𝓕low ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

nct wish and umhhh yeah

[ryo-so-swag]

INFO | MASTERLIST | COMING SOON

[ryo-so-swag]

life update? i guess.

first of all, i’m sorry for being so inactive lately. i’ve been dealing with some really heavy stuff, and i can’t really talk about it on twitter because my best friend follows me there and i don’t really want my irl friends knowing everything that’s going on. so i’m just gonna say it here

my mom has been stealing money from my bank account and my sister’s for years to gamble. i confronted her about it multiple times and eventually blocked gambling sites from charging my card. my sister did the same, but that obviously didn’t stop her. she stole the cash i had in my room, took my credit card and went to the bank to withdraw money, and she also stole from my dad’s account. even the money he gave her to pay bills and taxes ended up going toward gambling.

so now my parents are separating, and honestly i think it’s for the best. i don’t even know how you’re supposed to come back from something like this. i can’t trust her anymore, and i’ve gotten to the point where i want to hide anything valuable in my room because i’m scared it’ll disappear. i wish i could say i feel bad for her, but she crossed the line too many times, and i warned her more times than i can even count.

so yeahhhhh i’m not doing great right now. it also doesn’t really help that she’s currently sleeping in my room, so whenever i try to write she’s right there in my peripheral vision, which completely kills any creativity i have.

And on top of that, i’m already struggling with uni because of my adhd, and now my anxiety has decided to join the party too. TRULY the timing could not be better.

i’ll still be around, and i definitely haven’t abandoned writing. things are just a little difficult right now, so thank you for being patient with me

[ryo-so-swag]

update on my riku fic, which now has a name!!!

it’s coming along pretty nicely… and also very messily but that’s entirely on my adhd 👎🏼 and the fact that i’ve had to spend a few days off my meds because the shipping got delayed, which briefly had me questioning my ability to function as a person

anyways! i’ve decided to split it into two parts, which will be posted separately sometime near the end of the month assuming i manage to become a functioning member of society by then

i’m currently sitting at 11k words and things are still a little messy because i made the completely logical decision to write part 2 first (the smut part, that is) While, part 1 is still waiting for me to add the two scenes that come before the confession i’ve been talking about for weeks. so the writing process right now looks a bit like this:

no title > got a title > no outline > wrote the confession > wrote the smut > somehow still missing important scenes

honestly, i am still all over the place, but i know i can polish everything up… eventually. my original plan was to post it for riku’s birthday, but i might need a little more time depending on how long it takes me to tie everything together.

either way, i promise it’ll be worth the wait

[ryo-so-swag]

ᯓ★ YUSHI

START OVER — Graduation is two weeks away, and you’re set on losing your virginity before it’s over. But as you push your limits with Sion, the unspoken rules that have governed your friendship with Yushi for five years begin to fail. You realize the "do something that scares me" entry on your bucket list wasn't about having sex at all—it was about the moment the safety of your friendship dissolved, forcing you to see Yushi for who he’s truly been all along.

tags: non-idol au, best friends to lovers, fluff, they’re 19, WC: 15.8k

. . . more to come ♡

[ryo-so-swag]

Hello everyone!!!

once i finish my riku fic, i'm planning to spend most of my summer writing one of these prompts below. i think they're all worth telling in their own way, but i really want to give each idea the attention it deserves instead of rushing through them. so i thought it would be ideal to focus on just one for now.

but i need your help choosing!

the pool is below, so please vote for the one you'd like to see the most ♡

STILL WATER ~40/50k

Yushi was your brother’s best friend for years, before the falling out that no one talks about anymore—and now, for some reason, he’s back and he’s spending the entire trip with your family. You’re older now, old enough to know better and to recognize the way his gaze lingers a second too long for something that’s supposed to be nothing. You’re old enough to know that whatever this is, it has no business existing at all. Unfortunately, summer is long, and the lake house is small enough that you keep finding yourselves in the same rooms, the same silences, the same dangerous proximity that neither of you is doing a very good job of avoiding. Riku trusts you both, and you keep telling yourself that’s the reason to walk away.

Clearly, you’re not very good at listening to yourself.

tags: brother’s best friend, childhood crush, forced proximity, second chance connection, slow burn, unresolved tension, summer romance.

OFF THE RECORD ~40k

Milan Fashion Week was supposed to be just another event on a schedule booked down to the minute. You’re no stranger to cameras, to carefully managed appearances, to the art of being watched without ever being seen. Neither is Yushi, a footballer with a reputation as big as his career, who has no reason to look at you the way he does across a room full of flashing lights. One night feels manageable. Reckless, but still manageable. Then once becomes twice, and twice becomes something neither of you wants to define, and suddenly you’re crossing continents just to end up back in each other’s beds.

But you’re both too visible for secrets, and this one is getting too loud.

tags: strangers to lovers, friends (?) with benefits, famous x famous, football player!yushi, idol!reader, can’t stay away, situationship, mutual obsession, no strings attached (failed), tension, possessive undertones.

WHAT RUNS IN THE BLOOD ~50k

The empire and the state have been at war longer than either of you has been alive. You know the rules, the distance, the protocols, the careful choreography of two dynasties that have learned to coexist without ever touching. You were raised understanding that the distance between your families was a boundary, and that maintaining it was the closest thing to loyalty your name demanded of you. Yushi has always been exactly what you expected him to be, and for a long time, that made it easy to be loyal. Now you catch yourself looking at him and thinking things your family never taught you, and the worst part is that you can’t stop the guilt that follows it. Loyalty, you were told, meant holding the line. You know what name your family has for people who don’t, and you’re becoming one of them.

(Loving him is liability. It’s the easiest way to lose everything)

tags: enemies to lovers, forbidden romance, old money, ivy league, family rivalry, political dynasty, socialite circles, family expectations, rich people problems, secret relationship.

time to choose !

Still Water

Off The Record

What Runs in The Blood

Voting ended onJun 16

[ryo-so-swag]

spent the last forty something hours rewriting this draft because i got hit with a burst of post-exam inspiration and had to use it before it expired. i’m still not finished (i had to close google docs because i could physically feel myself starting to lose my mind lmao), but i’m kind of proud of how it’s turning out. which isn’t saying much because there’s still a lot missing, but hey.. progress is progress, i guess?

i don’t have a title yet, and i also don’t know what scenes i’m putting before this giant confession moment (monster?). i’m also seriously considering splitting it into two parts… but there’s an equal chance i lose motivation and the second part never sees the light of day

so basically i know nothing. i have no plan. i am operating entirely on vibes. BUT the tension is really really good at least !!!! can’t wait for you guys to read it 😙💖

[ryo-so-swag]

𝒇low ᥫ᭡ 22 (‘04)

hi! i love chatting, so don’t be shy about stopping by my inbox to say hello! 💌 i also tend to be a bit of a yapper in both conversations and my writing, which means my fics can get pretty long…. sometimes a story might need a part 2, so thank you in advance for your patience!!

.ᐟ i’m currently balancing university and student teaching, so updates can be a little slow at times. i promise i’m doing my best, and i really appreciate your patience and support while i work on new pieces

.ᐟ.ᐟ MDNI! this blog may contain mature and explicit content, so please be 18+ before interacting with or consuming my work. curate your online experience responsibly, and be mindful when following or engaging with my blog!!!

╰ i mainly write for Yushi and Riku (i'm a little too yuriku pilled, if we're being honest), but i definitely plan on writing for sion and jaehee in the future as well!

╰ at the moment, i do not write sakuya or ryo centered stories. they may appear in group fics or as supporting characters, but they won't be the main focus of my works since they're younger than me

╰ requests are always welcome! if you'd like to send one in, please be as specific as possible. let me know the setting, trope, dynamic, or any scenes you'd like included. the more details you give me, the easier it is for me to bring your idea to life, and the more likely you'll enjoy the final result!

!!!! while i do write smut occasionally, fluff is definitely my favorite genre.

[anibleu]

˖°𓇼🧊.ೃ࿔ cold sweat | tkn.ys

⤷ pairing: yushi x fem!reader ⤷ tags: summer vacation, friends to lovers, skinny dipping (not initially), kissing, oral sex (m. receiving), dom-ish reader (but no reader orgasm, perhaps in pt. 2..?), lowercase writing ⤷ warnings: smut ofc (MDNI) ⤷ synopsis: unable to sleep, you wander out to the pool of your rental with yushi joining you soon after, and a bit of late night fun ensues ⤷ word count: 3.6k

★ 🖋 aurkayy slowly building up the wish catalog here, one of the very few fics i haven't outlined before hand but i think it worked out . i actually don't have much to yap about for once😭,, take a shot every time i typed water !

→ masterlist

→ request rules

the bed whined under your weight as you changed positions once again you let out a sigh. this wasn’t that much comfortable either.

you couldn’t sleep.

it was rare for you to get any rest in unfamiliar places, at least on the first night. it’s a fact you didn’t fully take into account when you agreed to go on a summer break trip with your friends.

you’d settled in the rental house hours ago, yet you couldn’t lull yourself to sleep. it was too warm, too silent. with a small huff, you threw the blanket off of you and sat up. carefully, you cracked open your bedroom door and made your way down the hallway. looking around, the only source of light coming into the cramped living room came from the moonlight outside, with the rest of the house drowning in darkness.

you walked towards a nearby floor lamp, blindly feeling around in the air for the switch. the lamp emitted a muted golden light that stretched across the room, making you squint. you rubbed a hand across and stumbled towards the kitchen, thinking that a glass of water would somehow do the trick.

the cabinet closed with a dull thud as you grabbed a glass and turned on the tap. with tired eyes, you watched the water rush out of the faucet. you eagerly gulped it down and wiped away any water that escaped down your chin.

your attention wandered to the sheer fabric covering the small window above the sink. the metal rings of the curtain scrapped against the curtain rod as you pushed it aside and peered through the window. in front of you was an unobscured view of the backyard, featuring a pool that was illuminated a bright marine blue by underwater lights.

you guys hit the ground running when you first arrived, dropping your things off and immediately heading out to explore the city. it was only just now that you realized you didn’t get to look at the rental fully, including the massive pool that demanded your attention.

you set the glass down on the marble countertop and searched around for your shoes. it was late into the night, and everyone was most likely fast asleep, exhausted from the long day they had, so you moved as quietly as possible.

you spotted them in the corner of the living room and slipped them on. the slight creak of the door made you wince, and you could only hope that no one heard it. your rushed steps scraped against the concrete and stopped abruptly when you reached the pool. the fluorescent water moved in ever-osculating waves with the bouts of wind, shining starkly against the almost pitch-black sky. with your shoes off, you felt the rough, sun-baked concrete dig into the soles of your feet.

the water was a refreshing contrast to the warm tiles you sat on. it sloshed around, lapping at your skin and trailing goosebumps up your legs as you got accustomed to the temperature.

the house was settled just outside the city, so the distant sound of cars whizzing by made you wonder where they were headed at such a late hour. for a while, you sat with the familiar smell of the chlorinated water and let it soak into your skin.

the same noisy door from earlier creaked behind you, making your eyes shoot open. you whipped your head towards the sound and peered into the dark doorway to see what caused it.

to your surprise, it was yushi standing there with a slightly confused expression.

“y/n? what are you doing out here?” sleep was still evident in his voice and his tousled hair. he walked over to where you were sitting, the blue hue of the pool highlighting his figure.

“i couldn’t sleep.” you confessed. “did i wake you?”

he shrugged, rubbing at his eyes. “not really, it’s not like i was getting much sleep either.”

he sat next to you, wrapping his arms around his knees. “was there a reason you couldn’t sleep?”

“my bed’s not the comfiest.” you snuck a glance his way but his gaze was trained on the pool, so you spoke to his side profile. “you’re not gonna give the water a try?” you punctuated your question with a couple kicks of your feet.

he shook his head dismissively, giving you a drawn smile. “it’s a little late.”

“oh, come on.” you whined. “just for a few minutes?”

he looked over at you for a moment and reluctantly agreed after seeing the look in your eyes. “fine.” he laughed at the noise of excitement that left your lips. he hiked up his pant legs and took off his shoes, lowering his legs into the pool next to you.

“this does feel nice,” he admitted.

the whole day had been rather hectic, so being out there by yourself was a chance to breathe and relax, but it was even better with yushi right next to you.

you liked him, wanted him. a lot. it came out of nowhere, instead of gradually like you’d see in your average romance movie. it was a late night, much like now. it was the shared laughs, how comfortable you felt around him, how easy it was to exist around him, that made you think about being in his company as more than a friend, to dream about it even, for months.

despite it being nighttime, it was still plenty hot outside. so you dragged your feet out of the pool, standing up and looking down at the loose nightshirt you were wearing.

you turned to yushi with a slight smirk, who was already staring up at you with unbridled curiosity. “i think i’m gonna go for a swim.”

his face contorted in suspicion, deciding if you were really going to go through with it. though, knowing you as much as he did, the answer was pretty obvious.

“are you serious..” the words didn’t even get the chance to leave his mouth properly. you already had your hands gripping hem of your shirt, pulling it up your body.

“of course,” you answered simply. his gaze lingered on your midriff before dragging up to your chest that was still obscured by your bra. you threw the shirt behind you, and next to go were your shorts. he turned away to look at the water again, he was staring a little too hard, but you were stripping right in front of him after all.

when he turned back to you, you were walking towards the stairs with a confident sway of your hips, almost like you knew he was watching.

you hissed as the water went past your legs and quickly slid the rest of your body into the pool. “fuck,” you laughed, “it’s so cold.” you moved around in the pool to adjust to the frigid temperature, the soft sound of water trickling around you at every movement.

yushi watched you slowly swim around like you were a koi fish in a pond, talking at random about what you were going to do the rest of the trip. it was your last question that sparked his attention.

“are you really gonna make me swim alone?”

he looked up from his legs, and you were suddenly right in front of him.

“huh?” he had heard every word that came out of your mouth.

“i said,” you dragged out in a sing-song tone, “are you gonna make me swim alone?” you sent a splash towards his legs, making him throw his hands up in a makeshift shield.

“you should get in here.” you tilted your head. “or not, it’s up to you.” you float away before he could answer. he thought about it for a moment, continuing to watch you.

behind you, you heard a splash that your body didn’t produce and turned around to see yushi standing up by the edge of the pool.

yushi threw his hands up in defeat. “fuck it, okay.”

a small, incredulous laugh left your mouth. “no way.”

“don’t be too shocked.” you couldn’t help but stare as he pulled his shirt over his broad shoulders. your eyes landed on his waist, trailing to his legs when he slipped out of his pants. you were burning a hole through him at this point. when he looked up at you, a shy smile painted his face before you both looked away.

he stepped out of the pile the fabric that was his pants and kicked them to the side, slipping into the pool right where he was standing. “i can’t believe i’m doing this,” he sighed softly, splashing water on himself. “why am i always doing everything you want?”

your eyebrows scrunched together with a giggle. “you don’t have to, you know.” though admittedly, you liked it that way. he was often so pliable at your hands, moving at your every direction. so far, you were only testing the waters, wondering how far you could go with him.

he hummed. “i don’t mind it, though. you always know how to have fun.” he was making his way towards you, his body becoming a swirled mosaic underwater.

“do i?”

“yeah. i couldn’t imagine this trip without you.” you softly smiled at him and started swimming around again, feeling more comfortable in the water.

at some point, you both settled by the edge of the pool, letting your legs float and staring up at the few stars in the sky.

“hey,” you pushed through the question without any hesitation. “have you ever gone skinny-dipping?”

he looked at you with the amount of confusion you predicted, and it pulled a childish giggle out of you.

“no?” he replied. it sounded more like a question than anything else. “do people actually do that?”

you shrugged your shoulders, peering down at the water. “i’ve heard.. stories.” you pushed off the wall of the pool to stand in front of him, creating a healthy distance between you both.

“do you wanna try?”

yushi blinked at you several times, like he was trying to process your words. you hoped that your expression could hide how nervous you were. maybe it was because you were tired, or he was too tempting of an image in front of you; it was most likely both, but the question slipped off your tongue before you could stop it.

the slightest amused smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “what if someone catches us?”

you raised your brows. it wasn’t a no. “that’s what makes it fun.”

“no one’s awake right now. i guess we’ll have to be quiet, anyway.” you stepped a fraction closer. “you can do that, right?”

“yeah.” his voice came in out a hushed tone

“good.” his gaze flickered to your hand as it surfaced from the water. you slipped your thumb under your soaked bra strap before slowly easing it down your shoulder. your other hand came up to do the same to the other strap. you reached behind you to unclasp your bra. water trickled out of the fabric as you brought it into the air and tossed it to the tiles surrounding the pool. you slid your underwear down your legs, and they reached the same destination as your bra.

your nipples immediately started to harden when introduced to the cold water, sending a pleasant shiver through you. yushi hadn’t moved an inch until you spoke up, your voice cutting through his thoughts.

“your turn,” your head motioned towards his lower half. his eyes pulled back up from the water to meet yours with effort, like they were overcoming the weight of cinder blocks.

“oh, right,” he stammered. he slowly slid out of his boxers, tossing the soaked fabric behind him and leaving both of you nude.

“how does it feel?”

“weird, but freeing.” the statement was a bit ironic considering he was still glued to the wall like a pool jet. “you seem so comfortable,” he remarked.

“you’re not?” you asked, even though it wouldn’t be unreasonable if that were the case. it was taking so much restraint to not pounce on him, pin him against the wall. your hands were still itching to reach out and touch him, so you did.

“come on.” you took his hands in yours, gently pulling him towards the middle of the pool. “it’s not that bad.”

“yeah, to you.” you rolled your eyes, sending a splash his way that barely missed his face and landed at his shoulder instead.

“hey! what was that for?”

“you need to lighten up.”

“lighten up? i’m in a pool, naked.” of course, he retaliated by splashing you back, except he didn’t miss your face.

your hands flew up to cover your face. “wait, it got in my eyes,” you whined.

“are you okay?” he got closer to you, close enough for your next attack to land. you got him back and burst out into a laughing fit when the splash landed square in his face.

“got you.”

“not funny.”

“why are you smiling then?” the embarrassed smile on his face slipped, quickly being replaced by a playful scowl.

a battle of sorts ensues between you, ending in a clear winning team.

“is this light enough for you? huh?” yushi joked, sending water your way. you were both breathless from laughing and exerting more energy than you should be at 1 am.

“yes! okay, you win,” you squealed, admitting defeat and wiping water away from your eyes.

you’re much closer to each other now, your breaths slowing down and mingling together. the beads of water clinging to his skin, water dripping from his dark hair, eyelashes stuck together in pretty spikes—it was a scene you could stare at for hours.

you looked towards the house. the windows were still dark. no one had woken up yet, even with the ruckus you created outside.

yushi seemed to gravitate towards you, his eyes scanning your face. you were alone, a few inches away from each other, naked, of course. you couldn’t think of a better opportunity.

“yushi,” you whispered. “can i kiss you?”

the silence was deafening, yet brief, as you used your next sentence to buffer the weight of your words. “if not, i under—”

he bridged the small gap between you two, and the words died on your tongue. his lips moved with such urgency, pulling away just a little before you crashed into each other again. he was waiting for you to ask that question, waiting to taste you. his hands magnetized to your waist, pulling you flush against his body.

you could feel everything, especially the weight of his hardening dick against your thigh.

he could feel it too, and he suddenly backed away from you.

“i’m sorry,” he breathed out.

you shook your head, your hand sliding up his chest. “no, come here.” your hand rested on the nape of his neck and pulled him back to your lips.

your fingers wove through his wet hair, your lips moving greedily against his. his ran his tongue along your bottom lip, searching for your permission before pushing his tongue into your mouth. he was seeing how hungry you were, if you wanted it just as much as he did, and you matched it eagerly.

his slender fingers curled around your waist and pulled you back into his embrace like you would disappear if he let go. you moaned into his mouth. every part of your bodies connected—your tongues languidly sliding past each other, your plush tits pushed against his chest, his dick pressed to your stomach, hard and insistent.

your chest heaved up and down with your heavy breaths as he broke the kiss, only to attach to your neck right after. he left desperate, scattered kisses up your neck, across your jawline, to your ear, not caring about the artificial saltiness clinging to your skin.

“i didn’t know how much more of this i could take,” yushi groaned into your ear, his hips rocking against you.

“was the teasing too much?” you asked with feigned innocence. “i didn’t mean too.”

“liar.” you huffed out a laugh. his hand traveled past your waist, stopping shy of your breast. your small gasps spilled in the air as he finally groped your breast, his thumb swiping over your hardened nipple with teasing strokes.

“i wanted to do this the second you took that bra off.” his lips brushed against your nipple, and the wet warmth of his mouth enveloped it, making you tilt your head back with a soft whimper. his tongue flattened against the bud before flicking across it incessantly.

“fuck,” you moaned out, your grip on his shoulder tightening. your other hand dipped into the water. there, your fingers circled around the base of his cock, earning yourself a low whine. the vibration of the noise against you sent a jolt of pleasure through you.

you never thought you’d be doing anything like this in a pool with anyone, especially yushi.

whenever you imagined your first encounter with him, it wasn’t in a swimming pool, late at night, trying your best to stay quiet. but the thrill of possibly being caught, the desperation that was leaking through his frantic touches, it had your heart picking up speed and your body so hot that the water was quickly evaporating off your skin.

his hips rocked into your hand, chasing friction despite your slow, teasing strokes. his mouth detached from you, jagged breaths leaving his plush lips. you kissed him again, your teeth grazing his bottom lip as you reluctantly pulled away.

“let’s move to the stairs.” he gave you a dazed nod before you both headed over to the stairs at the shallow end of the pool.

you knelt in front of him on the steps. “you really have to stay quiet this time.” you warned. your palms smoothed up his thighs all the way to his stomach, ignoring his cock on purpose.

he gave you a fervent nod. “i will.” you drew your lip between your teeth before leaning down and licking an experimental stripe on the underside of his cock. he took in a sharp breath, and he knew just from the warmth of your tongue against him that he wasn’t going to last long.

you let out a teasing giggle before your soft lips started to caress the base of his cock, trailing kisses up his length to his sensitive, leaky tip. you lazily dragged your tongue across it, letting your saliva run a messy path down his shaft. you looked up at him, watching the neediness grow in his eyes, his eyebrows turned up in a lustful haze.

with a pleased hum, you finally took him into your mouth. you made quick work of his cock, leaving his length shining with your spit and his pre-cum. any mess you created dissolved into the water. the whole time, he was obediently biting back any noises that arose in his throat, a whimper escaping when he couldn’t control it. you wished you could hear them, and hear just how good you were making him feel through his unbridled, pretty cries. despite that, the subtle shake in his thighs, and the way his abdomen tensed with every pass gave it all away.

“you’re being so good, yushi,” you purred after pulling off of his cock. his hips shifted to match the rhythm of your strokes that were steadily increasing in speed. you could feel him pulsing in your hand, demanding and hot. “are you gonna cum already?” there was a demeaning tone to your voice that worked to send him over the edge.

“yes, fuck—” he gasped. your hand slowed down a fraction, pulling him away from the precipice of his orgasm with a wicked smile.

“y/n, please,” he voice grew a little whiny, wavering and making hot pleasure swirl around in your stomach. you just wanted to know how he would sound if you were fucking him properly. “i wanna cum for you, please.” his hands gripped the stairs beneath him, trying to keep himself together for you.

“yeah? you sound so pretty when you beg,” you rasped, the effect of his words evident in your voice. you picked up speed again, your fist slick with his pre-cum. “cum for me, then.”

he let out a desperate, unabashed whimper that he couldn’t stifle, and it’s like music to your ears. he came with a shattered moan, sending warm streaks of cum across your chest, some of it spilling down your hand as you slowed your movements. you gave his cock a few more firm tugs, coaxing every last drop out and making him go sensitive in your hands. you let him take a good look at the mess he made before slowly dipping under the water, erasing it all like it never happened.

you used his thighs as leverage to climb up and kiss him, smiling against his lips. “how was that?”

“fucking amazing,” he answered with a crooked smile. “i need to return the favor.”

“i’ll look forward to it tomorrow. i’m kind of sleepy now.” you laughed.

he hummed in agreement before speaking again, lower this time. “did you, uh, wanna sleep in my bed?”

you smiled at the offer. “i’d love to.”

you both hopped out of the pool, drying off hastily with the towels that sat on the pool chairs. the undergarments were a lost cause, so you slid into your pajamas and snuck back into the house. he led you to his room where you shared a quick shower (and a kiss or two) you borrowed his clothes, and stowed yourselves away under his sheets.

soon, you’re first to fall asleep. yushi snuck his arm around your waist, mumbling a goodnight before eventually succumbing to the same slumber.

tysm for reading, lovely <3 !

[ryo-so-swag]

I say bestfriends to lovers for Riku…. And he’s needy or bf Riku obsessed with y/ns tits lwk 👀👀 idk

Hello sweet anon… your request was much taken into consideration 🙏🏻 and it has also slipped from my hands entirely lol. I can’t write one shots to save my life (idk why I even try at this point when the gene of brevity skipped over my generation) so now there’s this 8k word draft of them just confessing on my phone, and I’m thinking of turning it a long-fic so I can satisfy both requests at once (i can’t be concise and I can’t choose either lmao). Say yuppie if you like the idea of it possibly turning it into a 20k words fic

[driedfleurs]

WANT ME

pairing: tokuno yushi x fem!reader

synopsis: you really wish yushi would text you about stuff apart from classwork. he wishes you would understand that if he tries talking to you about anything else with you he'll embarrass himself because he might be a little scared of you.

genre: romance, fluff, angst, college au

starring: the other members of nct wish, anton of riize, juria of xg, moka & minju of illit

featuring: cursing, kys/kms jokes, suggestive jokes (no actual smut), you fall first he falls harder, both of them are dense, ignore timestamps

status: ongoing (19.05.26- )

network: @fantasia-films

taglist: @filmrku @kpopluver167 @luvvyushii (open!)

a/n: partially based on real events which still make me want to kms but here we are i will potentially never see the guy again but atleast it gave me fic material </3 unless we're taking the same minor next semester which yay <3 (knowing my posting schedule you'll probably find out around like chapter 6)

profiles1 | profiles2

01. muscle mommy

02. the father of medicine

03. thirst traps

04. sakuryo attack

05. get an alarm clock

tba...

© driedfleurs

[ryo-so-swag]

Graduation is two weeks away, and you’re set on losing your virginity before it’s over. But as you push your limits with Sion, the unspoken rules that have governed your friendship with Yushi for five years begin to fail. You realize the "do something that scares me" entry on your bucket list wasn't about having sex at all—it was about the moment the safety of your friendship dissolved, forcing you to see Yushi for who he’s truly been all along.

╰┈➤ tags: non-idol au, best friends to lovers, fluff, they’re 19, WC: 15.8k

warnings: first time, jealousy, oral (fem receiving), mutual masturbation, breastplay, p in v (protected!), they’re so freaked out, reader is horny and impatient, actually making love if you squint

“We should make a list.”

Yushi looks up from his textbook. “Mh?”

“A bucket list,” You clarify, your cheeks flushing as you fidget with the edge of the book. “I mean, we’re graduating in exactly two weeks, and there are still so many things we haven’t done. We haven’t really lived high school.”

“You don’t live high school. You just survive it, y/n.” He shakes his head, returning his eyes back down to the dense paragraphs of his book.

You watch him, annoyed by how easily he remains untouched by the urgency pulling at you.

It frustrates you how he can just retreat into his own quiet corner, completely unfazed by it all, while your own mind is spinning with the countdown of your final days. You sigh, leaning across the desk to press your palm flat against the cover of his textbook and snap it shut.

Under the weight of your hand, Yushi finally stills.

“I’m just saying.” Your voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “Aren’t there things you want to do before leaving this shithole? Things you won’t ever be able to do once we’re out there in the real world?”

The book sits trapped beneath your palm, but he makes no move to reclaim it. Instead, he watches the way the golden light catches on the edge of the wood—silent, as if he wants to gather it up, seize it, and keep it tucked away in his pockets forever as a memory. A still ache fills your chest as you watch him. You realize how quickly this morning light will fade into afternoon blues, and how these stolen moments before the bells ring are already narrowing down to zero.

You push the ticking clock of graduation out of your mind for a second, and focus on the steady rhythm of his breathing right across from you—even though you already begin to miss the version of him that belongs only to this room.

“Maybe,” He finally breaks the silence, his voice trailing off as if he is letting the thought truly settle between you. “I kind of want to stage a protest at graduation. Steal a golf cart, drive it across the stage while the principal is mid-speech. Go out with a bang.”

“Oh?” You let out a soft laugh, the sound bright against the heavy memories of this classroom. “I was thinking of something a little more lowkey, like maybe just showing up, but if you’ve already got the getaway vehicle picked out...”

You turn in your chair, crouching down to unzip your backpack. Yushi watches you, his quiet gaze unreadable. You can't tell if he genuinely resents the distraction, or if he's simply caught off guard by the restless energy you've brought into his world. Pulling out a stray, slightly crumpled piece of paper, you smooth it flat against the worn wood of the table.

“Let’s make a proper list,” You say, clicking your pen. You look up at him, your gaze thick with expectation.

Yushi just stares back at you, his expression entirely empty like a clean page waiting for you to write the first line.

You roll your eyes and the tension breaks just a little. “Okay, fine, I’ll start. I want us to have an all-night movie marathon. No sleeping allowed. Your turn.”

The quiet air between you shifts as he finally lets the weight of your seriousness settle. He looks at you, and there it is—that sudden, unspoken understanding that he sees the restless countdown echoing in your head. For the first time, he is willing to meet you in it.

“Let’s watch the sunset,” He says, letting the words drift softly across the table. “Somewhere high up, where we can see the whole town turn to dark.”

“I like that.”

Even as time pulls the world toward tomorrow, there is no one else you would rather stay beside as the day draws to a close. So you just sit there, your shoulder brushing against his, stealing another minute from a world that won't stop moving.

A sharp ache settles into the spaces between your ribs. You look at his face, trying to memorize every line of it, the exact tilt of his head, silently pulling the moment taut and stretching this fragile present as far as it can go.

The truth is that you aren’t ready to let go just yet. Yushi has claimed a place in your life despite the short time you've known him. He stepped into your world so quietly and completely that it feels as though he has always been there, filling up the empty spaces before you even knew how to name them.

You clear your throat. “My turn. I want to buy myself something completely frivolous.”

The corners of Yushi’s mouth perk up. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. A pair of really hideous earrings.”

“You don’t even have your ears pierced.”

“That’s the whole point, Yushi.” You say, emphasizing each word before dissolving into a soft laugh.

Yushi smiles then, and his features yield to the moment just as a stray beam of sun hits his face. The glow seems to spill from him—and suddenly, the morning light flares against the glass, painting the empty classroom in strokes of warmth that make the world outside fade completely away.

“Come on,” You say softly, the words barely more than a murmur as your shoulder gently brushes against his. “Give me more.”

As Yushi takes the paper and pen into his hands, you feel your heart sink and swell all at once. The room falls still—the only sound the faint scratching of the pen before he lays it down between you.

“Start a new tradition?” You read aloud.

Yushi nods, though his expression carries a flicker of uncertainty. “Yeah. Something just for us. Something we keep doing, no matter where we go for college or how messy things get.”

A tradition means a promise to keep going, even when college changes everything. It is exactly what you have been too afraid to ask for. Still, you look up from the ink to his face, where the morning light still catches the edge of his jaw, and feel the ache behind your ribs finally begin to soften.

“Okay,” Your whisper steadies as you meet his gaze.

Yushi can be frustratingly guarded, but underneath the silence, there’s precision to the way he cares. He doesn’t always use words to say it, but he has a way of noticing the tiny things you think go unseen—the invisible shifts in your posture when you feel exposed, and the wordless truths you try to keep to yourself.

When he passes the paper back to you, your hand wavers over the blank space. You know exactly what you want to write, but the thought of seeing it in ink makes your pulse quicken. Putting it on the page would make it real—and once the words are there, in indelible ink, everything changes.

“What?” Yushi asks, tilting his head as if trying to decode the sudden hesitation in your eyes.

“Promise you won’t laugh at me?”

“I didn’t laugh when you confidently gave a five-minute presentation in English class with your sweater on completely backward and inside out.” Yushi counters. “I don’t think anything could top that.”

A small smile breaks through your nerves as you shake your head. He had definitely let out a quiet snort back then, but you love the effort he is making to ease your mind.

“I want to do something that scares me.” You murmur.

Yushi leans in close and slides his chair toward yours, shrinking the room around you until the tension in your shoulders fades away. “Like what?”

Your fingers trace the cool plastic of the pen, then your grip tightens, stalling before the nib can even brush the page. You could back down—the idea was yours, after all—but a resolute voice at the back of your brain is pulling at you to be brave. It’s a fragile thing, this unspoken truth hanging heavily between you. You know Yushi will not mock you, yet you remain suspended on the edge of your own hesitation between the thought and the ink.

To write the words down is to admit who you are becoming.

You are nineteen now, standing on the precipice of everything that comes next. There is an unshakable gravity to growing up, and to the dire terror of letting someone else see the parts of you that you keep hidden—but the regret of never knowing feels infinitely heavier. You do not want to leave high school without that kind of understanding.

The words leave your lips before your mind can pull them back.

“I want to have sex.”

A hot flush creeps up your neck and paints your cheeks an undeniable red. This was a mistake, you think almost instantly, as a sudden panic anchors itself in your chest. You brace yourself for the inevitable—for Yushi to break into a grin, to crack a joke, or to hide behind his usual dry wit to save you both from the awkwardness.

But Yushi swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing sharply against the sudden stillness. He parts his lips as if to say something, but the words dissolve before they can form, and the laughter you expected entirely vanishes. Instead, his gaze drops and traces the familiar lines of your world. His eyes flicker toward the school logo stitched over your chest, and from there, they drift down to your hands as you nervously twist the pen in your lap.

The air between you bends, growing dense with a warmth that coats your skin like early summer fever. He remains perfectly still, yet the atmosphere around him begins to press close. A faint rippling breaks through his composure, and you can sense the change in the air like the first press of wind before a storm. His breathing turns shallow, and the familiar mask of his mockery melts from his face. His eyes lock onto yours like a needle finding north, though it is unclear just how deeply your words have marked him.

A long moment passes before Yushi finally lets the quiet fall away.

“Having sex is like, the one thing you can still do out there in the adult world.”

“I know, but it’s different.” You say, taking a deep breath to steady the fluttering in your chest. “I just want to have some experience before college. That’s all.”

Yushi nods, though the tight line of his mouth betrays his skepticism. “Nobody cares about those things in the real world. If somebody really likes you, they won’t give a crap if you’re inexperienced.”

Your lips pull into a slight pout. “I’m scared of looking clueless at college. You know how guys get with girls who haven't had a boyfriend yet. Plus… I want to know how it feels. Don't you?"

His eyes lock onto yours with the pull of a tide that drowns out every thought he dares not say, and leaves you to drown in a silence of your own making. The single second stretches into an eternity as he silently weighs the risk of laying his mind bare, before the tension in his jaw melts into something softer.

“Of course I’m curious,” He confesses, his voice dropping into a near-whisper cadence. “But I’m not going to rush this just because everyone else is. I want to wait until it feels right.”

