for decades, to a cousin you barely knew. A piece of jewellery to your mother, significant and old and chosen with the precision of someone who knew exactly what a gift could mean and what it could also withhold. Your mother held the jewellery box in her lap and looked at it and you saw, briefly, the grief crack through the composed surface of her face.

She had loved her mother. Whatever else was happening in the register beneath that love, the love was real and it was enormous and she was going to feel both things at the same time for a very long time.

The reading ended. Mr. Oh gathered his papers. Minjae quietly offered to fetch tea as a reason to leave the room. Your father stood and shook Mr. Oh’s hand. Haeun stood up and came to you. “Congratulations,” she said. The word had nothing to do with congratulations.

“I didn’t ask for it,” you said.

“No,” she agreed. “You never have to.” She left the room. You watched her go and thought about the seven of spades in the tin box in the passage room and your grandmother’s handwriting and the specific, deliberate way she had chosen to distribute what she knew and what she owned. Not everything buried is lost.

Your father’s hand on your shoulder again. That same four-second warmth. “Your grandmother loved you very much,” he said.

“She loved all of us,” you said.

He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course,” he said. “Of course she did.”

Six weeks before she died — Sunday, Barcelona, 4pm

The light through your kitchen tiles was doing the thing it did in late autumn, coming in flat and amber and making everything look like the inside of a memory. You had your phone wedged between your ear and your shoulder and you were attempting to re-pot a plant that had been dying slowly since August.

“The Calvino,” your grandmother said. “You still have it?”

“On my shelf,” you said. “It’s been there for three years, Halmoni.”

“Good.” That sound of satisfaction. “I want you to read it again before you come home.”

“I’m not planning to come home.”

“I know,” she said. Not sadly. Just factually, the way she said most things. “Read it anyway. There’s a passage in the chapter about Octavia — the spider-web city — that I want you to think about.”

You looked at your dying plant. “About what?”

“About the nature of what holds things together,” she said. “And what happens when you finally look down.”

You’d laughed a little, because she was always doing this, always dropping things into conversation like seeds into soil. “You could just tell me what you mean.”

“Where would be the fun in that,” she said. Not a question. The plant lost a leaf. You caught it. “Jungwon came by yesterday,” she said, at the end, in the place where she always put the things that mattered most.

You were quiet for a second too long. “How is he?” you asked, carefully.

“The way young men are when they’re doing the right thing for the wrong reasons,” she said. “He brought me tangerines. He stayed for four hours.” A pause. “He asked how you were.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you were building something beautiful and that you missed home more than you admitted.”

“Halmoni—”

“I told him the truth,” she said serenely. “Goodnight, my girl.” The call ended. You stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen in Barcelona with a dead leaf in your hand and the flat amber light going dark around you and you thought about Jungwon asking how you were. You didn’t call him and you could almost see your grandmother's disarming look.

—

Your grandmother’s bedroom was at the end of the east wing. Nobody had gone in since she died. You could tell by the way the door resisted slightly when you turned the handle — not locked, just untouched, the air on the other side of it thick and still in the way that rooms get when they’ve been holding their breath. The staff had respected it. Your mother had respected it, or avoided it, and those two things looked identical from the outside. You went in alone.

The curtains were half-open the way she always kept them — enough light to see by, not enough to bleach the colours, she’d said once, about curtains and about most other things. Her bed was made with the precise, almost architectural tidiness of a woman who had made her own bed every morning for eighty-one years. On her nightstand: reading glasses, a glass of water someone had forgotten to remove, a library book three weeks overdue, and a small framed photograph.

You crossed the room and picked it up. It was the two of you. You and her, you couldn’t have been more than ten, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the passage room with a candle between you and a crossword spread out on the stone floor and your face screwed up in concentration. You had no memory of the photo being taken. You had no idea who had taken it. You stood there holding it for a long time. Then you put it down, carefully, exactly where it had been, and you looked at the room.

She had left it for you to find. Whatever it was. You knew that the way you knew the batteries in the torch had been fresh — she had arranged this, she had thought about you standing in this room, she had trusted you to look properly. So you looked.

Her desk first. Neat, deliberate. Correspondence in one pile, addressed and stamped and ready to post — you’d find out later she’d written them in the last week of her life, small notes to old friends, a letter to a charity, one to Mr. Oh with an addendum to her will that simply read make sure she gets the Calvino back if she doesn’t bring it herself. Her pen in its holder. A magnifying glass. A small jade figurine of a rabbit that had sat on every desk she’d ever owned since before your mother was born.

You moved to the wardrobe. Her clothes, her good coat, a shelf of shoeboxes at the top. You pulled each one down and opened it with the care of someone who understood that your grandmother did not waste containers. Shoes in most of them.

In one — the second from the right, which was the kind of specific detail only she would have noted — a bundle of letters tied with kitchen string, and beneath it a leather notebook, and beneath that a folded envelope. Your name on the front. Both names. For my granddaughter and for Jungwon-ah — to be opened together, in the house, when the time is right. You’ll know.

Your hands were very steady. That surprised you. You sat on the edge of her bed — something you’d done a thousand times as a child, sitting there while she brushed her hair or told you something she wanted you to remember — and you held the envelope and you didn’t open it. Not yet.

She’d said together. She’d written both your names. She’d trusted you to know when the time was right and you knew, the way she’d taught you to know things, that the time was not right alone in her bedroom at nine in the morning while the house was waking up around you. You put the envelope inside your jacket, against your chest, and you took the leather notebook too because it had no name on it and therefore belonged to you the way all unnamed things in this house now did, you put the shoeboxes back exactly as you’d found them, and you straightened the bed where you’d sat, and you took one more look at the photograph on the nightstand.

There’s a passage in the chapter about Octavia, she’d said. About the nature of what holds things together. You’d read it on the plane. You’d sat in seat 24A at thirty thousand feet over France and read the passage about the spider-web city suspended over an abyss and the people who lived in it who did not think about the abyss because to think about the abyss was not the point. The point was the net. The point was the thing that held. The life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than that of other cities, Calvino had written. They know the net will only last so long.

You left the bedroom. You pulled the door back to exactly where it had been.

The leather notebook turned out to be a record. You found this out that afternoon, sitting on the floor of the passage room with the candle lit and your back against the cold stone wall, and it was not what you expected and it was completely what you should have expected because this was Han Sooja and she had never done anything without documentation.

It was dated across seven years. Small entries, some only a few lines, written in the spare economical way she wrote everything. It read less like a diary and more like case notes — observations, dates, names, figures. The early entries were oblique enough that you had to read them twice. The later ones were less patient with their own obliqueness.

Your father’s name appeared on the fourth page. And then a name you didn’t recognise. A woman’s name, recurring, with dates beside it and in one entry a location — a restaurant in Gangnam, a hotel in Busan, a work trip that had not been a work trip. Your grandmother had written these things in the same tone she used to note the weather or the overdue library book. No exclamation. No fury. Just the facts, recorded with the quiet, devastating precision of a woman who had known for years and decided that the right time to use what she knew was not while she was alive to be argued with.

Your father, the last entry about him read, dated eight months ago, has made choices that your mother has chosen not to see. I have chosen not to intervene in my daughter’s choices. But I have chosen not to reward his with my silence after I’m gone. He will know, when the estate goes to you, that I knew. That is enough.

You read that three times. Then you turned the page. The next section was about the company. Your father’s company and the Yang family company and the specific way they were connected, which your grandmother laid out in the same case-note fashion — dates of agreements, figures, the shape of something that had been built quietly over decades. You didn’t understand all of it. You understood enough. You understood that it was the kind of thing that would matter enormously to Jungwon, who was now running his family’s side of it, who had taken over from his father without knowing everything his father had built. Or maybe knowing some of it. You didn’t know yet what Jungwon knew.

The last entry in the notebook was not about your father or the companies. It was short, just four lines, and it was the only entry in the whole notebook that had nothing to do with documentation. I have watched those two children for fifteen years and I have been patient because patience was what was needed. They are both very clever and very stupid in the way that people are when they are in the middle of something they can’t see the edges of yet. I am leaving them the house and each other and every door I can think to unlock. The rest is up to them. I trust them. I always have.

The candle burned. You sat on the cold floor of the secret room your grandmother had shown you at nine years old and you held a notebook full of everything she’d known and you pressed the back of your hand to your mouth and you did not cry, quite, but it was a near thing.

—

You found Jungwon at the edge of the garden. He was standing at the low stone wall that separated the formal garden from the fields beyond it, the ones where you used to chase the chickens, the ones that looked in winter like a grey-green painting of themselves. He had his coat on and his hands in his pockets and he was looking at the fields the way you’d been looking at the manor from the car yesterday — like something that was more inside him than outside. “Jungwon,” you said.

He turned. Registered your face. “What happened?” You hadn’t known it showed. You’d been careful on the way out of the house.

“I found something,” you said. “In her room.” You took the envelope out of your jacket. Held it out so he could see both your names on it. He looked at it for a long time without moving. The winter fields were quiet behind him. The house was warm and lit behind you. You were standing exactly between the two of them, which felt like something your grandmother would have arranged if she could have. Maybe she had.

Jungwon reached out and took the envelope from your hand. He turned it over. Ran his thumb across the handwriting. “She wrote both our names,” he said.

“She said to open it together. When the time was right.”

He looked up at you. “Is it?”

You thought about the notebook in your jacket. About the woman’s name recurring through seven years of entries. About the company and the figures and the connection between your families that neither of you had been told about. About the seven of spades and the east corridor and the third door. About the passage room, two chairs, a candle. About him asking how you were from three years and three thousand kilometres away through the relay of your grandmother’s voice. “Not yet,” you said. “But soon.”

He nodded slowly. He held the envelope for a moment longer and then he held it back out to you. “You keep it,” he said. “She gave you the house. She’d want it kept here.”

You took it. Put it back inside your jacket. “There’s something else,” you said. “The notebook. I need to tell you about it. Not now, not here—” you glanced back at the house, at the lit windows, at the shapes of people moving behind glass— “but soon. There are things in it about the company. Your family and mine.”

Something moved behind his eyes. Just a fraction. “How much do you know?” he asked. His voice was careful. Professional. The voice he used in the sitting room, not the voice from the passage with the candle.

“Enough to know you might know some of it already,” you said. He held your gaze. The wind moved between you.

“Tonight,” he said. “Passage room.”

“Tonight,” you agreed. He nodded and turned back to the fields. You stood beside him for a moment, not saying anything, looking at the same grey-green view, and it was almost like being ten years old again except that you were both carrying things ten-year-olds don’t carry and the weight of it was very quietly changing the shape of everything.

“She kept a photo of us,” you said. “In the passage room. Do you know who took it?”

“She did,” he said. “She had one of those cameras with the timer. She set it up on the shelf.” A pause. “She has about fifteen of them. Of us, from different years. She kept them in the tin.”

You thought about the olive green tin. The photograph beneath the note beneath the playing card. “I only found the one,” you said.

“There’s a second tin,” he said. “She showed me once. It’s in the east corridor study.” He paused. “Third door.” You looked at him. He looked back at you. Not everything buried is lost.

“Tonight,” you said again. And you both stood at the wall in the winter garden and looked at the fields where you used to chase chickens and neither of you said anything about the thing that had been living in the space between you for longer than either of you had names for it yet.

—

The Yang family came at seven. Your mother had spent the afternoon directing the staff with the focused energy of a woman who needed something to control. The good dishes. The good wine. Flowers on the table that were tasteful and seasonal and had been ordered from the florist your grandmother had used for forty years because some things you don’t change even when you are quietly furious at the dead person who used to order them. You’d spent the afternoon in your room with the notebook open on your bed and your laptop beside it, cross-referencing what your grandmother had recorded in her careful case-note hand against what you could find publicly about your father’s company and the Yang Group. You’d built a partial picture. Partial was enough to make your chest feel tight in a way that had nothing to do with the altitude change from Barcelona.

You closed everything at six-thirty and got dressed and looked at yourself in the mirror of your childhood bedroom. The room still had your things in it. Sketchbooks on the shelf. A poster from a Barcelona exhibition you’d sent home because you’d had no wall space. A corkboard above the desk with old photos and ticket stubs and a hand-drawn map of the manor’s ground floor that you’d made when you were twelve and that contained, you now noticed, three rooms that weren’t on it that you’d known about since you were nine. She’d taught you to keep secrets the way other grandmothers taught you to knit. Quietly. Practically. With the implication that the skill would matter someday.

You put your earrings in and went downstairs. Jungwon’s father, Yang Junho, had the big laugh and the easy warmth of a man who had learned early that charm was infrastructure. He embraced your mother, clapped your father on the shoulder, kissed your cheek and said look at you, all grown up and making us all feel old in the way that powerful men say things to young women — benevolent, slightly proprietary, not quite seeing you. Yerin arrived in something that was architecturally perfect for the occasion. You noticed it the way you noticed good design — involuntarily, with a kind of professional appreciation that sat alongside everything else. She was very good at this. At the surface of things.

