- Two best friends go on a budget trip to Japan, only to accidentally book a love hotel for their entire stay. What starts as laughter and harmless fun slowly turns into lingering touches, stolen glances, and undeniable tension—until one night changes everything, and they’re forced to confront feelings they’ve been hiding for far too long.
tags: explicit sexual content, consensual sex, multiple rounds, oral sex (f receiving, m receiving), filming with consent, mirror sex, semi-public setting, overstimulation, light possessiveness, dirty talk, praise kink, body worship, breast fixation, shower/jacuzzi sex
wc: 11,900
rie's note: this was from last year>< so expect errors ahead! enjoy the ride! like,reblogs, and FEEDBACKS 👉🏻🥹👈🏻are highly appreciated :3 added more scenes hence the lil different writing style heh
You were halfway through your iced americano when Park Sunghoon slid into the seat across from you with the kind of urgency only someone who forgot to buy concert tickets would have.
“I did it,” he said, slightly breathless. “I found the cheapest possible hotel in Tokyo for five nights. I’m talking dirt-cheap.”
You raised an eyebrow. “And by ‘cheapest’ you mean we’ll be sharing a closet with a raccoon family or—?”
“No, no. This place looks fine. Clean. Themed. Cute. I think the rooms are based on trains or something.”
You blinked at him. “Trains?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged, like that explained everything. “It’s called ‘Fantasy Express.’ Kind of a vibe, right?”
“…Doesn’t that sound like a porn parody of the Shinkansen?”
Sunghoon gave you a blank look. “You said budget. I delivered. Be grateful.”
You snorted and took a sip of your drink. “Right. This better not end with me cuddling you for warmth in a windowless shoebox.”
He grinned. “Is that a threat or a promise, bestie?”
You flipped him off, laughing. But deep down, you were buzzing with excitement — not just because of the trip, but because it had been years since you and Sunghoon got away together.
After college, everything changed. Jobs, time zones, relationships that fizzled out before they even began. But Sunghoon was constant. He was the one person who could make you laugh even when you were crying into your broken laptop at 2 a.m. He was the voice note at midnight, the “I made too much ramen, come over,” the comfort in chaos.
So when the two of you finally managed to book this long-overdue trip to Japan, it felt like pressing pause on real life. No deadlines. No drama. Just the two of you, trains, street food, and maybe — if the stars aligned — a little karaoke.
You’d been talking about it since your second year in college. A pinky promise made over shared takoyaki from a food stall on your campus lawn.
“One day, we’ll go. Just you and me. Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka. A no-plan plan.”
You remembered that promise because Sunghoon never broke his.
Which is why you didn’t question it when he said he’d handle the hotel. And flights. And a few “must-see” locations, because even though you called it a “no-plan plan,” you both knew you were the chaotic one.
The night before your flight, Sunghoon came over to help you pack. In reality, he just sat on your bed, eating your snacks and judging your underwear choices.
“Why do you need seven pairs for five days?” he asked, mouth full of chips.
“In case I fall into a river. Or sweat. Or get possessed and pee myself. I don’t know, leave me alone.”
He laughed and reached over to zip your suitcase, fingers brushing yours for a second too long.
Neither of you mentioned it.
The flight was smooth. You watched a rom-com, he watched anime. You fell asleep on his shoulder. He didn’t move.
When you landed in Tokyo, everything felt surreal — the bright signs, the clean air, the sense that something new was about to happen.
The train ride to the hotel was quiet. You scrolled through Instagram while Sunghoon triple-checked the hotel address on Google Maps.
“We’re almost there,” he said, pointing to a small tucked-away building near the corner of a quiet street.
It looked decent. Small. Cozy. A glowing pink sign above the entrance read:
“Welcome to FANTASY EXPRESS — All Aboard the Love Line!”
You stared at it. Then at him.
“Hoon.”
“Yeah?”
“…Did you just book us into a love hotel?”
Sunghoon blinked. Looked back up at the sign. Back at you. “…No?” he tried, voice cracking halfway through. You deadpanned. “This is literally vibrating with sex energy.”
“I thought it was themed!”
“It is. The theme is fucking.”
He dropped his suitcase. “I swear on everything holy, I didn’t know. I just thought it was quirky. It said ‘train carriage rooms’ and had cute colors!”
You stared at him, unblinking. “You booked us into a love hotel. For five nights.”
A silence.
And then, slowly, the two of you burst into uncontrollable laughter — loud, ugly, bent-over laughter as passersby gave you weird looks.
Sunghoon wiped a tear from his eye. “Guess we’re really going on a ride.”
You shoved his shoulder, still laughing. “Idiot.”
The door slid open with a hiss, revealing the room Sunghoon had confidently reserved for five full nights.
You took one look inside and immediately stopped.
“…You’re joking.”
“Nope,” Sunghoon said in a flat voice, already sounding like he regretted every choice he’d ever made.
There were train handles hanging from the ceiling.
The walls had digital screens showing looped footage of Japanese countryside rolling past at high speed.
A faux train announcement played in the background every few minutes: “Next stop… pleasure.”