An anxious urge pulls you forward even as your instincts warn you to draw back. Your spine teeters in a tense tilt, locked between wanting to know and wanting to look away. You look for any sign of what he's thinking, but find nothing worth holding on to—Yushi only ever offers the words, and hoards the depth to himself.

“And how do you know if it’s right?”

A gentle expression dawns on Yushi’s face just as the morning sun caresses him, gilding the curve of his mouth in amber light. Without even realizing, the warmth tugs at your lips and pulls them upward to mirror his own. It feels like you’re sharing a moment that belongs only to the two of you—until the frigid voice of rationality steps in, whispering that it doesn't mean anything more.

Yushi is a friend. Just a friend.

Still, he holds your eyes just a beat longer than he usually does. There is an unmistakable tenderness there, so plain for you to see—the kind of unfiltered affection that strips away his usual distance and leaves your heart tripping over its own rhythm.

“I’ll just know.”

You are on a mission.

You know exactly what you have to do, even if Yushi doesn’t entirely agree with your methods, or the ultimate scope of what you are chasing. Truly, ever since that conversation in the empty classroom a few days ago, you haven't been able to think about anything else. Taking that leap is just a normal part of growing up. It is a path so many others have already walked, and yet it feels like a monumental rite of passage to you, even if the rest of the world treats it as routine.

You want the experience for yourself—not because everyone else is doing it, but because you are tired of just wondering what lies on the other side of that threshold. You want to feel that rush for yourself. So, so badly.

The plan is simple: you show up at Sion’s party in a top that pulls and lifts until your chest looks like an invitation, and you wait for someone to get lost in the shadowed dunes between one breast and the other.

Yushi just shakes his head when you lay out the night like it’s a high-stakes heist. He mutters that you're taking a step backward by dressing for an audience, but his logic is just cold salt against the feverish hum of your skin. You aren’t here to entertain his lecture when your pulse is already aimed toward the prize—a night where you feel bold and reckless enough to chase the heat of being wanted and the ache of being ruined.

The plan is already in motion, and you don’t care that Yushi went dead silent the second you stepped out of your front door. You don’t care that he hasn't looked at you once since he started the car, his knuckles white against the steering wheel as if the space between the seats has suddenly become impossible to navigate. Whatever storm is brewing on his side of the car is just a hollow echo compared to your reflection, where your tits spill over the edges of that top like a sacred invitation waiting for the right pair of hands to claim it.

(And if Yushi’s gaze founders in your cleavage when you’re applying another layer of gloss, you don’t notice at all. You never do, anyway.)

When you arrive at the party, the room is already a sea of moving bodies. You recognize faces from the high school hallways, classmates waving at you and Yushi with drinks clutched tightly in their hands. The music is loud enough that you feel the bass deep in your chest—an overwhelming intrusion, but exactly what you need. It serves as a physical reminder that you are standing here, wide awake, burning so desperately with life.

You catch sight of Sion, and your focus narrows onto him like he is your chosen prey for the evening. Beside you, Yushi goes still. You don't have to say a word for him to register the tension in your shoulders—he simply absorbs the shift, the way he always does, and silently closes the space between you.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.” His whisper sends waves of shivers right through you. Before the sensation even has time to settle, his palm finds the bare skin above your skirt and takes root there, firmly, as if the touch is the only thing keeping you from dissolving entirely into the noise.

Yushi gives you one last look that is laden with hesitation, yet stripped of the softness he usually holds for you. And right then, even in the shadows of the house, you don’t need clarity to know the ground has just given away beneath your feet. The fierce chasm in his eyes pools darker than the room itself.

You nod anyway and wait, tracking Yushi until he's folded back into the crowd before you turn your heels toward Sion. You don’t even know why you do it—this hesitation, this lingering. Part of you wants to make sure he isn’t left alone for the rest of the night, and the rest just needs him far enough away that he won't see the mistake you're about to make.

By the time you reach Sion, your lips curve into a wide smile that tilts more into a smirk.

It’s no secret Sion is good-looking. There’s a natural authority to his presence that draws every eye and cradles him at the center of the room while everyone else blurs around him. You don’t particularly feel that pull yourself, but that doesn't stop you from appreciating that he was handed a winning hand by biology itself. Sion’s good looks are a fact, an objective truth acknowledged by the entire school body—and a detail you’re more than willing to turn in your favor right now.

“Hey,”

You say, the word coming out a little too stiffly. A little too rushed. A wave of self-consciousness washes over you instantly, and you regret the awkwardness the exact second it leaves your mouth.

“Oh, y/n! I was hoping you’d come.” Sion says, and there's a sudden brightness in his expression that's impossible to miss. He shifts on his feet, leaning toward you as he gestures toward a line of bottles. “Let me pour you a drink.”

Leaning against the kitchen counter, you watch him reach for the glasses with a practiced ease—but even as you take in the brilliant sight, you're entirely immune to his effect.

There’s no magic in the way the veins in his hands grow distinct and tense as he reaches for the bottle. You don't feel a single thing when he manufactures a flimsy excuse just to reach out and tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. Your heart remains perfectly still even when he takes your glass, fitting his mouth over the exact, shimmering stain of your lip gloss without breaking eye contact once. It’s irritating, almost—how much you wish your heart would hammer against your ribs when his hand begins tracing causal circles against your skin.

There’s no rush, none of the excitement you thought you’d feel—just pure remorse that settles over you like a long evening shadow, swallowing every last bit of your warmth.

Sion’s lips press against yours, testing the waters before he pulls you in deeper with more purpose. You go through the motions as you kiss him back, even though the moment feels too rushed, too hollow. It’s frustrating how easily it falls apart against the weight of the expectations you spent the whole school year imagining.

Sion has clearly done this before, yet his touch feels entirely superficial, like he’s afraid to let his guard down and leave a real impression. His hands hover and shift against your waist, never quite finding where to rest and lacking any real intent. It coaxes a frustrated groan from your throat—a sound he misinterprets completely as a green light to draw you closer.

The urge to wedge distance between your bodies makes your eyes flicker open, but every intention evaporates the moment you catch sight of Yushi watching from across the room. While the rest of his friends sway to the beat of the music, Yushi stands completely still, his eyes fixed solely on you. Even from across the crowded room, you see the sharp clench of his jaw the second Sion’s hand brushes against your cheek.

It isn't the first time Yushi has kept a protective eye on you at a party, ready to offer an easy escape if things go sideways—but tonight, there are deeper undercurrents to his vigilance. The warm solace of your best friend is gone, overwritten by a severe coldness you can’t decipher. But the more you look at him the more the restlessness at the base of your stomach—the one that hadn't stirred at all while Sion touched you—flares to life.

It’s a rush of pure adrenaline, and it has nothing to do with the sloppy, uncoordinated kisses Sion is forcing on your lips.

It is just Yushi, you remind yourself. Your Yushi, the person who knows you better than anyone else—yet, he is watching you with a gravity that means nothing and everything all at once.

Pushing your hands against Sion, you finally force enough distance to break apart. If this is everything you’ve ever wanted, why does drawing in a breath taste like absolute freedom? Like it’s the only good thing that’s happened all night? You glimpse the confusion on Sion’s face and the shape of an apology bending his mouth—one you don't actually hear, but feel settling over you all the same.

Right now, you can't string a single thought together. All you can see, all you can focus on, is the tight clench of Yushi’s jaw while someone else’s mouth is crowded against yours, and the gaze he fixes on you, burning, almost obsessive, as if it’s taking him every ounce of his control not to step in and rip Sion away from you.

As if your very breath belongs to him.

Your feet move toward a precise location before you’ve even had a chance to think your actions through. It’s muscle memory—an instinctual, inescapable pull that always draws you back to Yushi whenever the world starts to feel like too much. But this time, as you weave through the sea of dancing bodies, you feel a spark of anger ignite at your fingertips.

He ruined it—partially, technically. Without taking so much as a single step toward you, Yushi managed to completely shatter the moment. He has no clue that a single look from him made you feel more alive than Sion’s kiss ever could, and he can’t know either.

To tell him the truth is to cross a line you can never, ever step back over. Yushi is your best friend, of all people. The one person you can’t afford to lose. To give the attraction a name is to strike a match against your history and watch everything you’ve ever built together go up in flames. As you close the distance between you, the reality sinks in—this friendship is the only safe ground you have left, and you aren't ready to lose it.

“Checked it off your list already?”

He tries to pass it off as a joke, but his tone gives him away. It doesn't sound like casual sarcasm to your ears. If anything, it sounds like a raw nerve being struck—as if watching you with someone else is a bitter pill he's being forced to swallow.

He doesn't even spare you a glance as he speaks.

His shoulders are squared toward the rest of your friends, carving out a space that completely excludes you as if you’ve become invisible to the only person you're actually looking at.

You should be glad he isn’t looking at you right now, not after the way his gaze burned through you while you were with Sion. But you aren't. Because even just catching the edge of his jaw in the dim light makes you fall apart anyway.

“What is wrong with you tonight?” You press, stepping closer so he can hear you over the music.

Yushi’s expression tightens. He keeps his eyes fixed on the scuffed floorboards, refusing to meet your gaze. “What are you talking about?”

“Really? You don’t know?” The words burst from you, the tension of the past few days finally bubbling over. “You criticized me. You tried to talk me out of this. You groaned in frustration every time I even mentioned how I wanted tonight to go, and then you just stood there, staring me down. It feels like you’ve been doing everything in your power to ruin my night.”

He lets out a dry snort but says nothing, keeping his lips tightly sealed. His eyes deliberately wander to the ceiling, and that's the exact moment your frustration finally boils over.

“You won't even look at me,” The words come out quieter and more vulnerable than you meant them to be. You step directly into his personal space, forcing him to acknowledge you. He flinches back half a step, and for the first time, the impenetrable wall he usually keeps between you looks ready to crack.

“Why are you so mad at me?”

“I just—” He stops himself short, shaking his head as if trying to physically stop the wrong words from escaping. He draws in a slow breath, his jaw flexing as he forces himself not to look at you. “I don't understand why you’re in such a hurry to lose your virginity to someone who doesn't even matter to you.”

You blink, tilting your head as you try to process his words. For some obscure reason, a part of you actually wants it to be jealousy. You want his words to bite a little, because at least then you'd know for sure that the idea of anyone else touching you actually gets to him.

“Do I have to run a list of names by you first?” The words are sharp with disbelief. “Just wait for you to point at who you approve of? Is that how this works now, Yushi?”

And finally, his head snaps toward you, snaring you in a look so intense it locks you right in place. You’ve wanted him to look at you all night, but now that he is, you find yourself suddenly wishing he'd look away. It’s less of a victory and more a trap. There is nowhere left for you to hide, no casual excuse to fall back on—just the suffocating weight of his attention holding you hostage right there in the open.

He shakes his head. When he speaks again, his voice drops to a low, strained warning. “Drop it. We’re not doing this tonight. Not here.”

“I don’t want to fight either,” The annoyance in your voice is sharp enough to cut through the noise of the room. You cross your arms over your chest, putting up a wall of your own. “I just want to know what's going on in your head right now. Because you are clearly holding back.”

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you take another step forward, directly into his orbit where he doesn't have room to push you away.

“Tell me, Yushi. Why does it matter so much to you if my first time is with someone I don’t know that well? Why are you so hung up on who I’m with?” You throw the question right at him, refusing to back down. “It’s my business. You don’t get to decide what’s good for me, and you definitely don’t get to be this pissed off at me for kissing someone else when you aren't even... we aren't even like that.”

A heavy silence falls between you even as your bones continue to pulse with the vibrations of the music. Around you, the party rages on, but the air right here has gone stagnant and suffocating. Everything else starts to blur at the edges, until the music and the voices fade into a meaningless hum in the background. Suddenly, he’s the only person that matters and the only thing that fills your senses.

“Exactly.” He whispers.

“What?”

“Exactly,” He repeats, finally looking right into your eyes. His voice is tight with a confession he’s fought against making. “It’s your business, and I shouldn’t butt in. I shouldn’t have a single say in it. But seeing you with someone else is driving me out of my mind, and I just don't know how to turn that off.”

The anger drains out of him, but its sting is replaced by a look that is far heavier, and far more exposed. His eyes seem to darken as his pupils open up, swallowing the color of his eyes until they look nothing but a deep, dark pool.

A gasp stalls in your throat as an electric current seems to pass right through your veins. It’s as if you’ve spent your whole life circling a silent fire, and now that the heat has finally caught you, you’re too close to do anything but let it burn you.

A dark strand of hair falls across his forehead, and you crave the simple touch of brushing it back where it belongs. But you can’t move. You stand rooted to the spot, caught in a wave of hunger and longing. All you can do is trace the familiar lines of his face—the curve of his brow, the slope of his nose, the shape of his lips.

Every fragmented memory and stray thought suddenly aligns, forming a picture that makes a terrifying amount of sense, until—

Oh.

You've looked at him every day for five years, yet right now, he is so breathtaking it feels like it's stealing the air right out of your lungs.

“Yushi,” The sound barely escapes you.

Yushi shakes his head, regret clouding his expression as he tries to pull away.

“I’m sorry.” He says, trying to step back. “It’s not my place to say those things. Just forget I even said them. I’ll ask Riku to drop you off later. Really, I’m so sor—”

You finally regain control of your muscles, stepping forward to cut him off mid sentence. Your palm curves right against the chiseled line of his jaw and the soft skin of his cheek, your fingers almost trembling as if the moment were fragile glass that a single breath could break. He is several inches taller than you, yet in this tiny pocket of space that is yours alone, he seems to pull inward, folding directly into your hand—and suddenly, you are the only two people left in this world.

You press your forehead right against his chin, letting your eyes close as the warmth of his breath brushes against your skin.

What am I doing? The logical part of your brain whispers, but the rest of you is too busy noticing how the static in your head has finally gone quiet. It’s the first time in nineteen years you haven't felt like you were just passing through.

“Be honest with me, Yushi.” You whisper. “Please.”

Yushi’s hand comes up to cup your waist, sinking into the dip you’ve been unconsciously carving for him since the start—a hollow you didn't even know was empty until his palm pressed home. He’s never touched you there, yet your skin recognizes his touch like its own.

There is no hesitation, no searching for permission or testing the air. His skin recognizes yours, too, as if it were a missing piece of himself he’s been searching for in the dark.

His thumb drags a quiet circle over your lower rib, etching his name into your flesh with a reverence that makes your heart stutter. It feels so incredibly right—not just the touch, or the way he’s so close your atoms almost crush into his, but the terrifying, unavoidable truth that everything you’ve ever wanted has always been right in front of you.

“You could’ve asked me,” he murmurs against your forehead, his fingers lightly caressing the side of your neck. “If you wanted to do this so badly, you could’ve just asked me. I matter to you.”

“You said you didn’t want to rush things.” Your voice shakes just enough to betray how much he affects you. “You said you were waiting for the right moment. How was I supposed to get anything from that? I’m not a mind reader, Yushi. I didn't know you wanted me to just ask.”

Yushi looks down at you, and his expression is so raw and exposed it makes your own heart ache.

“What else was I supposed to say? That I’ve never wanted anyone in my entire life as much as I want you? That the thought of someone else holding you makes me sick?”

“You’re an idiot.” You murmur, the words coming out more like a confession than a reprimand. “I’ve been trying to figure out why you were acting so weird, and this is it? You’ve just been... keeping this in?”

You look at him, and you realize that everything you thought you knew about him is officially outdated. The boy you grew up with has been replaced by someone much more complicated, and much more dangerous to your heart.

You feel like an idiot for missing all the signs, but you can't even process his confession because you're too busy dealing with your own—the fact that you want everything with him, of him, a piece of information you only discovered three seconds ago and have no idea what to do with.

“I didn't think I had a choice… I thought if I said it, I’d ruin everything. And I wasn't ready to lose you just because I couldn't keep my head straight.”

His hand finds your cheek, and the contact is so much heavier than it used to be. His thumb drags slowly over your lower lip, the touch so heavy with restraint it’s almost painful. It’s so obvious he’s still trying to hold himself back, even though the truth is out in the open. You can see it in the way his jaw is set, in the way his fingers twitch against your skin—like he’s terrified that if he stops being careful for even a second, he’ll lose control completely.

“I’m done hiding how I feel, y/n. I tried to be smart about it, to wait for the right time, but I can’t stay quiet for another second. It’s too much. I’m at a point where I’d rather just be honest and lose you than keep lying to your face every single day.”

Seriously, you feel so stupid for not understanding before, but you don't have time to dwell on the past. Not when he’s looking at you like this.

I want him.

The thought is loud, drowning out every doubt you’ve ever had. You don’t want to talk anymore. You don't want to explain. You just need to kiss him—right now, right here, before he has the chance to pull away.

“Yushi,” You lean into his space, refusing to give him an inch of distance to hide in. This is happening, and you aren't waiting for permission anymore. You’re going to kiss him. You just have to. “Shut up.”

The thread between you finally pulls taut, and you don’t think twice before catching the collar of his shirt and closing every distance that has ever set you apart.

When your lips finally meet his, the ache you’ve been carrying finally grounds itself. This kiss is nothing like the one you shared with Sion. There is no shallow imitation of what you think you should feel, or awkward searching for a rhythm that simply isn't there. Yushi’s mouth finds yours with a precision that makes your vision blur and your insides turn upside down.

His tongue slides in with tender certainty, brushing against yours as if all your history is now something you can actually touch. His hands slip onto the bare skin beneath the hem of your shirt. You catch your breath, and as he pulls you closer, you swear you feel his heart beat in your own chest.

Kissing Yushi is natural the same way taking a breath is—something instinctive you do without thinking just to stay alive. It’s so effortless that you don't realize how much you needed it until it has entirely consumed you.

You pull back just enough to breathe, but you stay right there, unwilling to put any real distance between you. When your eyes lock with his, you both break into wide, helpless smiles that reshape fears into certainties.

“I never wanted to ruin your night,” He pecks your lips gently as he murmurs. “As a matter of fact, I wanted you to succeed in your plans. I thought if you did, I could finally forget about all of this and move on. Guess I’m not the best at hiding it, am I?”

A soft chuckle rumbles in his chest and vibrates right against your lips, before he pulls back just enough to lock his eyes onto you. At last, he allows himself to drink in the sight of you.

His gaze drags down the length of your body, taking you in completely for the first time all night as if he’s trying to memorize every single line. He is entirely transfixed, the memory of your kiss still fresh on his lips. You are drowning in the same feverish energy, watching him lose himself in the soft curves of your chest.

There is a terrifying sanctity in the way he stares, tracing your lines with the agonizing precision of a sculptor carving your likeness into marble. And as you inhale the thick atmosphere, your breasts rising and straining the fabric of the top, you realize you have become his gravity—that at any moment, he might succumb and let the earth take him whole. It’s a personal triumph that the mere sight of you robs the air from his lungs and bruises his composure so much that the last pillar of his restraint finally buckles.

“You look incredible, by the way.” He maps the goosebumps on your lower back, his fingers trembling in a stark betrayal of his steady gaze. His mouth ghosts over the sensitive landscape of your neck, pressing a kiss slow enough to draw a broken shiver from your throat.

“You are so fucking hot it’s actually a problem.” He rasps against your skin. “I had to keep my eyes on the floor because I knew the second I saw you, I’d get rock hard in front of everyone.”

Your fingers knot into the fabric of his shirt as a molten weight pools deep in your belly. He hasn't even touched you yet—he is only looking, and it is enough to unravel you completely.

“You don’t have to hide it.” Rising to your tiptoes, you let your lips ghost over the shell of his ear, leaving a trail of ardor before pressing a lingering kiss that feels like a benediction. “You can look at me. I want to see you break.”

A guttural groan breaks from his chest—the kind of sound that’s slow and thick with the pleasure of indulging in your perfect geometry. There’s something feral and so infuriatingly hot about the wreckage you’ve made of him.

You watch the way his hair, once parted with precision, now betrays the evidence of your fingers where they clutched at him—as if he were the merciless thief of your balance and the only tether keeping you from total collapse all at once.

You tilt your head, your gaze wandering from his eyes to his lips. “So, am I allowed to ask you now? Because I just checked that list you were so worried about... and there’s only your name on it.”

“You want this so bad, mh?” An amused curve touches his lips, not quite a smile, but enough to show he understands exactly what he's doing to you.

He wears that smirk like a challenge, but you don’t let it fool you. The real power rests in your hands right now, and the sudden darkening of his eyes proves he knows it, too. You don’t even bother defending yourself against his pointed accusation. You just move closer, pressing your skin close enough to let the truth of his own body answer for him.

The hard line of his arousal brushes against your stomach, leaving a trailing fever in its wake that makes it clear he’s done for. Smirk or no smirk.

He tilts his hips into yours as a groan catches in his throat—and just like that, the tables turn. You’re the one flaunting the victory, and he’s the one left breathless by it.

“And you don’t?”

Yushi brushes his thumb gently over your lips, tracing the dampness he left there as if he’s trying to seal the memory of the kiss. “You sure about this?”

“Yes, Yushi.” You huff a frustrated breath. “If you don’t put your hands on me right now, I’m going home to do it myself. And I’ll be thinking of how much you’re missing out on while I do it.”

“Jesus, that’s so hot.” He draws in a slow breath, finally looking around the crowded room that, for the last ten minutes, had felt miles away. “My place is closer. Unless you’re really into the idea of getting naked in Sion’ bedroom?”

Your gaze drifts upward for a brief, exasperated second. “Your house sounds perfect.”

You turn your back on the crowd, shutting out the rumble of the music and the sea of familiar faces. The moment you step outside, the crisp night air brushes against your skin like a clean slate. You make your way to the car in a breathless rush, so giddy and laughing with reckless joy. He even swings the door open for you, but stops just long enough to steal a quick kiss. The brief thought of saying goodbye to the others flickers in your mind, but it vanishes just as quickly.

Nothing else matters now except the two of you, and the cosmic perfection of his hand wrapped in yours.

You pull each other close the second you cross his threshold, your hands tangling as though you’ve spent a lifetime apart. He guides you up the stairs, kissing you breathless the entire way. It’s the kind of desperate, head-spinning want that ignites teenagers in love—and perhaps that’s exactly what you are, even if neither of you has found the words to say it yet.

In the dark, Yushi’s hand finds the handle and turns it easily. You’ve been in this room a hundred times before—to pore over books, to get lost in the glow of a movie, and simply let the days unfold around you—but as the door swings open and closes behind the two of you, the familiar walls feel completely altered.

You’ve spent a hundred lifetimes here, but in none of them were you this close to forgetting your name. Yushi traps you against the door and starves your lungs of oxygen as his hand slides under your shirt to claim every inch of you. When his tongue finds the rhythm of yours, you realize it isn’t this room that has changed.

It’s only you, finally catching up to him as the moonlight transforms the familiar space into something more private and new.

Yushi pulls back, just enough to stare, and in the ink-dark of his eyes, you could swear you see the stars themselves beginning to glimmer.

“You’re so beautiful, y/n. I’ve had this exact moment memorized in my head, but it doesn’t even compare to the real thing.”

You hold his gaze, and just like that, everything clicks into place. The faint light reflecting in the dark of his gaze wakes you up completely, as though you've been blind until this exact second.

The world around you sharpens, and you realize that until this moment, you had only ever been looking at the shadows of things.

“It’s kind of silly, and I'm almost afraid to say it out loud, but I just realized… even when I'm not thinking about it, my eyes are always searching for you the second I walk in.”

Your confession pulls a beaming smile from Yushi. He threads his fingers through your hair, softly, as if you're made of something too good to be real. “Mh, is that right? And here I thought you were just staring at the wall."

When your lips meet again, you draw in that newfound clarity like your first breath of air.

One of his hands comes up to cup your jaw gently, while his thumb brushes your cheekbone as if to prove you aren't just a figment of his imagination. A soft groan escapes him when he realizes you are very much real—and so is this moment, along with the truths spoken in the space of a breath.

The world shrinks down to the rhythm of his heartbeat, the tender friction of his mouth, and the familiar taste of Dr. Pepper and something much more than a friendship on his lips.

Before the sudden rush of movement even registers, Yushi sinks into the mattress and draws you flat against his chest. Your hands find the steady line of his shoulders to brace your weight, and you lean in further, refusing to lose the connection even for a second. You aren't letting him go.

You follow him down in a heartbeat, chasing the touch of his lips as helplessly as a sailor lured by sirens—giving in so completely that not an ounce of resistance remains.

You don’t notice the skirt bunching higher until his clothed erection strikes too close to home, finding the exact center of your heat through the thin silk of your lace. The feeling that follows is even sweeter and more consuming than anything you had ever imagined, and you find yourself pursuing it once more, chafing your panties against his hard cock just to invite the ache in all over again.

“Y/n,” He moans against your lips, his voice thin and so desperate. His hands lock onto your hips to press you closer, anchoring you to his lap as the friction of his denim wakes every nerve in your skin and sends a jolt of electricity through you. It is almost too much to bear, nearly bordering on overwhelming—and yet, the night is only just offering up its first secrets.

“Y/n,” He repeats and his voice rings out with a roughness that startles you. “I’m not gonna last much longer if you keep moving like that.”

You graze his earlobe between your teeth, watching as another moan rushes out of him. What a beautiful sight he is, so beautifully wrecked and desperate for your touch alone.

“You like it?”

“You have no idea.” He groans, his eyes shut tight. “I’ve never been so fucking hard before.”

You push him back until his back meets the mattress, and the truth strikes you just as quickly as he falls back—his presence has never been more spellbinding. He bows to your every whim without a single word like the moon fading into the first rays of the sun, offering up all his control just to be near you—because he trusts you more than anyone else in the world, and there is no one else he would ever let see him this way.

Yushi is yours as much as the roots belong to the earth beneath them, for the present, for tomorrow, and for all the days that follow.

He’s handed you everything—the power to save him or break him completely—and the thrill of having that choice makes it almost impossible to breathe. To you, this is the most intoxicating part of all.

“Take off my skirt.”

The skirt pools around your hips the second it’s unfastened, and you’re shrugging it off and kicking it aside, too focused on the way his hands are searing you to care where it lands. They tremble as they reach down to find the edge of your lace. The air stagnates between you as his fingers drift lower and lower, straying from the fabric to the warm skin of your hips with a confidence that draws a wet sound from you. His touch is barely a whisper, almost not there at all, yet every point of contact feels like it’s etching a trail on your skin.

He flips you in one swift motion, and the bed creaks lightly as he claims the space above you. He leaves you no room for breath before he starts licking and nipping your neck with the intention to leave a mark. Even as the world blurs, you find yourself leaning into the sensation rather than drawing away.

You cannot think past the throbbing heat in your core, or the way Yushi’s erection is hovering inches away and brushing against you with every breath he takes.

His hand travels down to cup your clothed folds, and you know you’re irrevocably lost to him the moment you realize your breath has left you completely.

“God, Y/n. Look how much you want me already.”

His pressure against your lace increases, and another sharp gasp breaks from your lungs.

“Stop teasing me, Yushi.” You mean to sound firm, you really do, but the protest dissolves into a breathy sound that betrays your composure entirely.

Yushi carries on without the slightest hesitation—teasing the straps of your top, watching you squirm again, tugging them down.

Your boobs bounce as the fabric abandons your chest entirely. The top was too flawless to interrupt with extra layers anyway—though now that you’re standing in the aftermath of your own choices, you’re questioning whether that decision was a blessing or a curse.

You try to bring your arms up to shield yourself, but Yushi is too quick, holding your wrists down and leaving you completely exposed to him. Time seems to stretch thin as he watches you in quiet adoration, drinking you in for the first time. He rivets his eyes on every curve and line as if he's trying to burn this exact moment into his mind forever—like he’s afraid the morning light will change your mind and make you wish you’d never let the walls fall down between you.

You’d never let that happen, clearly. Not when he's looking at you like you’re his entire word and the most beautiful thing he’s ever discovered.

He draws near until there is no air left between him and your nipple. He gives it a tentative lick that makes you shiver—then whatever hesitation he had melts, and he begins flicking his tongue against your nipple with a much more confident sweep. You back arches off the bed, your hands reaching out instinctively for an anchor until your fingers tangle into the thick strands of his hair.

“Yushi,” You cry out, your eyes squeezing shut as the pleasure spreads all over you. “It feels so good.”

“You have no idea,” He groans, a rough sound in the back of his throat as he hovers over your lips. “I’ve spent every night for the last year dreaming of this. Having you right here, in my bed. Looking like this just for me."

And since that sound of it clearly wasn't enough to thaw you out, he pinches your other nipple.

“Yushi, please—”

“Please what, y/?” His thumb hooks into your waistband and tugs it enough to make your back curve.

What a fucking tease. Honestly, he should win an award for that level of torture.

“Tell me what you want, y/n. Use those pretty lips of yours. Let me hear you say it.”

“I want you. Everything.” The words finally find their way past the knot in your throat. “Take off your damn shirt and fuck me like it’s all you’ve ever wanted to do.”

Thankfully, he doesn’t need to be told twice. He rips the shirt over his head in one fluid motion and tosses it carelessly across the room without ever breaking eye contact.

You had seen fragments of him before—a sliver of bare skin in the library when he stretched—but seeing him bare still sends jolts through your veins. His time on the track team has clearly paid off, and you are reaping every single benefit.

He’s all silver light and sharp angles in the dark. Your hands find the curve of his waist, and the skin there feels like burnished marble—so firm and scorched that it’s almost impossible to believe he’s real. You wonder how you went this long without knowing exactly how he felt.

“Like what you see?” A teasing smirk curves his lips when he catches you staring.

Your heart drums against your ribs as the color floods your face. You really, really do, but you force the flush down. You aren't about to let a simple smirk derail your focus. His pants are still on, and the simple fact alone irritates you. Still, you follow the contours of his torso with your touch, watching the muscles tighten as he draws his head back.

“I’ll fill out the opinion survey right after you make me come.”

A soft laugh escapes him—a melody meant for you only—and he leans in close again. There’s an urgency in the way his lips crash against yours, but you sink into him without a single complaint. When his mouth parts from yours to trail a path down to your chest, you find yourself pouting, already missing the press of his lips.

Yushi’s lips follow the line of your sternum, moving lower and lower until he’s kissing the sensitive skin just below your belly button. His breath hits the edge of your panties, and your legs twitch involuntarily.

“Please, Yushi. Touch me.”

You feel the rough graze of his knuckles against your skin as your panties are drawn down entirely.

“Finally.” He mutters, then he leans forward, his hand sliding under your thighs to pull you exactly where he wanted you.

The agonizing wait ends as his tongue finally strokes your cunt, softly at first, then with a staggering pressure.

“Yushi—”

He glances up at you for a fleeting second, his gaze dark and clouded with heat, before he dives back in again. He settles into a pace that hits exactly where you need it most, his nose stroking a sensitive spot as his head angles to test your responses. He is so methodical that it’s maddening. Every one of his movements is calculated, and the precision of it leaves you as nothing more than a whimpering mess.

Hearing you say his name is the last bit of permission he needs. He reacts instantly, his hands locking onto your legs to root the both of you as he chases you towards your high.

Every flicker of his tongue and suction against your wetness amplifies the warmth inside your folds. His rhythm remains unwavering even as one hand wanders higher to circle your nipple and as the other prepares to slide a single finger inside you. The sensation is so sharp and singular that it feels like there’s an actual electric current humming beneath your bones.

Your breath hitches into a fractured cry as you dig your heels into the mattress, trying to find an anchor while the pleasure threatens to spin you out of orbit.

“Yes, right there.”

You’re certain you can’t handle more until that slight curl of his finger proves you wrong and sends your head thumping back into the pillow. He picks up the pace, his thumb and finger working in perfect unison until you feel like the walls of your throat are starting to close in.

You can feel your muscles clench with every thrust of his finger, and pull taut with every lick of his tongue. You’re so close, and you feel your fingers knot in his hair, too. You’re unsure if you’re trying to pull him closer or shove him away, but you’ve stopped caring which.

“You taste so good.” He mumbles, licking up and sucking every inch of you.

Every touch is a pointed reminder and bitter strike meant only for you. He doesn’t need words to tell you this is personal. There’s a vengeful implication to his focus that he won’t let up until he’s proven that no one else can dismantle you quite like this. Not Sion, not anyone else who has ever tried to claim a piece of you.

Just him.

He feels you tighten around him, and instead of slowing down, he pushes further. He slides a second finger, stretching you just enough to make your breath hitch in a high gasp. His tongue teases your wetness once more before marking an indecent path upwards with a mixture of his saliva and your own tears.

You can’t see the state you’re in, but you can read it in the way he lingers—the way he studies the wreckage of your composure with a satiated hunger.

“You’re so fucking hot. So tight and wet for me.” He moves his fingers again, pushing them exactly where you’re aching the most. Your pupils blow wide, swallowing the moonlight, and the world goes silent as your hearing cuts to static. “Do you hear yourself, y/n?”

“This has been in my head since the day you wrote that stupid list and added losing my virginity to it.” He leans down to nip at your earlobe, his hand keeping the same torturous pace. “Everytime I saw you, I wondered if you’d make these sounds for me. If you’d look at me like this while I’m inside you.”

With one more curl of his finger, he reaches into the center of your heat and pulls—your name, your past, everything but him vanishes in an instant.

“Tell me.” He urges, his free thumb circling your clitoris. “Tell me you’re mine right now.”

You wish you had the breath to say it—to choke out sounds that aren’t moans and give him the last thing he hasn’t wrenched from you yet. Yes, Yushi, I’m yours, you’d confess. Entirely, irrevocably yours. But your throat is too strangled by your own heartbeat to let the words pass.

When he hooks his fingers deeper, the world blurs into a dizzying swirl of color. You know you’re at your limit—only one breath away from coming apart in his hand, the release rushing up to meet you.

“That’s it.” His voice breaks. “Right there. Give it to me, y/n.”

Pleasure claims you with a force that snaps your spine into a violent curve and that rips a cry from your throat. It isn’t a pretty sound, but it’s yours—as naked and raw as the state he’s left you in. The world whites out as the release crashes over you in relentless waves, and by the time the room stops spinning, you are humming with a frantic current.

Yushi doesn’t slide his fingers right out, but he eases back progressively, lingering long enough to absorb every aftershock that ripples through you. It’s almost humiliating how instinctively you seek him out, tucking yourself into the crook of his neck as if you could burrow beneath his skin and never have to face the world again.

As if you could seek a home in the very person who just dismantled you.

You lie there, no more than a collection of tremors and raw nerves, staring into the dark as you try to remember the simple mechanics of a breath. The blur in your vision recedes enough for Yushi’s cast of features to sharpen back into reality. Even now, spent and shivering, you find the energy to be annoyed.

You are bare and broken in his hands, yet he’s still standing there in a simple pair of jeans he hasn’t bothered to take off, looking too put-together and merciless for someone who was fingers deep inside you just seconds ago.

At least his eyes bleed the truth. They’ve always been your favorite thing, but right now you’re finally able to read the tremor of longing within his darkened irises—the kind of wordless admission that he hasn't walked away from this half as cleanly as he wants you to believe.

You want to be furious.

Hell, Yushi is looking at you like he is picking through the pieces of himself he broke inside of you, but the way your heart softens in spite of yourself is what makes you truly want to scream. His composure is almost an insult you’re desperate to tear away. You decide in a heartbeat that if you are to be destroyed, you are taking him with you.