She found your eyes across the hall and smiled. You smiled back. Jungwon was behind her, talking to your father, and you watched the two of them shake hands and exchange the warm professional pleasantries of men from families that had known each other a long time and you thought about the notebook in your room and the figures on page four and the way your father’s hand had been on your shoulder after the will reading, and you kept your face very still. Haeun arrived late, which was a statement, with Minjae in tow, which was a footnote.

Dinner was served at eight.The dining room in winter was all candlelight and dark wood and the accumulated weight of every meal that had ever been eaten in it. Your grandmother’s empty chair was still at the head of the table. Still nobody suggested moving it or filling it. It sat there and presided. You were seated between your father and Jungwon’s father, which was either an accident of place settings or your mother’s idea of diplomacy or the universe testing your ability to eat soup while sitting on top of a secret. Jungwon was diagonally across from you. Yerin beside him, her hand on the table near his, not quite touching. She had positioned herself with the precision of someone who understood rooms and sightlines and what it meant to be seen next to the right person. You understood rooms and sightlines too.

The first course arrived. Conversation did what conversation does at these dinners — it found the safe channels and moved through them. Business. The economy. A mutual acquaintance’s new venture. Your Barcelona degree, which Yang Junho asked about with genuine interest and which you answered clearly and concisely and felt Jungwon listening to without looking at you. “Architecture,” Junho said, nodding. “Your grandmother always said you’d do something with buildings.”

“She said I’d do something with spaces,” you said. “She made a distinction.” Junho looked pleased by this in the way people look pleased when they’re reminded of someone they miss. “That sounds like her.”

“She was very specific about words,” Jungwon said. He was looking at his wine glass. “She used to correct my crossword answers even when they technically fit.”

“Because fitting and being right are different things,” you said, before you could decide not to. He looked up. Found your eyes. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what she said.” Yerin reached for her wine.

Haeun chose the main course to begin her campaign. She did it beautifully. That was the thing about your sister — she was genuinely skilled at this, at the long game of dinner table conversation, at the way you could introduce a subject so casually that by the time people realized they were discussing it they’d already committed to a position. “It’s such a comfort,” she said, during a lull, with the warm sincerity of a woman who had rehearsed warmth until it became real, “that grandmother’s things will stay in the family. The records, especially. The architectural history of this place.” A smile at you. “I know how much it means to you.”

“It does,” you said.

“It’s just interesting,” Haeun said, tilting her head slightly, “that grandmother felt those should be — separated out. From the general estate. Don’t you think, Mum?” Your mother’s expression didn’t change. “Your grandmother had her reasons.”

“Of course.” Haeun smiled. “She always did. I’m just thinking about practicality. If we’re going to manage the estate jointly, having certain documents siloed with one person seems—”

“Haeun,” your father said. Quiet. Warning. “I’m just raising it,” Haeun said pleasantly. “This is family. We can talk about family things.” The table had gone the particular kind of quiet where everyone is pretending not to listen while listening completely. You set your fork down. “Grandmother specified it in the will,” you said. “Mr. Oh read it out. I’m not sure what there is to discuss.”

“I’m not disputing the will,” Haeun said. “I’m asking whether it makes sense.”

“She thought it made sense,” you said. “I trust her judgment.”

“She was eighty-one and she hadn’t left this house in two years.” The silence that followed that sentence was a different quality entirely. Your mother put her glass down very carefully. Yang Junho cleared his throat and said something about the food being excellent, which was what men like him did when a table needed rescuing and he was the one with the social capital to do it. Your father laughed too quickly at something that wasn’t funny. Minjae became deeply interested in his plate. Jungwon wasn’t looking at your sister — instead at you — with an expression that was too controlled to read and too attentive to be neutral. Yerin said, lightly, pleasantly, into the recovering silence: “It must be wonderful to have a place like this to come home to. Even under sad circumstances.” She was looking at you when she said it. Even under sad circumstances. “It is,” you said. You held her gaze. “I’ve missed it.”

“Barcelona must be quite the change,” she said. “All that sun. All that distance.”

“I like distance,” you said pleasantly. “It gives you perspective.” Her smile stayed exactly where it was. “I imagine it does,” she said.

like it owed him something. “Your sister,” he said.

“I know.”

“She’s going to contest it.”

“She’s going to try,” you said. “She won’t succeed. Grandmother was meticulous.”

“She was,” he agreed. A pause. “She was meticulous about everything.” You thought about the notebook upstairs. The passage room tonight. The envelope against your chest earlier, both your names in her handwriting. “How much do you know?” you asked. Quietly. The same question as the garden, but in here it landed differently. In here it was just you two and the too-loud clock and the chipped tile and fifteen years of history in the walls. He looked at his hands on the table. “About the company — some. Not all. My father has been—” he paused, choosing the word— “selective about what he’s handed over.”

“Jungwon.”

“I know.” He looked up. “I know there’s something. I’ve been finding the edges of it for six months.” He held your gaze. “What did she leave you?”

“A notebook,” you said. “Seven years of notes. Dates, names, figures.”

He was very still. “My father’s name is in it,” you said. “Yours is too.” He looked at the table again. The muscle in his jaw moved once. “Tonight,” he said. “Show me tonight.”

“I will.” The clock ticked. The kitchen held you both the way it always had — indiscriminately, warmly, without judgment or agenda. Through the door you could hear the distant murmur of the sitting room. Your families on the other side of a wall. All their history and all their secrets and all the careful surfaces they maintained. “She sent me a tangerine once,” you said. Not because it was relevant. Because you needed a second.

Jungwon looked up.

“From the tree in the garden,” you said. “She packaged it up and posted it to Barcelona. Just one tangerine, wrapped in tissue paper, with a note that said the tree had a good year. Thought you should taste it. Nothing else.”

He was quiet for a moment. “She sent me a crossword clue once,” he said. “Just one clue. In the post. No puzzle, no page, just the clue on a card.” He almost smiled. “Seven letters. What two people share when they stop pretending.”

You looked at him. “Did you figure it out?” you asked.

“Eventually,” he said. He looked away first. “Honesty.” The clock ticked. The sitting room murmured. Neither of you said anything for a while, and the kitchen held you both, and outside the window the winter garden was dark and the fields beyond it were darker and somewhere in the walls of this house there were secret rooms and hidden documents and a dead woman’s careful architecture and the net was holding, still holding, over an abyss neither of you had looked directly at yet.

The door opened. Yerin stood in the doorway. Her eyes moved from you to Jungwon and back to you in a fraction of a second and her face showed nothing and showed everything. “There you are,” she said. Just to him.

“Just getting water,” Jungwon said. He stood up. Straightened. The professional composure settling back over him like a coat. Yerin’s eyes found yours one more time. The smile was small and precise and had teeth somewhere inside it. “Of course,” she said. Jungwon followed her out. You stood in the kitchen alone and listened to the clock tick and looked at the stool he’d been sitting on and thought about seven letters and everything that word contained and didn’t contain and how your grandmother had sent it to him in the post like a key and trusted him to find the lock eventually. You finished your water. You went upstairs. You sat on your bed with the notebook and the envelope and the Calvino and you waited for midnight.

—

Midnight in the manor sounded like this: The grandfather clock in the east corridor striking twelve with the particular resonance of something that had been marking time in the same place for longer than anyone alive could remember. The house settling into itself, old wood finding its resting position. Wind against the north-facing windows. And underneath all of it, the specific silence of a building full of sleeping people who didn’t know what was happening in its walls. You’d waited until one in the morning to be safe. You’d sat on your bed with the Calvino open to the Octavia chapter and read it three times and then put it face-down on the duvet and stared at the ceiling and thought about the crossword clue. Seven letters. What two people share when they stop pretending. Then you’d picked up the notebook and the envelope and the torch and gone to the third panel from the left.

Jungwon was already there. He’d brought a second candle and a blanket from somewhere, which was so specifically him — practical, quietly considerate, the kind of thoughtfulness that didn’t announce itself — that it did something small and inconvenient to your chest. He’d pushed the two chairs closer to the table and there was a thermos between them that smelled like barley tea and you stood in the entrance of the passage and looked at all of this and thought about your grandmother writing I have been patient because patience was what was needed and understood, not for the first time tonight, exactly what she had meant.

“You found the second tin,” you said. On the table beside the thermos: the olive green tin, open. And beside it, spread out in a loose arrangement, photographs. You crossed the room and looked at them. Fifteen photographs. Maybe more. All of you and Jungwon, all taken in this house, spanning — you picked them up one by one — what looked like a decade. You at nine in the passage room, cross-legged over the crossword, face screwed up in concentration. At eleven, standing in the kitchen covered in flour from some disaster you vaguely remembered involving a recipe and overconfidence. At thirteen, outside in the summer fields, both of you caught mid-run, the chickens a chaotic blur in the background, your face turned back toward the camera mid-laugh. At fifteen, sitting on the stone wall at the edge of the garden, shoulders touching, looking at something outside the frame, both of you with the particular quality of stillness that means you don’t know you’re being watched.

At seventeen. The last summer before Barcelona. The two of you in the library, you on the floor with a sketchbook, him in the armchair above you reading something, and neither of you looking at each other but the angle of your bodies saying everything that the lack of eye contact was trying not to say. Your grandmother had taken all of them. Arranged them. Put them in a tin in a secret room in the house she left specifically to you. I am leaving them the house and each other and every door I can think to unlock. “She documented us,” Jungwon said. He was standing beside you, looking at the photographs spread on the table. His voice was careful in the way it got when he was feeling something he hadn’t categorised yet.

“She documented everything,” you said. You sat down. He sat down. You poured the barley tea because your hands needed something to do. Then you put the notebook on the table. You walked him through it methodically the way your grandmother had recorded it — chronologically, without editorialising, the way she’d taught you to present information. Let the facts be the facts. Let them land before you decide what they mean. He listened without interrupting. That was one of the things about Jungwon that had always been true — he knew how to be still while someone was talking, genuinely still, not the performance of patience but the real thing. His father had it too but in him it felt like strategy. In Jungwon it had always felt like respect. You got to the woman’s name. The dates. The hotel in Busan. Jungwon looked at the notebook. “Your father.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Seven years that she documented. Possibly longer.”

He was quiet. “Does your mother know?”

“She knows something,” you said. “I don’t think she knows the shape of it.”

“Haeun?”

“I don’t know. Haeun would have used it by now if she did.” He nodded slowly. You turned to the next section. The company. The figures. The structure of the agreement between your families that had been built quietly over decades in the particular way that men build things they don’t want scrutinised — in pieces, in separate rooms, in the gaps between what was documented and what wasn’t. You watched Jungwon’s face while you walked him through it. He was very still. “You knew some of this,” you said. Not an accusation. A calibration.

“I knew the shape of it,” he said. “Not the detail.” He turned a page, read something, turned it back. “My father told me when I took over that there were legacy arrangements with certain partners that were — grandfathered in. His word. He said they were historical and that I didn’t need to concern myself with the mechanics, only the outcomes.”

“Did you accept that?” A pause. The candle moved. “For about four months,” he said. “Then I started finding things that didn’t add up and I started asking questions and my father told me I was looking too hard at things that didn’t need looking at.” He looked at the notebook. “I stopped asking questions to his face. I kept looking on my own.”

“What did you find?”

“Enough to know there’s a liability,” he said. “Enough to know that whatever this arrangement is, it would not survive scrutiny. Not legal scrutiny.” He looked at you. “Enough to know that if it came out, both companies would be implicated. Both families.” The candle. The stone walls. The photographs on the table.

“She knew,” you said. “She knew all of it and she left the documentation to me and she left you the crossword clue and she trusted us to—” you stopped. “To what?” he said.

“I don’t know yet,” you said honestly. “But she didn’t do this so we’d bury it again.”

He looked at the notebook for a long time. Then he reached out and turned to the last entry. Read it. His expression did something very quiet and very complicated. I trust them. I always have. He sat back. Pressed his hand over his mouth for a moment. Dropped it. “She should have told us,” he said. Not angry. Just — something underneath anger that hadn’t found its shape yet. “She told us everything,” you said. “We just didn’t have the key yet.” He looked at the photographs again. The one from the library, you on the floor, him in the chair, both of you tilted toward each other without knowing it. “She saw everything,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” you said. The word sat between you. Everything had a weight in this room, in this house, with these photographs spread on the table between you and the barley tea going cold and your grandmother’s handwriting on the pages of a notebook she’d spent seven years filling for this exact moment. You reached into your jacket and put the envelope on the table. Both your names. Her handwriting. Jungwon looked at it. “Now?” he said. You thought about the Octavia chapter. About nets and abysses and the things that hold. About patience, and what it was for, and when it ended. “Not yet,” you said. “There’s still the east corridor. The third door.”

He looked at you. “You want to go now.”

“I want to go now.” He almost smiled. It was the almost that got you — the way it stopped just short, the way the boy who had chased chickens with you was right there behind the composed professional surface, three millimetres from the outside, held back by three years and a girlfriend and a company and everything that had accumulated in the space your absence had left. He stood up. Picked up the torch. “Third door,” he said.