You turned slowly toward him. “Sunghoon.”
“Okay, wait—just hear me out.”
You stepped in and did a slow, horrified turn.
There was a chrome pole right in the middle of the room.
The bed looked like it was upholstered with actual train seats, complete with seat belts and tray tables. And worst of all, the mirrored ceiling had a blinking LED banner that read:
🚨 “ALL ABOARD — NONSTOP EXPRESS” 🚨
You gaped. “So its really is a love hotel.”
“No it’s not! …Okay maybe. Technically. But—look, I didn’t know! I thought it was just themed!”
“You thought this was a railway-themed budget capsule, and not a sex train hotel?!”
“I didn’t read that far down the listing, okay?! It was cheap and looked… clean! Plus the review said ‘lots of amenities!’”
“Sunghoon. There’s a vending machine for underwear's and condoms next to the door.”
He paused. Looked. “…Okay, I’ll give you that one. You sighed, dragging your suitcase in anyway. “We are going to get diseases just by existing here.”
Sunghoon followed behind sheepishly, dragging his bag. “You know, in a different light, this place is kind of hilarious.”
You turned to him and blinked. “We’re literally sleeping in a porn set.” “A very affordable porn set.”
You flopped dramatically onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling mirror.
He was right. It was funny. And the more you looked at the blinking lights, the mood lighting, and the suggestively placed towel basket beside the bed, the harder it was to stop laughing.
You both ended up bent over, wheezing from laughter as the fake train announcement repeated:
“Passengers, please hold on… for your own safety.”
Ten Minutes Later
“…Wait,” you muttered from the bathroom doorway. “Is that a jacuzzi?”
Sunghoon looked up from his phone. “A what?”
You pointed. “There’s a jacuzzi in here. And… no way. Is that a sauna?” He came over and peeked in. Sure enough, tucked behind the ridiculously clean glass partition was a legit two-person jacuzzi tub with sleek jets, LED lighting, and a discreet shelf of complimentary scented oils. And beside it? A cramped but actual mini sauna, already set to a cozy 45°C.
“Oh my god,” you whispered. “They really want people to… marinate before they—”
“Okay! I’m not letting this place win,” Sunghoon cut in. “We are taking full advantage. This shit is expensive in normal hotels.”
You looked at him in disbelief. “You want to use the sex jacuzzi?”
He shrugged. “It’s just a tub. The jets don’t know what’s going on. You want to spend the night pouting, or do you want a hot bath with free tea tree oil?”
You groaned. “I hate that you’re making sense.”
Twenty Minutes Later
You were in the tub first — submerged in warm water, hair tied up, sighing as the jets eased the travel ache out of your spine.
“I feel gross about how good this is,” you mumbled.
Sunghoon was sitting just outside the sauna, half-wrapped in a towel, drinking water. “Don’t get used to it. This is our peak. We’re about to suffer in a train-themed sex chamber for five nights.”
“You say that like it’s not your fault.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Fair.” You watched as steam curled off his shoulders, his skin flushed slightly pink from the sauna. He looked good. A little too good.
You quickly looked away and sank deeper into the water. Nope. Not thinking that.
You were best friends. The kind who shared hoodies and bitched about exes and had matching pajamas from a failed couples Halloween sale. You weren’t supposed to be noticing how broad his chest was, or how low his towel sat on his hips.
He caught you looking. You snapped your head the other way.
A pause. “You okay?” he asked, voice lower.
“Yup,” you replied, too fast. “Just tired.”
You heard him chuckle under his breath. “You’re a terrible liar.”
You splashed water at him. “Go back to your sauna.”
But the heat in your chest had nothing to do with steam.
You both climbed into the ridiculous velvet-upholstered bed and laid side by side, limbs awkwardly angled to avoid touching too much.
The train screen looped soft countryside visuals.
The LED sign above the mirror blinked softly:
“Don’t miss your stop…”
You stared at the ceiling. “Why does this feel like the foreplay part of a drama?”
Sunghoon’s voice was low. “Because everything here is designed for people to fuck.”
You both went quiet. Too quiet.
Then he added, a little too casually. “If you get cold tonight, just say something.”
You turned your head slightly. His profile glowed in the soft red light. “I won’t.”
“I know.” But neither of you moved. Not yet.
You woke up to the smell of grilled fish and miso soup.
Blinking groggily, you turned your head to find Sunghoon already sitting up in bed, hair messy, skin flushed from sleep, and a gleam of childlike wonder in his eyes.
“Room service,” he said simply, holding up a laminated card with neat checkboxes. “And it’s actually good. Like. Too good for this place.”
You sat up, blinking blearily at the silver-domed trays on the fold-out tray table. “Wait—this place has room service?”
“Apparently. I checked last night before sleeping. They serve breakfast to the room for ‘maximum comfort and pleasure.’” He did finger quotes around that last part. “Very suggestive. But also… delicious.”
He peeled the lid off one tray, and the smell immediately hit you: steaming rice, grilled salmon, soft tamagoyaki, pickled vegetables, and even a little matcha jelly cube for dessert.
Your stomach growled audibly.