You find his mouth again in a messy tangle of teeth and a lethal sort of focus. Yushi lets out a startled sound—something halfway between a grunt and a groan—before framing your face with his hands and collapsing into the kiss. His hands are soft against your cheeks, but the rest of him is a lie. No matter how much he tries to mask it, his erection is throbbing and begging for your touch.

“Your turn.” You manage to mumble against his lips. “Please, Yushi, let me take care of you.”

You claw back the last of your strength to hoist yourself up, determined to drag him out of his denim whether it takes you hours or seconds to get there. Yushi doesn't lift a finger to assist, letting you struggle with the buckle as he revels in the sight of your determination. He looks smitten, almost—like he’s a king realizing he’d rather be your subject instead. Despite the tension in his frame, a tender smile is still haunting his mouth.

A frustrated huff escapes you, your brow knitting together as you focus on the buckle. It’s a small, mundane gesture, one he’s seen a thousand times in a thousand different lights. Right now, it only seems to make Yushi’s gaze smolder and darken with a terrifying amount of adoration.

“You’re doing fine.” His eyes track your clumsy moves near his waistband. Truly, he’s so sweet and horny you wish you didn't find it so beautiful. “Take your time, y/n. I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s such a devastating dichotomy—his body is trembling with the need to shed the last piece of clothing, but he watches your frustrated movements with a look of such profound fondness that you realize he’d willingly endure this torment indefinitely, as long as it’s your hands that are the cause of it.

In the end, your stubbornness wins out when the leather yields with a clink. Your eyes flash with a wicked light as they find him.

“There,” Your hands are already sliding from the leather to the cool metal of the button when you speak again. “Found it.”

Yushi lets out a laugh that sounds almost shattered with relief. His hands drop to your waist, dragging you close to steal another kiss. “Yeah, you definitely did.”

The room is quiet when you finally pop the button and slowly work the zipper down. You can feel his entire body ignite and shiver under your touch as your knuckles guide the denim past his hips. Once the denim hits the floor in a muted thud, a sharp hiss escapes his teeth—it could be the bite of the air or the way your hands are lighting a fuse across his skin, but it doesn't matter. You're far past the point of asking questions, and solely devoted to the architecture of his undoing.

You refuse to look away when your thumbs find their way to the hem, slipping beneath to caress the marked lines you were admiring just a few minutes ago. You are operating on instinct alone, and the clumsy reality of it should be mortifying—but the way he looks at you turns your hesitation into something more precious, as if your lack of experience is the most sincere thing you have ever given him. Which it is, technically.

A part of you anticipates a frigid vastness when the last barrier drops to the floor, but the trust is much simpler—without a single layer to shield you, your fears have nothing left to cling to.

This you and him, skin to skin, existing in the raw way you always have—just with no clothes on. Yushi is so close that you swear your erratic heartbeats have found a common rhythm in the midst of this madness. You want to stop time right here, where his bare skin glimmers with adoration and the fragile distance between reality and consequences hasn’t closed yet.

This moment, this man, is a sacred place where the world cannot reach you until you decide to let it in—but you have no intention of opening the door. You don’t want anyone to see Yushi as bare and helpless as he is right now.

In this perfect vulnerability, he belongs to you only.

He cups your jaw, forcing you to drown in his gaze. “Go ahead. You can touch me."

You take him at his word. Your hand curves around his erection with caution, and goes motionless when Yushi traps a startled breath behind his teeth.

You let your palm linger, applying a soft pressure that makes his hips instinctively tilt toward you and his erection bump against your bare stomach. His eyes flutter shut as if heavy with a lifetime’s worth of relief, and the thought beats violently against your ribs—I’m yours only if you’re mine too.

His cock is big and warm against your palm, its pulse echoing deep within your own blood until you cannot tell his life from yours. He throws his head back in a mixture of pleasure and utter helplessness, and his mouth opens to spill only broken moans and profanities. His every feeling is yours, too.

You stroke the precum on his tip with your thumb, feeling the walls of cock vibrate against you. Words and air are beyond him now, but his reactions tell you everything—that you are his world, his reason to crumble, and that his body has no other name to speak.

“I can’t believe you’ve never done this before.” He manages to choke out.

You offer a small, knowing smile he can’t see, your hand tightening just slightly as you slide back down the length of him. Leaning in closer, breath warm against his ear, the rhythm of your hand doesn't falter for even a second. It’s ironic, really, that after five years of knowing you, he’s still caught off guard by the things you're capable of.

"Maybe I've just been practicing this moment in my head.”

He grunts. “Fucking hell, y/n. If this is you practicing, I don’t think I’m going to survive the real thing."

Suddenly, a thrill of confidence surges through you at the sight—the calmest man you know, now completely broken for you. You pick up the pace just a little, testing this new power and watching the way his jaw clamps shut as he tries to hold onto the last threads of his composure.

"You’re killing me.” His hips arch into your hands as your thumb teases his tip. “Five years of friendship and I had no idea you were hiding this."

The distance vanishes as you capture his next breath, answering the five years of skirting around each other with a single kiss. Below, your hand continues moving up and down the length of his cock with a more confident friction.

His fingers find your waist and dig into your hips as if he’s trying to pull you even closer, to merge the two versions of you—the boy who always knows how to make you laugh and the girl who now knows exactly how to make him lose his breath.

In one lunging blur of motion, he shifts his weight. His hands move from your hips to your shoulders, and before you can even draw a breath, the world spins off its axis. Any lingering control slips into a distant memory the second the mattress welcomes you again. He braces his hands on either side of your head, his length hovering over your wetness in pure torture.

“Need to suck you off,” You mumble, reaching out for his erection again.

Yushi shakes his head. “Another time.”

“But—”

His calloused hands slide up your arms to lace his fingers with yours, locking your hands above your head. The sheer possessiveness of the move leaves your heart slamming against your lungs like it’s trying to break free.

“No.” He tentatively grinds his length against your thigh, watching you squirm under the teasing touch. The feeling is so sudden, so profoundly good, that he loses the grip on your hands. “I want to make you feel good. Let me have you.”

Everything familiar about him seems honed to a sharp point in this light. There is no trace of the man who brought you coffee or listened to your rants, but this Yushi—this hot, dangerous Yushi—here is no stranger either.

He is simply the version that’s been waiting in the shadows of every conversation you’ve ever had—just the mirror of a truth that was always simmering under the surface. And as it turns out, the fiery version of him is the one you can't look away from.

“I’m yours.” The knot finally gives way, and you realize no other confession has ever flowed from you with such effortless grace. “You can have me. You always have.”

He drops his forehead against yours, almost relieved, almost incredulous, and the simplicity of it eclipses the sudden chill of your bare skin. He lingers so close you can feel the heat of his breath, but he keeps that final inch of distance between his lips and yours.

“Tell me you won't regret this in the morning. Tell me you don’t want this just to cross it out of your stupid list. I need to know this is… that this is actually you and me.”

Your fingers brush a stray lock of hair from his eyes. “The list doesn’t matter anymore. I want you, Yushi. I promise.”

Yushi’s shoulders drop as a shuddering breath escapes him. He leans into the contact, eyes shuttered, like a man who can finally let his lungs expand.

“Okay.” He breathes against your lips, his hand sliding down to find yours as he locks your fingers together. “Okay.”

He reaches for the nightstand, though his movements are tangled and stripped of the cool poise he usually wears. His fingers tremble so violently that the condom packet slips from his grip twice.

“Dammit.” He hisses, a deep flush staining his face. He breathes through his teeth, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle pinches.

You can’t stifle the laugh that bubbles up, not from a place of cruelty—let’s be honest, cruelty would be impossible here—but because he looks so unexpectedly adorable even in the middle of this rush.

You bite your lips to stop the smile from spreading all over your features. “Where did you even get that? I thought we were both new to this.”

Yushi freezes, looking down at the condoms in his hand. “Riku gave it to me. A joke for my birthday. Said I might actually get lucky someday.”

“So… did you ever plan on using it?”

Yushi chest rumbles against yours. “I figured the damn thing would expire before I ever got this close to you.”

A strange tenderness settles in your chest as you watch his fingers quiver. You are so captivated by every inch of him, but the reality doesn't strike with a blow. It is a soft landing, more like, as if your heart is finally exhaling a name it has known forever. Oh, there you are. I didn’t realize I’d been searching until right now.

“Here,” Your hand meets his quivering ones and gently claims the packet from his hold. “Let me.”

Yushi tracks your steady hands as they tear the plastic open with hardly any effort, and if he notices the wild thrumming in your chest, he keeps the observation to himself. Your lips stretch into a genuine smile as you roll the condom down his length—you don't mean to taut, but his dick reacts to you anyway. Seeing you so collected while he teeters on the edge seems to break him more than the physical contact itself.

Your eyes flicker up to meet his. “There.”

Yushi stays speechless. He doesn't even inhale for a lingering second, until he leans down to claim your mouth in a kiss that carries the weight of trust and vows all at once.

He sinks into the space between your legs, his fingers interlacing with yours on the rumpled bedding that smells of salt and skin.

He laces your fingers together so tightly it is impossible to tell where your hands part, then adjusts his tip firmly against your wet folds. He holds himself at the brink, slowly collecting your juice up and down, making a torture of the proximity.

“Yushi,” You whine, trying to pull him down and force him to finish what he started. “Please, don’t do this. Everything is already too much.”

“Do what, baby? I’m just following orders. You’re the one who told me not to rush.” He shifts again, watching your head thrash against the pillow. “You said to make it like everything I’ve ever wanted.”

The way he says it, and that familiar glint sharpened by a new hunger, makes it impossible to hold a single thought.

“You’re... enjoying this way too much.” You manage to choke out, your fingers digging into his muscles. You attempt an annoyed tone, but it breaks into a strained admission. “I liked you better when you were too shy to even look me in the face.”

He probes your cunt slightly before slipping back out. You bite your lip until the sharp taste of iron hits your tongue. Then he traces the sting with a slow swipe, erasing the blood with his saliva, igniting your insides.

“That version of me didn't know what he was missing.” He mutters against your lips. “And he definitely didn't know how good it would feel to have you right here.”

His thumb soaks up a drop of your milk and vanishes between his lips, where he can taste the salt. There was no exaggeration in his claim, then—he really had pictured all of this and scribbled his deepest desires into the margins of his every thought. You suddenly regret not writing that list years ago.

“Look at me.” He commands softly, tilting your chin upward until his eyes are the only thing left to see.

“I want you to remember exactly how it feels.” He inserts one finger, and your eyes slide shut, as if you need the dark to handle its pounding.

“I want you to remember how much I want you right now.” He slides in another finger, surprised by the pliancy of your skin, and how easily your walls give way now, leaving more room for him to occupy.

You know you could shatter under this friction alone. You’re still throbbing and reeling from the dexterity of his fingers just minutes ago, and it won’t take much for him to lead you back to that high—but falling apart beneath his hands isn't enough right now.

You’re hungry for the real thing.

“Yushi,” Your eyes are so glossy with tears and pleasure when they flutter open again. “Just fuck me already.”

He aligns his tip, and finally, he sinks into you. Everything else in the room—your shared history, the furniture, the very air you’re breathing—simply dissolves into nothing. You let out a sound halfway between a moan and a sob as your body stretches to accommodate his breadth. The feeling is a little overwhelming and more than exquisite, and a breath catches in a way you’ve never felt before at the sensation of being entirely inhabited—not just physically by his cock, but by feelings you weren't prepared to hold.

It’s a calibration of the soul, a relief of being known right down to the marrow. You’ve spent years scripting this moment, but none of those fantasies prepared you for losing track of yourself.

Yushi doesn't move for a long moment, just stays there, buried deep within you, his forehead dropping to press against yours as he too tries to catch his breath.

"God," He cries, the word more of a prayer than a sound. He pulls his head back just enough to force you to look at him again. "I knew... I knew it would be a lot. But I didn't think it would feel like this."

You’re hyper aware of everything—the pressure of the bed against your arched back, the taste of him in the air you breathe, and the white-hot pulse radiating from his every point of contact. Yushi sounds wrecked, too, his breath labored and uneven, the sound of one year of restraint cracking at last.

“Y/n?” He searches your eyes, his thumb tracing a gentle line over your cheekbone. “Tell me you’re okay. I need to know from you... if I can move.”

Your head bobs in a frantic affirmative. God, you couldn’t have chosen anyone better to lose your virginity to.

“I’m better than okay. Please… just move, Yushi. Don’t make me wait another second."

The sound of his name and the frantic seal of a permission wring a growl from deep in his chest. The first few pushes are slow, almost hesitant. Then he finds the perfect cadence that lay claim of every inch of the space you’ve opened for him, leaving you breathless and blind to everything but him. Your breath breaks into stutters, falling into perfect alignment with the frantic thud of your heart and the perfect rhythm of his cock slamming against your walls.

Your daydreams were trifling compared to this—none of them nearly as hot, and none so utterly all-consuming.

He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin there in a way that’s half-caress, half-claim. He’s memorizing you in motion—the curve of your throat, the way your breath hitches into a specific, broken melody, and the desperate clench of your body around him that begs him not to slow down.

“You’re so beautiful like this. Look at me.”

When your eyes flutter open, Yushi already there, looking down at you with a shattering intensity that makes you realize he is seeing and consuming in the same breath. He isn’t hiding anything anymore. His year of silent desperation is visible in the way he trembles against you and clings to your every breath, as if he’s begging to be consumed even though his body is the one dictating the control.

He waits until he is sure he has every bit of your attention, until you’re finally his, then begins to move with a precision so intentional it feels like he’s rewriting your nervous system.

"I want you to see exactly who is doing this to you," He hisses, his voice dropping into a low, more possessive tone. "I want to be the only thing you can see, the only thing you can feel."

You can feel the heat radiating between your bodies and the sweat slicking your skin where you meet. Every movement makes you feel stripped bare and vulnerable, yet it’s in that very closeness that you’ve never felt more connected to him.

“You are.” You whisper back, your voice breaking as you arch your back to meet his next surge. “"Yushi... it’s always been you. Even when I tried to look away, it was always you."

The room has shrunk to the edges of the bed, the air grown heavy and humid with the fever of your bodies and the crushing gravity of everything you’ve finally admitted. You watch the change take hold—the way your words land like a match to dry wood, igniting a raw fire in his gaze that burns through the last of his hesitation and says he is finally, completely yours.

"Just... don't stop. Don't you dare stop."

Yushi takes your plea and runs with it, his movements shedding their precision for something relentless as he stops asking for permission and starts taking what he’s craved for years. He abandons the slow tempo for a momentum that demands everything you have, stripping away the world outside the room until you’re nothing but sensation.

Each time he bottoms out against you, the shock waves travel the length of your nerves, leaving a trail of fire that forces your body to coil and your toes to dig into the sheets.

“Just like that.” He chokes out, his voice a broken moan as he hits a perfect depth.

Midway through the blur of his weight and your own breathless gasps, a solitary realization rings out, clear and unwavering beneath the noise. You look at him and see the map of your last five years written in the lines of his face, and a profound relief washes through you, as if every breath you’ve taken until now was just a rehearsal for this one.

This is the man who has held every version of you for half a decade, and there is a fierce, but mostly quiet triumph in the realization that it’s finally Yushi—that he is the one to claim the parts of you no one else has ever touched.

After years of guarding your heart and holding your breath, the fact that it’s Yushi who is finally having you feels like the only right answer—like the final, perfect note in a melody you’ve been humming since the day you met.

He catches the shift immediately—the way your eyes lose their guard even as your muscles tighten instinctively around his length. His weight settles deeper, each strike more certain than the last, as if he is trying to leave an imprint of himself that will never fade from your skin.

He is pulling you into a territory you’ve never known, and as you lock your ankles behind his back to draw him in, you realize there is no one else you would trust to lead you there.

It was always going to be him. It just had to be.

Yushi moves like a man possessed by a single goal, his weight coming down harder and faster until the air between you vanishes and he’s finally taking up all the space you’ve protected for so long. He releases your hands only to frame your face, his palms trembling as they press against your skin. He leans in until your breath becomes his, his lips hovering close enough to steal the moans you can no longer contain.

"Don't let go. Stay right here with me. I've got you... I've always had you."

The world begins to fracture at the edges as a wave of heat starts to coil deep in your core, tighter and tighter until it’s all you can feel. Your spine curves like a bow, fingers clawing at the muscle of his back to tether him close, refusing to let a single inch of space remain as you pull him into the same chaos that’s breaking over you.

"I know," He groans, a sound of pure, beautiful surrender. "I'm right there. Look at me... just look at me."

Every lungful of air stutters in his chest as he drives forward with a thrust, so singular, yet so total it feels like he’s trying to bury the last five years inside you. Your name breaks from him in a way you’ve never heard, a sound that resonates through your very marrow, starting at the soles of your feet and climbing until it hums against the crown of your head.

As he reaches his peak, the vibration of that sound sinks into your skin, etching itself into your memory with a heat that feels like it will never truly cool. Every time he stifled your name in the past now feeds the power of this single cry. It’s the kind of sound of a man who no longer has to wonder.

The syllables catch and tear as they leave him—a vibration that tells you exactly how much he has loved you while your backs were turned to one another.

You can feel the fine tremors in his arms as he keeps himself braced over you, his skin slick and hot where it presses against yours. He makes no move to retreat, instead surrendering to the gravity that pulls him closer until your foreheads lock. The tremors racking his frame begin to mirror your own, until the shaking is no longer two separate things, but one.

He shifts just slightly, and the involuntary pulse of his cock sends a fresh spark through your nerves. "Don't move yet. I just... I need a second. I don't want to leave you yet."

You reach up, your own hands still unsteady as you brush a damp lock of hair from his forehead. "I'm not going anywhere, Yushi.”

You stay threaded together in the quiet—his leg hooked firmly over yours to keep you close, your fingers still tightly wound into his shoulders, as if your body hasn’t yet realized it’s safe to let go. The tremors are still there, faint, humming deep in your bones that refuse to calm, even as your breathing finally begins to slow.

Yushi lingers as long as he can, forehead resting against yours, unwilling to let even a sliver of air break the total connection between you.

Then he begins to move away, breaking the contact inch by inch. The sensation feels startling against your skin, and a cool draft to rush into the space where your heat had been fused together just a second before. His eyelids drift shut for a heartbeat as he collapses into the space beside you. Even in his exhaustion, his grip remains firm, his arms looped around you in a way that tells you he isn't planning on letting the distance back in.

“I don't think I'm ever going to be able to look at this bed the same way.” A soft chuckle breaks from his chest as he tries to summon a ghost of your old banter, desperate to find a familiar footing in this new silence.

A soft kiss lands against your hair, and his arm draws you in just a little bit tighter with the kind of certainty that feels far more permanent than a simple hug.

“You okay? I didn’t… I wasn’t too much, was I?”

You let your head sink further into the hollow of his shoulder, closing your eyes just to savor the lingering warmth of his skin against yours. You’ve thrown your arms around him a thousand times before, mostly just to see him roll his eyes, but the sharp edge of your mockery has blunted entirely. His playful resistance has bled out of the room, too, leaving something much more vulnerable in its place.

Truthfully, you don’t know how you’ll manage to exist in the spaces where he isn't.

Now that you’ve felt this, him, the idea of being far from his reach feels less like distance and more like a total deprivation of air.

“Shut up, it was perfect. It was everything I’ve been waiting for.”

“Good.” He kisses your temple. “Because I’m pretty sure my legs aren’t going to work for at least three to five business days.”

Then, he clears his throat.

“So, the list.”

You sink your teeth into his shoulder with a playful nip. Everything from that day in the classroom feels blurred and small now—the blue uniforms, the nervous twitch of a pen, the weight of your own shame. It’s hard to believe you ever existed in that world at all, but even as everything changes, you’re still you.

You shake your head. “You care about that list more than I do at this point… which is rich, considering you laughed at me for even making it.”

Yushi’s jaw sets in that fake-indignant way you know so well. “I’m just curious if the rest of the list still stands now that the most important thing is crossed off… and for the record, I didn’t laugh, y/n. Not once. I was just… surprised.”

“Nice try, but you’re not charming your way out of this one. The list is still on. If anything, I’m adding more to it now.”

All of a sudden, the playful light in his eyes flickers and dies out. His expression flattens, and the sudden intensity of his stare forbids you from looking away.

“Hey,” You prod his shoulder gently, trying to coax back the smirk that was just there. “You’ve gone all quiet. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

He looks away for a second. “You said you wanted experience before college… and I tried, you know?”

“I tried to be the supportive best friend who cheered you on while you were flirting and going out with other men. But seeing you actually move toward that with Sion earlier…” A small, frustrated smile tugs at his lips. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading everything wrong. That damn list has messed with my head.”

You hold his face steady, ensuring he can’t look away from the truth. “You aren’t misreading this, Yushi. I didn’t like the way things were going with Sion, either. He wasn’t what I wanted. In fact... the only time my heart actually raced when he kissed me was when I knew you were watching.”

All the air seems to leave him at once. His eyes lock onto yours, flickering with a stunned kind of silence as your words sink in. But as that initial shock fades, his focus narrows, and then he’s looking at you like you’ve just handed him the keys to your heart and asked him to be its sole guardian.

“Yeah… sorry about that. Not my proudest moment. His hands were all over you and I just… I couldn't think. I couldn't even look away. And when he kissed you—” He winces, his jaw tightening as if he’s tasting something bitter. He shutters his eyes for a moment. “You know what, let’s just bury that. I’ve replayed that scene enough times to last a lifetime. I’m over it.

Then he opens them again, fixing them on you with a look that is both a plea and a warning. “If you’re ever planning to flirt with someone else again, give me fair warning so I can walk into the ocean and never come back.”

You stare at him, half-tempted to shake him. Is it a lifelong condition, or did the after-sex shock actually scramble his brain?

“Yushi,”

There’s something almost comical about it—he’s spent five years deciphering your every thought, yet he hasn't pieced together that he’s the partner in every new goal you've written down on your list. You can’t tell if his sudden bout of naivety is a defense mechanism or if he’s simply choosing to be this thick on purpose. Either way, it makes you want to press your lips to his until the logic finally clicks into place for him.

“You’re being an idiot.” You weave your fingers through his hair. “I have no intention of flirting with anyone else. I’m not… I’m not going to college to go on some hunt for a guy who reminds me of you. That’s exhausting. I want the real thing.”

Your fingers go still in his hair as the last of the tension leaves your body. The scary part of this—the vulnerability, the fears, the inevitable change—simply stops fighting you. You’ve spent so long preparing for a collision that never came. Now, the air is still, and the threat is gone. You don’t have to steel your nerves or find the right words. You just have to close this distance.

You just have to lean in and let the silence of the room be filled by the honesty of your heart.

“I’m not interested in the experience if you aren't part of it.”

The confession is quiet—and as the words leave your lips, the scary thing stops being so scary. Just like that.

“I want you, Yushi. I want us.”

Yushi draws in a ragged breath, and for a second, time itself seems to stutter. The air between you is so thick with repression and relief that it feels like a physical hindrance—until he finally shatters it, leaning in to claim the us you just promised him. When he finally touches his lips to yours, it’s with a tenderness that makes your heart ache.

The kiss is a homecoming—an unhurried, gentle discovery that feels less like a beginning and more like a long-awaited return.

One hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair to press you closer, while his other arm wraps around your waist, pulling you against him until there’s no air left between you.

Every see you tomorrow and every get home safe you’ve ever had was just a stepping stone leading to this. It’s honest, it’s so incredibly right, and it feels like finally finding the center of your world.

He pulls back just enough to breathe, resting his forehead against yours in this sweet silence. The distant roar of a car reminds you that time hasn't actually stopped, even if it feels like it has. But as Yushi’s hand slides to the nape of your neck, pulling you back into his warmth, the sound fades into insignificance.

Let the world keep moving. For the first time in your life, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

You press a chaste kiss to the skin of his chest. “I’m sorry it took us having sex for me to figure out my feelings for you.”

Yushi makes a low, contented sound and tilts your chin up, his eyes softened by a longing you’ve never seen directed at anyone else. He brushes a stray hair from your face, his thumb lingering against your cheek.

“All good. We got here eventually.”

You lie there in the quiet, limbs tangled and hearts intertwined, as your history molds into something more permanent and solid. You think of the world outside, of the people sifting through strangers hoping for a miracle, and realize how close you came to joining them.

And then, you think of how easily Yushi could have drifted into the static of your past, if you hadn't reached out and held on to the future. Yushi has always had a way of receding into the background, existing in the quiet spaces where most people forget to look. He has never demanded to be noticed, which makes it all the more ironic that he’s the only thing you’ve ever truly seen.

As you sink into the moonlight with him, you’re just glad that through all those years the blue of his uniform never got washed in the sea of students.

“Also,” Yushi smirks, his thumb tracing a playful line down your arm in a way that suggests he’s about to break the tension with something ridiculous. “About the opinion survey… I expect at least five stars for customer service and a very detailed review of your overall experience.”

You roll your eyes, your smile breaking into a genuine laugh. You’re so glad it’s him. Not a stranger, not a placeholder—just the boy who used to lose his breath whenever your eyes met his behind the velvet curtains of a middle school stage.

“Go to sleep, Yushi.”

It took five years of being Yushi’s friend to build the house, and only one night of honesty to realize you’d been living in it all along.

𝒻low ‹𝟹:: i def didn’t plan on it being so long but OH WELL. Those two kind of developed free will and started doing things out of my control. There will be a part 2… but as for when it arrives, that is entirely up to the fickle deities of my academic career. Expect the sequel either tomorrow or in three to five business years

tags: @seok-nmi @yvshi @rnjunluvr @hahaechans @markiesfatbooty @luvsion @lexi212 @enairama @mekistime @emislove @opiummnights @markgalaxia @nohuyck

[hoonie]

⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

[ryo-so-swag]

my beautiful wife

[lac4ygal]

⎯ PRETENDING FOR THE A p.sh

nerd!ParkSunghoon x reader

✦ Summary — You’re the life of every party, the center of every group, and the girl everyone notices— but one day your best friend bets you can’t make the school’s resident nerd fall for you. Only problem? He’s brilliant, socially awkward, and completely oblivious… which works perfectly when you ask him to tutor you. What starts as a harmless bet turns into something neither of you saw coming. Could the fake love be real all this time?

✦ Genre — strangers to lovers (kind of), slow burn, university AU, romance, angst with happy ending, smut

✦ Word count — 29.6k

✦ Warnings — explicit sexual content (MDNI), penetrative sex, oral (male & female receiving), semi-public sex, multiple encounters, strong language, alcohol & smoking, party culture, emotional manipulation (bet trope), betrayal & trust issues, crying/emotional distress, brief social media harassment mention, heavy angst

✦ Now playing — Electric Love by BØRNS

✦ Authors note — Okay so this fic has been living in my head rent free for way too long and i finally sat down and wrote it. This got away from me (nearly 30k, oops) but i hope every word is worth it. Reader is intentionally flawed because the messiness is the point. Listen to the assigned song for this while you read, especially the middle parts, you’ll understand. As always comments, likes and reblogs mean the world. Enjoy the angst, you’re welcome in advance.💞

My masterlist

The bass thrums through your body like a second heartbeat, vibration crawling up from the soles of your heels and settling somewhere in your chest. You’re three drinks in—something sweet and deceptively strong that Mina mixed in the kitchen—and the party is exactly where you like it: chaotic, loud, and utterly yours.

You stand near the center of the living room, red solo cup dangling from your fingers, wearing a black crop top that barely qualifies as a shirt and a skirt short enough that you’d tugged it down twice on the walk over. Not that you care. You know you look good. The stares confirm it, the way eyes track you when you move through a room, the way conversations pause just slightly when you laugh.

“Babe!” Mina’s voice cuts through the music, and you turn to see her shoving her way through a cluster of drunk business majors, her own outfit just as devastating as yours—a tight red dress that clings in all the right places. She’s holding two fresh drinks, wearing that wild grin that always means trouble.

You take the cup she offers, raising an eyebrow. “What’s that look for?”

“I’m bored,” she announces, taking a long sip. “This party’s gotten stale. Everyone here is so predictable.”

You glance around. She’s not wrong. Same people, same drama, same bullshit. Heeseung is doing keg stands in the corner while Jake hypes him up, Jay is flirting with some girl from your Econ lecture, and everyone else is just going through the motions of a typical Friday night.

“So what do you wanna do?” you ask, leaning against the wall. “Leave?”

“No.” Mina’s eyes glitter with mischief. “I want to make a bet.”

You laugh, already intrigued. Mina’s bets are legendary—last semester she’d dared you to steal a traffic cone from campus security, and you’d done it just to see the look on her face. “I’m listening.”

She leans in close, her breath smelling like vodka and cherry chapstick. “See that guy over there?”

You follow her gaze across the room. At first, you don’t see who she’s talking about—there’s too many people packed into the space—but then the crowd shifts, and you spot him.

Park Sunghoon.

He’s standing near the bookshelf, looking deeply uncomfortable in a neat button-up shirt and glasses, holding what appears to be a bottle of water. His posture is stiff, like he’s not sure what to do with his hands, and he’s nodding along to something Heeseung is saying with this polite, awkward smile.

You know who he is, obviously. Everyone does, but for different reasons than they know you. Where you’re known for the parties, the chaos, the way you light up every room you enter, Sunghoon is known for being the biggest nerd on campus. Statistics and Data Science major, perfect GPA, the guy everyone goes to when they’re desperate for tutoring. You’ve seen him around—usually in the library, hunched over a laptop, or walking to class with his nose in a textbook.

“The nerd?” you say, taking a sip of your drink. “What about him?”

“I bet you can’t make him fall for you.”

You almost choke on your drink. “What?”

Mina’s grin widens. “Come on. Look at him. He’s like… a different species. You really think someone like him would ever go for someone like you?”

There’s no malice in her words—this is just how you two operate, all teasing and challenge—but something about it pricks at your pride. “Someone like me?”

“You know what I mean. Party girl. Confident. Hot as fuck. He probably faints if a girl even looks at him.” She gestures toward Sunghoon, who is now adjusting his glasses and looking around like he’s searching for an escape route. “I don’t think he’s ever even been to a party before tonight. Heeseung probably dragged him here.”

You study Sunghoon more carefully. He’s taller than you expected, with sharp features that might actually be attractive if he didn’t look so perpetually nervous. His hair is neat, parted carefully, and his clothes scream “I iron my shirts on Sunday nights.”

“That’s the bet?” you ask, turning back to Mina. “Make him fall for me?”

“Yep. And I’m talking actual feelings. Not just him stuttering around you—I want him gone for you. Pining. Obsessed.”

You laugh, loud enough that a few people glance over. “That’s almost too easy.”

“Then you won’t mind putting money on it.” Mina pulls out her phone, thumbs flying across the screen. “Two hundred dollars says you can’t do it.”

Two hundred dollars. That’s not nothing—that’s a weekend trip, or a new pair of boots you’ve been eyeing, or enough drinks to not worry about your bank account for a month.

But more than that, it’s the principle. The idea that Mina thinks you can’t do something, that Park Sunghoon is somehow immune to you, needles at something deep and petty in your chest.

“You’re on,” you say, shaking her hand. “Two hundred dollars. And bragging rights.”

“Bragging rights,” Mina agrees, her grin turning wicked. “This is going to be so fun to watch.”

You drain the rest of your drink, feeling the alcohol warm and loose in your veins, and set the empty cup on the nearest surface. “How long do I have?”

“End of the semester,” Mina says. “That’s what, fourteen weeks? Should be plenty of time. If you’re as good as you think you are.”

“Please.” You flip your hair over your shoulder, already feeling the familiar thrill of a challenge. “I’ll have him obsessed with me by midterms.”

Mina cackles, pulling you into a quick hug. “God, I love you. Okay. Go work your magic.”

You glance back toward Sunghoon. He’s still standing with Heeseung and Jake now, looking like he’s barely contributing to the conversation. Jay has joined them too, and the contrast is almost funny—three effortlessly cool guys and one awkward nerd who looks like he’d rather be literally anywhere else.

The smart play would be to approach him tonight, start planting the seeds. But you’re tipsy and the party is loud, and you know first impressions matter. You need to do this right.

“Not tonight,” you say, turning back to Mina. “I need a strategy.”

“Ooh, strategic. I like it.”

“Monday,” you decide. “I’ll figure out his schedule, and I’ll make my move.”

Mina raises her fresh drink in a toast. “To the downfall of Park Sunghoon’s GPA and emotional stability.”

You clink your cup against hers, grinning. “He won’t know what hit him.”

Monday morning comes with a hangover you shake off in the shower and a determination that feels almost dangerous.

You dress carefully—a tight cropped sweater that shows a sliver of skin above your low-rise jeans, paired with heels that make your legs look longer. Your makeup is flawless, lips glossy, and you know you look good because your roommate actually stops mid-bite of her cereal to stare.

“Where are you going looking like that?” she asks.

“Library,” you say, grabbing your bag.

“The library?”

You just smile and head out.

You’d done your research last night, scrolling through social media and asking around until you had a decent sense of Sunghoon’s schedule. Turns out, he’s a creature of habit—every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, he’s in the library from 9 AM to noon, tutoring students for credit. Something about needing volunteer hours for his degree, or maybe it’s for some honors society. You don’t really care about the why. You just need the when and where.

The library is quieter than usual, the Monday morning crowd sparse. You spot him almost immediately, sitting at one of the large tables near the windows, his laptop open and a stack of textbooks beside him. He’s alone right now, tapping away at his keyboard with the kind of focus that makes you think he’s probably forgotten the rest of the world exists.

You take a breath, adjust your bag on your shoulder, and walk over.

He doesn’t notice you at first. You have to actually stop in front of his table and clear your throat before he looks up, and when he does, his eyes widen slightly behind his glasses.

“Um,” he says, his voice soft and uncertain. “Hi?”

“Hi,” you say, flashing your most disarming smile. “You’re Park Sunghoon, right?”

“Uh. Yes?” He blinks up at you, clearly confused about why you’re talking to him. His gaze flickers down for just a second—taking in your outfit, probably—before snapping back to your face, his cheeks flushing pink.

Perfect.

“I heard you do tutoring,” you say, sliding into the chair across from him without waiting for an invitation. “For Statistics?”

“Oh.” His expression shifts slightly, relaxing into something more familiar. This is territory he knows. “Yeah, I do. Are you… do you need help with a class?”

“Desperately,” you lie, letting a little frustration creep into your voice. “I’m in STAT 400, and I’m completely lost. Like, I don’t even know where to start.”

STAT 400 is a class you could probably teach at this point—you’d aced it last semester—but he doesn’t need to know that.

Sunghoon nods, pulling out a notebook. “That’s a tough class. What specifically are you struggling with?”

You wave a hand vaguely. “Honestly? All of it. Probability distributions, hypothesis testing… I just can’t make it click, you know?”

He’s scribbling something down, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Okay. Yeah, I can definitely help with that. I tutor that class a lot, actually.”

“Really?” You lean forward slightly, resting your chin in your hand. “You’re a lifesaver. I was seriously worried I was going to fail.”

His eyes flicker to you again, and you can see him trying very hard not to stare. It’s almost endearing, the way he’s fighting to keep his focus on his notebook.

“So, um,” he says, clearing his throat. “When works for you? I usually do sessions twice a week, an hour each.”

“Whatever works for you,” you say easily. “I’m pretty flexible.”

He checks his phone, scrolling through what looks like a calendar. “How about… Tuesdays and Thursdays? 5 PM?”