The east corridor at one in the morning was a different place entirely from the east corridor in daylight. The wallpaper, pale blue, faded at the seams, turned grey in the torchlight. The portraits of your grandmother’s family watched you pass with the unsettling patience of people who had been watching things happen in this house for a very long time. You moved quietly, both of you, the old instinct from childhood — sock feet on the floorboards, weight on the outside of the step, don’t breathe past the third portrait because the floor creaks. You didn’t breathe past the third portrait. Jungwon didn’t either. The third door. It was heavier than the others — solid wood, original to the house, with an iron handle that your grandmother had refused to replace with something modern. You turned it slowly and pushed and the room opened up in the torchlight.

Your grandmother had called it the old study. Your father and Yang Junho used it when they met here — papers spread on the desk, the door closed, the polite fiction of privacy in someone else’s house. It smelled of old paper and woodsmoke and faintly, underneath that, the cedar and something clean that you’d noticed when Jungwon had hugged you in the sitting room two days ago and had been careful not to think about since. He’d been in here recently. “You came here,” you said. Not an accusation. “After she died,” he said. He moved into the room, swept the torchlight along the walls. “I wanted to understand what my father and yours were doing in here. What they kept here.”

“Did you find anything?”

“The desk was clean,” he said. “Whatever they kept here they took when she died. Or before.” He stopped the torch beam at the far wall. “But she was smarter than that.” The far wall was bookshelves. Floor to ceiling, the same as the library on the other side of the passage, filled with the kind of books that accumulate in old houses — mismatched, well-read, organised by a logic that was entirely your grandmother’s. You crossed to them and ran the torchlight along the spines and then you remembered something. Third door, her note had said. And then: start with the east corridor. Not the room. The door itself. You turned back. The door was solid wood, original to the house. Iron handle. And on the back of it — you moved the torch slowly — carved into the wood at hip height, almost invisible, a small symbol. A circle with a line through it. The same symbol your grandmother used to mark the starting square of any puzzle she set you. Start here.

You crouched down. Ran your fingers along the bottom of the door frame. A loose board. Not rotten, not accidental. Deliberately loosened, the nails removed and replaced with something that held the board in place but gave when you pressed the right spot. You pressed the right spot.nThe board lifted. Inside: a metal document box, dark with age, sealed with a combination lock. Three digits. Jungwon crouched beside you. His shoulder against yours again. “She changed the combination every year,” he said. “She told me that once. She said the only constant was the starting number.”

“Seven,” you said immediately. He looked at you. “She always started with seven,” you said. “Every combination, every puzzle. Seven was the beginning. She said it was the only number that looked like someone thinking.” He took the box. Turned the dial. Seven. Then you looked at each other. “Her birthday,” you said. “The month.”

“Four,” he said. Seven. Four. One digit left. “The crossword clue,” you said slowly. “Seven letters. She sent it to you. The answer—”

“Honesty,” he said. “Eight letters.”

“No,” you said. “Think about what she actually wrote. What two people share when they stop pretending.” You looked at the lock. “She wouldn’t use the answer. She’d use the question.” Jungwon was quiet for a second. “The number of the clue,” he said. “She sent me one clue.”

“Which number was it?” He thought. The candle from the passage room was far away now, just a distant suggestion of warmth. In the torchlight his face was all shadow and focus and the particular expression he’d had at nine years old whenever a puzzle was almost solved. “One,” he said. “It was clue one across.”

Seven. Four. One. The lock opened. Inside the metal box: A folder of documents. Financial records, correspondence, agreements bearing both your fathers’ signatures, dated across fifteen years. The architecture of the thing your grandmother had recorded in her notebook, now in primary source form — not her observations but the actual evidence, the originals, the paper trail that would make a lawyer sit up very straight. She had not just documented it. She had collected it. For fifteen years she had quietly, methodically, with the patience of someone who understood that the right time was not now but was coming, gathered every piece of paper that passed through this house and made copies and built a case and put it in a box under the floor of the room where the men who didn’t know she was watching met to do their careful, private business.

Jungwon sat on the floor of the study with the documents spread around him and read. You sat beside him and read. The candle burned down in the passage room. At some point you’d both ended up with your backs against the wall beneath the window, shoulders touching, documents in your laps, and the torch propped against the skirting board pointing at the ceiling and making the room dim and amber. Outside, the manor was completely silent. Inside, the only sound was the occasional turning of a page.

Around three in the morning Jungwon said, quietly: “He knew I’d find this eventually.”

“My father?”

“Mine.” He turned a page. “He structured it this way on purpose. Grandfathered it in so that when I took over I’d inherit the liability without inheriting the knowledge.” He paused. “He was protecting himself. He thought if I didn’t know the detail I couldn’t be held responsible for knowing and saying nothing.”

“He was wrong,” you said.

“Yes,” Jungwon said. “He was.” You looked at the document in your lap. Your father’s signature at the bottom of an agreement dated eleven years ago. Neat, confident, the signature of a man who did not expect to be looked at too closely. “What do we do with this?” you said.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But we don’t bury it.” She didn’t do this so we’d bury it again. Your own words from earlier, back to you. “No,” you agreed. “We don’t.” You sat on the floor of the old study in the dark with the evidence of your families’ careful deceptions around you and the envelope with both your names in your jacket and the photographs in the passage room and the clock somewhere in the east corridor counting its six extra minutes that nobody else knew about.

Jungwon’s head tipped back against the wall. He looked at the ceiling. “I used to think about what it would be like,” he said, “when you came back.” You were very still. “I’d built this whole — picture of it,” he said. “You walking in. Me being normal about it.” A short almost-laugh. “I was not normal about it.”

“You were professional,” you said. “You were very professionally warm.”

“I know,” he said. He sounded tired in a way that had nothing to do with three in the morning. “I’ve been professionally warm about a lot of things for a long time.” The torch light flickered. Steadied. “Jungwon—”

“Not yet,” he said quietly. He turned his head and looked at you and his face in the low amber light was very close and very tired and very much the face of someone carrying something he didn’t have a name for yet. “I know. I know there are — I know.” You looked at him. He looked at you. The house was completely silent. “Okay,” you said. Quietly. “Not yet.” He nodded. Looked back at the ceiling. You both sat there for another hour, reading your families’ secrets in the dark, shoulders touching, not saying the thing, the envelope in your jacket ticking like a clock. Outside, eventually, the dark began to grey at the edges. “We should go back,” you said.

“Yes,” he said. Neither of you moved for another minute. Then he gathered the documents with the careful deliberate hands of a man who had decided something, put them back in the box, locked it. Looked at the combination — seven, four, one — and then at you. “She really did plan everything,” he said.

“Down to the last detail,” you agreed. He almost smiled again. Three millimetres from the outside. “Infuriating woman,” he said. With so much love it wasn’t an insult at all. You put the box back under the board. You both stood up. In the corridor you walked in single file, sock feet, outside edge of the step, not breathing past the third portrait. At the point where the corridor split — your wing, his — you stopped. He stopped. “The envelope,” he said.

“Soon,” you said. He looked at you for a moment. The grey pre-dawn light from the window at the end of the corridor fell across half his face and left the other half in shadow and he looked like something your grandmother would have photographed — like something that belonged to this house, to this particular quality of light, to the specific hour before the world woke up and everyone put their surfaces back on. “Okay,” he said. He went left. You went right. You lay on your bed as the manor began to fill with the sounds of morning and you stared at the ceiling and you held the envelope on your chest over your heartbeat and you thought about seven letters and what they contained and you thought:

Soon.

—

You slept for three hours. It wasn’t restful sleep — it was the kind that happens to you rather than for you, pulling you under between one thought and the next and depositing you back on the surface before you’d actually recovered from anything. You dreamed about the passage room. About the photographs spread on the table. About your grandmother’s handwriting, the letters getting smaller and smaller until they were too small to read and you were pressing your face to the page trying to find the last thing she’d written and waking up with your cheek against the envelope. You lay there for a moment with the morning light coming through the curtains at the angle your grandmother had approved of and you listened to the manor breathing around you.

Somewhere below, the kitchen was already alive — the smell of rice and something warm coming up through the house the way it always had, the particular smell of this house in the morning that had lived in your memory for three years like a frequency you couldn’t quite tune out. In Barcelona your mornings smelled like coffee and exhaust and the bread from the bakery two streets over. You had loved that smell. You had also, on certain mornings, stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen and closed your eyes and tried to remember this one.

You got up. Showered. Dressed. Put the envelope in the drawer of your childhood desk beneath a sketchbook, which felt both insufficient and like exactly what your grandmother would do — hiding things in plain sight, in the most obvious containers, trusting the right people to know where to look. Then you went downstairs. The kitchen at eight in the morning held your mother, a cup of tea, and the particular quality of silence that meant she’d been sitting there long enough for the silence to have settled into something deliberate. She looked up when you came in. Her eyes moved over your face the way mothers’ eyes do — reading something, calibrating, deciding how much to say. “You were up late,” she said.

“Couldn’t sleep,” you said. Which was true. She nodded. Looked at her tea. “Your grandmother used to do that. Walk the house at night.” A pause. “She said the house was different in the dark. That you could hear it thinking.” You poured yourself tea and sat down across from her.

In the morning light your mother looked her age in a way she rarely allowed. The grief was closer to the surface now, unguarded, the performance of composed widowhood resting somewhere else for the hour before the house fully woke up. She had loved Han Sooja with the complicated ferocity of a daughter who had never quite understood her mother and had spent sixty years trying to. That love was real. You had never doubted it. “Are you alright?” you asked.

She looked at you for a moment. Something moved across her face — an assessment, a decision. “I’m managing,” she said. Which was not the same as yes and they both knew it. You wrapped your hands around your mug and thought about the notebook. About the woman’s name and the dates and Busan. About your grandmother sitting in this house for seven years watching your father’s careful second life and recording it and saying nothing to your mother because your mother had chosen not to see and Han Sooja had respected that choice while quietly preparing for the consequences of it. You thought about how to carry what you knew and not let it show. You were apparently not as good at this as your grandmother. “What is it?” your mother said.

“Nothing,” you said. “I’m just tired.” She looked at you for another moment. Let it go. “Haeun called a lawyer this morning,” she said. Conversational. Almost. “Her own lawyer. She says it’s just to understand her options.”

“Of course she did,” you said.

“She’s not—” your mother stopped. Started again. “She’s not wrong that your grandmother could have been clearer about her reasoning. For the records. The architectural documents.”

“She was very clear,” you said, carefully. “She put it in the will.”

“I know she did.” Your mother’s hands moved around her cup. “I know.” A pause that had more inside it than its length suggested. “Your grandmother kept a great deal to herself. I accepted that. I spent my whole life accepting that.” Something small and old in her voice. “I sometimes wonder what she knew that she didn’t tell me.” The kitchen clock ticked. You looked at your mother’s face. At the grief in it, and underneath the grief the older, more weathered thing that had been there longer. The thing that had learned to sit next to an absence and call it marriage. She knows something, you’d told Jungwon. I don’t think she knows the shape of it. “She loved you,” you said. “She just loved you in her own way.” Your mother smiled. Small, tired, true. “Yes,” she said. “She did.”

You found Haeun in the formal sitting room at nine with her laptop open and a woman you didn’t recognise sitting across from her — late forties, professional, the kind of person who carries a briefcase as a personality trait. The lawyer. Already here, already seated, already opening something on her tablet. Haeun looked up when you came in. Her smile was immediate and warm and about as genuine as a show home. “Good morning,” she said. “You look tired.”

“Good morning,” you said. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Just preliminary conversations,” Haeun said lightly. “You know me, I like to understand things properly. This is Ms. Bae, she specialises in estate law.”

Ms. Bae nodded at you with the professional neutrality of someone being paid to have no opinions. “Haeun,” you said. “Grandmother has been dead for three weeks.”

“I know that.”

“Her body is barely—”

“I know that,” Haeun said. Her voice didn’t change. Didn’t sharpen. Stayed exactly where it was, which was somehow worse. “I’m not doing this to hurt anyone. I’m doing this because grandmother made decisions that affect this whole family and I think it’s reasonable to—”

“She made her decisions very deliberately,” you said. “Specifically. With full possession of everything she knew and everything she was.”

“She was eighty-one and isolated and possibly—”

“Don’t,” you said. Quiet. “Don’t say it, Haeun. Not in this house.” A silence. Ms. Bae became deeply interested in her tablet. Haeun looked at you for a long moment. And then, beneath the performance of reasonableness, you saw something real — something that wasn’t greed, not exactly, but the older wound underneath it. The child who had grown up knowing their mother had a favourite. Not unloved but not — first. Never quite first. You understood it. You even felt for it. But you had a notebook upstairs and an envelope in a drawer and a dead woman’s trust and you were not going to let that be dismantled because your sister was still trying to win an argument with someone who was no longer here to have it.

“I’m not going to fight you,” you said. “But I’m also not going to make it easy. Whatever grandmother left me she left me for a reason and I intend to honour that.” Haeun held your gaze. “Fine,” she said. The warmth had gone down to its lowest setting. “Then we’ll let the lawyers talk.” You left the room.

Yerin found you at eleven. You were in the garden — the formal part, the clipped hedges and the stone paths, where you’d gone to be outside and think and be somewhere that wasn’t a room full of someone else’s agenda. You had your sketchbook with you out of habit, but you hadn’t opened it. You were just sitting on the bench near the old sundial, which had been telling the wrong time since the seventies and which your grandmother had also refused to correct. She came down the path alone. No Jungwon. That was intentional — you registered it immediately, the way you registered everything about Yerin, with the involuntary alertness of someone in the presence of a thing that requires careful watching. She was dressed impeccably even at eleven in the morning in someone else’s country house garden. She sat down on the other end of the bench without asking and crossed her ankles and looked at the hedge in front of her and said nothing for long enough that it became its own kind of statement. You waited. “You grew up here,” she said finally.

“Yes,” you said. “The families are neighbours.”

“But you treated this house like yours.”

“My grandmother lived here,” you said. “She made it feel like ours. Mine and Jungwon’s.” The name landed. You’d done it deliberately, put it out there plainly, because you were tired and had slept for three hours and were not in the mood for the slow-motion version of this conversation. Yerin turned and looked at you directly for the first time. She had remarkable eyes — dark, steady, the eyes of someone who had decided a long time ago that she would not be the one to look away first. “He talks about this place like it raised him,” she said.

“It did, partly,” you said. “His family’s estate is half a kilometre that way.” You gestured. “We were back and forth constantly. His mother and mine were close.” A pause. “He and I were close.”

“Were,” she said. “We haven’t seen each other in almost three years,” you said. “People change.”

“Do they,” she said. Not a question. You looked at the sundial. “I’m not here to cause problems,” you said. “I came home because my grandmother died.”

“I know why you came home,” Yerin said. And then, very precisely: “It’s not why you’re staying that I’m thinking about.” You looked at her. She looked back. That steady, unblinking gaze. “I know what you two were,” she said. “Not because he told me — he’s very careful about what he tells me. Because of the way he is in this house.” She paused. “He’s different here. He laughs differently. He moves differently.” Something moved across her face that was not quite hurt and not quite anger and was instead something more complicated and more honest than either. “I’ve been with him for a year and a half and I have never seen him laugh the way he laughed in that kitchen two nights ago.” The garden was quiet. You didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say that wouldn’t be a lie or a cruelty. “I’m not stupid,” Yerin said. “I know what his father wants. I know what my family wants. I know what this relationship is built on and I know what it isn’t built on.” She turned and looked at the hedge again. “But I’m also not going to simply—” she stopped. Started again. “I have worked very hard to be what he needs. What everyone needs him to have.”

“That sounds exhausting,” you said. Quietly. Without any edge. She was quiet for a moment. “It is,” she said. Which surprised you. The honesty of it, the sudden flatness of it, stripped of the careful surface. “It really is.” You sat with that. The sundial gave its wrong time to the grey winter sky. “I don’t have a plan,” you said. Truthfully. “I don’t know what I’m doing here beyond what I’ve told you. I came home for the funeral. I’m dealing with the estate. I’ll go back to Barcelona.”

Yerin looked at you. “Will you.”

“I have a life there,” you said.

“Yes,” she said. “You do.” She stood up, smoothed her coat, looked down at you with those steady dark eyes. “And he has one here. One that was built very carefully. One that a lot of people are depending on.” A pause. “I want you to remember that.” She walked back up the path toward the house. You sat on the bench and watched her go and thought about what she’d said and what she hadn’t said and the specific way she’d said I have worked very hard to be what he needs with the exhaustion of someone describing a job they are very good at and do not love. You thought about Jungwon laughing in the kitchen. The three millimetres. You thought about a net over an abyss and what it meant to finally look down. You opened your sketchbook. You didn’t draw anything. You just sat with the blank page.

He found you there at noon. He came down the same path Yerin had come down an hour earlier and you watched him come and thought about what she’d said — he moves differently here — and looked for it and found it immediately, the thing she’d named. He walked like the house was familiar to him at the cellular level. Like his body remembered it even when the rest of him was trying to be someone who’d moved on. “Yerin talked to you,” he said. Not a question. “How did you know?”

“She told me,” he said. He sat down on the bench — the middle of it, not the far end. Closer than Yerin had sat. “She said she needed to talk to you and I asked her not to and she did it anyway.”

“She loves you,” you said. He looked at the sundial. “I know.”

“And you—”

“Don’t,” he said. Quietly. You stopped. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, looking at the ground between his feet. His jaw was tight. The professional composure was not all the way up this morning — three hours of sleep and a garden and nobody watching except you and it had slipped. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were going to ask if I love her.” He paused. “The answer is that I care about her and I respect her and I have not been—” he stopped— “I haven’t been fair to her. I know that. I’ve known it for—” another stop. Longer.

“Jungwon,” you said. He looked up. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” you said. “We’re not—” you gestured vaguely— “I’m not owed that.”

He looked at you for a long moment. “That’s the problem,” he said. His voice was very quiet. “That’s exactly the problem.” The wind moved through the formal garden. Somewhere across the grounds a door opened and closed. The manor held its breath. You looked at him. He looked at you. Three millimetres. “The envelope,” he said.

“Tonight,” you said. “Passage room.” He nodded. Looked away. Looked back. “She told me,” he said, “that you’d go back to Barcelona.”

“I have a life there,” you said. The same words.

“I know,” he said. He stood up. Straightened. The composure coming back up like a tide. “Tonight,” he said.

“Tonight,” you said. He went back up the path. You sat on the bench with your blank sketchbook page and the wrong-time sundial and the specific feeling of being someone standing at the edge of something enormous trying to decide whether enormous things were better walked toward or run from. Your grandmother had never run from anything. You closed the sketchbook.

—

The house went quiet at eleven. You heard it happen the way you always had — the gradual diminuendo of a building settling into night, the last doors closing, the last lights going off under the gap at the bottom of the corridor, the grandfather clock doing its twelve-stroke accounting of the hours. Your father had gone to bed early. Your mother had sat up reading, or pretending to read, until ten. Haeun and Minjae had retired without saying goodnight to you, which was its own kind of statement. Yang Junho had gone back to the Yang estate after dinner, taking his easy laugh and his careful warmth with him. Yerin was in the room at the end of the east guest corridor.

Jungwon was — you didn’t know exactly. His footsteps had gone past your door at ten-thirty and not come back. You sat on your bed with the envelope in your hands and the Calvino face-down beside you and you waited until the house was completely still.

Then you went to the third panel from the left.

He was already there. Both candles this time, placed at opposite ends of the small stone table, and the photographs still spread from two nights ago, and the barley tea thermos again because apparently this was something he did now — thought about whether you’d be cold, acted on it, said nothing about it. The second mismatched chair was pulled out at the angle that meant this is for you. You sat down. He sat down. You put the envelope on the table between the two candles.

Both your names. Her handwriting. The paper slightly worn at the fold from the number of times you’d handled it without opening it. You both looked at it. “I keep thinking,” Jungwon said, “that once we open it that’s it. Whatever she says becomes the thing she said. You can’t—” he paused— “you can’t unknow it.”

“We already know most of it,” you said.

“Not what she meant to do with it,” he said. “Not what she wanted from us.”

You looked at the envelope. “She wanted us to be ready,” you said. “That’s why she didn’t just leave it with the will. That’s why she put the notebook in the bedroom and the box under the floor and the photographs in the tin.” You turned the envelope over in your hands. “She was building up to this. She wanted us to find everything else first so that when we read this we’d—”

“Have the context,” he said.

“Be ready,” you said again.

He looked at you. “Are you?”

You thought about three years in Barcelona. About Sunday calls and tangerines in the post and the Calvino on your shelf and the way you’d stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen with a dead leaf in your hand and almost called him and didn’t. About the photograph on your grandmother’s dresser — your desk, your lamp, your small evidence of a life being built somewhere else. About the library. Seventeen years old. Him in the chair above you, you on the floor, neither of you looking at each other. “No,” you said honestly. “Open it anyway.”

He broke the seal. His hands were steady. Steadier than yours would have been — you knew that about yourself, that you went very shaken when things were enormous, that shakiness was your version of bracing.

He unfolded the paper with the care of someone handling something irreplaceable and laid it flat on the table between the candles. Her handwriting. Small, precise. Three pages, front and back, in the blue ink she’d used your entire life. You both leaned in and read.

To my granddaughter, and to Jungwon-ah.

I am writing this in October, which is the best month in this garden, and I am sitting at my desk with the window open and I can hear the tree. I want you to know that I am well as I write this. Clear-headed, if slower than I used to be. I have thought carefully about what I want to say and I have decided to say it directly because I am eighty-one years old and I have spent enough of my life being indirect and while I believe indirectness is an art form and frequently undervalued I think you two have earned something plainer.

First: the house. I am leaving it to you, my girl, because you understand what a building is. Not the walls or the deeds or the history that other people will try to tell you it represents. You understand that a house is a record of what happened inside it. That the walls remember. You will know what to do with what you find here and you will know what to do with the house itself when the time comes. I trust this completely.

Jungwon-ah: I am not leaving you the house because you already know where everything is. You have spent fifteen years learning its rooms and its passages and its particular way of holding secrets. You don’t need the deed. You need the person who has it.

Now. The harder things. I have kept records for seven years. You will have found them by now — the notebook, the box, all of it. I want to be clear about why I kept them. Not for revenge, though I will not pretend there is no satisfaction in the idea of your father finding out that I saw everything he thought he was doing privately. Not for leverage. I kept them because the truth was happening in my house and I refused to let it happen without a witness. Someone had to see it. I decided that person would be me. What you do with the records is your decision, not mine.

I have opinions, which I will share: the arrangement between the companies is not survivable in its current form and the longer it is maintained the larger the liability becomes. Jungwon-ah, your father built something with good intentions and poor judgment and the combination is always more dangerous than either alone. You are more careful than he is. You are also more honest, which he would consider a weakness and which I consider the only thing that will save you.

As for your father Y/N, I have watched him for twenty-two years. I have watched your mother choose not to watch him. I will not make that choice for her. When the time comes — and it will come, these things always do — she will need you both. Not to fix it. You cannot fix it. Just to stay.

And now the thing I have been working up to. I have watched you both for fifteen years. I have taken photographs and kept crosswords and sent tangerines in the post and asked questions I already knew the answers to and I have been, I think, excessively patient. I want to explain why. I was not waiting for the right moment. I was waiting for you both to become the people who could survive the right moment.

You were children and then you were young people and there is a specific kind of damage that happens when the right thing arrives before a person is ready to hold it and I was not willing to risk that with either of you. I believe you are ready now. I am saying this plainly because I am eighty-one and I have earned the right to be plain: I have never in my life seen two people more thoroughly and more stubbornly fail to see what was directly in front of them. I say this with tremendous love and only moderate exasperation.

You grew up beside each other. You ransacked my kitchen and chased my chickens and ran through my house with muddy shoes and I watched you do all of it and I watched what happened in the spaces between the noise, which is where the real things were. I watched you learn each other. I watched you become the people each other needed. I watched you not say it and not say it and not say it and I thought: they are seventeen, they have time.

And then you left, my girl. And I understood why, and I respected it, and I watched Jungwon-ah come and sit in my garden and not say anything about it for three years, and I watched you call me every Sunday from Barcelona and not ask about him directly, always sideways, always carefully, and I thought: they are going to need some help. This is the help.

I am giving you the house and I am giving you the records and I am giving you the passages and the photographs and the puzzles and the box under the floor. I am giving you October light through an open window and barley tea and two chairs in a room nobody else knows about. I am giving you every door I can think to unlock.

The rest is yours. I love you both. I have loved watching you. I am not afraid of where I’m going but I am sorry to miss what comes next. Take care of the tree.

— Halmoni.

P.S. Jungwon-ah; the seven of spades. You will remember what that means. It was always yours.

The candles burned. You read it once and then you sat back and looked at the stone ceiling and blinked several times in rapid succession. Your grandmother had said she was going to be plain and she had been plain and it had landed exactly as she’d intended it to, which was with the force of something that had been true for a very long time and had simply been waiting for someone to say it out loud.

Jungwon had not moved. He was still leaning forward, elbows on the table, reading the last page. Or re-reading it. Or sitting very still the way he did when something was enormous.

You looked at the side of his face. At the candlelight on it. At the line of his jaw and the way his eyes moved across the page and the three millimetres that had been there since you’d walked into the sitting room and found him across the room and felt your stomach drop straight through the floor. He sat back.He looked at the letter for another moment. Then he looked at you.

“The seven of spades,” he said. His voice was different. Quieter. Stripped of something.

“What does it mean?” you said. He reached into the pocket of his shirt. And he put something on the table. A playing card. The seven of spades. The one from the first tin, that you’d left there — or a second one, identical, worn at the edges with age.

“She gave it to me,” he said, “when I was sixteen. We were playing cards in this room and she dealt us both a hand and when I turned mine over there was a seven of spades on top and she said—” he paused— “she said that one’s yours. Keep it. And I didn’t know what she meant, I thought she was just being—” a brief sound that was almost a laugh— “herself. Being her. So I kept it.” He turned the card over in his fingers. “I’ve had it in my wallet for seven years. I take it out sometimes. I never knew what it meant.”