“Perfect.” You pull out your own phone, typing in the times. “Should I meet you here?”

“Yeah, here’s good.” He looks up at you, and for a moment, you’re struck by how dark his eyes are behind those glasses. “Can I get your name? For my schedule.”

You tell him, and he types it into his phone, his fingers quick and precise.

“Got it,” he says, offering you a small, polite smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Looking forward to it.” You stand, slinging your bag over your shoulder, and give him a little wave. “Thanks, Sunghoon.”

His blush deepens at the sound of his name, and you have to bite back a grin as you walk away. This is going to be easier than you thought.

You show up to the library on Tuesday at 4:55 PM, which is late enough to seem casual but early enough to seem eager. You’ve dressed down slightly from yesterday—a fitted long-sleeve shirt that still manages to show off your figure, paired with jeans that sit low on your hips. Still hot, but approachable. You’re playing a character here, and the character is a girl who’s struggling with statistics and needs help, not a girl who’s about to ruin someone’s life for two hundred dollars.

The guilt hasn’t hit yet. Right now, it’s still just a game.

Sunghoon is already at the same table by the windows, his laptop open and a thermos of what you assume is coffee beside him. He looks up when you approach, and you catch the tiniest flicker of surprise in his expression, like he half-expected you not to show.

“Hi,” you say, dropping your bag onto the table and sliding into the seat across from him.

“Hi.” He closes his laptop and pushes it aside, pulling out a notebook instead. “Ready to get started?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” you say with a self-deprecating laugh. “Fair warning, I’m really bad at this.”

“That’s okay,” he says, and there’s something unexpectedly kind in his voice. “Everyone starts somewhere. Can you show me what you’re working on in class right now?”

You pull out your own notebook—you’d actually done some prep work last night, writing out problem sets from the STAT 400 syllabus you still have saved on your laptop. You’d deliberately gotten some of them wrong, made your handwriting a little messier than usual, added some confused notes in the margins. It has to look real.

Sunghoon takes the notebook and studies your work, his brow furrowing in concentration. His fingers tap against the edge of the paper, a nervous habit, and you notice that his nails are neatly trimmed, his hands surprisingly elegant for someone so awkward.

“Okay,” he says after a moment. “I see what’s happening here. You’re getting tripped up on the notation, I think. The concepts aren’t that complicated once you understand what the symbols actually mean.”

He flips to a blank page in your notebook and starts writing, his handwriting neat and precise. As he explains the basics of probability distributions, you force yourself to pay attention, nodding along and asking questions that someone who’s actually confused would ask.

“Does that make sense?” he asks after a few minutes, glancing up at you.

“I think so,” you say. “Can you go over that last part again?”

He does, patient and thorough, and you notice the way he relaxes slightly when he’s teaching. The nervousness fades, replaced by something that almost resembles confidence. This is where he’s comfortable—explaining things, breaking down complex ideas into manageable pieces.

It’s… not what you expected.

You’d thought this would be painful, sitting through tutoring sessions for a class you don’t need help with. But Sunghoon is actually a good teacher, and there’s something almost soothing about the way he talks through problems, his voice low and steady.

“Try this one,” he says, sliding the notebook back to you with a new problem written out.

You make a show of working through it, deliberately hesitating in places, second-guessing yourself. When you write down the final answer—which you know is correct—you look up at him uncertainly.

“Is that right?”

He checks your work, and a small smile crosses his face. “Yeah. That’s perfect.”

The praise shouldn’t feel as good as it does.

“Really?” You let yourself sound surprised, pleased.

“Really. You’re getting it faster than you think.”

You beam at him, and his cheeks flush pink again. He looks away quickly, clearing his throat.

“Let’s do a few more,” he says.

The hour passes faster than you expected. By the time Sunghoon checks his phone and announces that your session is up, you’re almost disappointed.

“Same time Thursday?” he asks, packing up his things.

“Yeah, definitely.” You stand, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Thanks, Sunghoon. You’re really good at this.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He ducks his head, and you catch the small smile on his face as he turns away.

As you walk out of the library, you pull out your phone and text Mina.

Session one: complete. He blushed like four times.

Her response is immediate: you’re evil. i love it.

Thursday’s session follows a similar pattern. You show up right on time, dressed in a crop top and high-waisted pants that make Sunghoon’s eyes widen for just a second before he forces his gaze back to his notebook. You work through more problems, ask more questions, let him guide you through concepts you already understand.

But this time, you start to push things slightly.

“God, I don’t know how you keep all of this straight in your head,” you say at one point, leaning back in your chair and stretching your arms above your head. The movement makes your shirt ride up slightly, exposing your stomach, and you don’t miss the way Sunghoon’s gaze flickers down before he quickly looks away.

“It’s just practice,” he says, his voice a little strained. “Once you do enough problems, it becomes automatic.”

“You must be so smart,” you say, propping your chin in your hand and looking at him with wide, admiring eyes. “Like, seriously. I feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water in most of my classes, and you’re just… breezing through everything.”

He shifts uncomfortably. “I’m not that smart. I just work hard.”

“Don’t be modest.” You nudge his foot lightly under the table with yours, and he actually jumps a little. “You’re like, a genius. Everyone says so.”

“I’m really not,” he insists, but you can see the pleased flush creeping up his neck.

You let it drop, returning your attention to the problems in front of you, but you’ve planted the seed. Compliments, physical proximity, attention—these are the tools you know how to use.

Near the end of the session, as Sunghoon is explaining something about confidence intervals, you let your knee bump against his under the table. It’s brief, could be an accident, but you see the way he falters mid-sentence, his train of thought derailing completely.

“Sorry,” he says, blinking rapidly. “Where was I?”

“Confidence intervals,” you prompt, biting back a smile.

“Right. Yeah.” He takes a deep breath and continues, but his voice is slightly shakier now.

When the session ends, you pack up slowly, deliberately taking your time.

“Hey,” you say as he’s closing his laptop. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you tutor? Like, I know it’s for credit or whatever, but you’re already so busy. Don’t you ever just… want a break?”

He seems surprised by the question. “I don’t know. I guess I like helping people. And it’s good practice for me, too. Explaining things helps me understand them better.”

“That’s really nice,” you say, and you’re surprised to find that you actually mean it. “Most people wouldn’t go out of their way like that.”

He shrugs, looking uncomfortable with the praise. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is, though.” You give him a warm smile. “Anyway. Thanks again. I actually feel like I might not fail this class now.”

“You’re not going to fail,” he says firmly. “You’re doing really well.”

Something about the conviction in his voice makes your chest tighten, but you push the feeling aside.

“See you next week,” you say, heading toward the exit.

As you leave, you glance back and catch him watching you. He looks away immediately, his face flushing, and you can’t help the satisfied smile that crosses your face.

This is almost too easy.

By the third week of tutoring, you’ve established a routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5 PM, the same table by the windows. Sunghoon is always there early, his materials already laid out, a thermos of coffee within reach. You’ve started to learn his habits—the way he taps his pen against the table when he’s thinking, the way he pushes his glasses up when he’s concentrating, the way he smiles when you get a problem right.

You’ve also started to push boundaries more deliberately.

You sit closer to him now, close enough that your arms brush when you’re both leaning over the same textbook. You ask him to show you how to work through problems on your laptop, which means he has to lean in close, his shoulder pressed against yours, his face inches from yours as he points at the screen.

He’s still nervous, still awkward, but he’s getting more comfortable with you. He makes eye contact more often, laughs at your jokes, occasionally offers comments that aren’t strictly about statistics.

“Are you going to the game on Saturday?” you ask during one session, glancing up from your notebook.

“Game?” He looks confused.

“The basketball game. Against State.”

“Oh. No, probably not. That’s not really my thing.”

“What is your thing?” you ask, genuinely curious despite yourself.

He thinks for a moment. “I don’t know. I like hiking, I guess. And I play chess online sometimes.”

“Hiking?” You raise an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the outdoorsy type.”

“Why not?” There’s a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

“I don’t know. You just seem like you’d rather be inside with a book.”

“I can like both,” he points out, and there’s a glimmer of something in his eyes—amusement, maybe, or challenge.

“Fair enough.” You grin. “Maybe you should take me sometime. I could use the exercise.”

His eyes widen. “Oh. Uh. I mean, if you want. There’s a good trail about twenty minutes from campus—”

“I’m kidding,” you say quickly, laughing. “Can you imagine me hiking? I’d die.”

“Right.” He laughs too, but it sounds slightly forced. “Yeah.”

You almost feel bad for teasing him, but you push the feeling aside. This is the point—keep him off balance, make him think about you, wonder about you.

Later in the session, when you’re both bent over a particularly complicated problem, you reach out to point at something on the page. Your hand brushes against his, and you let it linger for just a second longer than necessary before pulling away.

“Sorry,” you murmur.

“It’s fine,” he says, but his voice is tight, and when you glance at him, his jaw is clenched. Interesting.

After that session, as you’re walking back to your apartment, Mina calls.

“How’s Operation Nerd going?” she asks immediately.

“Good,” you say. “He’s definitely noticing me.”

“Noticing you, or noticing you?”

“Both, I think.” You push open the door to your building, nodding at a couple of girls you recognize from a party last weekend. “He’s still really awkward, but he’s warming up.”

“Have you guys hung out outside of tutoring yet?”

“No. I’m taking it slow.”

“Slow?” Mina sounds incredulous. “Babe, you have like eleven weeks left. You need to speed this up.”

“I know what I’m doing,” you say, climbing the stairs to your floor. “If I come on too strong, he’ll get suspicious. He’s not stupid.”

“Fine, fine. You’re the expert.” There’s a pause, and then: “Are you having fun, at least?”

The question catches you off guard. “What?”

“I mean, is this entertaining? Or is it just a chore?”

You think about the way Sunghoon’s face lights up when you get a problem right, the way he listens so intently when you talk, the way he’s slowly becoming less guarded around you.

“It’s fine,” you say eventually. “He’s not as boring as I thought he’d be.”

“High praise,” Mina says dryly. “Okay, well, keep me updated. I want all the details.”

After you hang up, you find yourself thinking about the question. Are you having fun?

The honest answer is yes. You are. And that should probably worry you more than it does.

The following Tuesday, something shifts.

You’re halfway through the session when Sunghoon’s phone buzzes. He glances at it, frowns, and then looks at you apologetically.

“Sorry, do you mind if I take this? It’s my friend.”

“Go ahead,” you say, waving him off.

He steps away from the table, phone pressed to his ear, and you watch as his expression shifts from confused to annoyed to resigned. When he comes back, he’s running a hand through his hair, making it stick up slightly.

“Everything okay?” you ask.

“Yeah, sorry. That was Heeseung. He’s having people over tonight and wanted to make sure I’m coming.”

“Are you?”

“I guess. He’ll give me shit if I don’t.” Sunghoon sits back down, but he seems distracted now, his usual focus scattered.

“You don’t sound excited,” you observe.

“Parties aren’t really my scene,” he admits. “Too loud, too crowded. I usually just end up standing in a corner wishing I was home.”

You laugh. “Then why go?”

“Because Heeseung, Jake, and Jay are my friends, and they actually want me there. I think.” He says it like he’s not entirely sure, and something about that makes your chest ache.

“They definitely want you there,” you say. “Those guys don’t do pity invites.”

He looks at you, surprised. “You know them?”

“Everyone knows them. We run in similar circles.” You lean back in your chair, studying him. “How’d you end up friends with them, anyway? No offense, but you’re not exactly the typical crowd they hang out with.”

“We lived in the same dorm freshman year,” Sunghoon says. “Heeseung and I got paired as roommates, and Jake and Jay lived down the hall. They kind of… adopted me, I guess. I don’t really know why.”

“Maybe because you’re cool,” you suggest.

He snorts. “I’m definitely not cool.”

“You’re cool in your own way.”

“That’s a nice way of saying I’m a nerd.”

“Being a nerd isn’t a bad thing,” you say. And then, before you can think better of it: “I’ll be there tonight, probably. At Heeseung’s thing. Maybe I’ll see you.”

Sunghoon’s eyes widen slightly. “Oh. Yeah. Maybe.”

The rest of the session is slightly stilted, both of you distracted by the knowledge that you’ll be in the same place later, outside the safe confines of the library. When you pack up to leave, Sunghoon clears his throat.

“Hey, um. Thanks. For saying that. About me being cool.”

You smile. “I meant it.”

And as you walk away, you realize with a start that you actually did.

Heeseung’s apartment is packed when you arrive just after ten, Mina in tow. The music is loud enough to make the walls vibrate, and the air is thick with the smell of beer and too many bodies in a small space.

“This is going to be good,” Mina says, already scanning the room. “Is your nerd here yet?”

“Don’t call him that,” you say automatically, and then catch yourself. Since when do you care?

Mina gives you a look but doesn’t comment. “Well? Do you see him?”

You crane your neck, looking over the crowd, and finally spot Sunghoon near the kitchen. He’s wearing jeans and a plain black t-shirt—the most casual you’ve ever seen him—and he’s talking to Jay, looking significantly less uncomfortable than you’d expected.

“There,” you say, nodding toward him.

“Oh my god, he’s actually kind of hot when he’s not dressed like someone’s dad,” Mina says.

She’s not wrong. Without the button-ups and the overly neat hair, Sunghoon looks… different. Younger. More relaxed. And yeah, hot.

“I’m going over,” you say.

“Good luck,” Mina calls after you, already veering off toward the makeshift bar.

You weave through the crowd, dodging drunk dancers and people shouting over the music. When you reach the kitchen, you tap Sunghoon on the shoulder.

He turns, and his face lights up when he sees you.

“You came,” he says, and he sounds genuinely happy about it.

“I said I might,” you reply, grinning. “Hi, Jay.”

Jay gives you an appreciative once-over—you’re wearing a tiny black dress that leaves very little to the imagination—and nods. “Hey. You two know each other?”

“Sunghoon’s my tutor,” you say.

“Tutor?” Jay looks at Sunghoon with mock suspicion. “You didn’t tell me you were tutoring hot girls.”

Sunghoon’s face goes red. “It’s not—she needed help with stats—”

“I’m just giving you shit,” Jay says, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go find Jake. You two have fun.”

He disappears into the crowd, leaving you and Sunghoon alone in the relative chaos of the kitchen.

“Want a drink?” you ask, already moving toward the counter where someone’s set up a chaotic array of bottles and mixers.

“I’m okay,” Sunghoon says, holding up a bottle of water.

“Of course you are.” You pour yourself something strong, turning back to him. “So. How are you surviving so far?”

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” he admits. “Maybe because you’re here.”

The comment catches you off guard. It’s surprisingly bold for him, and when you meet his eyes, there’s something there you haven’t seen before—a flicker of confidence, maybe, or just the tiniest bit of flirtation.

“Smooth,” you say, taking a sip of your drink.

He looks immediately mortified. “Sorry, that was—”

“I’m kidding. It was sweet.” You step closer to him, close enough that you have to tilt your head back slightly to maintain eye contact. “You should let yourself relax more often. You’re less uptight when you do.”

“I’m uptight?” He sounds offended.

“A little,” you tease. “But it’s part of your charm.”

Before he can respond, someone cranks the music even louder, and the kitchen suddenly floods with people trying to escape the living room. You’re jostled forward, and Sunghoon reaches out instinctively to steady you, his hands landing on your waist.

For a moment, you’re pressed against him, close enough to feel the heat of his body, to see the way his pupils dilate slightly behind his glasses.

“Sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t let go immediately.

“It’s okay,” you murmur.

The moment stretches, tension coiling between you, and you realize with a jolt that your heart is beating faster. Not because you’re playing a role, but because he’s looking at you like you’re the only person in the room, and it feels…

It feels good.

“Do you want to go somewhere quieter?” he asks, his voice low.

You nod.

He takes your hand—his grip warm and surprisingly steady—and leads you out of the kitchen, through the crowd, and out onto the apartment’s small balcony. The noise fades to a dull roar as he slides the door shut behind you, and suddenly it’s just the two of you under the night sky.

“Better?” he asks.

“Much.” You lean against the railing, looking out at the campus spread below. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He stands beside you, close but not touching, and for a few moments, neither of you speaks.

“Can I ask you something?” he says eventually.

“Sure.”

“Why did you come tonight? You said parties are your thing, so you probably had other options.”

You turn to look at him. “Maybe I wanted to see you.”

His breath catches. “Really?”

“Really.” You’re not sure if you’re lying anymore.

Sunghoon holds your gaze, and something shifts in the air between you. He takes a step closer, and your pulse spikes.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says softly.

“Me too,” you whisper.

And when he smiles—a real, genuine smile that makes his whole face light up—you feel something crack open in your chest.

This was supposed to be simple. Easy. A game.

But standing here with him, the city lights glittering below and his hand just inches from yours on the railing, you’re starting to realize that you might be in over your head.

Sunghoon is already at your usual table, but today there’s something different. Instead of his typical setup of laptop and textbooks, there’s a white paper bag and two coffee cups.

“Hi,” he says when you approach, and he looks almost nervous. “I, uh. I brought coffee. And pastries. I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I just guessed. I hope that’s okay.”

You stare at the cups, something warm and unfamiliar blooming in your chest. “You brought me coffee?”

“Yeah. You mentioned last week that you didn’t have time to grab any before our session, so I thought…” He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck. “Is that weird? That’s probably weird.”

“It’s not weird,” you say softly, sliding into your seat. “It’s really sweet.”

His face lights up, and he pushes one of the cups toward you. “It’s a vanilla latte. But if you don’t like it, I can—”

“Vanilla latte is perfect.” You take a sip, and it’s exactly the right temperature, exactly the right sweetness. “Thank you, Sunghoon.”

“You’re welcome.” He’s smiling now, that soft genuine smile that makes your heart do stupid things.

The session proceeds normally—problem sets, explanations, the comfortable back-and-forth you’ve developed—but the coffee and pastries feel like something more. Like he’s trying to take care of you in his own quiet way.

Halfway through, while you’re working on a problem, Sunghoon speaks up.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” you say, not looking up from your notebook.

“Why economics?”

You pause, pen hovering over the page. “What?”

“Your major. Why did you choose economics?”

No one has asked you that in a long time. Most people just assume you picked it because it’s practical, or because you wanted something that would make money, or because you didn’t know what else to do.

“I like understanding how things work,” you say slowly. “Like, why people make the decisions they make. What drives markets, what causes crashes, all of that. It’s like… a puzzle, I guess. And I’m good at puzzles.”

Sunghoon is looking at you with this intense focus, like he’s genuinely interested in your answer. “That’s really cool.”

“Yeah?” You feel oddly vulnerable suddenly.

“Yeah. Most people just say it’s for the money.”

“I mean, the money doesn’t hurt,” you joke, but it falls flat.

“I get it, though,” he says. “That’s kind of why I like statistics. Everything can be understood if you have enough data. The world makes sense when you can quantify it.”

You find yourself smiling. “We’re more similar than I thought.”

“Is that surprising?”

“A little,” you admit. “I thought you’d be all… I don’t know. Textbooks and equations and no personality.”

He laughs, a real laugh that makes his eyes crinkle. “Wow. Thanks.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” You’re laughing too now. “I just meant—you’re not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. Boring? Uptight? But you’re actually…” You pause, searching for the right word. “You’re actually really easy to talk to.”

Sunghoon’s expression softens. “So are you.”

The moment hangs between you, charged with something you can’t quite name. You’re suddenly very aware of how close you’re sitting, how his knee is almost touching yours under the table, how easy it would be to just lean forward and—

Your phone buzzes, shattering the moment. It’s a text from Mina: party at sigma chi friday. you coming?

You type back a quick yeah probably and set your phone down, but the spell is broken. Sunghoon has already returned his attention to the textbook, his expression neutral.

The rest of the session passes normally, but something has changed. There’s a weight in the air now, a tension that wasn’t there before.

When you’re packing up to leave, Sunghoon clears his throat.

“Hey, um. Are you doing anything this weekend?”

Your heart skips. “Why?”

“There’s this new exhibit at the art museum. Photography from conflict zones. I thought it might be interesting, and I was wondering if… if maybe you wanted to go? With me?”

He’s asking you on a date. Park Sunghoon is asking you on an actual date.

You should say yes. This is perfect for the bet—spending time together outside of tutoring, building a connection, making him fall harder.

But the thought of it makes your stomach twist with something that feels uncomfortably like guilt.

“I can’t this weekend,” you say, and you’re not sure if you’re relieved or disappointed. “I have plans with friends.”

“Oh.” He tries to hide his disappointment, but you can see it in the way his shoulders slump slightly. “That’s okay. Maybe another time.”

“Yeah,” you say. “Another time.”

As you walk away, you can feel his eyes on your back, and you hate yourself a little bit.

Friday night comes, and you’re at the Sigma Chi house with Mina, three drinks deep and feeling reckless.

The party is packed, bodies pressed together in every room, music so loud you can feel it in your bones. You’re wearing your sluttiest dress—a tiny red thing that barely covers your ass—and you know you look good because you’ve been turning heads all night.

“There’s Jake,” Mina says, pointing toward the kitchen. “With Heeseung and Jay.”

“So?” you say, taking another sip of your drink.

“So, isn’t that Sunghoon’s friend group? Maybe he’s here.”

You scan the kitchen, but you don’t see Sunghoon anywhere. Just his three friends, laughing and drinking and looking effortlessly cool in a way Sunghoon never quite manages.

“I don’t think he’s here,” you say.

“Probably for the best,” Mina says. “You can actually have fun without worrying about the bet.”

But that’s the problem. You’re starting to realize that you have more fun with Sunghoon than without him.

You push the thought away and drain your drink. “I need another.”

The next hour is a blur of alcohol and dancing and the kind of mindless fun you usually thrive on. You dance with strangers, do shots with girls from your econ class, lose Mina somewhere in the crowd. And then Jake finds you.

“Hey,” he says, appearing at your elbow with that easy smile. “You look like you’re having a good time.”

“I am,” you say, and you realize you have to raise your voice to be heard over the music.

“Want to get some air? It’s hot as hell in here.”

You follow him out to the back porch, where it’s marginally quieter and cooler. There are a few other people out here, smoking and talking in low voices, but Jake leads you to a corner that’s relatively private.

“Better?” he asks.

“Much.” You lean against the railing, looking up at him. Jake is attractive in an obvious way—tall, athletic build, sharp jawline. The kind of guy you’d normally go for without thinking twice.

“I’ve seen you around,” Jake says, moving closer. “You’re hard to miss.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Definitely.” His gaze drops to your lips, then back up. “You’re friends with Sunghoon, right?”

The mention of Sunghoon’s name sends a jolt through you. “He’s tutoring me.”

“That’s all?”

“What else would it be?”

Jake shrugs. “I don’t know. He talks about you a lot.”

Your heart stutters. “He does?”

“Yeah. He tries to be subtle about it, but it’s pretty obvious he’s into you.” Jake grins. “Can’t blame him.”

You should ask what Sunghoon says about you. You should care more about the implications.

But you’re drunk and Jake is hot and he’s leaning in, and when his lips meet yours, you don’t pull away.

The kiss is good—he knows what he’s doing, his hands confident on your waist—but it feels wrong somehow. Like you’re kissing the wrong person. When you break apart, Jake is smiling.

“Want to get out of here?”

“I—”

“There you are!”

You turn to see Mina stumbling out onto the porch, clearly wasted. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. We need to go. Now.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I’m about to throw up and I need you to hold my hair.” She grabs your arm, pulling you away from Jake. “Sorry, Jake. Emergency.”

You let her drag you back through the party and out the front door, and it’s only when you’re halfway back to your apartment that you realize you’re relieved.

“Did I really interrupt something?” Mina asks, her words slurring slightly.

“Nothing important,” you say.

“Liar. That was Jake. He’s hot.”

“Yeah.”

“So why do you sound sad about it?”

You don’t have an answer.

Saturday morning, you wake up with a pounding headache and a feeling of vague dread that has nothing to do with the hangover.

You kissed Jake. Sunghoon’s friend. One of his only friends.

It shouldn’t matter. This is a bet. You’re not actually dating Sunghoon. You don’t owe him anything.

But the guilt sits heavy in your stomach anyway.

Your phone buzzes with a text from Sunghoon: Hey! I know you said you were busy this weekend, but if you have any free time tomorrow (Sunday), I’d love to show you that trail I mentioned. No pressure though!

You stare at the message for a long moment.

You should say no. You should keep your distance, maintain the boundaries of this fake tutoring relationship.

But instead, you type: Sure. What time?

His response is almost immediate: 10 AM? I can pick you up.

Sounds good.

You set your phone down and bury your face in your pillow, trying to ignore the voice in your head that’s asking what the hell you’re doing.

Sunday morning dawns clear and bright, and you find yourself actually putting effort into your outfit—athletic leggings, a fitted tank top, your hair pulled back in a high ponytail. Hiking clothes, but still cute.

Sunghoon picks you up at exactly 10 AM in a slightly beat-up Honda Civic that’s meticulously clean inside. He’s wearing athletic gear too, and without his glasses—he’s wearing contacts, he explains—he looks different. Younger. Even more attractive.

“You ready?” he asks as you buckle your seatbelt.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. Fair warning, I haven’t hiked since high school.”

“It’s an easy trail,” he assures you. “More of a nature walk, really.”

The drive takes about twenty minutes, filled with easy conversation and music from a playlist that’s surprisingly good—indie rock mixed with some Korean R&B. You learn that Sunghoon is an only child, that he grew up in a small town, that his parents are both engineers and have very high expectations for him.

“Is that why you work so hard?” you ask. “Because of them?”

“Partly,” he admits. “But also because I don’t really know what else to do. School is the one thing I’m actually good at.”

“That’s not true. You’re good at lots of things.”

“Like what?”

“You’re a good teacher. You’re patient, you actually listen, you explain things in a way that makes sense. That’s a skill.”

He glances at you, surprised. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

When you arrive at the trailhead, it’s not crowded—just a few other cars in the small parking lot. Sunghoon grabs a backpack from the trunk, and you start walking.

He was right about it being an easy trail. The path is well-maintained and mostly flat, winding through trees that are just starting to show their fall colors. It’s beautiful in a quiet, understated way.

“I come here when I need to think,” Sunghoon says as you walk. “It’s peaceful.”

“What do you think about?”

“Everything. School, the future, whether I’m making the right choices.” He pauses. “Sometimes I feel like I’m on this path that was decided for me, you know? Like, I’m going to graduate, get a good job, make my parents proud. But I’m not sure if it’s what I actually want.”

You’re surprised by the honesty. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem.” He looks at you. “What about you? Do you know what you want?”

The question catches you off guard. What do you want?

A month ago, you would have said you wanted to graduate, make money, have fun. Simple things.

But now, standing here with Sunghoon, you realize you don’t know anymore.

“I’m figuring it out,” you say finally.

You walk in comfortable silence for a while, and then Sunghoon leads you off the main path to a clearing that overlooks a small lake. The view is stunning—water glittering in the sunlight, trees reflected on the surface.

“Wow,” you breathe.

“Right?” He sits down on a large flat rock near the edge of the clearing, and you join him. “I found this spot last year. I don’t think many people know about it.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He pulls out his backpack and produces two bottles of water and some trail mix. “Snack break.”

You laugh. “You really came prepared.”

“I try.”

As you sit there, eating trail mix and looking out at the lake, you feel something loosen in your chest. This is nice. Simple. Real.

“Can I tell you something?” Sunghoon says after a while.

“Of course.”

“I’m really glad you agreed to come today. I know tutoring is our thing, but I wanted…” He trails off, looking uncertain. “I wanted to spend time with you outside of that. As friends. Or, I don’t know. Whatever this is.”

Your heart is pounding. “Whatever this is?”

He turns to face you fully. “I like you. I know that’s probably obvious, and I’m sorry if that makes things weird, but I can’t stop thinking about you, and I thought maybe—”

You kiss him.

You’re not sure why you do it. Maybe because of the way he’s looking at you, so open and vulnerable. Maybe because you want to stop him from saying more things that will make you feel guilty. Maybe because you’ve been wanting to kiss him for weeks and you’re tired of pretending otherwise.

Whatever the reason, you lean in and press your lips to his, and for a moment, he freezes.

Then he’s kissing you back, tentative at first and then deeper, his hand coming up to cup your face. His lips are soft, and he tastes like trail mix and mint gum, and it’s good—better than it should be, better than kissing Jake, better than anything you expected.

When you finally pull away, you’re both breathing hard.

“Wow,” he says softly.

“Yeah,” you whisper.

“Does this mean…?”

“I don’t know what this means,” you say honestly. “But I like you too. I think.”

He smiles, bright and genuine, and pulls you in for another kiss.

You lose track of time there by the lake, kissing Sunghoon like teenagers, his hands respectful but wanting, your fingers tangled in his hair. It feels right in a way that scares you.

When you finally break apart for real, the sun has shifted position, and you realize you’ve been here for over an hour.

“We should probably head back,” Sunghoon says reluctantly.

“Yeah.”

The hike back to the car is different from the hike out. Sunghoon holds your hand the entire way, his grip warm and steady, and you can’t stop smiling.

This wasn’t part of the plan. You weren’t supposed to actually like him.

But as he helps you into the car and leans over to kiss you one more time before closing the door, you realize you’re completely screwed.

That night, lying in bed, you finally respond to Mina’s texts.

how’s the bet going?

You stare at the message for a long time before typing: Good. He’s definitely into me.

perfect. keep it up. easy money.

Yeah. Easy money.

But it doesn’t feel easy anymore.

The following week, everything changes.

Your tutoring sessions become something more—study dates, really, where you spend as much time talking and laughing as you do working through problems. Sunghoon brings you coffee every time now, always remembering exactly how you like it. You find excuses to touch him, and he finds excuses to touch you back—a hand on your shoulder, fingers brushing when you pass papers back and forth.

On Thursday, after your session ends, he walks you back to your apartment. It’s out of his way, and you both know it, but neither of you mentions it.

At your door, he kisses you goodbye, slow and sweet, and you have to physically stop yourself from inviting him inside.

“I’ll see you next week,” he says, his forehead resting against yours.

“That’s so far away,” you murmur, and you’re surprised to find that you mean it.

“We could… do something over the weekend?” he suggests. “If you want.”

“Like what?”

“There’s a film festival on Saturday. Foreign films. Probably boring to most people, but—”

“I’d love to,” you interrupt.

His face lights up. “Really?”

“Really.”

He kisses you again, deeper this time, and you feel yourself melting into him.

When he finally leaves, you float into your apartment in a daze. Jiwoo takes one look at your face and grins.

“Oh, you’ve got it bad,” she says.

“Shut up,” you say, but you can’t stop smiling.

That night, you’re lying in bed scrolling through your phone when you see a post on Jake’s Instagram story. It’s from the Sigma Chi party—a blurry photo of the crowd with the caption good times.

And suddenly you remember. The kiss. Jake.

Your stomach drops.

You need to tell Sunghoon. You should tell him before he hears it from someone else, before it becomes a thing.

But how do you explain that you kissed his friend while you were… what? Were you dating him then? Are you dating him now? You never actually defined what this is.

You open your messages with Sunghoon, type out Can we talk? and then delete it.

This is fine. It was one kiss, weeks ago, before you and Sunghoon were actually together. It doesn’t mean anything.

Except it does mean something, because it means you were pursuing the bet. And if Sunghoon ever found out about the bet…

You close your phone and stare at the ceiling, your earlier happiness curdling into anxiety.

What the hell have you gotten yourself into?

Saturday arrives, and you meet Sunghoon at the small independent theater on the edge of campus. He’s dressed nicely—dark jeans and a fitted sweater that makes him look older, more sophisticated. When he sees you, his entire face transforms with his smile.

“Hi,” he says, pulling you in for a kiss that makes your toes curl.

“Hi yourself.”

The film festival is showing three movies back-to-back, and you settle into your seats with a large popcorn between you. The first film is French, subtitled, about a woman navigating love and loss in Paris. It’s beautiful and melancholy, and halfway through, Sunghoon reaches over and takes your hand.

During the second film—a Japanese drama about family—you rest your head on his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around you. It feels domestic and comfortable and utterly terrifying.

By the third film, you’re barely paying attention to the screen. All you can focus on is the warmth of Sunghoon’s body next to yours, the way his thumb traces patterns on your shoulder, the way he occasionally leans down to whisper commentary that makes you laugh.

When the festival ends and you step out into the evening air, you feel drunk on happiness and caffeine from the terrible theater coffee.

“That was amazing,” you say.

“Yeah?” Sunghoon looks pleased. “I wasn’t sure if it was too pretentious.”

“It was exactly pretentious enough.” You loop your arm through his as you walk. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Thank you for coming. I know it’s not exactly a typical date.”

“Who says I want typical?”

He grins and pulls you close, kissing you in the middle of the sidewalk like you’re the only two people in the world.

You end up at a small cafe nearby, ordering hot chocolates and splitting a piece of chocolate cake. The conversation flows easily—he tells you about his thesis project, you tell him about your internship applications, and somehow you end up talking about childhood dreams and fears and all the small details that make up a life.

“I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid,” Sunghoon admits. “I was obsessed with space.”

“What changed?”

“I realized I get motion sickness really easily.” He laughs. “Not exactly ideal for space travel.”

“That’s tragic.”

“What about you? What did you want to be?”

You think back. “A lawyer, I think. I liked arguing.”

“That tracks.”

You kick him lightly under the table, and he catches your foot between his, holding it there.

The cafe starts to close, and reluctantly, you both leave. Sunghoon walks you home again, and at your door, the goodbye kiss turns into several goodbye kisses, which turn into you pressed against the door with his body flush against yours.

“Do you want to come inside?” you breathe against his lips.

He pulls back slightly, his eyes dark. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

You unlock the door and pull him inside, grateful that Jiwoo is gone for the weekend. The apartment is dark and quiet, and you lead Sunghoon to your bedroom, your heart pounding.

Inside, you turn to face him, suddenly nervous. This feels different than all the other times you’ve done this with other guys. This feels like it matters.

“Hey,” Sunghoon says softly, stepping closer. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

“I want to,” you say. “I want you.”

He kisses you then, slow and deep, walking you backward until your legs hit the bed. You fall together, a tangle of limbs and breathless laughter, and as he hovers over you, looking down with so much want and tenderness that it makes your chest ache, you think: I’m in so much trouble.

But you push the thought away and pull him down into another kiss, losing yourself in the feeling of his hands on your skin, his mouth on your neck, the weight of him above you.

When you pull him inside your bedroom, the air between you feels electric. Sunghoon’s hands are tentative at first, skimming over your waist like he’s afraid you might disappear.

“Is this okay?” he asks, his voice low and rough in a way you’d never heard before.

“More than okay,” you whisper, reaching up to pull him into another kiss.

That seems to break something loose in him. His kisses become deeper, more urgent, his hands more confident as they explore. You pull at his sweater, and he breaks away just long enough to tug it over his head.

You’ve never seen him like this—shirtless, his body leaner than you expected but defined, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Your hands find his skin, tracing the lines of his shoulders, his ribs, and he shivers under your touch.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against your neck, his lips trailing down to your collarbone. “I’ve thought about this so many times.”

The admission sends heat pooling in your stomach. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His hands find the hem of your shirt, and he looks up at you, waiting for permission.

You answer by pulling it off yourself, and his eyes go dark with want.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and the curse sounds foreign in his mouth, which somehow makes it hotter.