You looked at the card. “Seven of spades,” you said. “In cartomancy—”

“I looked it up eventually,” he said. “Three years ago. Right after you left.”

“What does it mean?”

He put the card down on the table. Looked at it. “Unfinished business,” he said. “Something that was set in motion and hasn’t resolved. Something that’s still—” he stopped.

“Still in motion,” you said.

“Yes.” The candles. The stone room. Fifteen photographs on the table. Your grandmother’s handwriting on three pages of blue ink telling you both the plainest truth she’d saved for last. I have never in my life seen two people more thoroughly and more stubbornly fail to see what was directly in front of them. “She was right,” you said quietly. “About the thoroughly and stubbornly part.”

“Infuriating woman,” he said again. But his voice broke slightly on the last word and it wasn’t exasperation at all, it was grief, it was the specific grief of missing someone who knew you completely and there was nothing to do with that kind of grief except let it be exactly as large as it was.

You reached across the table. Your hand over his. He looked down at it. He didn’t move for a moment. Then he turned his hand over beneath yours and held it. Just that — palm to palm, his fingers closing around yours, the simple warm weight of it. You sat like that for a while. “Jungwon,” you said eventually.

“I know,” he said.

“There’s—” you started. “There’s a lot happening. The records, the companies, Haeun, your father—”

“I know.”

“And Yerin.” His hand tightened slightly around yours. Not pulling away.

“I know,” he said. A third time. A different weight each time.

You looked at the letter. At the last line before the postscript. I am not afraid of where I’m going but I am sorry to miss what comes next. “She would have loved this,” you said. “Being right.”

“She would have been unbearable about it,” he said.

“She would have been so restrained,” you said. “She would have just looked at us and not said anything and somehow that would have been worse.” He made that almost-laugh sound again. It was closer this time. It was getting closer. “She sent me one tangerine,” you said.

“She made me finish the crossword,” he said.

“She kept fifteen photographs in a tin.”

“She put fresh batteries in the torch.” You both looked at the candles. “She planned everything,” you said.

“Everything,” he agreed. His thumb moved. Once, across your knuckles. The smallest possible thing.

The candle on the left burned down to its base and went out. The room got smaller. The remaining candle made everything amber and close and the stone walls pressed in gently and the photographs were spread on the table and his hand was in yours and outside the manor the winter was doing whatever winter does at two in the morning.

“Tell me something about Barcelona,” he said. Quietly. Like he was asking for something he’d wanted for a long time and had finally decided to ask for. You thought about it.

“There’s a building,” you said. “In the Eixample. Not famous, not on any list, nobody goes specifically to see it. But at five in the afternoon in autumn the light hits the facade in this particular way and it looks like—” you paused, finding the words— “it looks like it’s remembering something. Like the building is having a memory.” You paused. “I used to walk past it on the way home and think about this house. About how old buildings hold things.” He was quiet. “I used to think about you,” you said. Because your grandmother had spent three pages telling you to stop not saying things. “When I walked past it. About showing you.”

He looked at your joined hands. “I used to drive past the airport,” he said. Not looking up. “When flights from Barcelona came in. Not to meet anyone. Just—” he stopped.

“Just,” you said.

“Just,” he said. The last candle flickered. In the amber half-dark you looked at each other and everything your grandmother had written was true and had been true for longer than either of you had been willing to name it and the net was still holding, still holding, and below it was the abyss which you were both finally, for the first time, looking directly at.

He leaned forward. You leaned forward. The candle went out.

In the dark: his forehead against yours. His breath. Both your hands on the table between the photographs. Just that. Just the weight of it. The held thing, finally held between two people instead of inside one. “Not yet,” he said. Against your forehead. His voice was barely sound.

“I know,” you said.

“I have to—” he stopped. “There are things I have to do first. Things I have to say. To her. To my father. I can’t—” he exhaled. “I won’t do this like it’s something to hide. I won’t do that to you.”

Your eyes had adjusted to the dark. You could just see the shape of him. The outline. “Okay,” you said.

“Soon,” he said. And it was your word back to you, the one you’d been handing back and forth for days, and in his mouth it meant something different now. It meant a door about to open rather than one being held closed.

“Soon,” you said.

You stayed like that for another minute. Foreheads together in the dark. Hands on the table. The letter between the extinguished candles.

Then you both sat back. He found the torch. Clicked it on. The room came back. He looked at you in the white torchlight and you looked at him and there was something different in the air of the room now, something that had been there all along but had finally been acknowledged, and it was terrifying and it was also — underneath the terrifying — the most settled you had felt since you’d stepped off the plane.

He folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope. “Keep it with the notebook,” he said.

“I will.” He stood. You stood. He looked at the seven of spades on the table. He picked it up. Held it for a moment. Then he put it in your hand.

“She said it was mine,” he said. “I think she meant it was ours.” You closed your fingers around it. He picked up the torch. You followed the light out of the secret room and back into the walls of the manor, and the house held you both the way it always had, and somewhere in the east corridor the grandfather clock ticked through its six extra minutes that nobody else knew about, and the walls remembered everything.

—

Morning came in like it hadn’t been briefed on what happened the night before. Pale winter light through the curtains. The kitchen smell rising through the house. The grandfather clock doing its eight-stroke announcement of an hour you’d technically only slept through three of.

You lay on your back with the seven of spades on the nightstand beside the Calvino and the envelope in the drawer and you stared at the ceiling and felt the specific quality of a day that was going to be significant before it had done anything yet. Forehead against yours. His breath. Soon.

You got up.

You didn’t see Jungwon at breakfast. His seat was empty. Yerin’s too. You registered this with the carefully neutral expression of someone who had been trained by their grandmother to reveal nothing at inopportune moments and you ate your rice and drank your tea and listened to your father talk to Yang Junho about something that had nothing to do with anything your grandmother had documented and you watched your father’s face and thought about the woman’s name recurring through seven years of entries.

Yang Junho was in good form this morning. Easy, expansive, filling the room the way he always did. He’d stayed over — the guest room on the second floor, the one with the good view of the garden. He spoke warmly about your grandmother, about the estate, about the families’ long history together and what a comfort it was to be here, to be among people who understood the weight of a loss like this.

Your mother smiled at him. Your father nodded. You watched the space between the three of them and thought about what your grandmother had written. Your father built something with good intentions and poor judgment and the combination is always more dangerous than either alone. She had meant Yang Junho. But sitting here watching your own father nod along, the sentence fit like a coat made for two people.

Haeun arrived at half past eight with the bright eyes of someone who’d slept well because they’d externalised all their feelings into legal strategy. She kissed your mother’s cheek and sat down and accepted coffee and was charming to Yang Junho and you watched her work the table and thought: she has no idea. She is fighting about the wrong things entirely. None of them know what’s in this house. None of them know what’s in the walls.

You found out where Jungwon was at nine-fifteen when you were coming back from the garden and heard voices in the east corridor. Not arguing. Not quite. But the specific register of a conversation that was trying very hard not to become an argument and was losing. Yerin’s voice, low and controlled: “I just want to know if something changed.”

Jungwon’s voice, careful, deliberate, the voice he used when he was being honest and it was costing him: “Nothing happened.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

A pause. “Yerin—”

“Don’t.” A silence. “Don’t say my name like that. Like you’re managing me.” You had stopped walking. You were standing three metres from the bend in the corridor with your hand flat against the pale blue wallpaper and you were not moving.

“I’m not managing you,” he said. “I’m trying to—”

“You’ve been trying to say something since we got here,” she said. “I’ve been watching you try to say it for three days. And last night you didn’t come to bed until four in the morning and you thought I was asleep but I wasn’t.” A long silence.

When he spoke again his voice was different. Quieter. The professionalism gone all the way down. “I know,” he said.

“Is it her,” Yerin said. Not a question. The wallpaper under your hand was cool and slightly rough, the texture of something very old.

“It’s not—” he started.

“Jungwon.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “It was never—” a pause— “I didn’t come here intending for anything to—”

“I know you didn’t,” she said. And the thing in her voice was not what you expected. It wasn’t fury. It was the exhausted, clear-eyed honesty of someone who had known something for a long time and had chosen not to name it and had now run out of reasons not to. “I’ve known since we arrived. I think I knew before we arrived. I think I’ve known for—” she stopped herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said. And he meant it. You could hear that he meant it completely.

“Don’t apologise for having feelings,” she said. “Apologise for letting me come here. For letting me stand in that sitting room and meet her and pretend I didn’t see it immediately.” Her voice wavered once, precisely once, and then steadied. “Apologise for making me the person who had to see it clearly while you were still pretending.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. Different weight.

“Is it real?” she said. “Or is it just — this house, the history, grief making everything feel—”

“It’s real,” he said quietly. “It’s been real for a long time. Before Barcelona. Before the company. Before any of this.” A pause. “I should have known that before I—” he stopped. “I should have been more honest with you from the beginning. About what I was carrying.” You closed your eyes.

“Your father is going to be furious,” Yerin said. Not bitterly. Just factually.

“I know.”

“Mine too.”

“I know.” Another silence. Longer. You could hear the quality of two people recalibrating.

“I don’t hate her,” Yerin said finally. “I wanted to. It would be easier.” A short sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “She’s exactly what I expected her to be. Which is somehow the worst part. I’m going to need some time,” she said. “And I’m going to need you to not be — kind about this. I can’t do kind right now.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Go sort out whatever you need to sort out,” she said. “I’ll handle the rest.” Footsteps. You moved. Fast, silent, back around the bend in the corridor and into the doorway of the linen room, pressing yourself into the shadow of it, heart going considerably faster than was dignified.

Yerin came around the corner and walked past you without seeing you. Her face was composed and dry-eyed and very, very tired and she walked like someone who had made a decision and was now simply executing it, one step at a time, down the corridor and around the next bend and gone. You stood in the linen room doorway and breathed.

You didn’t go to him. That was the right thing and you knew it was the right thing — he needed time, she needed time, the corridor needed to stop being the corridor where that conversation had happened before it was the corridor where you appeared. So you went to the library instead and sat in the armchair — his armchair, seventeen years old, the photograph, you on the floor — and opened the Calvino and read three pages without taking in a single sentence.

The library was the warmest room in the house in winter. South-facing windows, old rugs, the smell of paper and wood and decades of accumulated reading. Your grandmother had called it the room that minds its own business, which was the highest compliment she gave to spaces. You put the Calvino face-down on your knee and looked at the ceiling.

He’d said it. It’s been real for a long time. Before Barcelona. You thought about being seventeen in this room. Him in the chair above you. Neither of you looking at each other and both of you angled toward each other like plants toward light, so obvious in retrospect, so invisible from the inside. You thought about the morning you left for Barcelona. Five-thirty, still dark, your father loading the car. Your mother with tea in a thermos for the journey. And Jungwon — he’d come over, you hadn’t expected him, you’d seen the lights of his car in the driveway and felt something lurch in your chest and he’d gotten out and stood there with his hands in his pockets and said text me when you land and you’d said I will and the distance between you had been three metres and had felt like something that would grow and that you were choosing to let grow and that you were not going to say anything about.

You’d landed. You’d texted. He’d replied immediately: good.

That was all. Three years of Sundays with your grandmother and not once had you called him directly. Thoroughly and stubbornly, she’d written. I say this with tremendous love and only moderate exasperation. You pressed the book against your face and made a sound into it that was not your most dignified moment.

The knock on the library door came at eleven. Not Jungwon. You knew by the knock — two short, businesslike, the knock of someone who had decided they were coming in regardless of the answer. “Come in,” you said.

Your father. He came in and closed the door behind him with the careful quietness of someone who wanted this conversation to stay in the room. He was dressed well, as always, silver-templed, handsome in the way that photographs well, and this morning there was something different in the way he was holding himself. A tension in the shoulders. Something behind his eyes that was working too hard to look like nothing. “I thought I’d find you here,” he said.

“It’s a good room,” you said. He looked around it. Nodded. Came and sat in the chair across from you — not Jungwon’s chair, the other one, lower, the one your grandmother had used when she wanted to read facing the garden.

“How are you doing?” he said. “Really. With all of it.”

“I’m managing,” you said.

“The business with Haeun and the will—”

“I can handle Haeun.”

“I know you can.” He smiled. The practiced warmth of it. “You’re the most capable person in this family, you know that. You always have been. Your grandmother always said so.” You looked at him. He was too eager to know what the letter said, too careful about the manor.

“She mentioned you in the letter,” you said. You hadn’t planned to say it. But you were your grandmother’s granddaughter and you had learned from the best and sometimes the direct approach was the one that told you the most. His face did not change. That was the tell — a different face would have changed, would have shown surprise or curiosity, would have asked what did she say?

His face stayed precisely where it was, which meant he’d been expecting this, which meant he’d been thinking about what she might have known and deciding how to handle it. “That’s kind,” he said. “She was a remarkable woman.”

“She was,” you said. “She was also very thorough.”

“What do you mean?” he said. Light. Careful.

“She kept records,” you said. “Of the house. Of the people in it. Of — everything, really. You know how she was.”

“Of course,” he said. The smile staying exactly where it was.

“Dad,” you said. Quietly. Not an accusation. Just his name. And something shifted. Something small but real — a crack in the surface, so quick you’d have missed it if you weren’t watching carefully, if you hadn’t been trained your whole life by the woman who’d taught you that the truth lived in the space between what people said and what their face did when they said it.

“Whatever you think you know,” he said. Still quiet. Still composed. “I want you to understand that things between your mother and I are—”

“Complicated?” you said.

“Adult,” he said. “They’re adult. They’re not—” he stopped. Reorganised. “Your grandmother had opinions about my marriage that she never fully expressed to me but which I was always aware of. Whatever she wrote—”

“I haven’t decided what to do with it yet,” you said. That landed. He looked at you. Really looked at you, for the first time in the conversation, with the eyes of a man recalibrating what he was dealing with.

“You’re very like her,” he said. Slowly. And it wasn’t a compliment exactly and it wasn’t a threat exactly and it sat in the space between those two things doing something complicated.

“Thank you,” you said. As if it had been a compliment.

He stood up. Straightened his jacket. Moved toward the door. At the door he stopped. “The architectural records,” he said. Without turning around. “The original documents. The floor plans.” A pause. “Is there anything in them that would be — relevant to current matters.”

You thought about the metal box under the floor of the third room. The fifteen years of documents. His signature at the bottom of an agreement dated eleven years ago. “I haven’t gone through everything yet,” you said. He nodded. Once. And left.

—

The thing about a house full of people keeping secrets is that the secrets create pressure. And pressure, sustained long enough, finds the weakest point. The weakest point turned out to be the sitting room at two in the afternoon when the families had reconvened in the way they kept reconvening, pulled together by the gravity of the occasion and the shared fiction that everything was normal, that this was simply a gathering of old friends in mourning, that the ground was solid.

Yang Junho was telling a story about your grandmother — a good one, genuinely funny, about a business meeting she had attended thirty years ago and dominated completely without ever raising her voice. Your mother was laughing. Your father was laughing. Even Haeun was laughing.

Jungwon was sitting across the room. He’d come in ten minutes ago and taken the chair by the window and met your eyes briefly when he sat down and then looked away. He hadn’t spoken much. Yang Junho had put his hand on his son’s shoulder when he came in and Jungwon had not visibly reacted and you had watched the specific quality of that not-reacting and understood that something had already happened between them this morning.

Yerin was not in the room. Nobody had asked where she was.

You were watching the fire when Haeun’s phone rang. She glanced at it, made a small apologetic gesture, and stepped out. Two minutes later she came back in and her face had done something you hadn’t seen it do in a very long time — it had gone genuinely, unperformatively still. The stillness of shock. She looked at your father. “I need to speak with you,” she said. “Now.”

The room shifted. Your father’s laugh ended. “Haeun—” your mother said.

“Not you,” Haeun said. Still looking at your father. Her voice had no warmth in it at all, no performance, nothing. “Just him.”

“Whatever you need to say—” your father started.

“I was just on the phone with Ms. Bae,” Haeun said. And something in her voice made everyone in the room go very still. “She’s been going through the estate filings. The things that were submitted publicly as part of the probate record.” She paused. The pause was a grenade with the pin already pulled. “She found a company filing. Seven years ago. A subsidiary registered under a holding name.” She looked at your father. “Your name is on it. And so is the name of a woman who is listed as a joint director.”

The fire crackled. Your mother turned to look at your father. And on your father’s face — just for a moment, one unguarded moment before the composed surface came back up — was the expression of a man who had known this day was coming for seven years and had convinced himself it wouldn’t. “Haeun,” he said. Warning.

“Her name is Park Jooyeon,” Haeun said. She said it clearly, without hesitation, the way you rip off a plaster because fast is kinder than slow. “She’s been listed as a director of your subsidiary for seven years. The filing also shows a residential address which is—” she glanced at her phone— “not this house.” Your mother said nothing. The room held its breath.

“I think,” Yang Junho said, standing up with the practiced authority of a man who had been managing rooms for forty years, “that this is perhaps a family conversation—”

“Sit down, Junho,” your mother said. He sat down. Everyone looked at your mother. She was looking at your father. Her face was doing something you had never seen it do and hoped never to see again — not anger, not shock, but the specific expression of a person watching something they already knew become something they could no longer choose not to know. The shape of it finally arriving. The avoidance finally over. “How long,” she said. Your father opened his mouth. “Don’t lie to me,” she said. Very quietly. “I have lived in the shape of this lie for long enough. Don’t make me hear another one.”

“Mum—” you said.

“Not now,” she said. Without looking at you. Still looking at him.

“At least twenty years,” Haeun said. She’d gone very pale. Her voice had lost its edge — she’d wanted ammunition and she’d gotten a detonation and they were different things and she was just now feeling the difference. “Ms. Bae found earlier filings. Different company name. Same address.”

Twenty years. The number went around the room. Your mother stood up. “I would like everyone to leave this room,” she said. With the composure of someone who had spent sixty years learning from Han Sooja how to be still when everything was breaking. “Except for my husband.”

People stood. Moved. Yang Junho put his hand briefly on your mother’s shoulder as he passed and she didn’t acknowledge it and he didn’t require her to. You stood in the doorway. Your mother looked at you. Her eyes were dry. They would probably stay dry — that was her way, the Han way, grief and fury going inward first and only surfacing when she was ready to let them. You recognised it because you did it too. She gave you the smallest nod.

The corridor outside the sitting room. Jungwon was there. He’d come out just ahead of you and he was standing at the window at the end of the corridor with his back to the room, looking out at the winter garden, his hands loose at his sides. You came and stood beside him.

Below: the formal garden, the stone paths, the sundial giving its wrong time. The bench where Yerin had sat beside you. The path where you’d watched him walk back to the house with his composure settling over him like a coat. “She planned this too,” you said quietly. “Not the sitting room. But — she knew this would happen. Eventually. She wrote it in the notebook. It will come, these things always do.”

“Yes,” he said.

“She wanted us here when it did.”

“Yes,” he said again. You looked at the garden.

“Your father,” you said. “This morning.” He exhaled. Not a sigh — something more deliberate than that. Something he’d been holding since before breakfast.

“He came to me at eight,” he said. “He’d already spoken to yours. Some kind of warning system they’d apparently arranged.” His jaw tightened. “He told me there might be some questions raised about the companies in the coming days and that I should be prepared to manage the narrative.”

“Manage the narrative,” you said.

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him,” Jungwon said carefully, “that I’d been looking at the companies for six months and that I thought what he’d built with your father was a liability and that I wasn’t prepared to manage any narrative that involved me pretending I didn’t know what I knew.”

“How did he take that?”

“About as well as you’d expect.” You looked at his profile. The set of his jaw. The tiredness in him that was different from yesterday’s tiredness — this was the tiredness of someone who had said the honest thing to their father and was living in the aftermath.

“Yerin left,” he said. “An hour ago. Her driver came.”

“I know,” you said. “I heard — I was in the corridor. This morning. I didn’t mean to hear.”

He looked at you. “How much?”

“Enough,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He looked back at the garden. “She was right about all of it. I wasn’t fair to her.” A pause. “She deserved better than what I gave her.”

“She’s going to be alright,” you said. Because it was true — you’d seen it in Yerin’s face, that hard clear-eyed competence. She would grieve this in private and then she would be formidable again. Women like Yerin always were.

“I know,” he said. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“No,” you said. “It doesn’t.” Below, the sundial. The wrong time. Your grandmother’s unrepentant refusal to correct anything that she’d decided was fine as it was. Inside the sitting room your mother was having the conversation that had been twenty years in the making.

In the walls of the house the passages waited, the photographs on the table in the candlelit room, the seven of spades somewhere in your jacket. “What happens now?” you said.

He turned from the window and looked at you directly and his face had none of the professional composure on it and none of the careful distance and was just — him. Tired and honest and present in the way he’d been at one in the morning on the floor of the old study and in the way he’d been at seventeen in the library and in the way he’d always been when it was just you and the house and none of the surfaces required. “Now,” he said, “everything falls apart for a while.”

“And then?”

He looked at you for a long moment. “And then we see what’s left,” he said. From behind the sitting room door, muffled and distant, your mother’s voice. Not loud. Never loud. But with an edge in it like a clean cut, precise and final, the voice of a woman who had decided that the shape of this particular truth was one she was done living inside.

The house held it all. The grief and the reckoning and the long-delayed arrivals of things that had been on their way for years. The walls remembered. They always had. Your grandmother had known that. She’d counted on it.

—

The house didn’t sleep that night. Not really. It had the shape of sleeping — quiet corridors, dark rooms, the grandfather clock marking hours into silence — but underneath it was awake the way houses get when something significant has happened inside them. Like the walls were still processing. Like the rooms needed time to absorb what they’d held that afternoon.

Your mother had come out of the sitting room at four o’clock. She’d walked past you in the corridor with her back straight and her face composed and her eyes doing the thing they did — grief going inward, fury going inward, everything going inward to be dealt with in private on her own terms in her own time. She’d touched your face with one hand as she passed. Just that. Her palm against your cheek for three seconds, warm and dry, and then she’d gone upstairs.

Your father had left the sitting room twenty minutes later. He’d taken his coat from the rack by the front door and gone outside and you’d watched from the corridor window as he walked down the front drive and stood at the gate and made a phone call and you had not needed to wonder who he was calling.

Haeun had found you at five and said I didn’t mean for it to come out like that and you’d said I know because you did know — she’d wanted leverage and had accidentally dismantled the family instead and the gap between those two things had clearly shaken her more than she’d expected. You’d made her tea. You’d sat with her in the kitchen while she held the mug and stared at the table. That was the most honest you’d been with each other in years, sitting in silence while your family reconfigured itself in the rooms above you.

Yang Junho had left at six. Businesslike, minimal. He’d shaken your father’s hand when your father came back in and something had passed between them in that handshake — something that looked like a renegotiation — and then he was gone.

Jungwon had stayed. You’d seen him at dinner, which was quiet and reduced and nothing like the dinners this house was built for. Your mother had come down and eaten and said almost nothing and your father had sat at the opposite end of the table from her and the distance between them had the specific quality of a distance that had always existed but had only just been measured.

Haeun and Minjae had left after dinner. Minjae had squeezed your shoulder on the way out, which was the most he’d ever communicated to you directly and which you’d appreciated. And then the house had gone quiet. And you had lain on your bed and stared at the ceiling and waited for sleep and sleep had declined the invitation.

The clock in the east corridor struck two when you were already in the kitchen. You hadn’t turned the overhead light on. Just the small light above the stove, the one that had always been there, the one that turned the kitchen amber and warm and made it look the way it looked in every memory you had of it.

You were standing at the counter with both hands wrapped around a mug of tea you hadn’t drunk yet and you were looking at the window above the sink and the darkness outside it and you were thinking about your mother’s palm against your cheek. Just to stay, your grandmother had written. Not to fix it. You cannot fix it. Just to stay.

You heard him before you saw him. The particular sound of his footsteps — the outside edge of the step, old habit, the way you moved in this house at night without deciding to. The door opened. You didn’t turn around. He came in. Stopped. Registered the amber light and you at the counter and said nothing for a moment. Then he crossed the room and stood beside you at the counter and looked at the dark window and also said nothing. You handed him your tea. He took it. Drank. Handed it back. “How is she?” he said. Quietly.

“She went to bed at nine,” you said. “I don’t think she’s sleeping either.”

“No,” he said.

“He’s in the guest room,” you said. “The east one. He didn’t try to go to their room.”

“Small mercies,” Jungwon said. The clock in the east corridor was very faint from here. Just a suggestion of ticking. The kitchen had its own sound — the refrigerator’s low hum, the settling of the old pipes, the back door with the broken latch occasionally sighing in the wind.

“Your father,” you said.

“We talked again after dinner,” he said. “When you were with your mother.” He paused. “I told him I’ve been building a case for six months. That I know what the arrangement is. That I’m going to have to restructure the company’s position and that it’s going to require disclosure and that he needs to be prepared for that.”

“How did he take it?”

“He told me I didn’t understand business.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him I understood it well enough to know that what he’d built was going to collapse eventually and that the only question was whether we were the ones who dismantled it carefully or whether it fell on us.” A pause. “He said I sounded like your grandmother.”

“Good,” you said. Something moved in Jungwon’s face. Almost a smile. You put the mug down. Turned around and leaned against the counter with your arms crossed not as a defence but as something to do with your hands. He turned too, mirroring you, and you stood there facing each other in the amber kitchen light and the house was completely quiet and you were both in old clothes — him in a dark t-shirt and soft trousers, you in whatever you’d put on when sleep became definitively not happening — and there were no surfaces up at two in the morning in this kitchen. There never had been. That was the thing about this room. It didn’t allow for them.

“She’s going to be alright,” you said. About your mother. About the specific quality of her composure.

“I know,” he said. “She’s a Han woman.”

“Don’t let her hear you say it like that or she’ll take it as an insult.”

“She’d be right,” he said. “It was completely a compliment.”

You looked at him. He looked at you. The refrigerator hummed. “Jungwon,” you said.