His hands cup your breasts through your bra, and you arch into his touch, a soft moan escaping your lips. He kisses down your sternum, your stomach, his fingers hooking into the waistband of your jeans.

“Can I?” he asks, looking up at you.

“Please.”

He unbuttons your jeans slowly, reverently, sliding them down your legs along with your underwear. When you are finally bare before him, he sat back on his heels just looking at you, and you feel genuinely seen in a way that should have made you self-conscious but instead makes you feel powerful.

“You’re staring,” you say, but is no bite to it.

“Can’t help it.” He leans down to kiss you again, his body presses against yours, and you can feel how hard he is through his jeans.

Your hands go to his belt, fumbling with the buckle until he helps you, kicking off his jeans and boxers in one motion. And then there was nothing between you, just skin on skin, his weight pressing you into the mattress in the best way.

“Do you have…?” he starts.

“Nightstand,” you gasp. “Top drawer.”

He reaches over, finds a condom, and you watch as he rolls it on with shaking hands. When he settles back over you, positioning himself between your legs, he pauses.

“Tell me if anything doesn’t feel good,” he said, his eyes searching yours.

“I will. I promise.”

He pushes into you slowly, carefully, and you both groan at the sensation. He fills you perfectly, and when he’s fully seated inside you, he drops his forehead to yours, breathing hard.

“Okay?” he manages.

“So okay,” you whisper. “Move. Please move.”

He did, starting with slow, deep strokes that have you gasping and clutching at his shoulders. His technique was unpracticed but enthusiastic, and when you shift your hips to find the angle you need, he paid attention, adjusting immediately.

“Like that,” you breathe. “Right there.”

“Here?” He hits the spot again, harder this time, and you cry out.

“Yes, fuck, yes.”

He set a rhythm then, his hips snapping against yours, one hand braced beside your head and the other gripping your hip hard enough to leave marks. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and the sounds he makes—low groans and whispered curses—were pushing you closer to the edge.

“You feel so good,” he pants against your neck. “So fucking good.”

Your nails rake down his back, and he hisses, his rhythm faltering for a moment before he regains control. You can feel yourself getting close, that familiar tension building low in your belly.

“Touch yourself,” he says, his voice strained. “I want to feel you come.”

The command sends a shock of heat through you. You slide your hand between your bodies, finding your clit and rubbing in tight circles. The added stimulation combined with the feeling of him inside you is too much.

“Sunghoon,” you gasp. “I’m—”

“Come for me,” he says, and that’s it.

Your orgasm hits you like a wave, your body tensing and shaking as pleasure rolls through you. You feel yourself clenching around him, and he groans, his movements becoming erratic.

“Fuck, I’m—” He doesn’t finish the sentence, just buries himself deep and comes with a broken moan, his body shuddering against yours.

For a long moment, neither of you moved, both of you catching your breath. Then he carefully pulled out, disposed of the condom, and collapsed beside you, immediately pulling you into his arms.

“That was…” he started.

“Yeah,” you agreed, your voice still shaky.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, your temple, your lips. “You’re amazing.”

And lying there in his arms, your body still humming with aftershocks, you feel something crack wide open in your chest. Something that feels dangerously close to real feelings.

Later—much later—you lie tangled together in your sheets, Sunghoon’s arm wrapped around you, his breathing deep and even. You should feel satisfied, content.

Instead, you feel like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to fall.

You wake up to sunlight streaming through your window and the unfamiliar weight of someone else in your bed.

For a disorienting moment, you forget where you are, who you’re with. Then Sunghoon shifts beside you, his arm tightening around your waist, and everything comes rushing back.

The film festival. The cafe. Bringing him back here. The sex.

Oh god, the sex.

Your face heats at the memory, and you bury it in the pillow. Sunghoon makes a soft noise in his sleep, nuzzling into your neck, and despite everything—the guilt, the confusion, the looming disaster of the bet—you can’t help but smile.

“Are you awake?” His voice is rough with sleep, muffled against your skin.

“Maybe.”

He presses a kiss to your shoulder. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” You turn in his arms to face him, and he’s unfairly attractive like this—hair messy, eyes soft, a small smile on his lips.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

He kisses you, slow and lazy, and you can feel him hardening against your thigh. Your body responds immediately, heat pooling low in your stomach, but before things can progress, his phone buzzes insistently on the nightstand.

He groans, breaking away to check it. “It’s Heeseung. He wants to know if I’m alive.”

“Are you?”

“Barely.” He types out a quick response and sets the phone down. “I should probably go. I have a study group at noon.”

Disappointment lances through you, which is ridiculous. You just spent the entire night with him. “Yeah, okay.”

“Unless…” He looks at you hopefully. “Do you want to get breakfast first? There’s that place near campus that does really good pancakes.”

You should say no. You should put some distance between you, figure out what the hell you’re doing.

But instead you say, “I love pancakes.”

The diner is busy with the Sunday morning crowd, but you manage to snag a booth near the back. Sunghoon orders a truly obscene amount of food—pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns—and you raise an eyebrow.

“What? I’m hungry.” He grins. “Last night was… athletic.”

You kick him under the table, face flaming. “Shut up.”

“I’m just saying.” His grin widens. “You’re very… energetic.”

“Oh my god, stop talking.”

But you’re laughing, and so is he, and when the food arrives, you end up stealing bites from his plate while he pretends to be offended.

It’s domestic and easy and terrifying.

Halfway through the meal, Jake walks in with Heeseung and Jay. Your stomach drops.

Jake sees you first, and something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, or understanding. Then he’s heading over with the other two in tow.

“Sunghoon!” Heeseung says cheerfully, sliding into the booth beside him without asking. “You never came home last night. We were worried.”

Jay smirks, looking between you and Sunghoon. “Clearly not that worried.”

Sunghoon’s ears turn red. “We were just… we went to the film festival and then—”

“And then you stayed over,” Jake finishes, his eyes on you. There’s something unreadable in his expression.

“Hi, Jake,” you say carefully.

“Hey.” He slides in next to you, forcing you to scoot over. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah.”

The tension is palpable, at least to you. Sunghoon seems oblivious, too busy fielding questions from Heeseung about the films, but Jake is looking at you like he knows something.

“So you two are like, together now?” Heeseung asks bluntly.

Sunghoon glances at you, and there’s vulnerability in his eyes. “I… we haven’t really talked about it.”

“We’re seeing each other,” you say, reaching over to lace your fingers with his. “Right?”

“Right.” His smile is so genuine it makes your chest ache.

“Cute,” Jay says, stealing a piece of bacon from Sunghoon’s plate. “Our boy’s all grown up.”

“Fuck off,” Sunghoon says, but he’s grinning.

The conversation shifts to other topics—an upcoming game, someone’s disastrous Tinder date, plans for Halloween. You mostly stay quiet, hyperaware of Jake beside you, wondering if he’s going to say something about the party. About the kiss.

But he doesn’t. He just eats his food and makes jokes with the others, and when they finally leave, he gives you a long look that makes your stomach twist.

“He knows,” you say once they’re gone.

“Knows what?” Sunghoon asks, signaling for the check.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

The next week passes in a blur of classes, tutoring sessions that turn into makeout sessions, and stolen moments in empty classrooms and dark corners of the library.

You can’t keep your hands off each other. It’s like a switch has been flipped, and now that you’ve crossed that line, neither of you can go back.

On Tuesday, your “tutoring session” lasts all of fifteen minutes before Sunghoon is pulling you into his lap, his mouth hot on your neck.

“We should actually study,” you gasp, even as you grind down against him.

“We should,” he agrees, not stopping.

You end up in the single-user bathroom on the third floor, Sunghoon pressing you against the door as he kisses you breathless. His hands are everywhere—your waist, your hips, sliding up under your shirt to cup your breasts.

“God, I can’t stop thinking about you,” he breathes against your lips. “It’s affecting my grades.”

“Liar. You’re incapable of getting bad grades.”

“Want to test that theory?” His hand slips between your legs, rubbing you through your jeans, and you bite back a moan.

“Someone could hear.”

“Then you’ll have to be quiet.”

He drops to his knees, and your brain short-circuits.

“Sunghoon, what are you—”

“Let me,” he says, already unbuttoning your jeans. “Please. I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

You should say no. You’re in a public bathroom in the library. Anyone could walk by.

But then he’s pulling your jeans and underwear down, and his mouth is on you, and all rational thought flies out the window.

“Oh fuck,” you breathe, your hands flying to his hair.

He’s enthusiastic if not entirely skilled, his tongue exploring with scientific precision, trying to figure out what makes you gasp and moan. When he finds your clit and sucks lightly, your knees buckle.

“There,” you manage. “Right there, don’t stop.”

He doesn’t. He works you with his mouth, his hands gripping your hips to hold you steady, and you have to bite down on your fist to keep from crying out. The knowledge that you’re doing this here, in public, with Sunghoon of all people on his knees for you, makes it even hotter.

You come embarrassingly quickly, your orgasm hitting you hard and sudden. Sunghoon works you through it, lapping at you until you’re shaking and oversensitive, and when he finally pulls away, his lips are shiny and his eyes are dark with lust.

“You taste amazing,” he says, his voice wrecked.

You pull him up and kiss him hard, tasting yourself on his tongue. “Your place. Now.”

“I have a roommate.”

“My place then.”

You somehow make it back to your apartment without attacking him in public, though it’s a close thing. The moment you’re through the door, you’re on him, pushing him toward your bedroom and stripping off his clothes.

“Bed,” you command, and he goes willingly, lying back and watching as you undress.

When you straddle him, positioning yourself over his cock, he groans.

“Condom,” he manages.

“Nightstand.”

He reaches over, fumbles with the drawer, and rolls one on with shaking hands. Then you’re sinking down onto him, both of you moaning at the sensation.

“Fuck,” he breathes, his hands gripping your hips. “You feel so good.”

You start to move, riding him slowly at first and then faster, chasing your pleasure. His hands roam your body—your breasts, your stomach, your thighs—like he can’t decide where to touch you first.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he says, his eyes locked on you. “So fucking beautiful.”

The praise sends heat through you, and you lean down to kiss him, your movements becoming erratic. He takes over then, thrusting up into you hard and fast, and the change in angle has you gasping.

“Touch yourself,” he says, echoing his words from last time. “I want to see you come again.”

You do, your fingers finding your clit, and the combination of his cock inside you and your own touch is too much. You come with a cry, your body clenching around him, and he follows a moment later with a groan, his hips stuttering.

You collapse on top of him, both of you breathing hard, and he wraps his arms around you.

“I’m never going to be able to concentrate in the library again,” he says, and you laugh into his chest.

Thursday’s session is more of the same. You try to actually study—you really do—but Sunghoon keeps looking at you with these heated glances, and his hand keeps finding your thigh under the table, and eventually you give up and suggest going back to his place.

His roommate is at class, and you have exactly ninety minutes before he’s back.

You make the most of it.

This time, you’re the one on your knees, learning what makes Sunghoon gasp and curse. He’s bigger than you expected, and you take your time, using your tongue and lips and hands until he’s gripping the sheets and saying your name like a prayer.

“I’m close,” he warns, but you don’t pull away.

When he comes, you swallow, and the look on his face is worth it—complete bliss mixed with awe.

“Holy shit,” he breathes. “That was…”

“Good?” you ask, crawling up his body.

“Understatement of the century.” He pulls you in for a kiss, apparently not caring that you just had him in your mouth. “Your turn.”

“We don’t have time—”

“We have time.”

He proves it by going down on you again, this time with more confidence and skill. He’s a fast learner, you’ll give him that. He remembers exactly what you liked before, adding new tricks that have you squirming and begging.

When you come, it’s intense enough that you see stars, and Sunghoon looks so pleased with himself that you can’t help but laugh.

“What?” he asks, grinning.

“Nothing. You’re just… you’re really into this.”

“Into making you feel good? Yeah, I am.” He kisses your inner thigh. “Is that weird?”

“No. It’s perfect.”

And it is perfect, which is the problem.

Because every moment with him feels more real, and every real moment makes the lie bigger.

That night, Mina corners you at a party at some frat house you don’t remember the name of.

“Okay, what the fuck?” she demands, pulling you into a relatively quiet hallway. “You’ve been dodging my texts for two weeks.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy to update me on the bet? Because from what I’m hearing, you and Park Sunghoon are basically dating now.” She raises an eyebrow. “Which is great for the bet, obviously, but you’ve been weird about it.”

“I haven’t been weird.”

“You’re being weird right now. What’s going on?”

You take a long drink from your cup, buying time. “Nothing. It’s going fine. He’s definitely into me.”

“And are you into him?” The question is pointed.

“It’s a bet, Mina. Of course I’m not actually—”

“Bullshit.” She crosses her arms. “I’ve known you for three years. I can tell when you’re lying.”

“I’m not—”

“Do you actually like him?”

The question hangs in the air between you. You could lie. You should lie.

But you’re so tired of lying.

“I don’t know,” you admit quietly. “Maybe.”

Mina’s expression softens. “Babe…”

“I know. I’m an idiot. This was supposed to be easy, and I’m making it complicated.”

“So end the bet. Just tell him the truth.”

“And say what? ‘Hey, funny story, I only started talking to you because my friend bet me two hundred dollars that I couldn’t make you fall for me, but surprise, I actually caught feelings’? That’ll go over well.”

“Better than him finding out some other way.”

“He’s not going to find out.”

“Jake knows.” Mina says it casually, but the words hit like a punch.

“What?”

“Jake knows about the bet. He was there when I made it, remember? And he’s Sunghoon’s friend. You really think he’s not going to say something?”

Your stomach drops. “Jake wouldn’t—”

“Wouldn’t he? You two hooked up at that party. And now you’re dating his friend. You don’t think that’s going to come up eventually?”

Panic rises in your throat. “We didn’t hook up. We just kissed.”

“Does Sunghoon know that?”

“No.”

“So you’re keeping secrets on top of secrets. Great plan.”

“What do you want me to do, Mina?” Your voice comes out sharper than intended. “I can’t unfuck this situation. It’s already fucked.”

She sighs, her expression gentler now. “Look, I’m not trying to be a bitch. I’m worried about you. This isn’t like you. You don’t do feelings, you don’t do relationships. And now you’re in this mess because I made a stupid bet. So I’m giving you an out. Call it off. Keep your money. I don’t care. Just… don’t hurt him. And don’t hurt yourself.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could be.”

But she doesn’t understand. It’s not about the money anymore. It’s not even about the bet.

It’s about the fact that you’ve built something real with Sunghoon, even if it’s built on a foundation of lies. And you don’t know how to tell him the truth without destroying everything.

The next morning, you wake up to a text from Sunghoon: Can’t stop thinking about yesterday. When can I see you again?

Despite everything—the guilt, the fear, the looming disaster—you smile.

Tonight? My place?

Perfect. I’ll bring dinner.

You spend the day in a state of anxious anticipation. Part of you wants to cancel, to put some distance between you and figure out what to do. But a bigger part of you just wants to see him, to pretend for a little while longer that everything is okay.

He shows up at seven with Thai food and that soft smile that makes your heart hurt.

“Hi,” he says, kissing you hello like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Hi.”

You eat on your bed, cross-legged and trading bites of pad thai and spring rolls. Sunghoon tells you about his thesis advisor giving him shit for missing a meeting, and you tell him about your nightmare group project in your econometrics class.

It’s domestic and comfortable and you wish you could freeze this moment forever.

After dinner, you end up tangled together, kissing lazily. His hands are under your shirt, yours in his hair, and it’s not urgent or desperate—just sweet and slow.

“Can I ask you something?” Sunghoon says against your lips.

“Mm?”

“Are we… I mean, I know we said we’re seeing each other, but are we like, exclusive? Because I’d like to be. Exclusive, I mean. If you want.”

Your heart squeezes. “You want to be my boyfriend?”

“Yeah. I really do.” He pulls back to look at you, and there’s such open honesty in his face that it makes you want to cry. “Is that okay?”

You should say no. You should end this before it gets worse.

But instead you kiss him hard and whisper, “Yes. I want that too.”

His smile is brilliant, and he pulls you closer, deepening the kiss. Things heat up quickly after that—clothes coming off, hands and mouths everywhere.

This time, Sunghoon takes his time. He kisses every inch of your skin, mapping your body with his lips and tongue. When he finally settles between your legs, he looks up at you with dark eyes.

“Tell me what you want,” he says.

“You. Just you.”

He works you with his mouth until you’re trembling and gasping, and when he finally pushes inside you, it feels different. More intimate. Like you’re not just fucking but making love, which is a thought that should terrify you but instead just makes you hold him tighter.

“I’m falling for you,” he breathes against your neck as he moves inside you. “I know it’s fast, but I can’t help it.”

You should tell him the truth. Right now, in this moment, you should come clean.

But instead you just kiss him and whisper, “I’m falling for you too.”

And the worst part is, you mean it.

Later, after he’s fallen asleep, you lie awake staring at the ceiling.

You’re in love with Park Sunghoon.

You’re in love with the boy you were supposed to play, the bet you were supposed to win. And he loves you back, except he doesn’t really love you—he loves the version of you that you’ve been pretending to be.

Or maybe he does love the real you. Maybe all the pretending has become real. Maybe there’s no difference anymore.

Your phone buzzes with a text from Jake: We need to talk.

You stare at the message, your heart pounding.

Everything is about to fall apart. You can feel it.

And you have no idea how to stop it.

You meet Jake at a coffee shop off campus, somewhere you’re unlikely to run into anyone you know.

He’s already there when you arrive, sitting in a corner booth with two cups of coffee in front of him. He slides one toward you as you sit down.

“Vanilla latte,” he says. “I remembered from that party.”

“Thanks.” You wrap your hands around the cup, more for something to do than because you actually want it.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. Jake studies you with an unreadable expression, and you force yourself to meet his gaze.

“So,” he says finally. “You and Sunghoon.”

“Yeah.”

“How long has that been going on?”

“A few weeks. Officially, I mean. We’ve been doing the tutoring thing for longer.”

Jake nods slowly. “He’s really into you. Like, really into you. I’ve never seen him like this with anyone.”

Guilt twists in your stomach. “I know.”

“Does he know about the bet?”

There it is. The question you’ve been dreading.

“No,” you say quietly.

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Eventually.”

“Eventually,” Jake repeats, his tone flat. “So you’re just going to keep lying to him?”

“It’s not that simple—”

“It actually is that simple.” He leans forward. “You made a bet that you could make him fall for you. You did. Congratulations. Now either you tell him the truth, or you don’t. But this middle ground where you’re pretending everything’s fine? That’s fucked up.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Your voice comes out sharper than intended. “I know it’s fucked up. I know I should tell him. But how do I do that without destroying everything?”

“Maybe everything deserves to be destroyed if it’s built on a lie.”

The words hit harder than they should. You take a shaky breath. “Why do you care so much? You barely know him.”

“He’s my friend. And he’s a good guy. He doesn’t deserve this.” Jake pauses. “And honestly? I don’t think you deserve to hurt yourself like this either. I saw your face when you’re with him. Whatever started as a bet isn’t a bet anymore. You actually care about him.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Tell him the truth. Before someone else does.”

Your blood runs cold. “Are you threatening me?”

“No. I’m warning you.” Jake’s expression softens slightly. “Look, I’m not going to tell him. That’s not my place. But Mina was drunk when she made that bet, and there were other people around. Someone’s going to say something eventually. And it’s going to be a lot worse if he hears it from someone else.”

He’s right. You know he’s right.

“I’ll tell him,” you say. “I just… I need to find the right time.”

“Don’t wait too long.” Jake stands, leaving his coffee untouched. “For what it’s worth, I think he’d understand. He’s not perfect either. None of us are. But he deserves honesty.”

After he leaves, you sit alone in the coffee shop for a long time, staring at your phone.

You pull up your messages with Sunghoon, dozens of texts full of inside jokes and sweet nothings. Then you scroll to Mina, her most recent message asking if you want to go out this weekend.

You type out three different messages to Sunghoon—variations of “we need to talk”—and delete them all.

Tomorrow. You’ll tell him tomorrow.

But tomorrow comes and goes, and you don’t tell him.

You tell yourself you’re waiting for the right moment, but the truth is you’re a coward. Every time you’re with him, you see how happy he is, how he looks at you like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and you can’t bring yourself to shatter that.

The week passes in a strange tension. On the surface, everything is perfect. You and Sunghoon are inseparable—studying together, eating together, sleeping together. He’s introduced you to his parents over video chat, and you’ve started keeping a toothbrush at his place.

But underneath, you’re drowning in guilt and anxiety, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It happens on Friday night.

There’s a Halloween party at one of the bigger fraternity houses, and everyone is going. Sunghoon isn’t thrilled about it—he’s still not much of a party person—but you’d promised you’d go together, and he’s trying.

You’d put actual effort into your costume—a devil, complete with red bodysuit, horns, and a tail. Sunghoon is dressed as an angel, which he’d been embarrassed about until you told him how hot he looked in all white.

“We’re very on the nose,” he says as you walk to the party, his hand in yours.

“I think it’s cute. Heaven and hell, together at last.”

“Is that what we are?” He grins. “I’m corrupting you or you’re corrupting me?”

“Definitely the second one.”

The party is already in full swing when you arrive, the house packed with people in various states of intoxication and costume creativity. You spot Mina almost immediately—she’s dressed as a sexy nurse and is already drunk, dancing on a table with some guy from her marketing class.

“I’m going to get us drinks,” Sunghoon says, kissing your temple. “Want your usual?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He disappears into the crowd, and you start making your way toward Mina. But before you can reach her, someone grabs your arm.

It’s Jenna, a girl from your econometrics class. You’ve talked to her a few times, but you wouldn’t call her a friend.

“Oh my god, I’ve been looking for you!” She’s clearly drunk, her words slightly slurred. “I need to know—is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“The bet! With Park Sunghoon!” She’s practically shouting over the music. “Mina told Sarah who told me that you made a bet you could make him fall for you. And oh my god, you guys are actually dating now? That’s hilarious. How much did you win?”

Your blood turns to ice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, but your voice sounds wrong even to your own ears.

“Come on, don’t be modest! It’s genius, honestly. I mean, he’s such a nerd, it probably wasn’t even that hard—”

“Stop.” The word comes out harsh, cutting. “Just stop talking.”

Jenna blinks, taken aback. “Whoa, okay. I was just—”

But you’re not listening anymore. You’re scanning the crowd frantically, looking for Sunghoon, praying he’s still in the kitchen getting drinks, praying he didn’t hear any of that.

And then you see him.

He’s standing about ten feet away, two cups in his hands, his face completely blank.

Your heart stops.

“Sunghoon—”

But he’s already turning away, setting the cups down on the nearest surface and heading for the door.

“Shit,” you breathe, pushing past Jenna and fighting your way through the crowd. “Sunghoon, wait!”

You catch up to him outside, on the front lawn. He’s walking fast, his shoulders tense, and when you grab his arm, he jerks away.

“Don’t,” he says, his voice cold in a way you’ve never heard before.

“Please, just let me explain—”

“Explain what?” He whirls to face you, and the hurt in his eyes is devastating. “Explain how you made a bet that you could make me fall for you? Explain how this entire thing has been a lie?”

“It’s not—it wasn’t all a lie—”

“How much?” His voice cracks. “How much did you win?”

“Sunghoon—”

“How much?” He’s shouting now, and people are starting to stare.

“Two hundred dollars,” you whisper. “But I don’t want it. I never wanted it. That’s not what this is about.”

He laughs, a bitter sound. “Right. So what is it about? Entertainment? Did you have fun? Watching the awkward nerd fall all over himself for you?”

“No, it’s not like that—”

“Then what is it like? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you played me. You pretended to need tutoring, pretended to be interested in me, pretended to—” His voice breaks. “Did you fake all of it? Every moment, every kiss, every time you said you cared about me?”

“No!” Tears are streaming down your face now. “I didn’t fake it. I swear, I didn’t. It started as a bet, yes, but it became real. My feelings are real.”

“How am I supposed to believe that?” He’s crying too, and seeing him cry because of you is the worst thing you’ve ever experienced. “How am I supposed to believe anything you say when everything has been a lie?”

“Because I love you,” you say desperately. “I love you, Sunghoon. That’s real. That’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”

For a moment, something flickers in his expression—hope, maybe, or want. But then it hardens again.

“You don’t love me,” he says quietly. “You don’t even know me. Because if you did, if you cared about me at all, you wouldn’t have done this. You wouldn’t have—” He stops, taking a shaky breath. “I need to go.”

“Please don’t leave. Let me explain properly, let me—”

“There’s nothing to explain.” He takes a step back, putting distance between you. “You made a bet. You won. Congratulations.”

“Sunghoon—”

“I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t want to talk to you. I just… I need you to leave me alone.”

And then he’s walking away, and you’re standing alone on the lawn in your stupid devil costume, crying so hard you can barely breathe.

Behind you, the party continues, oblivious to the fact that your entire world just imploded.

You don’t remember getting home. One minute you’re on the lawn, the next you’re in your apartment, Mina’s arms around you while you sob into her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she keeps saying. “I’m so, so sorry. I should never have made that stupid bet. This is my fault.”

But it’s not her fault. It’s yours.

You’re the one who accepted the bet. You’re the one who lied. You’re the one who kept lying even after you started developing real feelings.

You’re the one who broke Park Sunghoon’s heart.

Your phone won’t stop buzzing—texts from people at the party, from Jenna apologizing, from people you barely know asking if it’s true. You turn it off and curl up in bed, still in your costume, feeling like you’re suffocating.

“What do I do?” you ask Mina, your voice hoarse from crying.

“I don’t know, babe. Give him time, maybe? Let him cool off, then try to talk to him again?”

“He said he doesn’t want to see me.”

“He’s hurt. People say things they don’t mean when they’re hurt.”

But you saw his face. The betrayal, the devastation. That wasn’t just hurt. That was something deeper.

You’d made him believe someone could care about him, could see past the nerd label and the awkwardness and love him for who he is.

And then you’d proven that it was all an act.

“I ruined everything,” you whisper.

Mina doesn’t argue.

The next morning, you wake up with a pounding headache and swollen eyes. Your phone is still off, and you’re afraid to turn it on.

But you force yourself to. You need to know how bad it is.

The damage is worse than you thought. There are dozens of messages, multiple group chats discussing the drama. Someone apparently recorded part of your argument with Sunghoon and posted it online. Your mentions are full of people calling you a bitch, a heartbreaker, cruel.

And they’re not wrong.

You scroll through until you find messages from people who actually matter. Heeseung sent you a long text that essentially amounts to “what the fuck is wrong with you.” Jay’s is shorter but somehow more cutting: “He really loved you. I hope it was worth it.”

Jake’s is the one that makes you cry again: “I warned you. I hope you figure out how to make this right.”

There’s nothing from Sunghoon.

You open your conversation with him, looking at the last messages he sent—a string of heart emojis in response to a photo you’d sent of your costume. It was less than twelve hours ago, but it feels like a lifetime.

You type out a message: I’m so sorry. I know you don’t want to talk to me, but please, let me explain. What I said last night was true. I love you. I never meant to hurt you.

You stare at it for a long moment, then delete it.

Words aren’t going to fix this. Nothing is going to fix this.

You’ve lost him.

And it’s entirely your own fault.

The first week without Sunghoon is the worst week of your life.

You stop going to parties. You can barely drag yourself to classes. Your carefully constructed social life—the one where you were always the center of attention, always having fun, always in control—crumbles around you.

Because it turns out that when people know you’re capable of something that cruel, they look at you differently.

Mina tries her best to support you, but even she doesn’t know what to say. She canceled the bet immediately, told you to keep your money, apologized a hundred times. But it doesn’t change anything.

You avoid the library completely. You can’t bear to walk past your usual table by the windows, can’t bear to remember all those tutoring sessions that turned into something more. Your statistics homework sits untouched—you can’t bring yourself to look at probability distributions without thinking of Sunghoon’s patient explanations, his neat handwriting, the way his face would light up when you got a problem right.

Your roommate Jiwoo walks on eggshells around you. She brings you food you don’t eat, suggests watching movies you can’t focus on, and eventually just sits with you in silence because that’s all you can handle.

“You need to get out of bed,” she says on day five, opening your curtains despite your protests. “You haven’t showered in two days. You’re not eating. This isn’t healthy.”

“I know.”

“So get up. Take a shower. We’ll go get coffee or something.”

“I don’t want coffee.”

“I don’t care what you want. You’re getting out of this apartment.” Her voice is firm but kind. “Come on. I’ll wait.”

You drag yourself out of bed, shower on autopilot, and put on clothes that aren’t pajamas for the first time in days. When you look in the mirror, you barely recognize yourself. Your face is pale, eyes hollow and red-rimmed. You look like you’ve been through a war.

You feel like it too.

Campus feels different now. You walk with your head down, avoiding eye contact, hyperaware of every whisper and pointed look. The story has spread—everyone knows about the bet, about what you did. Some people are sympathetic, but most just see you as the girl who broke Park Sunghoon’s heart for two hundred dollars.

You deserve it. Every bit of judgment, every dirty look. You deserve all of it.

Jiwoo takes you to a small cafe on the edge of campus, one you’ve never been to before. It’s quiet, mostly empty, and you’re grateful for the anonymity.

“Talk to me,” Jiwoo says once you’re settled with your drinks. “What are you feeling?”

“Everything. Nothing. I don’t know.” You wrap your hands around your cup. “I keep thinking about his face. When he found out. I’ve never seen anyone look so… broken.”

“Have you tried to reach out?”

“What would I even say? ‘Sorry I made a bet to make you fall in love with me’? There’s no apology big enough for what I did.”

“Maybe not. But maybe he deserves to hear that you’re sorry anyway.”

You shake your head. “He said he doesn’t want to see me. I have to respect that.”

“So that’s it? You’re just giving up?”

“I’m not giving up. I’m accepting that I fucked up so badly there’s no coming back from it.” Your voice cracks. “I lost him, Jiwoo. And it’s my own fault.”

She reaches across the table to squeeze your hand. “For what it’s worth, I think your feelings were real. I saw how you were with him. That wasn’t fake.”

“It doesn’t matter if they were real. Not when everything else was a lie.”

You start seeing Sunghoon around campus, though “seeing” isn’t quite right because you make sure he never actually sees you. You’ve become an expert at ducking into buildings, changing directions, hiding behind groups of people.

Each glimpse of him is like a knife to the chest.

He looks tired. Sad. He’s always alone now, you notice—no more walking with Heeseung and the others, no more sitting in groups at the dining hall. He’s retreated back into himself, back into the lonely, isolated version of himself that existed before you.

Before you ruined everything.

On Tuesday at 5 PM, you walk past the library and see him at your old table. There’s a girl sitting across from him—you don’t recognize her—and she’s working through what looks like statistics problems. He’s explaining something, using the same patient tone he used with you, and seeing it makes you feel physically ill.

He’s moved on. He’s replaced you.

Which is what you wanted, right? For him to be okay? But watching it happen feels like dying.

Week two is somehow worse than week one.

You run into Heeseung at the gym. You’ve been going at odd hours to avoid people, but apparently not odd enough. He’s on the treadmill next to yours, and for a moment you consider just leaving. But he speaks before you can.

“You look like shit,” he says bluntly.

“Thanks.”

“Sunghoon looks worse.”

Your chest tightens. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Too bad.” Heeseung stops his treadmill and turns to face you fully. “You fucked up. We all know it. But I’m not here to lecture you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I’ve known Sunghoon since freshman year, and I’ve never seen him as happy as he was with you. And I’ve also never seen him as miserable as he is now.” He pauses. “And because Jake told me what you said. That you actually fell for him.”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“It matters to him. Even if he won’t admit it.”

You stop your treadmill too. “What do you want me to say, Heeseung? That I’m sorry? I’m sorry. That I wish I could take it back? I do. That I love him? I—” Your voice breaks. “I love him so much it’s destroying me. But he doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t blame him.”

Heeseung studies you for a long moment. “He’s stubborn. Probably the most stubborn person I know. When he decides something, it’s really hard to change his mind.”

“So I’m fucked.”

“I didn’t say that.” He grabs his water bottle. “I’m just saying, if you really love him, you’re going to have to fight for it. Because he’s not going to make it easy.”

“He shouldn’t have to make anything easy. I’m the one who screwed up.”

“Yeah, you did. But people screw up. That’s life. The question is whether you’re going to let one mistake define you, or whether you’re going to do everything you can to make it right.”

He leaves you there, heart pounding, his words echoing in your head.

On Saturday morning, you wake up to a text from Mina: brunch? you need to eat and i miss you

You almost say no. But Jiwoo would just drag you out anyway, so you agree.

Mina picks the place—a cute little diner near campus that does bottomless mimosas on weekends. It’s the kind of place that’s usually packed, but you arrive early enough to get a table.

You’re halfway through your pancakes when the door opens and Sunghoon walks in.

Your heart stops.

He’s not alone. There’s a girl with him—the same one from the library, you realize. She’s pretty, with long dark hair and a sweet smile. She’s laughing at something he said, and he’s smiling back, and seeing them together feels like someone reached into your chest and ripped your heart out.

“Oh shit,” Mina breathes, following your gaze.

You can’t look away. You watch as they’re seated at a booth near the window—the same booth you and Sunghoon sat in that Sunday morning after your first night together. The morning when everything felt perfect and possible.

The girl says something and Sunghoon laughs—really laughs—and you realize with a sick feeling that you haven’t heard that laugh in weeks. Not since before everything fell apart.

“We should go,” Mina says, already signaling for the check.

“No.” Your voice sounds strange, hollow. “It’s fine. We were here first.”

“Babe—”

“I said it’s fine.”

But it’s not fine. Nothing is fine. You watch as they order coffee, as Sunghoon does that thing where he pushes his glasses up when he’s happy, as the girl reaches across the table to show him something on her phone and their fingers brush.

Does he touch her the way he touched you? Does he kiss her like he kissed you? Does he tell her about the hiking trail, about his dreams of being an astronaut, about all the little things he shared with you?

Has he replaced you that easily?

“I need to go,” you say abruptly, standing up. Your chair scrapes loudly against the floor, and several people look over—including Sunghoon.

Your eyes meet across the diner.

For one terrible, eternal moment, everything else falls away. It’s just you and him, all the hurt and love and regret hanging between you like a physical thing.

His expression shifts—surprise, then pain, then carefully controlled blankness. He looks away first, turning his attention back to the girl across from him with deliberate focus.

The dismissal is clear. You mean nothing to him now.

You barely make it outside before you start crying.

Mina follows, wrapping her arms around you while you sob on the sidewalk. People walk past, staring, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

“He’s moved on,” you choke out. “He’s already moved on.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe she’s just a friend—”

“Did you see the way he looked at her? He was happy, Mina. Really happy. Like he is when he’s—” You can’t finish the sentence. Like he was with you.

“Come on,” Mina says gently. “Let’s get you home.”

You let her lead you back to your apartment, your mind stuck on repeat. The image of Sunghoon laughing with that girl, the way he looked away from you like you were nothing, the realization that you’ve truly, permanently lost him.

This is what you deserve, you tell yourself. This is the consequence of your actions.

But knowing you deserve it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

That night, alone in your room, you finally let yourself break completely.

You pull out your laptop and open the folder of photos from the past few weeks. There are dozens—candid shots of Sunghoon studying, selfies you took together, photos from the hiking trip. In every single one where he’s looking at you, his expression is so full of love it makes your chest ache.

He really did love you. Completely, genuinely, without reservation.

And you destroyed that.

You find yourself scrolling through your text messages with him, reading through months of conversation. The early ones are formal—just coordinating tutoring sessions. But they gradually shift into something more. Long conversations about nothing and everything. Stupid jokes. Good morning and goodnight texts. The kind of constant communication that happens when you can’t stop thinking about someone.

The last text is still the string of heart emojis he sent in response to your costume photo. You’d been so happy that night, getting ready for the party, excited to show him off to everyone.

And then it all came crashing down.

You start typing before you can stop yourself: I saw you today at the diner. You looked happy. I’m glad. You deserve to be happy. I know you don’t want to hear from me, and I promise this is the last time I’ll bother you. But I need you to know that I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. What I did was unforgivable, and I understand why you hate me. But I need you to know that my feelings were real. Are real. I fell in love with you, Sunghoon. Really, truly in love. And I know that doesn’t excuse what I did, and I know it doesn’t change anything, but I needed to say it. You made me want to be a better person. You made me see that there’s more to life than parties and surface-level friendships and keeping people at arm’s length. You made me feel things I didn’t think I was capable of feeling. And I ruined it. I ruined the best thing that ever happened to me because I was selfish and careless and stupid. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t even expect you to respond to this. I just need you to know that I’m sorry. And that I love you. I’ll always love you.

You read it over three times, your finger hovering over the send button.

Then you delete it.

He’s moved on. He’s happy. And sending that message would just be selfish—making yourself feel better at his expense.

So instead, you close your laptop, turn off your phone, and cry yourself to sleep.

The next morning, you wake up to pounding on your door.

“Go away, Jiwoo,” you mumble into your pillow.

“It’s not Jiwoo.”

You bolt upright. That’s not Jiwoo’s voice. You stumble to the door and open it to find Jay standing there, looking uncharacteristically serious.

“We need to talk,” he says.

“I don’t—”

“It’s about Sunghoon. Let me in.”

Your heart racing, you step aside. Jay walks in, looking around your disaster of an apartment—tissues everywhere, empty takeout containers, your laundry piled in the corner.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “You really are a mess.”

“If you came here to insult me—”

“I came here to tell you that Sunghoon is miserable.” Jay turns to face you. “That girl you saw him with? That’s his cousin. She’s visiting for the weekend, and he agreed to show her around campus. But according to Heeseung, the entire time they were at that diner, he kept staring at the door like he was hoping someone specific would walk in.”

Your breath catches. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because he’s too stubborn to admit that he misses you. And you’re apparently too much of a coward to fight for him.” Jay crosses his arms. “Look, what you did was shitty. We all agree on that. But Sunghoon isn’t some innocent victim in all this either.”

“Yes, he is—”

“No, he’s not. He put you on a pedestal. He built up this image of you as this perfect girl who chose him over everyone else, and he didn’t give you room to be human. To make mistakes.” Jay pauses. “I’m not saying what you did was okay. But I am saying that relationships are complicated, and people fuck up, and maybe if you both actually talked to each other instead of suffering in silence, you could figure this out.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Have you actually tried? Like, really tried? Or did you just accept his initial reaction and give up?”

You don’t have an answer to that.

“That’s what I thought.” Jay heads for the door, then pauses. “He’s going to that hiking trail. The one he took you to. He goes every Sunday morning. Maybe you should accidentally run into him.”

“Jay—”

“Or don’t. Keep wallowing in your guilt and let him keep wallowing in his hurt. But I’m telling you, you’re both miserable apart. So maybe it’s worth at least trying to be miserable together.”

He leaves, and you stand in your apartment, his words echoing in your head. Maybe it’s worth at least trying.

Sunday morning dawns gray and overcast, threatening rain.

You almost take it as a sign to stay home. But you’ve spent two weeks being a coward, and you’re done with that.

You dress in the same athletic clothes you wore the first time Sunghoon took you hiking. No makeup, hair pulled back. This isn’t about looking good. This is about being honest.

The drive to the trailhead feels both endless and too short. Your hands shake on the steering wheel, and you have to give yourself a pep talk in the parking lot before you can get out of the car.

Sunghoon’s Honda Civic is already there.

He’s here.

You start up the trail on unsteady legs, every step feeling monumental. The trees are mostly bare now, leaves crunching underfoot, fall having settled fully into the world while you were busy falling apart.

You find him at the clearing overlooking the lake, sitting on the same flat rock where you first kissed him. His shoulders are hunched, head down. Even from a distance you can see the exhaustion in his posture. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping any better than you have. You step into the clearing.

He hears you immediately, head snapping up. When he sees you, his expression cycles through surprise, pain, anger, and finally settles on something carefully neutral.

“What are you doing here?”

“I needed to talk to you.”

“I thought I made it clear—”

“I know. Five minutes. Give me five minutes, and if you still want me to leave after that, I will. I’ll never bother you again.”

A long pause. Then he gestures stiffly to the rock beside him.

You sit, leaving space between you, and for a moment you both just stare out at the lake. The water is choppy today, reflecting the gray sky.

“I’m sorry,” you say finally. “I know that’s not enough. But I need to say it again. What I did was cruel and selfish and unforgivable, and I hate myself for it.”

“Why did you do it?” His voice is quiet. “Was I really that much of a joke to you?”

“No. You were never a joke. That’s the thing—you were supposed to be. It was supposed to be easy. I was supposed to play a part, win the bet, and move on.” You take a shaky breath. “But then I actually got to know you. And everything changed.”

“When?” he asks. “When did it become real?”

“Maybe when you brought me coffee without being asked. Maybe on Heeseung’s balcony. Maybe the first time you made me laugh for real.” You look at him. “I don’t know the exact moment. I just know that somewhere along the way, pretending became impossible because what I felt was completely real.”

He’s quiet. You press on.

“I saw you at the diner with your cousin. I thought she was someone you were moving on with, and it destroyed me. The idea of you loving someone else—” Your voice breaks. “That’s when I knew I couldn’t just accept losing you without a fight.”

“Jay told you she was my cousin,” he says flatly.

“Yes. And Heeseung told me you still had feelings for me. And Jake—” You pause. “Jake warned me weeks ago to tell you the truth. I should have listened.”

“You should have told me from the beginning.”

“I know. I was a coward. I kept telling myself I’d do it tomorrow, and then tomorrow became two weeks, and then it was too late.” Tears stream down your face. “I don’t expect you to forgive me easily. I’m not asking for that. I’m just asking for a chance to prove that I’ve changed. That my love for you is the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”

Sunghoon is quiet for so long you think he’s going to ask you to leave. Then he speaks.

“I’ve been miserable without you,” he says roughly. “I’ve been trying to be angry. Trying to hate you. But every time I come here, I think about kissing you on this rock. Every time I tutor someone new, I compare them to you.” He exhales. “I told my cousin about you. She called me an idiot for not hearing you out.”

Something flickers in your chest. “You talked about me?”

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” He finally turns to look at you, really look at you, and his expression breaks open. “You look terrible.”

“So do you.”

“Yeah.” He reaches out hesitantly, brushing a tear from your cheek. The touch sends electricity through you. “I missed you.”

“I missed you every single day.”

“I want to forgive you,” he says slowly. “But I’m scared. How do I trust you again? How do I know this isn’t another performance?”

“You don’t. Not yet. I can’t hand you trust—I have to earn it back. Slowly, honestly, for however long it takes. I’ll be transparent about everything. I’ll go to therapy. I’ll do whatever it takes.” You lace your fingers through his. “Just don’t give up on us before we even try.”

“You’d go to therapy?”

“I’d do anything for you.”

He looks down at your joined hands. “I really loved you. Love you. Present tense. I can’t seem to stop, no matter how hard I try.”

“Then don’t try.” You move closer, until your knees are touching. “Let me love you back. For real this time.”

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, something has shifted.

“No more lies,” he says firmly. “No more games. If we do this, we do it honestly. Complete honesty, always.”

“Complete honesty. Always.”

He leans in slowly, giving you every opportunity to pull away. You don’t.

When his lips meet yours, it’s careful at first, tentative—like you’re both afraid of breaking something fragile. But then you’re kissing him deeper, pouring everything into it. All the guilt, all the love, all the desperate hope that you haven’t destroyed something irreplaceable.When you finally pull apart, you’re both crying.

“I love you,” you whisper. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” He presses his forehead to yours. “Even though I probably shouldn’t.”

“We’ll make this work. I promise.”

“We’d better.” He squeezes your hand. “Can I take you to breakfast? Somewhere new. Not the diner.”

“New memories,” you say softly.

“New memories.”

He stands and offers his hand. You take it.

Three months later, you’re back at the library table by the windows.

Actually studying this time. Sunghoon is beside you, working on his thesis, occasionally stealing your coffee or reaching over to help with a problem. His hand finds yours between pages, a habit neither of you noticed developing.

Things aren’t perfect. There have been arguments, moments of doubt, nights where old wounds reopened. But you’ve worked through them. Therapy helped. Honesty helped more.

Mina waves from across the library. Jake gives you shit sometimes, but it’s affectionate now. Heeseung and Jay have folded you into the group like you were always there.

Your life looks different. Quieter in some ways, fuller in others. Less performance, more presence.

“Want to get out of here?” Sunghoon asks, already packing up his bag. “I know this hiking trail…”

You laugh. “Always with the hiking.”

“You love it.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” He takes your hand. “Come on. Let’s go make some more memories.”

Park Sunghoon was never just the biggest nerd on campus.

He was the love of your life.

And this time, there was nothing fake about it.

[asahicore]

stupid in love - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. best friend!sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. One night early on in your summer vacation, your best friend Sunghoon admits that his biggest anxiety about starting college is going there as a virgin - one thing leads to another, and you end up learning a few things from each other. The more time passes, the more obvious it becomes that your feelings for each other surpass friendship, but with the end of summer looming over your heads, it's hard to tell where these newfound emotions will lead you.

genre. best friends/childhood friends 2 lovers, summer au, lots of fluff and smut but also some angst to spice things up, when i say smut i mean LOTS of smut. like mostly smut lol (mutual first time, ice play, crazy stuff)

word count. 22.1k

a/n. bringing this one back from the pits of my google docs guys.. its been so long since i've posted anything and im not sure when the new hoon fic will be ready so i thought i'd repost an og asahicore fic!!! the title was originally 'hot like ice' but i changed it bc this is my blog and i do what i want <3 i'd also like to say that in terms of plot this is probably not something i would write nowadays, it's very smut-heavy and thats not what im about now idk i was crazy back then... but i rmb being happy w this fic and its reception when i first posted it so i'm happy to have it back on my blog and hope u guys will like it too <3 as always lmk what u think!!

It all started with a lollipop. Well, two, to be exact. One strawberry-flavored, one apple-flavored. 

You stand in front of your friend, lollipops in hand. “Which one do you want, Hoon?” 

“I don’t mind, just pick whichever one you like best,” he replies absent-mindedly, eyes on the TV as he tries to find a suitable movie for this late summer afternoon.

You plop down on the couch next to him and look at the two lollipops in your hands, unable to decide which flavor you like better. “I don’t know what I feel like right now,” you announce to an uninterested Sunghoon. “I’ll just try both.”

That seems to catch your best friend’s attention. He watches as you unwrap both candies, tasting each once, twice, then as you decide you want the apple-flavored lollipop and hand him the strawberry-flavored one. He doesn’t take his eyes off of your lips as you wrap them and swirl your tongue around the candy, letting its sweetness wash over your taste buds. You raise your eyebrows when you notice his staring and he blinks a couple times, trying to snap himself out of it. “Did you want the other one?” you ask, confused by his behavior.

“N-no, I like strawberry,” he stammers, turning his gaze back to the screen in front of you and settling for ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ a movie you’ve both seen a thousand times but never get bored of.

You’re used to Sunghoon getting lost in his thoughts, so you don’t question it much. You sit back on the couch, your knee touching his. You two are no strangers to a little skinship - after being friends for almost eight years, physical contact comes naturally. You have to admit that recently, it’s started to feel different; but the idea of your friendship changing tugs at your heartstrings so much that you ignore the prickles on your skin when he hugs you or the way your stomach flips when he smiles at you, dimples and sharp canines on display. You tell yourself it’s all stupid and that you can handle so much as your knees touching.

Sunghoon, on the other hand, can't. The lollipop in his mouth right now was in yours mere moments ago and you’d given it to him like sharing saliva was no big deal. He feels like a thirteen year-old for thinking like this, but this was pretty much an indirect kiss.

He stares at the TV screen, but all he can see are your perfect lips sucking that lollipop, and his mind is desperately not trying to go there, but he just cannot help himself. Blood rushes to his dick as he pictures your mouth around him, sucking him off with as much enthusiasm as you are the lollipop. Would you like his taste? Would you look up at him with those pretty eyes of yours, smiling even with his dick stuffed in your mouth?

His own thoughts catch him off guard, and before they can get any wilder, he runs off to the bathroom, knowing he’d never live it down if you caught a glimpse of his erection. Thankfully, you don’t, and you call after him, asking if he wants you to pause the movie, to which he shouts back a strangled ‘no.’

He comes back ten minutes later, face flushed and breath heavy. “Goddamn, Hoon, I know we’re best friends, but if you’re going to dump a massive load, I wished you did it in your own bathroom and not mine,” you tease him, laughing as his face gets even redder and he opens his mouth to protest.

“I was just on my phone!” he replies, mildly offended.

“Whatever,” you say, still laughing, and turn your attention back to the movie.

Well. Sunghoon would rather have you think he just took a huge shit than have you know he came to the idea of you sucking him off and swallowing every last drop of his cum. 

--

A few days later, you and Sunghoon are lying on his bed, the both of you on your backs, talking about this and that as you often do. It’s almost 3 a.m., and it feels almost rebellious, being up this late after months of waking up at 6, but your high school graduation was a week ago and you feel like you can do anything. The dim fairy lights you forced him to put up and the bright moon outside are the only sources of light in the room, and when you turn to look at him, you can just make out the outline of his face, the curve of his nose, the sharpness of his jaw. You've looked at him a thousand times before, so your memory makes up for what the light takes away from your eyes. You shift to lying on your stomach, propping yourself up on your elbows so you can take a better look at your friend. Something about the moonlight makes him look ethereal, and his beauty makes your heart skip a beat, but you’d never admit that to him. Out of habit, you reach out to touch his moles, gently placing your middle finger on his nose and your pointer finger on his cheek. Sunghoon closes his eyes at your touch, used to the warm feeling that settles in his stomach whenever you do that.

“Y/N?” he calls out, just as you pull your fingers away from his moles.

“Yeah?”

He opens his eyes again, meeting yours. “Is there anything you’re scared of for next year? You know, heading off to college and all that?” You shift again and lie on your back, the sides of your two bodies touching. You stare at the ceiling for a while, thinking about his question, and Sunghoon patiently waits for your answer.

“I’m scared about not making friends. I’m not the least outgoing person ever, but it’s so intimidating, not knowing anyone. And it’ll be weird not having you around. Shut up,” you warn before he can make an egotistical remark, so he just chuckles. “I’m also worried about the amount of work I’ll have. I’ve heard so many times that it’s a huge step-up from high school, the workload and the type of work and all that. What if I don’t even like the degree that I chose? I know I can change it, but it still stresses me out. Turning 18 doesn’t feel like a huge deal, but going to college does. It’s when all the responsibility hits. My mom told me to make my own doctor’s appointment the other day, and I almost cried when I had to call them. I’m not gonna have anyone to do my groceries for me. I’m scared I might get an awful roommate. I hate the idea of communal showers. I don’t even know what I want to do after college, and I know I have four years to make up my mind, but I’m scared those four years are gonna flash by and I’ll be indebted and unemployed by the end of it.” You pause to take a breath, and you can feel Sunghoon’s eyes on the sides of your face, but he doesn’t say anything. “Also, I heard that you put on a lot of weight during your freshman year.”

You turn to look at him to find him smiling at you. “Wow. That’s a lot.”

The two of you giggle, eyes not leaving the other’s. After a moment, you turn your gaze back to the ceiling and sigh. “Yeah, I know. But I’m more excited than I am scared. What about you?”

Sunghoon follows your gaze and looks up above him. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and when he finally speaks up, he says it so quietly, you almost don’t hear it. “I’m scared of going to college a virgin.”

You try to stay serious for a few seconds, but you can’t keep your laughter in and snort loudly at your friend’s words, laughing so hard your stomach starts to hurt.

“Don’t make fun of me!” he whines, hands coming up to cover his face.

It takes you a while to calm down; not only was Sunghoon’s statement ridiculous, it was so unexpected that you couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you apologize, catching your breath. “I just can’t believe that that’s what you’re scared of, of all things.”

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable concern,” he defends himself.

“Nobody’s gonna care if you’re a virgin, Hoon,” you try to reason with him, but if there is one thing your best friend is, it’s stubborn.

“I’m gonna care! What if I like a girl but I can’t bring myself to make a move on her ‘cause I have no experience?”

“But Hoon, chances are she doesn’t have a lot more experience than you do! She’ll be the same age we are, dummy. We’re not sixteen year-olds jumping into a world of twenty year-olds. Sure, some people have their first time in high school, but a lot do it at university. You’ll be fine,” you reassure. His furrowed eyebrows and pout tell you he’s not fully convinced, though.

“Oh, c’mon! If you really want to lose your virginity before leaving, we can get you laid during the summer. I’m sure we can find a girl nice enough,” you tease, jokingly patting his bicep, trying not to make a note of how firm the skin feels under your hand.

Sunghoon sighs, and you can tell he’s actually taking this seriously. “I’m not that desperate that I’d have sex with the first girl that agrees, you know. I’d still rather do it with someone…” He glances at you for just a second. “Someone I trust.”

You feel your face heat up at the possible meaning behind his words, so you look away, not wanting him to see the effect they had on you. He changes his position on the bed, and now it’s his turn to prop himself up on his elbows and look down at you.

“What about you, Y/N? Don’t you think it’d be good to get a bit of experience before going off to college? It’ll be one less thing to stress about,” he says, a small smirk playing on his lips, and his shy demeanor from moments prior is completely gone. Out of fear that his ego would get even bigger, you'd never tell him, but you love it when he gets like that - when he thinks he’s the shit and teases you mercilessly. You know he does it lightheartedly, and it never fails to bring a smile to your face.

Except right now it does. You’re not smiling, far from it; you’re looking up at your best friend, mouth slightly agape and wide eyes searching for a sign that he may be just joking. He raises an eyebrow expectantly, and your reaction is to scoff at him. 

“Do I need to remind you that you’re the reason I have no experience to begin with, Park Sunghoon?” you ask, sitting up on the bed to peer down at him. He shifts again and lays on his back, his hands coming up behind his head as he beams at you.

“Am I really?”

You wish you could slap that shit-eating grin off of his face. This is not the first time you're having this conversation. “Yes, Hoon. Every time a guy was even remotely interested in me, you chased them away. I’m still not over you telling Kang Taehyun I have smelly feet! I had a huge crush on that guy!”

Sunghoon loudly laughs at the memory, and you curse yourself for cracking a smile when you see his face scrunched in laughter. “That was in Year 5, Y/N! It’s been years!”

You grab a pillow and throw it at his head, unable to not laugh along with him. “What about Bang Yedam, then? That was only last year, and you totally ruined my chances with him!”

“Listen, if you having a creepy doll collection is enough to make him not ask you out, then he must not have liked you that much.”

“But I don’t have a creepy doll collection! That’s the whole point!” you say, on the brink of desperation. You sigh at your friend who’s still catching his breath from laughing so much. “You’re just lucky they didn’t repeat your bullshit to anyone. I would’ve had such a weird reputation otherwise.”

“Of course they didn’t. I told them I’d kill them if they did,” he stated matter-of-factly, as if that was a normal and appropriate thing to do.

“Couldn’t you have threatened them that way so they wouldn’t ask me out instead of lying to them about me?”

Sunghoon stares at you for a few seconds, eyes seemingly empty of thought. “Huh. Yeah, I guess I could’ve done that.”

“Ugh,” you groan, and plop down on the bed next to him. Neither of you says anything for some time, until you break the silence again. “You know you even stole my first kiss, Hoon,” you speak softly.

“I know,” he says, voice just as quiet as yours. “You never shut up about it.”

“Why would I? I was about to kiss Lee Heeseung, of all people, the boy everybody, including me, had a crush on, but no, someone had to get between us and kiss me in his stead,” you grumble, giving your friend a harsh side-eye.

Sunghoon sighs and shakes his head as if you’re being irrational. “I don’t get why you’re so hung-up on that. Why would you want your first kiss to be because of a middle-school party dare rather than have it with your best friend, whom you know and trust?”

“It was Lee Heeseung, for God’s sake!”

“And I’m Park Sunghoon!”

Still both laying on your backs, you turn your heads to look at each other. There’s something in his eyes you’ve never seen before that you can’t quite put your finger on. The person in front of you is one you’ve known for years now and yet the look in his eyes is of such unfamiliar intensity that it makes your stomach flip. You inhale sharply when his eyes drift down to your lips, and you can’t help but mirror his actions. The atmosphere has flipped like a light switch; it was playful just mere seconds ago, the sound of your usual banter filling up the room. All of a sudden, there’s something heavy dancing in the air around you, and it makes your heart skip a bit faster and your breath a bit shallower.

Your voice is barely above a whisper when you say his name.

“Yeah?” His eyes snap back up to yours, but you're still stuck on his lips. Have they always looked so kissable?

“Why did you do that? Why did you push those boys away from me?” you ask, even though you’ve asked this question a thousand times before. You want to hear his answer again.

“I’ve already told you. You deserved better than them.” Whenever you ask him about it, Sunghoon always stops here, and you never push. But there are unspoken words left hanging that you’re dying to hear.

“Who, then? Who’d be better than them?”

He's quiet for a second. “It’s a secret,” he whispers finally, a small smirk teasing his lips, and you roll your eyes at him. But then your eyes meet again and your breath hitches. You shift to your side so you can face him more fully, and he mirrors your actions. 

It’s his turn to say your name. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you kissed anyone since?” he asks, coming off shyer than he’d intended to.

You giggle and smack his shoulder lightly. “Why do you wanna know?”

He snickers too and, to your surprise, stops your fist from hitting him a second time, enveloping his larger hand around yours and laying it between the two of you on the bed. “Cause I should know that sorta thing. Also, if you did kiss someone since then, and I didn’t know about it, I'd be upset.”

“Why would you be mad?” you say, still giggling, trying to ignore the way your heartbeat quickens when he threads your fingers with his.

“Because you wouldn’t have told me!”

“Well…”

“No way, Y/N,” he practically shouts, already feeling betrayed, his free hand coming up to grip his heart in fake shock.

“Let me at least finish first,” you protest. He obliges, although he doesn't look very happy about it. “You know that summer 2 years ago I went away to camp?”

“Yeah, worst summer ever.”

“Well, I did sort of… get with someone, that summer,” you say, avoiding Sunghoon’s wide eyes as he gasps loudly.

“What? Who with? How come you didn't tell me?” he exclaims, letting go of your hand. He sits up on the bed and crosses his arms over his chest like an annoyed child. 

“Because of this exactly.”

“What’s this?”

“Your reaction right now!” you say, sitting up as well, both of your knees grazing his. The simple touch sends a shiver down your spine that you can only hope he takes no notice of.

“Wouldn’t you be a bit upset if I told you I ‘got with’,” he air-quotes, “a random girl two years ago?”

“No? Especially not if it was two years ago?”

You both look just as confused as the other, obviously not on the same wavelength. He furrows his eyebrows and glares at you. “Well, I am.”

You throw your head back in laughter and place your hands on his knees, but when you come forward again, you overestimate the distance between the both of you and find yourself mere inches from his face. The laughter immediately dies in your throat, and you feel it go dry when your stunned reaction elicits a smirk from him. You don’t know how long you stare into his eyes, all you know is you snap out of it when his gaze drifts down to your lips once more. You’re closer now than you were before, and having him so close makes your mind spin with all the possible outcomes of such proximity. You lean back on the bed, pulling away your hands from his knees to hold yourself up on them.

“There’s no reason to,” you say, hoping that breaking the silence will dissipate some of the tension in the air. You keep going back and forth between familiar and dangerous and you don’t know how long you’ll be able to handle that atmosphere. “It’s not like anything grand happened. We made out a bit and held hands. We never spoke after that summer, otherwise you’d have known about it.” 

Sunghoon lets out a low hum. His eyes are still trained on yours, and you wished he’d look away because you can’t seem to do it yourself. He still doesn’t say anything, so you speak up again. “You say that like you’ve never had girlfriends, by the way. Surely you’ve done more than just kissing.” Silence again, and you can’t decipher the look he’s giving you. “So, I don’t know what you’re so scared about, because it’s not like you have zero experience. I’m sure the girls at uni will love you, Hoon.”

He sighs and finally tears his eyes away from yours, and you’re not sure if you’re seeing things because of how dark and late it is or if there’s an actual blush creeping on his cheeks. “Sure, I’ve had a couple girlfriends, but you know they’ve never lasted long,” he says, looking down at his lap. “We made out… I guess I-” he gives you a quick glance, “I’ve touched their boobs and they’ve touched my… you know…”

You can’t help but giggle at how shy your friend is suddenly being. “Can’t even say the word ‘penis’, Hoon?,” you tease, and his eyes snap back up at yours.

“Of course I can. Penis! There.” You look at each other for a few seconds before bursting into laughter, Sunghoon hushing you so you don’t wake up his parents, but his hushes are louder than your laugh. After a couple minutes, you calm down and wipe your tears away, grateful for the break in the tension between you and Sunghoon.

“Anyway, yeah, I guess I don’t have that much experience. Which is why I brought it up in the first place.” And just as quickly as it’d left, the tension is back again.

You look around the room because the weight of Sunghoon’s gaze on your face is unbearable. You release a shaky breath when you feel his gentle hand on your knee, and your eyes drift to it, but you can’t get yourself to look him straight in the eyes. 

“Don’t you think it’d be good to get experience before leaving for college, Y/N?” he asks, and you can tell he’s trying to sound confident, but his voice comes out breathier and shakier than he must intend it to.

“I don’t know… I don’t think it’s necessary,” you say, eyes still trained on his hand resting on your knee. He squeezes it a bit, making you finally look up at him. Is it just you, or did the room get hotter all of a sudden?

“Not everything you do has to be out of necessity, you know.”

The both of you stare at each other for a few moments. This shift in your relationship was bound to happen; you’d been feeling it more and more recently. You didn’t use to think twice about Sunghoon taking your hand in his, nor did you feel those stupid butterflies eating away at your stomach every time his gaze lingered for a second too long. You’d tried to reason with yourself that it was just teenage hormones doing their stupid job, and that you were doomed to feel some kind of attraction for your extremely handsome best friend at some point in your life, but that if you ignored it hard and long enough it would go away.

Well, now that Sunghoon’s lips are barely inches away from yours and your skin is on fire under his hand, it definitely isn’t going away.

“What would you do if I kissed you?” Sunghoon asks, eyes fluttering down to your lips. You think he’s looked at your lips more than the rest of your face in the past hour.

“I’d slap you,” you lie, gaze mirroring his.

“Would you really?” he says, and your hesitation makes him smirk slightly.

“No,” you breathe out, and it’s the answer he’s been waiting for, the answer he needs to finally press his soft lips against yours. 

You don’t even have the time to savor the moment, though, because the warmth of his lips is gone as quickly as it came. He pulls back, a surprised look in his eyes, as if he can’t believe what he just did. The tension above you breaks and rains down on you like small pieces of confetti that settle comfortably on your head and shoulders. There’s a knot in your stomach but instead of twisting your insides in nervousness, it feels warm and makes you giddy for what’s to come next. Sunghoon’s surprised expression transforms into a grin at the sound of your laughter, and he can’t help but chuckle along with you.

You scooch closer to him, and his other hand comes to rest on your second knee. You can tell he’s not going to do much more, so you lean in bit by bit, and peck him softly on the lips. You both giggle again and you blame the fact that you want to feel his lips on yours again on the late hour of the night. You peck his lips once, twice more, giggling inbetween, but when you peck them a third time, he doesn’t let you pull away and keeps his lips on yours. The sudden added strength takes you aback, but it doesn’t take you long to yield to his touch and kiss him back. 

Sunghoon moves his lips slowly against yours and it’s surprisingly easy to fall into his rhythm. You don’t have the most experience with kissing, but something about doing it with your best friend reassures you and your whole body relaxes as you focus on the feeling of his lips moving in cadence with yours. The knot in your stomach stays there and tightens when his hands ride up your thighs and settle on your hips, holding you snugly there. You’re only wearing shorts and his palms against your bare skin make you release a shaky breath in Sunghoon’s mouth. You pull back for a bit, surprised at your own reaction, but nothing has prepared you for the way your best friend looks at you.

His pupils are dilated, dark; his glossed-over eyes bore right into yours. Your breath was already shallow from the kiss, but it’s his gaze that renders you completely breathless. Sunghoon tightens his grip on your hips and leans in for more, but you put a hand on his chest to stop him, making his eyes snap back into focus.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Y/N. I don’t know what took over me. Are you okay?” he asks, as short of breath as you are, but worry laced in his voice.

“No- Yes- I mean, yes, I’m fine, everything’s fine, I just-” you shake your head, trying to gather your thoughts. “I’m just…”

“Tell me. You can tell me,” he says, rubbing gentle circles into your hips with his thumb, and the unfamiliar yet intimate gesture makes it even harder to concentrate. 

“We- we’re best friends, right?” you ask, voice trembling, You ask, even though you know the answer, just because you’re afraid the line the two of you have just crossed is already miles behind you, and you won’t be able to retrace your steps.

“Yeah, of course we are,” Sunghoon reassures, head tilting to the side in confusion. 

“And best friends… Do they… Well, it’s normal for best friends to kiss, right?” you say, trying to calm the overpowering urge to kiss him again.

Sunghoon chuckles and tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I don’t know about that, Y/N.”

“Oh,” you breathe.

Sunghoon quickly catches on to your hesitation. “But who cares about what best friends usually do and don’t do?” he says, holding your face between his hands to make you look up at him. “I liked kissing you, just now. I really, really liked it,” he admits, red dusting his cheeks. “Did you?”

You nod, too shy to put just how much you enjoyed kissing Sunghoon into words. “Do you want to do it again?” he asks and chuckles when you nod again, eyes already on his lips. This time, you don’t stop him when he leans in and let him press his lips to yours again. His words have reassured you and you sigh into his mouth, making him smile into the kiss. 

His hands ride up a bit and settle on your waist, bringing you a bit closer to him, and you circle your arms around his neck. The shyness of the first kiss is completely gone, and you’re both gaining more and more confidence, letting everything go and focusing solely on where your bodies meet. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and you push your body onto his, a sudden need to feel him against you, to feel his strong arms encaging you. 

You pull away at the same time to catch your breaths, smiling at each other when you see how lustful the other’s expression is. Sunghoon’s eyes have glossed over once more, and you’re sure yours have too. “C’mere,” he whispers, beckoning you to him. You climb onto his lap, one knee on each side of his hips. “Is this okay?” he asks, but you don’t answer, you just lean in and kiss him again, holding his face in your hand as his hands roam your back over the thin fabric of your t-shirt. Your kisses are curious, the both of you trying to figure out what feels best as you tilt your heads from one side to the other and let your inquisitive hands travel each other’s bodies. Yours find purchase in his hair, and you revel in the sighs that escape his lips whenever you pull and tug at the strands. 

As the kiss gets hungrier and needier, his hands fall down to your lower back, and then to your ass. He just cups it for a while, but after a few moments, grabs it harder and brings you close to him, making your core rub against  the hardness that had been building in his sweatpants for a while now. The friction is unexpected and you can’t help the loud moan leaving your lips at the feeling. It’s a feeling you know from your own hand in the privacy of your dark room, but Sunghoon making you feel that way is so foreign that it snaps you out of the daze you’re in. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, was that too much?” Sunghoon scrambles for words, but you’re already pulling away, and he doesn’t know what to do to keep you close.

You sit back on the bed, holding your knees close to your chest. You look at your best friend in front of you who’s looking at you with a worried expression. Something in you craves to reach a hand out to him, to feel his cheeks and jawline under your palms again, to find out if he’d shiver at your touch and if goosebumps would form on his skin. He’s been your best friend for eight years, and you’ve always thought you knew everything about him, the same way he’s supposed to know everything about you. But you realize in this moment that there are things you don’t yet know, melodies to be discovered, treasures to be unearthed. Your fingertips are burning to find them all. 

The sound of your name resonates inside your mind and it takes you everything not to fall back on him again. You furrow your eyebrows, confused by all those things you’re feeling. What was it that just took over you, that lit your insides up so?

You straighten your back suddenly and take in your surroundings. Sunghoon’s room is still the same old room you’ve always known, the same blue walls, the same posters he only ever changes when he finds a new interest and lets go of an old one. The same pictures from when you were 10, 12, 15, recent ones now that you’re 18; the same figure skating trophies and medals on his shelves. You turn to look at your best friend. The same soft, round cheeks contrasted by a sharp jaw; the same almond eyes, round with worry at your sudden movement away from him; the same two moles you’ve always found so comforting, for some reason. You almost reach out to touch them, to give you some sense of balance, to reassure you that things aren’t changing as much as it feels like they are. But you’re scared electricity might fry your fingers if you touch him right now. You’re scared you won’t be able to take your fingers off of him, no matter how much it stings. His face is the same as always before, but there’s something else to it, something you could probably figure out if you spent more than three seconds thinking about it, but you’re not sure you want to figure it out.

“Is everything okay? Did- Did I do something wrong?” he asks, voice laced with concern. 

Before he can put a reassuring hand on your knee, you get off of the bed, and hurriedly say, “No. I just- I think I should go home.” You look everywhere but at him.

He sits up at your words, concern turned into confusion. “It’s 3 a.m., Y/N, why do you want to go home all of a sudden? You’ve stayed over plenty of times before.”

“I know, I just…” you trail off, trying to come up with an excuse. “I’ve got cramps. I think my period’s coming,” you lie. It’s better than whatever truth is threatening to bubble up.

“Oh. Right.” He scooches a bit, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Is there anything- like- can I do anything?” He sighs, steadies himself. “You don’t have to go, is what I’m trying to say.”

A few months ago, when you had finally wrapped your head around the fact that your best friend was an attractive man and that he made you feel things friends weren’t supposed to make you feel, you’d told yourself it was all just a phase that would pass soon. But feelings this strong surely cannot go away that easily.

You take a deep breath in and tear your eyes away from him. “I think I should go home,” you repeat. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Hoon.”

You turn around and start walking away, but Sunghoon is quick on his feet and stops you from going out the door. “Do you actually have cramps? Or are you just scared that our friendship might change?” He sounds out of breath, like asking this question is taking him all of his energy.

You avert his gaze and try to push past him, but he’s much stronger than you. Puberty sure played its trick on him. You sigh and look down at your feet. “I’m tired, Hoon, let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

But if there is one thing your best friend is, it’s stubborn. “I don’t wanna talk about it tomorrow. I wanna talk about it now. Did it feel nice?” he asks, and his resolute tone of voice makes you look up at him.

“I- I mean-”

“Y/N,” he starts, wrapping his arms around you and leaning in a bit, his familiar scent filling your nostrils. You have to close your eyes. “Answer me. Did it feel good?”