“Yes,” he said. Not a question.

“What you said this morning. To your father. About the company.” You held his gaze. “That was the hard version. The harder version than anything I’ve asked you to do.”

“It needed to be done,” he said.

“I know. I’m saying — I know what it cost.” He looked at you for a moment. Something in him settling, like a weight redistributed. “She would have approved,” he said.

“She would have handed you the crossword and not said anything and that would have been the approval,” you said. He made that sound again, the almost-laugh, and this time it came all the way out — quiet, real, and the boy who had chased chickens was fully present in it and the three millimetres collapsed entirely and you felt it in your sternum like a struck bell.

He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. His hand stayed. Cupped the side of your face. You went very still. His thumb moved along your cheekbone. The same gesture your mother had used in the corridor except that this one was slow and deliberate and asking something.

“I talked to Yerin,” he said. Quietly. “She called tonight. We — it’s done. It’s properly done. I wanted you to know that.”

“Okay,” you said. Your voice was not entirely steady.

“I told you I wouldn’t do this like something to hide,” he said. “I meant it.”

“I know you did.” His eyes moved over your face. Unhurried. The way he moved in this house — like he knew every room and had time.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about what to say. Since the passage room. I had things arranged. Sentences.” The corner of his mouth. “They’re all gone.”

“Say it without sentences,” you said.

He looked at you. “I drove past the airport,” he said. “Every time a flight came in from Barcelona. I did that for three years. I told myself it was nothing. I told myself I was just—” he stopped. “I didn’t tell myself anything, actually. I just drove there.”

Your hand came up and covered his where it held your face. His breath shifted slightly. “I have my grandmother’s crossword clue for you in my head,” you said. “Seven letters. I keep thinking about it.”

“Honesty,” he said.

“Honesty,” you said. And then neither of you said anything else.

He closed the distance — not rushed, not after all this time, not after three years and this house and fifteen photographs and both your names on an envelope — he closed it like he’d been planning the exact geometry of it for longer than either of you were going to admit, one hand still cradling your face and the other coming to rest at your waist and his mouth meeting yours with the specific quality of something that had been waiting long enough that when it arrived it felt less like a beginning than like a return.

You kissed him back with every Sunday call you hadn’t made and every time you’d almost said something and every seven of spades and every tangerine in the post and the whole accumulated weight of it came through in the way your hands went to the front of his shirt like they already knew where they were going.

He made a quiet sound against your mouth. His hand moved from your waist to the small of your back and pulled you closer and you went, easily, completely, like a thing that had been resisting gravity for three years finally letting go. He tasted like tea and the faint ghost of something warmer and he kissed the way he did everything in this house — like he knew the rooms, like he had time, thorough and unhurried and devastatingly present.

His hand slid from your face into your hair and tipped your head back and you made a sound you didn’t intend to make and felt him inhale sharply at it. “Hi,” he said against your mouth. His voice low and a little wrecked already.

“Hi,” you said.

He pulled back just enough to look at you. His hand still in your hair, yours still twisted in his shirt, both of you breathing like you’d been doing something more athletic than standing in a kitchen.

In the amber light his eyes were dark and his mouth was slightly swollen and he was looking at you with an expression that had nothing professional or composed or carefully maintained about it whatsoever. He was looking at you the way he looked at the passages when they opened — like something that had been there all along and was finally, finally being seen. “Three years,” he said quietly.

“More than three years,” you said. He kissed you again and this one was less careful — his hands moving down your back, yours sliding up to his shoulders, the counter behind you taking your weight as he pressed closer.

He kissed down the line of your jaw and you tilted your head back and looked at the amber ceiling and thought distantly that your grandmother had planned everything except possibly this specific configuration in her kitchen at two in the morning and that she would have been insufferably pleased about it.

“Upstairs,” you said. He lifted his head. Looked at you. Checking.

“Yes,” you said, to the question he hadn’t asked.

Your childhood bedroom with the sketchbooks on the shelf and the Barcelona exhibition poster and the corkboard above the desk looked different at two in the morning with Jungwon closing the door behind him and turning to look at you across the room. He looked at the room first. The way he always looked at rooms — registering, cataloguing, the thing your grandmother had done too, the thing you did.

Then he looked at you. “I used to stand outside this door,” he said. “When we were kids. Waiting for you to come out.”

“I know,” you said. “I could always hear you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I liked knowing you were there,” you said. Something in his face. Something very warm and very undone. He crossed the room. There was a quality to being undressed by someone who had known you for fifteen years that had nothing to do with unfamiliarity and everything to do with its opposite — the specific intimacy of someone who already knew the shape of you in other ways and was learning this one slowly, like a new room in a house they’d lived in for years.

His hands were unhurried. His attention was total. He treated each thing like it mattered and it made your chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with sadness. You pulled his shirt over his head and put your hands flat against his chest and felt his breathing. “Still thinking in sentences?” you asked.

“Not even close,” he said. He took your chin between his fingers and tilted your face up and kissed you properly — deep and unhurried and completely in charge of it — and you felt the dynamic settle into place like something clicking. Jungwon had always had this quality. This absolute certainty. In every other context you’d spent years watching it from the outside.

You pushed him back onto the bed. He pulled you with him, one hand at your waist, and you landed against his chest and he rolled you gently and hovered over you and looked at your face again with that same thoroughness, like he was memorizing you. Then he moved down your body and the careful part began.

He took his shirt off first — unhurried, watching your face while he did it — and then he came over you and looked down and something in his expression was focused and warm and entirely certain. “I’m going to take my time,” he said. Like a statement of intent. Like he was informing you.

“Okay,” you managed.

“You’re going to let me.” Not a question.

“Yes,” you said.

He kissed your cheek again — that specific tenderness, completely at odds with the authority in his voice — and then his mouth moved to your throat and the careful, methodical dismantling began. He learned you like a map he intended to memorize. His mouth at your collarbone, the inside of your wrist — pausing there when your breath hitched, pressing his lips back to the same spot twice — your stomach, the soft curve of your hip. His hands moved with his mouth, cataloguing, noting, and every time you made a sound his eyes came to your face briefly. Checking. Watching. “Good?” he murmured against your ribs.

“Yes,” you breathed. “Yes.”

“Good girl,” he said quietly, and continued. His fingers found the edge of your underwear and he looked up at you from where he was and raised an eyebrow. Asking without asking. You lifted your hips. He drew them down slowly, dropped them, and settled between your thighs and looked at your pussy with an expression of complete, focused attention that made you want to press your thighs together out of sheer overwhelm.

He didn’t let you. His hands pressed your thighs apart, firm and certain. Held them there. “Don’t,” he said simply. Then his mouth found your clit and your back left the mattress.

He ate you out like he had nowhere else to be and no interest in being anywhere else — long slow strokes of his tongue through your folds, his lips sealing over your clit and applying exactly the right pressure, his eyes coming up to your face every few moments to read your expression and adjust accordingly. He was thorough in the way that only someone genuinely paying attention could be, cataloguing every hitch of your breath, every clench of your thighs against his hands.

The sound that left you was embarrassingly loud. His eyes came up. “Shh,” he said against your folds — not unkind, just certain. Then he pressed two fingers against your lips. Firm. “Here.”

You opened your mouth and took them in. “Good.” His voice low and approving. He pressed them deeper against your tongue and returned his mouth to your cunt with noticeably more intent — like your compliance had unlocked something — his tongue working faster, two fingers from his other hand pushing slowly into your hole and curling upward. You moaned around his fingers and clenched around the ones inside you and he made a low sound against your pussy that you felt everywhere.

He worked you with complete focus — his tongue on your clit, his fingers curling inside your hole, your wetness absolutely everywhere and him making quiet reverent sounds about it that were muffled against your folds. Your hand went to his hair and gripped and he let you, kept going, his fingers in your mouth pressing down on your tongue every time you got too loud.

“Look at me,” he said against you. You looked down at him. Dark eyes looking up at you from between your thighs. That eye contact while his mouth was on your cunt was almost more than you could process. “Stay with me,” he said. “Right here.”

When you came it crashed through you in deep rolling waves, your cunt clenching hard around his fingers, your moan muffled completely by his hand, your thighs pressing around his face and his hands not letting them close. He worked you through every single pulse — not stopping, not slowing — until you were pulling at his hair and trembling. He pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to your inner thigh. Then another.

Then he was kissing up your stomach, your ribs, your collarbone, the corner of your mouth. “There she is,” he murmured against your cheek. “How are you doing?”

“I’m—” You laughed weakly. “I’m good. Really good.” He kissed your cheek.

“Yeah you are.” He reached for the bedside drawer himself, sorted himself out, and came back to you and looked at your face and brushed your hair back from your forehead with both hands like you were something worth being careful with.

Then he took both your wrists and pressed them above your head, his hand wrapping around them, pinning them to the pillow. “Keep them here,” he said quietly.

“And if I don’t?” you said. The look he gave you was patient and very slightly dangerous.

“Keep them here,” he said again. He pushed inside you slowly — that long, aching stretch — and the sound you both made was simultaneous and involuntary, his a low broken groan, yours a gasp that turned into his name.

He held there for a moment, fully seated, his forehead dropping to yours, his hand still pinning your wrists above your head. “Okay,” he breathed. Like a reset. Like he needed a second.

“Jungwon—”

“I know.” He kissed the corner of your mouth. “I know. You feel—” He stopped. Pressed his lips to your cheek. “Perfect. You feel perfect.”

He started to move. Long and deep and measured, his hips rolling in that deliberate rhythm, his cock filling you completely with every stroke and withdrawing slowly — the kind of pace that was specifically designed to make you lose your mind.

Your hands stayed above your head because he’d told them to and because his hand around your wrists was warm and present and you weren’t going anywhere. “Good girl,” he murmured. Watching your face. “Look at you.”

“Jungwon — harder—”

“Not yet.” Steady. Infuriatingly steady. “When I say.”

He kept the pace exactly where he wanted it — deep and thorough, hitting somewhere inside you that made your toes curl — and his free hand found your clit and worked it in slow circles and you arched up into him. “There,” he said. Dark and satisfied. “Feel that?”

“Yes—”

“Yeah.” The circles on your clit tightened. His hips snapped forward once, harder, and you gasped. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He built you up carefully and completely, his cock and his fingers working in tandem, his eyes on your face the entire time — that absolute quality of attention that dismantled you, that had always dismantled you, fifteen years of it turned toward this single purpose.

“Close,” you managed. “Jungwon, I’m—”

“I know.” He didn’t slow down. “Give it to me.” The second one rolled through you deep and long and he watched your face through every second of it — your mouth falling open, your back arching, your hands straining against his grip above your head — and he kept going through all of it, his fingers not stopping until you were clenching and crying his name and he said “there she is, good girl, there she is” against your cheek like a quiet litany.

Then he released your wrists and pulled you up.

“Your turn,” he said. He lay back and you understood immediately. You swung your leg over him and his hands went to your waist — not guiding, not yet, just there — and you sank down onto him and the sound that left him was the most gratifying thing you’d ever heard. Low and wrecked and completely involuntary.

You rolled your hips. “Fuck,” he breathed. His hands tightened. “Do that again.” You did. Set your own pace, slow and grinding, finding the angle that made your vision blur and staying there.

His head pressed back into the pillow, his jaw tight, his eyes on your face with that dark focused expression cracking at the edges into something rawer. “Look at you,” he said, rough and quiet. “You’re perfect. Do you know that?” His jaw went tight as you clenched around him. “God.”

“Don’t stop talking,” you said breathlessly. “Please—”

“You feel incredible.” His hands moved you faster without asking permission. “Your pussy is—you have no idea. No idea what you—”

He sat up suddenly, arms wrapping around you, and kissed you deep and you rolled your hips and he held you through it and you came for the third time with your face in his neck and your nails raking down his back and he groaned at the sting of it — not pulling away, pressing closer, like he wanted that, like he’d been waiting for your nails.

He rolled you back down. Both of you past careful now — his cock driving into you deep and purposeful, your legs over his shoulders, his hand pinning your wrists above your head again. His other hand pressed flat to your lower stomach and he felt himself moving inside you and his expression went somewhere completely undone.

“Eyes on me,” he said. You looked at him. He looked at you. Dark and certain and something underneath it — something fifteen years old — looking out. “You’re mine,” he said quietly. Not possessive. Just true. Like he was finally saying something he’d always known.

“Yes,” you said. “Yes, Jungwon—”

“Good girl.” Driving deeper. “My good girl.” Your nails went to his back again — raking down — and he hissed through his teeth and his rhythm stuttered and then he was coming, buried as deep as possible, your name in his mouth, his whole body shuddering through it in slow waves while you held him and felt every pulse of it.

Afterward you lay in the narrow single bed of your childhood bedroom with his arm around you and your head on his chest and his heartbeat slowing gradually back to something normal under your ear. The house was very quiet.

Outside the window the winter garden. The sundial. The stone wall at the edge of the fields where you’d stood together three days ago and looked at the grey-green view and said nothing about the thing that had been living in the space between you.

“The tree,” you said. Against his chest. Almost asleep.

“What?”