“Yes,” you answer without thinking. 

“Is that why you’re scared?”

“Yes.” Your eyes flutter open when you feel his fingers graze your cheek. He leans in again and traps your kiss in a much softer and intimate kiss that makes your head spin and your thoughts cloud. Before you can get carried away, you pull away again, and ignore how beautiful he looks when his eyes stay closed for a couple of seconds longer. He only opens them once you tell him once again you should go home, that you need some time to think.

“Let me at least walk you there. It’s dark,” he pleads, his grip on your waist still tight.

“Hoon, I live right next door, I’ll be fine.” You let him kiss you once more and he makes you promise to call or text him tomorrow.

When you leave, Sunghoon plops back down on his bed, arm resting on his forehead as he plays back the events of the night. Had he done something wrong? Something that made you want to get as far away from him as quickly as possible? He’d tried to be gentle and to make sure you were okay with everything, but he couldn’t help but get carried away when he heard those sweet sighs of yours. He thought he was going to combust when he heard you moan, and he wanted to hear it over and over again, but you’d jumped from him like he’d told you he had killed someone.

He hopes you were telling the truth when you said you were just scared about your friendship changing. He hadn’t wanted to push and get you to stay; he knew it was weird, seeing each other in a different light all at once. He wasn’t completely oblivious; he’d felt that same shift in your relationship those past few months, just like you had, although you’d never spoken about it to each other. He knew he could never go back to seeing you as just a friend when he’d jerked off one day and you were all he could think of. He kept imagining the sounds you’d make and the way your hands would feel on him, and he’d gotten so close to getting that today, but he must’ve fucked something up and now his chances were ruined. He curses himself for letting you slip through his fingers just when he thought he finally had you.

You don’t get a wink of sleep that night. Your mind is reeling with everything that happened in Sunghoon’s room. Your fingers unconsciously keep coming up to touch your lips and feel the ghost of his touch there. Your skin turns hot at the simple thought of how perfect his lips had felt against yours, and you toss and turn in your bed as you consider what might’ve been, had you stayed with Sunghoon. 

But it’s all happening too quickly, and even though you’ve been curious in more ways than one about your best friend for the past few months, you hadn’t expected to kiss him and to enjoy it so much on a random summer night. Your thoughts only seem to calm down and your eyes finally close just as the sun starts to rise.

--

The next day, Sunghoon wakes up in the early hours of the afternoon and checks his phone right away. A couple of notifications, but nothing from you. A text from Jake in their group chat with Jay asking to hang out at Sunghoon’s pool, to which he replies that they can come whenever. He taps a quick one out in the shower, memories of your scent and your lips on his getting him to finish quicker than he’d like to admit. He’s in the middle of a late breakfast when Jake and Jay spawn at his door, swimming trunks already on. Still nothing from you.

It doesn’t take Jay and Jake long to figure out that something is up with their best friend. It’s not like he does much usually, but today especially, he makes no effort to entertain them. He laughs at their jokes, but it feels like he laughs because he hears other people laughing rather than because he genuinely finds them funny. He barely even reacts when the inflatable pool ball hits him right in the face.

His friends don’t say anything until they’re all seated at a table by the pool, sipping on some ice-cold Coke. The air is still warm but the sun is low in the sky, hidden behind the house. Sunghoon is still lost in his thoughts, unblinking eyes fixed on a random point in the distance. Jay and Jake exchange a look before the former breaks the silence.

“Is everything alright, Hoon? You look out of it today.”

Jay’s voice brings him back to the here and now, and his eyes jump back and forth between his two friends who are looking at him expectantly. “Huh? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” he says, leaving some of the truth out, but his friends know him better than he gives them credit for.

“Are you sure? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling us. You usually act like a little bitch when you’re tired, you don’t get all…,” Jake shakes his hand in front of his face, “distant like that.”

Sunghoon bites his lip, debating whether he should tell his friends about you or not. No matter how stupid they may be, they also know both of you quite well, so they might prove not completely useless, he thinks.

“Y/N and I kissed last night.”

It’s almost comical, how Jay and Jake bring their head forward in astonishment, how wide their mouth gets, how their eyes look like they might pop out of their sockets, and how they say “You what?!” at the same time. On a normal day, Sunghoon would've laughed.

“We kissed,” Sunghoon repeats, eyes drifting down to the ground in front of him as he rubs his neck in embarrassment.

“Fucking finally!” Jay exclaims.

“Told you it was gonna happen. No way you two were going to stay just besties forever,” Jake teases, punching Sunghoon in the arm. “How was it?”

Sunghoon sighs and leans back in his chair, letting his head hang back. “Really fucking amazing,” he chuckles. His friends holler for him, snickering like 12-year old boys who just saw a hot girl walk past. 

“God, I saw this coming from miles away. I don’t know why you kept on insisting nothing was gonna happen between you two,” Jake says, beaming.

“I really didn’t think anything would… I just… Started seeing her differently recently, I guess.” Sunghoon shrugs, sheepishly smiling to himself.

“So, what happened? Did you guys just kiss or…?” Jay asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Jake giggles at the insinuation of sex but has a curious glint in his eyes when he waits for Sunghoon’s answer.

“Yeah, um, we just kissed cause she- she sort of ran away?” Sunghoon admits, wincing at the recollection.

“You what?!” Chaeyong’s voice rings out in the food court of the mall where you’re currently sitting, halfway through your strawberry milkshake.

“Keep it down, would you?!” you scold her, smiling apologetically to the people staring at you and your friend.

“If it was so good, why the hell did you run away, Y/N?”

“I just- I don’t know… Freaked out, I guess…” you mumble, cowering under the harsh look she gives you.

“Well, have you talked since?” You don’t reply, just guiltily avoid her gaze. “Y/N!”

“I know, I know! I just… don’t know what to do. ‘Hey, nice making out with you last night, bit weird since we’ve been best friends since we were 11, but that’s fine, right?’ Ugh! That’s so stupid,” you complain, flopping back in your chair.

“That’s exactly what you should say. Going MIA on him will just make things weirder. Plus you’ve never gone more than 24 hours without speaking so one of you will eventually cave in. It should be you,” she says, looking at you with a raised eyebrow as she takes a sip from her milkshake. 

You scoff when she gives you a ‘you know I’m right’ look. “I’ll think about it on the way home and text him. There.”

And you do think about it on the way home; but you don’t get the opportunity to send the text, because as soon as you get off the bus at the stop right across from your house, you see Sunghoon sitting on the bench of your porch, looking around nervously and rubbing his hands on his denim shorts. You chuckle to yourself; who knew he got so distressed from not speaking to you for a day?

He stands up when he sees you approaching and raises his hand in a quick wave. “Hi, Hoon,” you greet, and you can feel his whole body relax when you hug him. So, you don’t hate him, he thinks. You sit down on the bench together. “Sorry I didn’t text you. I didn’t know what to say after… last night,” you admit, hugging your knees to your chest as you sit facing him.

“Yeah, I figured,” he chuckles, smiling shyly at you. “I was scared you’d never want to see me again.”

You look at him with wide eyes, mildly offended, and punch his arm. “How could you think that?!”

“Well, you did sort of run away from me last night,” he says, lightly punching your arm in return.

You tut in defeat. “I did, didn’t I?” 

“Yeah. I’m just glad you didn’t walk past me straight into your house just now.”

You chuckle and rest your head on top of your knees. “That would’ve been a bit much, even for me.”

Sunghoon lets out a puff of air through his nose in response, and then the two of you sit in silence. You’re contemplating what to do next when your friend pulls you from your thoughts. “Should we, um…” He shuts his eyes tightly in reflection for a second before opening them again and looking straight at you. “Should we just pretend like last night didn’t happen? Would that make you feel more comfortable?”

His words take you aback and your eyes widen a bit; you hadn’t even thought pretending nothing happened last night was an option, because you didn’t think you’d ever be able to actually get it out of your head. Even now, if you stare at Sunghoon for too long, your gaze will naturally drift downwards or you’ll get a flashback of his large hands around your waist. But apparently, if he can offer to pretend like the previous night wasn’t a thing, then it must not have been such a huge deal to him. You quickly try to hide your disappointment and nod at your friend. “Right. Yeah. Sure.”

Silence makes its way between you two again. It makes the late afternoon breeze a bit chillier and the physical distance between you and Sunghoon feel much bigger than it actually is. Wanting it to go away quickly, you ask, “Do you wanna watch a movie, then?”

Sunghoon’s never looked so relieved about watching a movie, and he immediately accepts your offer. You get some popcorn ready while he searches for a movie to watch. He clicks on a horror movie that looks like it’s got a cliché storyline and awful acting, but you’re happy for any sort of distraction when Sunghoon is sitting so close to you.

You and Sunghoon always sit close-by when you watch something together, knees and shoulders brushing against each other. Tonight isn’t any different, except that your skin burns everywhere it touches his. You can smell the faint scent of chlorine in his hair, and it’s so intoxicating you want to bury your face there and breathe it in.

You’re thirty minutes into the movie and still nothing’s happened when Sunghoon puts his arm around you, letting his hand hang over your shoulder. The sudden warm contact makes you take a sharp intake of breath as memories of the previous night come flooding once again. You don’t know what you were expecting, but Sunghoon simply rests his hand there and doesn’t do anything more for another thirty minutes, except for squeezing your shoulder when there’s a small jumpscare, making you chuckle at him. This isn’t much more than what you’re used to with him, but knowing your friend, he must be thinking the ball is in your court. So you scooch a bit closer into his side and rest your head on his shoulder, the scent of his skin even stronger now that your nose is so close to his neck. You feel his chest raise and relax as he sighs deeply and tightens his hold around your shoulders. His small reactions to you spur you on and you decide to wrap an arm around his waist and you feel him flinch oh-so-slightly at your touch in such a sensitive spot. He starts to rub circles into your shoulder and rests his head on top of yours, and your whole body relaxes into his. This is so much more than what you’re used to with him; and yet, you so readily melt under his touch.

You can barely focus on the movie because of how close Sunghoon is. When a particularly scary ghost jumps on the screen, you flinch and hide your face in his neck, and he giggles at your reaction, hand coming up to stroke your hair comfortingly. It only takes you a few seconds to realize what position you’re in, and you release a shaky breath as you slowly lift your head towards Sunghoon, only to find him already looking at you, seemingly having had that same realization. When his eyes drift down to your lips, you know you’re done for.

You call out his name, and he’s already answered ‘Yes?’ before you’ve had time to finish uttering the second syllable. “I don’t think I want to pretend last night never happened,” you admit, holding his waist a bit tighter.

“Good. Me neither,” he breathes out before leaning down and trapping your lips in his, the kiss releasing all your pent-up frustration of the day. The world seems to melt away with his lips on yours, the movie already long forgotten. Sunghoon pulls you into his lap and you slide your palms up from his waist, against his chest and to his shoulders before wrapping your arms around his neck, bringing your body closer to his. His hands are sitting on your hips, fingers lightly pressing into them and your lower back. Now that you both seem to know what you want, it’s so easy, just falling into this kiss.

His tongue darts out to lick your bottom lip and you gladly open your mouth for him, letting his tongue explore it. You haven’t kissed someone like this in ages, maybe ever, but Sunghoon takes the lead and effortlessly gets you to follow his rhythm. When a flick of his tongue against yours feels particularly nice, you arch your back and press your chest into his, making him smirk into the kiss. This time, when he brings your hips down onto his, letting you feel his erection against your clothed core, the feeling doesn’t make you want to run away; instead, you want to feel it again and again.

You fall into a nice pace of rubbing yourself against him, eliciting hushed moans and loud breaths from the both of you. You can’t concentrate on kissing him and grinding down on him at the same time, so you drop your head down to bury your face in his neck, leaving a few pecks there but mostly moaning against his skin, enjoying how your hot breaths make him shiver.

You can’t keep a whine from escaping your lips when he bucks his hip into yours and his tip brushes directly against your covered clit, instantly bringing a hand up to your mouth. “Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes. “I know we gotta keep quiet ‘cause of your parents but the sounds you’re making are so fucking pretty. I wanna hear them over and over again.” His words make you whimper against his neck and you feel your slick starting to pool in your panties.

“H-hoon. This feels so good,” you moan, breathing warmly against the shell of his ear.

“I know, right? Feels so good,” he chuckles, hands grabbing at your ass to bring you harder down onto him. His actions are about to elicit another moan from you when, all of a sudden, a loud jumpscare in the movie makes you jump away from the boy underneath you and yelp in fear, which in turn makes him scream in surprise. You look at each other, panting and eyes open wide, hands clutching at your hearts, until you burst into laughter. The fun moment is short-lived, however, as your mom rushes down the stairs not ten seconds later, frantically asking if everything is alright. 

You sit up straight at the sight of your mother and clear your throat. You’re thankful for the dark of the room which hides your and Sunghoon’s swollen lips and flushed faces from her view. “Sorry, mom, we were just watching a scary movie. We’re fine.” She sleepily nods and walks back up the stairs, and when she’s back in her room, Sunghoon and you exchange a look and erupt into another fit of smaller, quieter giggles. 

That night, after Sunghoon’s gone home, the both of you get yourselves off in your own beds, the strong memory of each other’s lips and hands bringing you both to your releases. Without even realizing it, you moan out Sunghoon’s name as your orgasm hits. The window from your room doesn’t face his; but still, your heart is beating so loudly that you’re afraid the sound might carry from your open window to his. You get up and close it.

--

Now that you and Sunghoon both know you want to kiss each other, you do it everywhere: in his pool, his back pressed against the wall; on the sunchairs when you were supposed to be drying off; on your beds in the middle of the night, none of your parents or siblings suspicious of anything; in front of your house, because even though he was supposed to just walk you home, he couldn’t keep himself from tasting you one last time; in the backseat of his car after an evening with your friends and he drove you two home.

You spend a good two weeks of just kissing before your body starts to crave something more. At some point, Sunghoon’s hands resting nicely on your waist or sometimes, if he’s feeling bold, grabbing at your ass, start to not be enough anymore. You knew you wouldn’t be satisfied with just kisses and sweet touches when one day, his hands slowly but surely slid up your naked belly before grabbing onto your bikini-clad breast, lighting your whole body up on fire. He’d slipped his hand underneath your swimming top and rolled your nipple between two fingers and you had felt his dick twitch under your core when you let out a loud moan at the new yet so pleasurable feeling.

You know what it is that you want, but it makes you feel dirty. Your fingers have made you finish a hundred times before, but wanting Sunghoon to make you feel that way is a whole other story. Is that even what he wants? Would he be weirded out if you asked him about it? Is there even the sliver of a chance that maybe, just maybe, he has those same thoughts about you, and wants you to make him feel good as much as he wants to make you feel good?

If his grunts and the way he ruts into you when your make-out sessions get particularly steamy are any indication, then the answer to those questions would respectively be yes, no, and yes. 

You’re lying on a sunbed one afternoon, letting the sun dry off your wet skin from the pool, when you finally muster the courage to tell Sunghoon about your wishes. After all, he is your best friend, and you know you can talk to him about anything. Even when that ‘anything’ involves his fingers inside of you and his dick in your mouth.

“Sunghoon?” you call out, turning your head to look at your best friend. He’s bathing in the sunlight without a care in the world. His skin has tanned a bit since summer started three weeks ago and his muscles are even more defined after all that swimming and working out he’s been doing. You want to reach out a hand, to feel the taut skin of his abs and chest under your palms, and to maybe then slide your hand down until you feel his hard-on underneath his swimming trunks. Your chairs aren’t far apart and you could do it from where you are, but you’d rather ask him first.

“Yeah?” he answers without turning towards you.

You take a deep breath in before you start talking again. “You know how you said it could be good for us to get… experience before going to college… And how we’ve been kissing these past couple weeks…”

“Yeah, I know,” he chuckles.

“Well… people do more than just kissing, right?” you ask, voice slightly shaky. This seems to pique his interest as he turns to look at you.

“Yeah?” 

You hope you’re not just imagining the enthusiastic tone in his voice. “I think… I think we should try that too, don’t you think?” you ask, eyes not leaving his as he sits up on his chair and turns his knees towards you, fully facing you now.

“Yeah, I agree. I completely agree.” He stares at you for a few moments as if in disbelief. “Do you want to- Should we- Let’s go up to my room, yeah?” he offers, standing up and reaching his hand out to you. You gladly take it.

You and Sunghoon are a giggling mess as you practically run up the stairs, unable to get to his room quick enough. As soon as the door is closed behind you, you wrap your arms around each other, your lips finding his immediately as he walks you back to his bed. When you feel the back of your knees hit it, you detach yourself from him and lay on it, elbows holding you up as you look up at him expectantly.

“Fuck,” he whispers, leaning in to hover over you. He traps your lips in a short but sweet kiss before pulling back and murmuring against your lips, “Have I ever told you how pretty you are, Y/N?”

You beam at his words but decide to tease anyway. “You always go on and on about how pretty you are, but never about me.”

He giggles and pecks your lips again. “Well, I’m telling you now. You’re gorgeous.” You kiss him to hide your flustered face, pulling him so close to you he’s practically laying on top of you. Your hands are a bit more curious than usual, your kisses hungrier, the both of you anticipating what’s to come. 

You grind against each other, the feeling of his erection against your barely covered core enough to send your mind into a frenzy. You forget everything around you when you feel Sunghoon pull back in the slightest, far enough so that he can look at your face and gauge your reactions but not too much that you still feel his hot breath on your lips. One of his hands is holding the back of your head as the other travels downwards, stopping for a second on your breast to massage it lightly before continuing its journey. It ever-so-slightly brushes against your core, making you buck your hips up into his touch, but his hand is already gone leaving you whining and pouting and him chuckling at your cute reaction. “You want it that bad, huh?” he teases.

You scoff, not wanting to let your friend know the effect he has on you. You press your palm against his clothed erection and he hisses at the unexpected contact. “So do you, Hoon.”

When he presses his lips to yours again, you both smile into the kiss. You cup his jaw and tangle your fingers through his hair, and his hand slips from under your head and joins his other hand on your thigh, grabbing at both of them, fingers slightly digging in your skin. He’s so, so close to where you want him most, and he seems to have noticed your growing impatience by the way you squirm underneath him. Seeing you so needy for him only makes him needier for you; he has more experience than you, so you probably expect him to take the lead, but the truth is, he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.

“Y/N?” he murmurs, face buried in your neck as he leaves a trail of wet kisses there.

“Yeah?”

“What do you want me to do?”

The question takes you a bit by surprise. You pull away to look at your friend. His eyes are completely glossed-over, and yours are probably the same. “Oh. I don’t know. I just… want you to touch me, I guess,” you say, voice a bit quiet.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he admits sheepishly. He kisses your neck and cheeks before pecking your lips. “Could you- could you show me? How you do it? And I can show you how I do it?”

You take a second to take his words in. Was he suggesting that you touch yourself in front of him, and that he do the same?

This was like a dream come true.

“Yeah, sure.”

Sunghoon giggles in response, and you can’t help but crack a smile too, even though the idea of getting yourself off in front of your friend, no matter how appealing, is still a bit nerve-wracking. “You first,” he says, a mischievous glint in his eyes, and you roll your eyes at him.

You sit back against the headboard of the bed and slip a hand underneath your swim bottom, the other hand coming up to cover your eyes in an attempt to escape Sunghoon’s heavy, lustful gaze. “None of that. I wanna see you,” he says, pulling your hand away from your eyes and resting it on a pillow next to you. “And if you keep these on, I won’t be able to see anything,” he says, looking down at your bikini top.

Before you can protest, he comes to sit on his knees in front of you, kissing your neck and letting his hands roam your back. “I wanna see all of you.” It’s so easy, untying your string bikini, he almost thinks you wore it on purpose for him to take it off. You avoid his gaze as he takes your top off of you, leaving you half-naked in front of him. “So pretty,” he whispers, and you can’t help but look at him, slick pooling between your legs from the fascination he’s looking at your breasts with. He trails kisses down your neck until he reaches them, taking a nipple in his mouth and swirling his tongue around it, then looks up to see your reaction. You never knew your nipples were this sensitive, and you can’t help but arch your back at his touch and moan loudly, hand flying up to tug at his soft hair. He releases your nipple with a pop and moves sideways to pay the same attention to the other one, but Sunghoon is impatient and doesn’t waste too much time on it; he knows he can come back to your boobs later anyway. Right now, you’ve got a hand between your legs, and that’s what he’s dying to see.

“Can I take this off, too?” he asks, looking up at you as his fingers hook on the sides of your swimming bottoms, waiting for you to nod. His eyes don’t leave your glistening core as he pulls the thin fabric down your legs, discarding it somewhere on the floor of his room. He lays on his belly and kisses the inside of your knee as he holds your thighs in his large hands, still transfixed by your pussy when he says, “Show me how you do it, please.”

You both take a sharp breath in when you start moving two fingers in gentle circles over your clit, already wet from making out with Sunghoon. Your fingers are nimble and know exactly what to do after years of doing this, but the pulse in your core is even stronger now that your best friend is watching your movements this intently. He looks like he’s scared to blink in case he might miss something. You can’t take your eyes off of his face; you’ve never seen him so fascinated by something, so eager to learn. It makes you want to put on a show for him.

A surge of confidence hits you out of nowhere as you slide your digits down your folds, gathering some slick before sliding them back up to your clit and rubbing it a bit faster, a bit harder, your moans growing louder and higher in pitch. With your free hand, you tug at the base of Sunghoon’s hair and make him look up at you. You release his hair and bring your pointer finger up to your mouth, sucking on it and swirling your tongue around it, and Sunghoon’s mind is taken back to that day a couple weeks ago when you had sucked on those lollipops. Oh, how things have changed since then. Not that he’s complaining. “Fuck, that’s hot,” he breathes out, eyes zeroed in on your lips and mouth slightly agape.

You smirk at his reaction, stomach on fire with the feeling of having this kind of power on him. When you’ve wet your finger enough, you bring it down to your slit, circling around your hole before entering it, releasing a loud moan for good measure. Sunghoon is mesmerized by the quickening with which your finger slips in and out of you, the fingers on your clit never relenting. He doesn’t even realize he’s released one of your thighs to palm himself over his shorts until you notice it yourself and tut in disapproval.

“Come and help me, Hoon,” you say, and the boy snaps out of his daze at the sound of his nickname. He nods slowly, changing his position so that he’s laying between your legs, head dangerously close to your core. You slip your other finger out of your hole and he takes that as a sign to replace it with his own. One hand still gripping your thigh, he imitates your previous actions as he gets his pointer finger wet with his saliva before pressing it between your folds, right underneath your clit where your fingers are still rubbing circles, sliding it down towards your slit, and finally pushing it in. 

“So warm… So wet, too,” he whispers in wonder, making you cover your eyes with your forearm out of shyness.

“Oh my God,” you moan, arching your back and letting your head drop to the side on the pillow. Sunghoon’s finger is much thicker and longer than your own, and it stretches you out and hits a deep spot inside you you never could, no matter how much you tried.

“Like this?” he asks, eyes curious as they bounce back and forth between your face and your entrance sucking his finger in.

“Yes, yes, just like that, you can also- oh- you can also curve it upwards a bit- fuck, yeah, just like that, Hoon, you’re doing so well,” you say, the praises just flying out of your mouth. 

This seems to instill some confidence in him, as he cocks an eyebrow at you and speeds up his actions. “Yeah? My finger making you feel good, Y/N?”

“Oh, shut up,” you bite back, but immediately let out a long whine when he easily inserts a second finger in your soaking pussy. He curves them inside you just like you told him to, and the feeling of his fingers filling you up and your own quick ones on your clit are creating a familiar knot in your stomach that is so close to breaking. That is, until Sunghoon pulls your wrist away from your clit.

“Y/N… Can I?” he asks, and you’re not sure what he’s planning, but nod anyway. He wastes no time before pressing his tongue flat down on the sensitive bud, and you actually feel like your soul might leave your body. Fingers knuckle-deep inside you, he licks and sucks at your clit, and the warmth of his tongue against your folds is what makes you tumble over the edge, tightly gripping his hair and bucking your hips into his mouth.

“Oh my God… Oh my God, Hoon, please, don’t stop, please,” you beg, voice getting higher and whinier as you cum all over his tongue. He continues eating you out until it gets too much and you have to tell him to stop. He hikes his body up yours, pecking you sweetly on the lips when he reaches them.

“Your turn,” you announce and hook your legs over his hips to straddle him. You’re about to lean in for a kiss when you notice how lovingly he’s looking at you: his eyes are soft and a small smile is playing on his lips. It takes you aback, but you’d be lying if you said butterflies didn’t spread in your stomach. “W-why are you looking at me like that?”

His grin gets a bit wider. “Did I make you feel good?”

“Y-yeah…,” you admit, averting your gaze from him.

“I’m glad. You taste good, by the way. Sweet.” You want to kiss the devilish smirk off of his face.

You scoff at your friend, glaring a bit. “Whatever. Sit up,” you order, but it just makes him smirk more.

“Yes, ma’am.”

You look up at him to check for confirmation, and when he nods, you hook your fingers under his swimming trunks, taking them off of him along with his boxers underneath. His already fully-hard cock springs free and slaps against his stomach, and you curse yourself for your reaction that will surely just inflate his ego, as if it wasn’t already massive. Your mouth hangs open, eyes zeroing in on his length, flushed red from lack of attention and what you can only guess is precum leaking at the tip. It's straight from a porno.

“Like what you see?” Sunghoon teases, making you look up at him, and you can only stupidly nod. You take the position he was in earlier, laying your head on his thigh and caressing the other, letting it ride up to rub his inner thigh and the tiniest bit over his cock, making his smirk vanish as he takes a shaky breath in.

“Show me how you do it,” you say, echoing his words from earlier. He gulps, finally realizing that he was going to have to masturbate in front of your curious eyes just as you had. He spits on his open palm and spreads the precum over his length with his thumb, lubing himself up before gripping the base and starting to move his hand up and down. You watch as his head falls back against the pillow when his palm grazes over his tip and his movements pick up some speed.

You rub his palms over his thighs, itching to get closer to his cock and make him feel as good as he had done to you earlier. Tentatively, you reach out to grab his balls in your hands, massaging them softly, feeling satisfied when a loud moan leaves his throat. “Oh, f-fuck, that feels good, Y/N,” he breathes out, voice much higher than you’re used to. If he thought that felt good, then nothing could’ve prepared him for the feeling of your soft and warm tongue kitty-licking his balls, then taking turns sucking each one into your mouth and releasing them with a pop. “Where the fuck did you learn how to do that?” he asks, involuntarily bucking his hips into your face.

You can’t help but giggle, and Sunghoon thinks he might come from the sweet sound contrasted with your lewd actions alone. “I read a lot of fanfiction,” you explain, and he doesn’t question it. If Wattpad taught you how to suck dick, then so be it.

You wrap your hand around his and tell him to keep going so you can get an idea of what pace and movements he likes, and you graze your fingernails over his abs and chest with your other hand, chuckling at how sensitive he is when you lightly pinch his nipples. Sunghoon takes his hand off of himself, laying both of his hands palms up next to him on the bed, so you decide to literally take things into your own hands. Trying to recreate what he did before, you spit into your palm and wrap your fingers around his tip, bringing your hand down in a swirly motion to the base of his shaft. You do that a few times, asking, “Like that?” to get confirmation from Sunghoon.

“Just like that, baby,” he says, not even taking notice of the pet name; but you do, and your face immediately flushes, surprised at how much you like it.

“Baby?” you repeat, but he’s too lost in his pleasure and just hums in response. His reaction eggs you on, and you lick a long stripe from his base to his tip, swirling your tongue around it and humming at the bitter but not unpleasant taste of precum there. When another moan escapes his throat, you take his tip in your mouth, at first just shallowly thrusting your head, but then trying to take more and more of him. 

You’re so focused on what you’re doing that you don’t even realize how quickly he’s panting and how his grunts start to get whinier until he’s moaning out your name. “A-ah, Y/N, feels so good, ‘m gonna cum, fuck-”

He goes silent as he shoots his release down your throat, eyebrows deeply furrowed and mouth open wide in pleasure. There’s so much of it and you can’t swallow it all, so you pull your head back, catching your breath, and a hot string of cum hits your chin and your throat. Sunghoon takes a look at you and the sight of you with some of his cum makes his dick twitch before he plops back down on the bed. You giggle as you take tissues from the bedside table (cause of course he’s got tissues next to his bed) and wipe away his seed, then lie down next to him, brushing away the hair that’s sticking to his forehead with sweat and peppering his face with soft kisses.

He opens his eyes and smiles, turning his head to look at you before engulfing you in a bear hug, sweaty bodies sticking together but neither of you minding it. “That was so good, Y/N. What the fuck,” he sighs, pecking your forehead.

You hum, nuzzling your nose into his neck. “I know, right? Who knew you could use your mouth for other things than saying stupid shit,” you tease.

He pulls back and gives you a look that tries to be stern, but you know he’s joking. “Do I need to remind you again, young lady?”

You giggle and peck his lips, forcing him out of character as his dimples appear on his cheeks. “Later, definitely.”

And after that day, he makes sure to remind you time and time again of how good his mouth feels on you. You should’ve seen it coming with how amazing of a kisser he was; but truly, there was nothing like cumming on your friend’s tongue.

--

You’re relieved to find that not much has changed, after all; you and Sunghoon still play around in the pool, watch stupid movies and hang out with your friends like always. Sure, there are stray hands here and there, or looks that last a little too long and mean a little too much, but if anything, it just makes your friendship more playful and exciting. 

You’re both open with what you like and don’t like, so it doesn’t take either of you to figure out exactly how to make the other come undone embarrassingly quickly. (The shortest amount of time it took him was 2:38 seconds - yes, he timed it - and he hasn’t let you live it down since.) You like it when he presses his large hand down onto your lower tummy while he eats you out, or when he sits you between his legs and whispers all sorts of things as his fingers work their magic inside you and on your clit. He likes it when you get down on your knees in front of him and look up at him as you suck him dry, or when you sit in his lap and kiss his neck and play with his hair while he plays video games. And don’t even get him started on when you palmed him over his sweatpants while you watched a movie with Chaeyong, Jay and Jake, making sure that the movements under the blanket went unnoticed by them. He wanted to punish you after they left, he really did, but you took him in your mouth right there in the living room and gave him an orgasm that had his thighs shaking for five minutes afterwards. You were pretty proud of yourself for that one. 

You also find out that he hates it when you tease and edge him, which only makes you do it more; the only problem is that, if you do that, he’ll make you ride his thigh and won’t help you at all. His proud smirk and snide praises combined with the feeling of his thick thigh underneath your core were more than enough to get you to your end, though.

And truly, nothing has changed, especially not Sunghoon’s special talent in pushing boys away from you.

“What do you mean, Lee Heeseung is coming back?” he heatedly asks, slamming his glass of lemonade down on the outdoor table so hard you’re scared it might break.

“It’s the summer, of course he’s coming back. He just stayed behind for a bit to enjoy a few weeks of the city without college, and now he’s coming back here,” Jake explains, shrugging.

“Do you know when he’ll be here?” you ask, far too much excitement in your voice to Sunghoon’s taste.

“Just in a couple days.”

Sunghoon has smoke coming out of his ears when he sees how much you perk up at the news of your old crush being back in town for summer. He likes the boy, but he hates that you like him. And since Heeseung is friends with Jay, Jake, and by association Sunghoon, begrudgingly so, he’ll definitely see lots of him in the upcoming months. And if Sunghoon sees Heeseung, then you’ll see Heeseung, too. And that, Sunghoon doesn’t like.

You notice something is off with him that afternoon because of how uncharacteristically quiet he is. Sunghoon, ever the loud introvert, is always arguing for no reason and laughing louder than everybody around him. So when he merely chuckles at his friends’ numerous displays of stupidity in the pool and doesn’t even say anything in protest to you getting on Jake’s shoulders to play against Chaeyoung and Jay, you know something is definitely up. You also have a good idea of what that something might be, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t find it endearing.

You stay behind when your friends leave in the early evening. Without a word, you and Sunghoon pack away the inflatable toys in the pool cabin and clean up the table, putting the dirty glasses in the sink. You do the dishes while he prepares sandwiches for the two of you, which he insisted on doing after he heard your stomach grumbling. You watch the latest Kurtis Conner video as you eat and can’t help but notice that he doesn’t even chuckle at any of the jokes or skits when he’d usually be clutching his stomach in laughter. 

When you’re done eating, you take a resolute breath and pause the video, but Sunghoon doesn’t even notice, only snapping out of his daze when you call out his name.

“Huh?” When his eyes find you, he almost looks surprised to see you, as if he’d forgotten you were there.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” you ask, slightly frowning. “You look so out of it today.”

“Huh? I’m fine, nothing’s wrong,” he says dismissively and presses play, but you quickly pause the video again.

“I’m your best friend, Sunghoon, I know when something’s the matter and I know when you’re lying. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but don’t pretend everything’s fine when we both know that’s not true.”

He peers at you for a moment, cursing you for knowing him so well. He crosses his arm and averts his gaze, pouting like an angry child. “I hate it when you’re right.”

You giggle and make your way around the counter to him, standing inbetween his legs and wrapping your arms around his neck to make him look up at you. His hands come naturally up to your waist. “I just…” he starts, then immediately stops himself with a sigh., “You’ve always had a crush on Heeseung. But these are our last couple months together, and I don’t want somebody else taking up your attention…”

He buries his face between your breasts to hide his blush, and you can’t help but giggle again. “Stop laughing at me!” he protests, but the muffled sound of his voice just makes you laugh more. You stroke his hair and press a gentle kiss at the top of his head.

“Sure, I’m happy Heeseung’s coming back. But there’s no one I’d rather spend my summer with than you, Sunghoon, you should know that.” He leans back to look up at you with puppy eyes and a small pout. You cup his face, admiring how cute he looks like this, and smile softly down at him.

“Really?”

“Really,” you answer, and he leans in for a kiss.

It’s a soft one. It’s a patient kiss, neither of you urging to get somewhere else, to do something more. It reminds you of that kiss in his room a few weeks ago, when you were still curious and discovering each other. From then on, your kisses had become more feverish, more eager, more playful. But now, you’re taking your time. For now at least, neither of you is going anywhere. So your lips melt together slowly, and when you take breaks to breathe, you look each other in the eyes and smile before leaning back in.

It’s when you sigh against his lips, eyes still closed as you pull away, that it hits him. I could do this forever, he thinks.

I could sit here with my arms around her waist and her lips against mine and the smell of chlorine and the sound of her laugh forever and I’d never get tired of it, he thinks, but immediately afterwards, he realizes he won’t get to do this forever. Summer will end, you’ll both head off to college, and you’ll only get to see each other every few months until another summer comes. And who knows what might happen until then?

You might meet someone and realize Sunghoon isn’t all that; hell, he might meet someone, but he highly doubts anyone could even come close to the way you make him feel.

“Hello? Earth to Sunghoon?” you quietly joke, looking down at him with an affectionate look in your eyes. You press the pads of your fingers to his two moles before replacing your fingers with your lips, giving each one a quick peck. “You were up on the moon for a minute there.”

Sunghoon hums softly, smiling as he lets himself melt under your touch. “Sorry. It’s just really hot, isn’t it?” he says, a stupid excuse he uses as a blanket to cover his feelings. There is some sweat beading at his hairline, which helps make his lie more believable, but you don’t need to know it’s not just because of the summer heat.

Slowly, your smile turns mischievous, and Sunghoon can tell you have an idea in mind. “It is pretty hot… Wait here.”

He watches as you fill a tall glass with ice from the dispenser in the fridge and pop an ice cube in your mouth, a devilish smile on your face, and laughs when that smile is replaced with a frown as the coldness hits you and you spit it back into the glass, laughing along with him. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks between giggles.

“I got the idea a few days ago when we were having popsicles…,” you say looking down at the glass between your hands, slightly embarrassed. “You kissed me and your mouth was really cold but it felt nice.” Sunghoon hums, egging you to go on. You lift the glass up to his cheeks, applying just a bit of pressure to the soft skin. “I thought this could be refreshing.” 

You take the ice cube back in your mouth, sucking on it but not letting it melt completely before pressing your lips against Sunghoon’s and opening your mouth just a bit so he could feel the cold of the ice cube. You feel his smile into the kiss as the ice cube swirls between your tongues, sending shivers down your spine. 

“Very refreshing indeed,” he murmurs when the ice has completely melted. He gets up and takes the glass in one of his hands, leaning down to your level and says “C’mon” with the same mischievous smile as you on his face.

You two hurry up the stairs, and when you get to his room, he hands you the glass before throwing himself on his back, laying on his back with his hands behind his head. “Show me what you had in mind.”

You straddle his hips and take an ice cube from the glass, rubbing it over his lips before pushing it inside his mouth, the cold making him hiss. You quickly counteract that by pressing your lips to his, the contrast of your warm tongue and the freezing ice turning him on more than he would’ve thought.

When the ice has melted, you take another piece and brush it along his jaw, down his Adam’s apple and around his nipples. The cold temperature makes him squirm but he doesn’t shy away from it, even closing his eyes to focus solely on the feeling. While you play with the ice cube, you also leave warm kisses all over his skin, reveling in its slightly salty taste from the thin layer of sweat. You let the ice cube melt between his abs and watch him wriggle as he sucks in a sharp breath, then grab another one, starting off where the previous one stopped. You circle his navel while your fingers play with the hem of his swimming trunks. He pulls them down himself and you chuckle at his eagerness. “I should’ve known you liked the cold, with all those years of ice skating you did,” you tease.  

He’s almost fully hard, and it only takes a few kisses and trailing the ice cube down his inner thighs to have his dick fully erect. He’d only been letting out small sighs and hisses until now, but when you grab another ice cube and circle it around his sensitive tip, he throws his head back into the pillows and moans loudly. You push your luck and drag the ice cube down his shaft, his thighs snapping together when it reaches his balls. You put it in your mouth and let it melt so that your tongue is still cold when you swirl it around his tip, already tasting precum there. But before you can take him further in your mouth, he calls out your name.

“Wait. I don’t wanna cum just yet. My turn.”

He shakes his shoulders in excitement as you switch positions, you taking your t-shirt and bikini top off and laying on your back and him sitting down with one knee on each side of your thighs, an ice cube in his hand and a giddy smile on his face.

He brushes it over your lips before pushing it just a bit into your mouth, holding onto it with two fingers while you suck on it, gazes locked in each other. Just as you did earlier, he trails it down your throat and your chest until they reach your nipples, marveling at the thin wet trail it leaves in its wake. He licks this trail as he circles one of your nipples with the ice cube, and you don’t know if you should focus on his warm tongue or on the cold ice cube. Once it’s melted, he takes another one and circles your other nipple with it, his mouth coming to wrap around the now cold one. Your hands fly up to grab at his hair, your back arching into his touch as you moan and pant loudly.

He sucks and licks at your nipples until you’re calling out his name, begging for more. As nice as his mouth or an ice cube around your nipples feel, your pussy is throbbing and desperate for attention. “Sunghoon… Please,” you whine.

“Please what?” he teases, looking up from your breasts with a smirk.

You whine again, knowing he knows full well what you want. “Please…”

He trails the ice cube down your stomach, circling your navel a few times where it melts before slipping two cold fingers underneath your bikini bottoms. “Is this what you want, baby?,” he asks as he rubs his fingers between his folds, and you whine at the feeling of having him so close to your hole and to your clit but not quite there either. He smirks when you nod frantically but whine at the loss of his fingers against you as he takes your bottoms off and reaches for another ice cube.

You release a loud moan and arch your back off the bed when the ice cube touches your clit. “Fuck, Hoon!”

He rubs the ice cube up and down your folds, your heat melting it much faster than your skin. He takes another one and brings it to your entrance this time, circling around it before pushing the ice cube in and staring with wonder as it melts quickly. He holds your hips down so you stop bucking them up, whimpering at the amazing feeling of the ice against you. He replaces the ice cube with his fingers inside of you and his tongue on your clit, sucking expertly at the sensitive bud and lapping at your juices. And while it feels good - God, does it feel good - and you let Sunghoon know just how nice it feels with your moans, whispers of his names and the way you hold onto his hair, you’re craving something more.

It’s something you’ve been wanting for the past few days, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. No matter how nice Sunghoon’s fingers and mouth felt, they didn’t make you feel close to him enough. You wanted to be so close to him you didn’t know where you ended and where he started; you wanted to feel him. 

You pull him up by the face, asking him to come here and getting lost in his lips as soon as they reach your level. God, Sunghoon’s kisses. You could drown in them. But still, that craving, that need for more. And now that his body is pressed up against yours and you can feel his erection against your thigh, so close to your core, you think you know what it is that you want. “Hmm, please…”

“You keep asking me for something, but you don’t tell me what it is.”

“You. I want you, Hoon, please,” you beg, murmuring against his lips as you wrap your legs around his hips and bring him even closer, his cock now pressing against your cunt.

“M-me?,” he asks, leaning back just a bit, but you pull him back in right away, resting his forehead against yours.

“Yes, please. I need to feel you inside me.”

Your words are enough to get a moan out of Sunghoon. “Fuck, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this,” he pants, planting kisses all over your face and neck. Usually, you’d giggle at the ticklish sensation, but right now, you’re so drunk on pleasure, it just makes your breath even shallower and your core wetter.

“How long?”

“God. Since the second time we kissed probably,” he replies, reaching for a condom in the drawer of his bedside table. You think back to that moment six weeks ago (how has it been six weeks already?, you think), after you and Sunghoon had made up and made out on his couch in front of a horror movie. He’d wanted you for that long? And he’d waited for you to say something since then?

“Today’s your lucky day, then,” you tease in an attempt to alleviate the need for him that takes over your bones, but his gaze when he looks back at you ruins any effort. If anything, it just makes you need him even more. You feel like you might explode if you don’t have him right now.

You watch as he clumsily wraps the condom around his member, clearly never having done this before, but you wouldn’t be of any help, so you let him figure it out on his own. You let your head fall back as he rubs his tip up and down your folds, gathering your slick on his dick before aligning himself at your entrance and giving you a long, deep kiss.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, forehead on yours.

“Yeah. Are you?”

“Yeah, I am. But I’m also scared.”

“Scared of what, Hoon?” you ask, opening your eyes to look at him. You caress his cheek and cup his face in your hands, watching softly as he lets his head rest on your palm.

“I’m scared of hurting you. I heard it hurts the first time. And I’m scared…” he closes his eyes and frowns a bit. “I’m scared it’ll feel too good. That I’ll always want it. You.”

You take a small moment to think, your thumb brushing over his cheek in what you hope is a comforting manner. “You won’t hurt me, Hoon. It only hurts if you’re not ready… And I’m plenty ready. I know you’ll take it slow.” You smile softly when he nods, turning his head to kiss your palm. But if sex is as good as you’ve heard it is, you’re also scared that it might be the best thing you’ve ever experienced and that you’ll never get enough. You and Sunghoon have been meeting up almost everyday this summer and it has more often than not ended up with one of you between the other’s legs; you could never get bored of the things he made you feel or of knowing you were making him feel those exact same things. If you couldn’t live without his fingers, how could you live without his dick?

How could you live without him?

You tried to snap out of those thoughts, reassuring yourself that even before all of this you couldn’t imagine yourself living without Sunghoon, and that there was no reason this should change anything. “And don’t be scared of that, silly,” you say, making him smile. “I’ll always be here, Sunghoon. I’ll always want you, too.” 

“Fuck, okay,” he whispers, kissing your lips once before pulling himself up on his palms, hovering over you. “Tell me if you need me to stop, yeah?” he asks and waits for you to nod before finally pushing in.

You instantly moan when you feel his tip inside you, and Sunghoon stops, frantically asking if you’re okay. It takes some convincing to get him to push himself further in. “It feels so good, Hoon. Please keep going.”

You tell him to not stop until he’s fully inside you, and he obeys, even though he wants to stop when he sees your frown and your sharp intakes of breath. When he’s buried to a hilt, he can’t help but collapse on top of you, burying his face in your neck and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist. “Y/N,” he drawls out. “Feels so fucking good. So tight,” he murmurs against your neck.

“Mmh. Give me a minute, baby.” Your hands caress up and down the expanse of his back and you feel him relax on top of you. As you adjust around his length, the stretch starts to feel more and more pleasurable, until pleasure is the only thing you feel. “Hoon?”

“Yeah?” he says, kissing and nibbling softly at your neck and earlobe.

“You can move, now.”

Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice and ever-so-slowly slides out of you, leaving only the tip in before he slides back in. His thrusts are slow but deep, and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted and more. He’s barely started but you’re both already whimpering messes, holding onto each other tightly as pleasure like neither of you has felt before takes over your entire bodies.

As you both get more comfortable, his pace picks up just a tiny bit and you tentatively raise your legs higher so that they’re hooked around the back of his knees instead of laying on the bed. The new angle only adds to the intense pleasure, but you don’t even realize you’re crying until Sunghoon stops mid-thrust, wiping your tears with his thumb and worryingly asking if you’re okay and if it hurts and if he should stop. You open your eyes and smile, instantly calming his nerves. You bring his head closer to yours and kiss him like you’d stop breathing if you didn’t. “It feels so fucking good, Hoon. So, so good.”

He sighs out of relief and resumes his actions, heart swelling with pride that he’s making you feel so good, you’re crying. He’s always hated seeing you cry or hurt in general; but knowing what kind of tears these are, he thinks you look so pretty with tears streaming down your face. His hands grip your thighs a bit tighter as he quickens his pace, already addicted to the feeling of your warm walls taking him in so well.

He slips out a few times but you’re always quick to guide him back inside you. He lifts his body up a bit to get a deeper angle, hoping it’ll get him to stop slipping out, and he’s blown away by the sight underneath him. He thinks you’ve never looked so gorgeous as you do now, legs spread wide for him, cheeks flushed, brows furrowed and mouth agape for him. He kisses your tears, the salty taste bringing a smile to his lips. “So perfect,” he whispers against your mouth. “You look so beautiful.”

Sunghoon takes your legs and wraps them higher around his hips, the new angle hitting a spot inside you that’s making you see stars and has you moaning his name like it’s the only thing you know how to say. You feel that familiar tension build up inside your stomach much faster and much stronger than it usually does.

“Fuck, Sunghoon, I’m gonna cum,” you warn, and a harsher thrust inside you is what pushes you over the edge, the sensation crashing into you and making your thighs shake. An orgasm has never hit you this hard before.

You’re clenching around him like crazy and Sunghoon gasps as you milk him dry, his own orgasm hitting him all at once. He shoots his release inside the condom and stills inside you, breath completely taken away by the sudden, overwhelming sensation.

He lays on top of you for a moment as you both catch your breaths, trying to make sense of how something can feel this good without killing you instantly. He apologizes when his pulling out makes you wince and kisses the top of your head. He rolls onto his back, pulling you with him so that you’re now almost lying on top of him, head against his chest as his arms wrap themselves around you. You leave kisses all over his chest and neck and his hands caress your back.

“That was amazing.”

“I know, right?” he responds immediately, his enthusiasm making you laugh.

“Thanks, Hoon,” you say timidly, voice muffled against his skin.

“For what?”

“For making me feel this good.”

He chuckles. “No need to thank me, pretty. If anything, I should thank you for letting me make you feel good, and on top of that making me feel good.”

You hum at his words and you both stay there for a bit longer, enjoying each other’s warmth. Something blooms inside your chest, and you don’t know whether to let it grow or to squash it down. It feels nice, almost too nice, and you’re scared it might get ripped away from you and it won’t feel so nice then.

Friendship, sex, love. In those weeks spent with Sunghoon, those previously clear lines have blurred to a point they were all one big messy ball of feelings and not three distinct things you could tell apart. Has sex turned your friendship with Sunghoon into something romantic? Or is that just an illusion, and being so intimate with your best friend has messed up your once platonic vision of him? But was your vision of him ever platonic?

Haven't the two of you always been teased about liking each other for a reason? After all, you and Sunghoon didn't grow up together, and he’s never felt like a brother to you. He has always been your male friend; you’ve always been aware that he was your friend who was also a boy. When you'd moved in the house next to his, you hadn’t instantly clicked; it took a while for the ice skating prodigy to warm up to you, but his parents had warmly welcomed yours into the neighborhood and quickly became friends, so it was only a matter of time before he’d open up to the idea of you being around. Constantly.

You’d walk to and from school together, do homework together, go on family trips together, cheer each other on at your respective competitions. After his ice skating lessons, when his coach let him have the whole place to himself for a bit more practice, he’d tie your ice skates for you and drag you onto the ice rink, holding you by the waist or shoulders as he skated backwards in front of you, but also laughing at you when you inevitably fell. He’d tease you for getting second place at the science fair or for getting your arguments torn apart during Model United Nations, but the way he’d be a little nicer to you or share his food more often that week wouldn’t escape you.

Being a handsome young ice skater, Sunghoon had developed quite the loyal following of boys and girls alike who would come to see him at his competitions. He thrived off of the attention, but no matter how much he enjoyed his fans’ admiration, you were always the one he’d skate to after having won first place, hugging you tightly over the barrier separating the ice from the bleachers. Especially during your younger teen years, Sunghoon wasn’t one for skinship or PDA, so it always meant that much more to you that even after his most important wins, you were the first thing on his mind. It never failed to make your stomach flip, and all the death stares from his fans in the world couldn’t have changed a thing.

You were already close, but you became practically inseparable after Sunghoon’s injury. During the competition that would have gotten him a place at the Youth Winter Olympics had he won, his nerves got the best of him and he didn’t land his triple axel, hurting his ankle in the process. Ten years of dedication and hard work, ruined in mere seconds. To say that it destroyed him would be an understatement.

You were the one to bring him back up. You listened to him when he needed to vent, held him when he needed a shoulder to cry on, cheered him up when he needed to smile. He didn’t even need to tell you what he needed, you seemed to just know. You reminded him that he had a lot more value than his medals and trophies and that he didn’t need them to be complete. His family and friends tried their best to make him feel better, but their words never reached him quite like yours did.

Slowly but surely, his confidence came back. He’d lost his fans, but he’d gained a friend he knew would always be there for him. His dimples would appear more often, his laugh would resonate louder. His injury had made the two of you grow closer, creating a bond that would only strengthen over time.

And yet there were moments when being friends wasn’t enough. When calling him your best friend didn’t feel right. You had other friends, friends you were close to; sure, maybe not as close as to Sunghoon, but close nonetheless. And you didn’t feel that way around them.

Their laugh didn’t make your heart skip a beat. You didn’t want to bury your face in their necks and breathe in their scent when they hugged you. You didn’t want to know every single detail of their day. And you surely didn’t feel a pang of jealousy in your chest when they danced with another girl at your school ball.

You also didn’t crave their lips on yours every single day since it had happened for the first time and didn’t want to see what they sounded or looked like while getting the life sucked out of them through their dick.

Everybody told you it was obvious you were ‘more than friends.’ Why did romantic love have to be ‘more’ than platonic love? Why were there levels to it? You didn’t like the idea of taking your relationship with Sunghoon ‘one step further’; that wasn’t the way it felt to you. Rather, it felt like having to change everything you knew and create something new. Something where you could see him laugh and tell him about your day, but where you could also kiss him and graze his skin with your fingertips. Something that only you could share with him and only he could share with you. But you were afraid the friendship would fall apart if things didn't work out. So, instead of taking the risk of changing everything, you made sure things would stay the same. You’d tell the butterflies raging in your stomach to settle down and you wouldn’t let yourself fall into his touch in case it’d be like falling from the highest mountain.

That is, until he kissed you. Until this moment, right now, lying in his arms, ear right over his heart so you can hear it beat for you. You look up at him. His eyes are closed and a soft smile rests on his lips. He looks so peaceful. He always looks pleased when you’ve just been together, but right now, he seems to be in such a serene state, it almost makes you laugh.

Now that you’ve given in to your feelings, you’ve realized just how strong they were this whole time. Nothing has ever felt better than being in Sunghoon’s arms, than being able to see him at his most vulnerable state and to give all of you to him. All those things you didn’t know about him just six weeks ago, you know them by heart now. You’re sure there’s other things to find out, and you’ll make sure you will.

But summer won’t last forever.

A wave of sadness slaps you right in the face, bringing you back to reality. There’ll come a time where you and Sunghoon won’t be able to lounge around all day or lazily make-out at your will. You’ll go your own ways and not see each other for months at a time. The thought of that is unbearable, and you feel like looking at Sunghoon for a second longer might rip your heart into a million pieces.

When you sit up, tearing yourself away from his grip, he immediately opens his eyes, asking what’s wrong.

“Just need to go to the bathroom. I heard you can get STIs from not peeing after sex,” you half-lie. He nods and falls back into the bed. 

You rush to the toilet, needing to get far away from Sunghoon as quickly as possible. Even your pee smells different - guess that’s what having a dick inside you will do to you. You wash your hands and look in the mirror: your skin is darker in some spots, surely Sunghoon’s work. So not only did he mess with your thoughts, he also had to make your body all weird, too?

You splash your face with cold water, hoping it will bring you back to your senses. You and Sunghoon have been best friends for years. There’s no point in changing all of that now, is there? You’ll be leaving soon enough, anyway. Why ruin a perfectly fine friendship for a summer fling?

Those are your thoughts as you head back to Sunghoon’s bedroom, ready to tell him that this whole thing was a mistake and you should just pretend it never happened. But your resolve crumbles at your feet as soon as you step inside the room.

Sunghoon’s got a couple of snacks ready as he browses through Netflix in search of an appropriate movie. “How about Twilight?” he says when he feels the bed dip under your weight next to him. He kisses your forehead and pulls you down on the bed with him so that you’re lying back against his chest.

Screw it, you think. Whatever this is, it’s much more than a summer fling.

--

The rest of the summer goes by in a flash. No, you don’t try to make Sunghoon jealous by flirting with Heeseung; if the mention of the latter’s name was enough to get your friend mad, then purposefully twirling your hair or batting your eyelashes at the older boy just might make Sunghoon white-boy-punch a hole into a wall. And it’s not like Heeseung would try coming onto you, either, with how clingy Sunghoon gets when he’s around, always an arm around your waist and a glare that could kill Heeseung.

Sunghoon gradually opens up to Heeseung being around, even though it takes you reminding him almost daily that he’s the one whose arms you wanna end up in over anybody’s. After a couple weeks, Sunghoon stops looking like he's on the brink of starting a fight every time Heeseung so much as talks to you or hands you a glass of lemonade, and finally relaxes around him.

You spend countless sleepless nights with Sunghoon. You’ve probably memorized every single one of his moles by now, and you’ve made sure to kiss all of them. He holds you against him like he might lose you at any given moment. The only nights you don’t fall asleep in each other’s embrace are when either one of you is sleeping over at your friend’s house. On those nights, sleep always takes hours before washing over you, the lack of warmth keeping you awake.

Your friends and you spend entire days at the lake or by Sunghoon’s pool, not a care in the world. You rest your head on Sunghoon’s shoulder as you watch the fireworks Jake and Jay bought go off. Sunghoon grills your marshmallows for you, blowing on them so they cool down before handing you the stick. You try to ignore how the night air gets slightly chillier and how the sun sets slightly earlier, but by the last days of August, it becomes too noticeable. When September rolls around, you’re sure there’s a small crack in your heart.

You know Sunghoon feels the end of summer too. His kisses are deeper and his lips linger over yours a second longer. He frowns when he kisses you and hugs you, like he’s trying to remember what it feels like. His usual playful demeanor when you’re in bed together is gone, instead seemingly hellbent on making you feel good and almost begging you to say his name. As if you could say any other name. As if you could say anything else.

Neither of you mention your departure until the night before you leave. After spending the evening with your friends, you lie together in bed, the side of your face resting against his chest so you can feel his heart against your ear. He’s tracing patterns with his fingertips on your back, and it takes you a while to figure out he’s spelling his name over and over again, as if to etch it in your skin. When, once in a while, he takes his hand off of you to reach for his phone, you can still feel his fingers caressing you, ghostlike against your skin.

The air around you feels heavy, pressing the both of you down into the mattress. You wish the bed would eat you alive so you could stay there, warm against each other, as long as you like. You know you can’t leave without talking first, but the words won’t come to you. Instead, they float around the bed, weighing your heart down into your stomach.

“So,” you start. You're unsure what to say, but you know this conversation has to happen, one way or another. In the end, you settle on, “Excited to leave?”

Sunghoon scoffs lightly, his motions on your back coming to a stop. “Not really, no. It’s not like I’m leaving that far, and half of our school is going to our uni.”

“Maybe, but there’ll be tons of other people. Tons of other girls, too,” you add after a short pause.

“Don’t do this, Y/N, please.”

You sit up at his words. He covers his eyes with his forearm and takes a deep breath in, sensing an incoming argument. “Do what?”

“This. Getting mad at me when I haven’t done anything.”

“I’m not mad at you,” you protest, frowning down at him.

“No? Then what’s this?” he says, smoothing down the lines between your eyebrows and on your forehead with the pad of a finger.

“Whatever.” You nudge your head away from his touch. It burns. “It’s not like I’m wrong, anyway. You’re gonna have a bunch of girls at your feet, and you’ll know what to do with them, right? Now that you’re not a virgin?” you question, avoiding his gaze.

“Y/N…” he sighs, shutting his eyes tighter as if in pain.

“What? This was the whole reason why, right? Get experience with me so you could fuck girls better, no?”

“Y/N!” he says, raising his voice enough to let you know he’s upset but not enough to scare you. He sits up, looking at you with hurt and disbelief in his eyes. “What’s this all of a sudden? It’s not like I forced you into this! We agreed on it together!”

“So you agree? That this summer was just about getting experience and now you’ll use it on other girls and pretend like we,” you gesture between the two of you, “never happened?”

“What do you mean ‘agree’? I never said any of this! Don’t put words into my mouth!”

He watches as you get up from the bed, arms crossed and pacing his room. He calls out to you a few times, but you don’t stop to look at him until he speaks your name with a sternness you’ve never heard before from him. “What?” you snap.

“I don’t get why you’re acting like this out of nowhere! We both knew summer was gonna end at some point, and why we were doing this! Why are you blaming me now?”

“Because… because…” you sigh, scrambling for an excuse. Why were you doing this? The thought of Sunghoon doing what he did to you to another girl, making her feel as good as he had made you feel, kissing her like he had kissed you, made you sick. It made you see red, it made you want to make him wear a shirt with your face on it so everybody knew he was yours.

Sunghoon gets up and stands close in front of you, too close. You close your eyes. If you see his moles, you might reach out to touch them and let yourself fall even more. If you fall, you’ll need to get up, but his scent makes your knees weak.

His hands find your face, holding a little too gently, you think. Your small ones wrap around his wrists and grip them, a little too harshly, he thinks. 

You take a step back and finally look into his eyes. There’s hope in them; hope you’ll say what he wants, what he needs to hear. That you want him like he wants you. That you wish summer wasn’t over. That you’ll keep him in your heart until you can see him again. So, when what you say next is none of the above, he feels his heart sink down to his feet, leaving a murky puddle there.

“I can’t do this.”

You rush out of the room, practically running home. You fight your tears back until you slam your bedroom behind you, pathetically sinking to the ground as you let out a loud sob. You don't have the energy to get up, and cry into your hoodie's sleeve right there on the floor.

When you’ve calmed down a bit, you get up and lay in your bed, hiding your whole body underneath the covers. Maybe this is for the best, you think. If you end it like this, you won’t have the knowledge of whether he’ll wait to have you back or he’ll move on like nothing happened. That way, you can do whatever you want, not caring about what he’s up to. 

But even now, your hands subconsciously reach out towards a person that’s not there and your feet hang over the edge of your bed as though to get up and run to him anytime. You curl in on yourself to stop your body from aching for him. It doesn’t work very well.

Sunghoon stays where you left him for a few minutes, too stunned to move. Should he run after you? Should he let you cool off for a bit and talk to you in the morning? Would you be mad at him if he didn’t try to see you now or would the mere sight of him just make you angrier? He plops down on his bed as these questions run through his mind, butting into each other and making everything more confusing. 

He thinks back on everything that led to this, and his mind settles on that day a few days after graduation where his thoughts had dropped to the lowest pits of hell. If only you hadn’t brought those two damned lollipops.

--

The next morning, Sunghoon wakes up as if somebody had slapped him awake. He doesn’t bother to brush his teeth or eat anything before running over to your house, almost forgetting to put shoes on. He finds you in your room, packing the last of your things into an already full suitcase. He stands at your door, panting as his hands rest on his knees.

“You haven’t left yet. Thank God.”

“God, Hoon. It’s not that far between your house and mine. How are you so out of breath,” you say, glancing at him from the corner of your eye.

He walks to you and kneels in front of you, taking you in his arms before you can say anything. “Talk to me, please. Don’t leave like this. I’d never forgive myself if you left and you were mad at me, Y/N.”

You thought you’d cried so much last night that there was not a single drop of water left in your body, but you thought wrong. Your eyes immediately well up at his words, and he leans back when he hears a soft sniffle escaping you. Only then does he notice how puffy your eyes from all your crying.

“No, no… Have you been crying? I’m so sorry, pretty, please don’t cry,” he pouts, pulling you back into his embrace. It hasn’t even been half a day, but you missed his warmth so much, it only makes you cry harder.

After sobbing against his chest, possibly staining his shirt in the process, you pull away and in your light-headed, dehydrated state, spill your heart out. “It’s so stupid,” you sob. “We’re not gonna see each other for months and I’m gonna miss you so much and I don’t want you to be with other girls. I want you all to myself and I don’t want to be your friend that you fucked for a summer just so you could get experience, it was a stupid idea in the first place, if you wanted to kiss me, you should’ve just kissed me. But you didn’t just kiss me and now I’m scared that this all meant nothing to you but everything to me and that I don’t want to be friends anymore but you do and I’m mad that it took me all summer to say this even though I’ve known it for years but I didn’t want to admit it to myself but also you didn’t say anything and I’m mad about that too. Because there’s no way you don’t feel like I do but maybe you actually don’t and-”

Whatever you were about to say dies out against Sunghoon’s lips as he presses his lips to yours, interrupting your rambling. He pulls away, looking at you with a huge, stupid grin. He’s so stupid, you think. I love him so much.

“Fucking hell, Y/N. I’ve been waiting for you to say this so bad, you have no idea.”

You punch his chest, frowning at him. Those stupid tears won’t stop. Everything is so stupid. “Then why didn’t you say it first?”

“Because I didn’t know how to. You know I’m bad with words. And I was scared it’d make things weird.”

“I don’t want things to be weird,” you pout.

“I don’t want things to be weird, either. I want things to be nice and happy.”

You giggle. “That’s so stupid.”

“Right? It’s so stupid,” he repeats, kissing you again.

“Your breath smells,” you complain when he pulls away.

“And you have tears on your lips. Tastes salty,” he teases.

“Yeah, thanks to who?”

“Sorry.” He smiles and kisses you again. He holds you against him for a while, enjoying this last moment together. As long as he can see a smile on your face before you leave, he’ll be fine.

“I’m gonna miss you so much too, Y/N. And forget about those non-existent girls. There’s no one I’d rather be with than you.”

“How do you know? You haven’t met any of them yet,” you say, voice muffled against his t-shirt.

“I’ve met other girls before. None of them compare to you,” he says, and you immediately gag at how cliché it sounds. “What?! It’s true,” he giggles.

“You’re not gonna go and date a random guy, are you?”

“Of course not. None of them compare to you,” you say, lowering your voice to imitate his.

He helps you finish packing, and when you’re done, you lay together on your bed, not saying much because not much needs to be said. Your parents struggle to tear you away from each other and from your bed when it’s time to leave. He helps your dad put your baggage in the trunk of his car, telling you to not lift a finger so you watch him go to and from the car, leaving a kiss on your forehead every time he walks past you. You notice with a smile that he doesn’t carry much at once, making him have to go back-and-forth quite often.

After saying goodbye to your family, your dad waits in the car as you and Sunghoon hang back awkwardly, kicking small pebbles on the pavement. He takes your hand in his, making you look up at him, then takes the other hand, then hugs you close to him.

“I’m gonna miss you,” you say, as if that wasn’t obvious. You’re trying hard to fight tears from falling again, but it’s like there’s an ocean behind your eyes, water somehow never running out. 

“I already miss you,” he says, and that’s enough to get you to sob again, which makes him start crying too. You’re crying, he’s crying, your mom is crying from the porch as she watches the two of you, it’s a mess.

You force yourself away from him, cupping his face in your hands. “We’ll see each other soon, okay? And college will be fun. You won’t even have time to miss me. But make time to think about me, yeah? And text me.”

“I will. I’ll think about you all the time, I already do,” he says.

“Okay,” you whisper and hug him one last time, very briefly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. You’re about to walk away but he doesn’t let go of your hand and pulls on your arm to bring you back to him.

Pressing his forehead against yours, he whispers, “I love you,” and you sob.

“I love you, too.”

This time, when you walk away, he lets you go. He watches as you get into the passenger’s seat and as the car drives away, as it takes you away from him. You watch him stand there in the rearview mirror, until his silhouette becomes smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until you can’t see him at all anymore.

--

Summer went and fall came as they do every year. Dead leaves are falling but it’s a new start for you. It’s a new town and you don’t know anybody, but you click instantly with your roommate and make new friends throughout your first week there. You realize everybody’s in the same boat, and they’re all eager to meet people and are curious about college life. You love your classes but complain about them nonetheless. You eat more ramen than you’d like to admit and turn up hungover at a 9 am class on a Thursday. You pull all-nighters at the library and develop a caffeine dependency. You’re a college student.

You and Sunghoon were very dramatic when you left, you soon realize. You call almost everyday. He’s not there with you and you miss him but at least you don’t have to pretend you’re not stupidly in love with him anymore. Because it’s stupid, being in love, it really is. You wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Your first semester passes by almost too quickly, and before you know it, you’re on the drive home, already one eighth of the way through university. You’re excited to go home, but Sunghoon’s finals last a week longer so you wait around for him. When you complain about it, Chaeyoung tells you to get a grip. “You haven’t seen him in three months, I’m sure you can handle another week.”

And you can, but barely. You were about to explode but then he’s back and you’re in his arms and his hair is still so soft, his scent is still so comforting and his moles are still there. You kiss them both before you finally press your lips to his, and it makes you feel so alive, you could die right then and there.

You lie on his bed and talk for hours as if you didn’t keep in touch the whole time and it’s like you never left. It’s like summer never ended and you’ve just been lying in his bed the whole time, college just one big fever dream. 

But his skin doesn’t smell like chlorine anymore, and he’s not in his swimming trunks. It’s fall, almost winter, and you’re kissing Park Sunghoon. You realize you can kiss him whatever the season and you find comfort in that. It was a big day (you cried a lot when you saw him) and you’re tired so you think you’ll kiss for a bit and that’ll be all but then he whispers “I missed you so much” against your neck and a fire lights inside your stomach. Oh, how it burns. You think it might consume you whole, but you don’t dislike that idea.

In a flash, you’re on top of him, his shirt is off, your shirt is off, but it’s not enough so you take your pants off too and Sunghoon is confused as to why you’re going so fast, but follows you anyway. “What’s going on?” he asks when you’re done with the taking off of your clothes and have moved on to kissing and biting at his neck like it’s your first meal in ages, because it is.

“I missed you too,” you simply answer, and he smirks as he nods slowly, now understanding your eagerness.

“Missed me that much, huh?” he teases, letting his head fall back against the pillow so you have better access to his neck.

“Shut up. Kiss me,” you order, and he doesn’t need to be told twice. Your kisses are ravenous and desperate, very fitting for two horny people in love who haven’t seen each other in months. But the pulse in your core makes you too impatient to stay anywhere for too long, and really, it’s not your fault if you’re grinding down onto Sunghoon’s clothed erection, it’s just that he smells too good and you missed him too much.

Sunghoon laughs at you for being so impatient to hide just how impatient he is. His giggles keep him from moaning loudly enough to wake the whole house, and you laugh as you tell him to stop laughing.

“I’m serious. I missed you so much. Need you so bad,” you say as you get rid of your underwear and quickly do the same for his. He gasps when he feels you take his dick in your hand and brush its tip between your folds, both out of pleasure and out of surprise.

“Shouldn’t I get you ready? Stretch you out a bit?” he asks, his hands roaming up and down your back as he sits up on the bed so that you’re straddling his lap, and you shake your head no. You’re probably already embarrassingly wet from your short makeout session, anyway.

“I don’t care if it hurts,” you say, lining his tip with your entrance. “Need to feel you.”

You sink down on his cock, the both of you releasing loud moans at the long-awaited feeling. He lets you adjust to his size for a minute, but as soon as you move your hips just a bit, signaling to him that you’re ready for more, it’s over for you. He wanted to be patient and take his time, he really did, but you feel so warm around him and your small whimpers are so pretty that his resolve of letting you take the lead is thrown out the window. He pounds into you at a rapid pace that has you biting his shoulder to keep yourself from screaming.

You had imagined your first time back with Sunghoon so many times before. It usually involved a nice playlist in the background, fairy lights and candles lighting the room, hours of foreplay and sensual lovemaking, with a nice bath afterwards. Sometimes, when you were particularly needy for him, you imagined something closer to what was actually happening, where you’d rip each other’s clothes as soon as you got to the bedroom and fucked like animals (a bit much, admittedly, but you really missed him).

What you definitely hadn’t expected, however, was that you’d both cum in less than five minutes. What could you do, though, when he was hitting your g-spot over and over again, his length stretching you perfectly as he whispered in your ear how much he’d missed you and how good you felt? And what could he do when you took him in so well, clinging onto him as you told him how much you’d missed him and how good he felt?

You finish at the same time, hole clenching around him and milking him dry. He doesn’t pull out for a while, letting you collapse onto him as you both catch your breaths, just like you had that first time. “That was a bit quick,” he pants, and you can’t help but laugh. 

You pull back to look at his face. It’s so pretty and stupid. What a stupid face that you love so much. Do you love it because it’s stupid or is it stupid because you love it? You think that that’s a stupid question, and you kiss the mole on his nose, then the mole on his cheek, right next to his nose.

“We have all night to go slower.”

“We have all Christmas break,” he corrects.

We have the rest of our lives, you think, and you think that might be a bit much, but you say it anyway. Sunghoon hums and says, “yes, we do,” and you think maybe it’s not all that stupid.

Maybe it’s the greatest thing that’s ever been.

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