“Her letter. At the end. Take care of the tree.” He was quiet for a moment.

“The tangerine tree?” he said.

“I don’t know how to look after a tangerine tree.”

“I do,” he said. “She taught me.” Of course she had. You made a sound into his chest that was grief and fondness and exhaustion and something newly made and warm all at once. His arm tightened around you. “Sleep,” he said. Quietly. Into your hair.

“There’s still so much to sort out,” you said. “The companies. Your father. Mine. The records. Haeun—”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “All of it tomorrow.”

You were quiet. “She would have liked this,” he said. “She would have smiled like she’d won something.”

“She did win something,” you said. He made the sound — the real laugh, quiet and warm, in the dark.

“She won everything,” he said. The house breathed around you. The walls remembered. The tree stood in the winter garden under the wrong-time sundial and the six extra minutes ticked by in the east corridor and outside the window the fields were dark and still and the net held, the net held, it had always been holding.

—

Morning came differently. Not the grey reluctant morning of the days before — this one had actual light in it, thin and winter-pale but present, coming through the curtains at the angle your grandmother approved of and landing across the bed in a way that felt almost deliberate. Like the house had decided something had shifted and was adjusting its lighting accordingly.

You were awake before him. This was not surprising. You had always been the one who woke first — in Barcelona, in studio all-nighters, in every version of your life you’d constructed away from this place. Your brain came online quickly and completely and then immediately started cataloguing everything that needed to be dealt with, which was both a useful quality and an exhausting one.

You lay still and let it catalogue. Your mother down the hall. Your father in the east guest room. The notebook in your desk drawer and the metal box under the floor of the third room and fifteen years of documentation that was going to require very careful decisions made by people who were currently in various states of devastation. Haeun, who had driven home last night after dismantling the family dinner table and was presumably now sitting in her very expensive apartment feeling something she didn’t have a script for. Yang Junho, who had been told by his son that the careful architecture of his business legacy was going to be pulled apart and rebuilt into something honest. The tangerine tree in the garden.

You turned your head. Jungwon was asleep. This was — notable. He slept with the specific quality of someone whose body had been running on insufficient rest for days and had finally been given permission to stop. On his back, one arm still loosely around you, his face completely unguarded in a way it almost never was when he was awake. The professional composure was entirely absent. He looked like the boy in the photographs on the passage room table.

You looked at him for longer than was strictly necessary. Then you carefully moved his arm, and got up, and got dressed, and went to find your mother.

She was in the garden. Not the formal garden — the kitchen garden at the back, the working one, where your grandmother had grown things with the same methodical attention she gave everything. It was winter-bare now, the beds turned over, the herbs cut back, but your mother was standing at the edge of it with a cup of tea in both hands and her coat over her pyjamas and her hair not yet done and looking at the dormant beds like they owed her a conversation. You came and stood beside her. She looked at you. Her eyes moved over your face the way they had yesterday in the corridor — reading, calibrating. This morning they stilled on something and she looked at you for a beat longer than usual and you thought: she knows. Of course she knows. She is a Han woman and she has been reading rooms since before you were born.

She said nothing about it. “The mint comes back every year,” she said instead. Nodding at one of the beds. “No matter what. Your grandmother never planted it twice.”

“Persistent,” you said.

“Invasive, she called it,” your mother said. “But she never pulled it out.”

You stood beside her. The kitchen garden in the early morning, both of you in coats, tea and no tea. “How are you?” you said.

“I’ve been better,” she said. Dry. Almost wry. A Han woman’s version of honesty.

“Mum—”

“I’m not broken,” she said. “I want you to know that before you start.” She looked at the mint bed. “I’ve known the shape of this for a long time. Not the detail. Not the name, not the company, not the—” she stopped briefly— “not all of it. But the shape.” She turned her mug in her hands. “Your grandmother knew I knew the shape. We never discussed it because discussing it would have made it real in a way I wasn’t ready for.”

“I know,” you said.

“She left you the records,” your mother said. “Because she knew you’d know what to do with them.”

“I’m still figuring that out,” you said honestly. Your mother nodded slowly.

“Whatever you decide — about the companies, about the documentation — I want you to know that I don’t expect you to protect him on my account.” She looked at you directly. “I’ve done enough of that for both of us. You don’t inherit that.”

You looked at her. “She wrote about you,” you said carefully. “In the letter. She said you’d need us to stay. Not to fix it. Just to stay.”

Your mother’s face did something very small and very real. “That sounds like her,” she said.

“She loved you,” you said. “The jewellery she left you — she chose it specifically. I know she did.”

“She chose everything specifically,” your mother said. And then, quietly: “She was infuriating.” Her mouth curved, just slightly, just for a second, the specific curve of someone who misses a person and is furious at them and loves them all at once. “She was the most infuriating woman I have ever known and I have been her daughter for sixty years and I would give almost anything for one more conversation with her.”

Your throat. You put your arm around your mother’s shoulders. She leaned into it. Just slightly. Just enough. “The mint will come back,” you said. “It always does,” she said.

—

Your father found you at nine. You were in the library — the room that minded its own business — with the notebook open on the table and your laptop beside it and three years of your grandmother’s documentation laid out in the order you’d decided to present it. You’d made decisions in the kitchen garden with your mother’s shoulder under your arm and the winter light coming up over the dormant beds, and the decisions were clear and final and felt like the most your grandmother’s-granddaughter thing you had ever done. Your father came in and looked at the table and went still. “Sit down,” you said.

He sat. He looked at the notebook. He looked at the laptop. He looked at your face. “I’ve been through all of it,” you said. “The notebook, the financial records from the box, the subsidiary filings that Haeun’s lawyer found. I have a complete picture.” You held his gaze. “I want to tell you what I’m going to do with it before I do it, because she would have done that. She would have told you directly.” He was very still.

“Jungwon and I are going to work with our respective company counsel to restructure both companies’ positions and make the necessary disclosures. The arrangement your father and his built — the liability your grandmother documented — will be unwound properly. Not buried, not managed. Dealt with.” You turned a page in the notebook. “There will be consequences. Probably financial, possibly regulatory. We’re going to take them straight rather than sideways.”

He opened his mouth. “I’m not finished,” you said quietly. He closed it.

“The personal documentation — your relationship with Park Jooyeon — is not something I intend to make public or use. That’s not mine to use. That’s between you and Mum and whatever comes next for the two of you.” You looked at him steadily.

“But I want you to know that I have it. That grandmother had it. That she saw everything and chose the moment and the recipient very carefully.” You paused. “She trusted me with it because she knew I’d tell you directly rather than use it as leverage. So I’m telling you directly.”

Your father was quiet for a long time. He looked older than yesterday. Something had come down overnight — a structure he’d maintained for twenty years, load-bearing, invisible until it wasn’t. “She always knew,” he said. Not a question.

“Yes,” you said.

“Your mother—”

“Is dealing with it on her own terms,” you said. “In her own time. That’s between you and her and I’m not going to be in the middle of it.” You closed the notebook. “But I am going to be here. For her. For as long as she needs.”

He looked at the closed notebook. “You’re very like her,” he said again. The same words as the library yesterday, same tone — not compliment, not threat, something that had moved past both into something more complicated and more honest.

“Good,” you said again.

He stood up. He looked at you for a moment with the eyes of a man who was reassessing something fundamental and finding the reassessment uncomfortable and necessary in equal measure. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For — all of it. The parts that touched you.”

“I know,” you said. He left. You sat in the library for a minute after he’d gone, in the room that minded its own business, and you breathed and looked at the ceiling and thought about your grandmother writing case notes in her precise blue hand for seven years and choosing you and trusting you and leaving you every door she could think to unlock.

I trust them. I always have.

“I know,” you said to the empty room. “I know you did.”

—

Jungwon was in the kitchen when you came down at ten. He’d made breakfast — actual breakfast, not just tea, the kind of breakfast that required navigating someone else’s kitchen and finding things and making decisions about eggs. You stood in the doorway and looked at this and something in your chest did a quiet complicated thing.

He looked up. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” you said.

“I found the eggs,” he said. “I hope that’s alright.”

“It’s very alright,” you said. You came in and sat at the kitchen table — the big scrubbed one, the one you’d sat at a thousand times — and watched him move around the kitchen with the ease of someone who had been in it almost as often as you had, who knew which drawer had the spatulas and which cupboard had the good salt, who knew to use the second burner because the first ran hot.

“I talked to my father’s lawyer this morning,” he said. Back to you, watching the pan. “Started the process. It’s going to take months. There’ll be restructuring costs, probably some regulatory disclosure, definitely some uncomfortable conversations with the board.” He turned around. “But it’s started.”

“I talked to my dad,” you said. “The personal side — I left that between him and my mother. But the business — he knows what’s coming.” Jungwon nodded.

He brought two plates to the table and sat across from you and for a moment you both just looked at the food. “She would have had opinions about the eggs,” you said.

“She would have said I used too much butter.”

“You absolutely used too much butter.”

“The correct amount of butter,” he said, “for a kitchen that has been through what this kitchen has been through in the last four days.” You looked at him. He looked at you. The kitchen held you both in its amber morning warmth and the back door sighed in the wind and the clock ticked its slightly-too-loud tick.

“Barcelona,” he said. Your fork stopped. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. “About what you said. The building at five in the afternoon. The light.” He looked at his plate. “I want to see it.” You looked at him. “I want to see where you’ve been. What you’ve built. The studio, the yellow tiles, all of it.” He looked up. “I’m not asking you to come home. I’m not — I know you have a life there and I’m not going to be the person who asks you to fold that up.”

“Jungwon—”

“I’m saying I want to come to you. If that’s—” he stopped. “If you want that.”

You thought about your Barcelona apartment. The yellow tiles you’d hated and grown to love. The building in the Eixample at five in the afternoon. The Sunday light coming flat and amber through the kitchen window and you standing there with a dead leaf and almost calling him. “When?” you said.

Something shifted in his face. The last of the composure, the very last of it, releasing. “As soon as I can arrange it,” he said.

“The companies—”

“Will take months to sort out. I can do that from anywhere with a phone and a laptop.” He looked at you steadily. “I’ve been doing everything from this house and this office and this city for three years and I think—” he paused— “I think I’ve been using that as a reason to not go anywhere I actually wanted to go.”

You held his gaze. “There’s a market on Sundays,” you said. “Near the apartment. They have good tomatoes even in winter, I don’t know how.”

“I’ll need to know where to get good coffee,” he said.

“I know three places,” you said. “Ranked.”

“Of course you do,” he said.

“The first one is wrong,” you said. “Everyone thinks it’s the best and they’re wrong. The second one is correct.” He smiled. The real one, the full one, no millimetres of distance at all. You smiled back.

Outside the kitchen window the winter garden was pale and still. The tangerine tree stood at the edge of the formal garden where it always had, bare-branched, patient, waiting for the season that would bring it back. The sundial offered its wrong time to the thin morning light. The fields beyond the stone wall were grey-green and quiet.

Inside: two plates of eggs with the correct amount of butter, and the kitchen clock ticking, and the back door with the broken latch, and the house breathing around you in the way old houses breathe when something they’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.

“Take care of the tree,” you said.

“I will,” he said.

“She’ll want a report,” you said. “I’ll take notes,” he said.

“In a small book,” you said.

“Obviously,” he said.

You ate breakfast in the warm kitchen of your grandmother’s house while the morning came properly through the windows, and the walls remembered everything, and somewhere in the passage behind the library fireplace the candles had burned down to nothing and the photographs were still on the table and the letter was in your desk drawer with both your names on it in blue ink, and Han Sooja had been right about all of it, every last word, and the tree would come back in spring and so would you.

SPRING

The tangerine tree bloomed in April. Jungwon sent you the photograph at seven in the morning Barcelona time, which meant he’d been in the garden at eight Korean time, which meant he’d gone specifically to check and then specifically to tell you. No caption. Just the photograph — pale blossoms on the bare-becoming-green branches, the stone wall behind it, the edge of the formal garden catching the early spring light.

You were in bed with your phone and the yellow morning light coming through the kitchen tiles and you looked at the photograph for a long time.

Then you typed: she knew it would.

He replied immediately: she knew everything.

Then: flight lands Friday. Is the second coffee place still correct?

Still correct, you typed. I checked yesterday.

Of course.

You put the phone down and looked at the ceiling of your Barcelona apartment and listened to the street coming alive below and thought about the building in the Eixample at five in the afternoon and the light that made it look like it was remembering something, and you thought about what it meant to show someone the life you’d built from scratch in a city that had been yours alone, and you thought about your grandmother in her garden in October with the window open writing three pages of blue ink to two people she trusted to be ready.

You were ready.

You went to the kitchen and put the coffee on and stood at the window with the yellow tiles warm in the morning light and outside the bakery two streets over was already sending its bread smell into the world and somewhere behind you on the shelf the Calvino stood between its neighbours and in the back of it, tucked where it had always been, the recipe card with the hand-drawn map of a house full of secret rooms.

Not everything buried is lost. Some things are just waiting for the ground to be ready.

The coffee finished. You poured two cups out of habit and then looked at the second one and smiled and didn’t move it.

Friday.

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