“Oh my god,” you mumbled, crawling across the bed like a zombie. “I’m never leaving.”
He passed you chopsticks. “See? You talk a big game, but deep down, you’re just here for the perks.”
You dug in. “Mmf—if you booked this place on purpose for this breakfast alone, I forgive you.”
“I’ll take that as my official pardon,” he said, chewing on a piece of miso-glazed eggplant.
For a moment, the room was quiet — just soft clinks of chopsticks, muffled chewing, and the fake train sounds looping in the background.
And then, as always, came the banter.
“So,” you said, mid-bite, “you gonna keep walking around in that towel all morning or…?”
Sunghoon glanced down at himself — still shirtless, his towel hanging loose around his hips as if he were starring in a shampoo commercial. He smirked. “Jealous?”
You scoffed. “Of what? Your man boobs?”
“First of all,” he said, popping a grape into his mouth, “these are pecs. Try not to cry when you see me in real lighting.”
“I’ve seen you in fluorescent kitchen lights eating ramen at 2 a.m. I’ve survived worse.”
“I’ve also seen you drunk with a sheet mask on and mismatched socks, so don’t act superior.”
“Those socks were a fashion statement.”
He snorted. “A cry for help.”
After breakfast and a little too much matcha jelly, the two of you finally started getting dressed.
Or trying to, anyway.
You were standing at the small mirror near the door, brushing your teeth and fussing with your hair when you heard Sunghoon behind you, grunting in frustration.
“What’s your problem?” you asked, spitting out toothpaste.
“Where the hell is the other sock I packed?”
You glanced over and nearly choked — he was half-dressed, hair still wet from the shower, towel hanging on the rack, shirt hanging off one shoulder like a K-drama lead in distress.
You raised a brow. “Check your suitcase. Or maybe the laundry bag?”
He groaned dramatically and flopped onto the bed. “Why does this always happen to me?”
“Because your packing skills are trash.”
“You packed seven pairs of underwear for five nights!”
“Prepared. Not chaotic.”
“Psychotic.”
You tossed a sock at his face. “Shut up and wear this.”
He caught it, looked at the pattern — pastel pink with tiny peaches on them — and grinned.
“Wait… these are your socks.”
“They’re clean. Be grateful.”
He gave you a playful look. “If my feet feel too soft and feminine later, it’s your fault.”
You rolled your eyes. “You could use a little softness.” There was a beat of quiet as you both finished dressing.
And then, almost too casually, Sunghoon asked, “You good with the plan today? Shibuya, food, maybe teamLab Planets?”
You smiled. “Hell yeah. Let’s go get blinded by LED art and overpay for strawberry mochi.”
You grabbed your tote bag, he slung his camera over his shoulder, and together you stepped out into the Tokyo sunlight — blinking against the sudden warmth, the city buzzing with life all around you.
The love hotel’s sliding door closed behind you with a soft mechanical hiss.
“God, being outside feels illegal after that room,” you muttered, stretching.
Sunghoon yawned beside you. “We need to get out as much as possible. If we spend too long in there…”
“…we’ll end up using that pole, and not ironically.”
You said it jokingly, but the second it left your lips, you realized you were both thinking it.
You looked at him. He looked at you.
You both looked away.
Sunghoon cleared his throat and started walking. “Right. Food. Vibes. Let’s pretend we’re not staying in horny train hell.”
You followed, heart doing weird things.
By 10:30 a.m., you were already on your second iced drink and your fifth photo taken by Sunghoon.
"This one’s blurry,” you said, looking over his shoulder as he flipped through the camera roll.
“You moved,” he replied, flicking to the next one.
“I was mid-chew.”
“Exactly. Candid.”
“You got my molar in HD.”
He laughed, slinging the camera back over his shoulder. “You’re welcome. That’s raw content.”
You stuck your tongue out at him and tugged him toward the next street corner, where a little taiyaki cart was steaming golden fish-shaped cakes onto paper trays.
He bought one with custard and one with sweet potato, handing you the first without asking — he always remembered your favorite.
The day passed in a colorful, unfiltered blur.
From Asakusa’s temple streets to Ueno Park’s shaded paths, you strolled through the buzzing city under soft summer clouds, sharing bites of grilled yakitori, stopping at claw machines, and laughing until your stomach hurt every time Sunghoon got scammed by a vending machine.
“Bro,” he groaned as his Pocari Sweat got stuck halfway. “I just wanted electrolytes.”
“That’s what you get for bullying me about my socks.”
“They are ridiculous.”
“And now they’re your lucky socks, so shut up and suffer.”
He grinned, defeated, as you shook the machine for him until the drink finally dropped.
He brought the good camera — the one he only took out during special trips or when he really wanted to remember something.
At first, it was just the usual:
Colorful alleyways, Vintage signs, Cats in front of bookstores and Neon billboards starting to glow as dusk rolled in
But then the lens kept shifting toward you.
He’d tilt the viewfinder just slightly to the left whenever you were sipping your drink, or smiling up at a paper lantern, or holding up a peace sign in front of a giant tanuki statue.
He didn’t make a big deal out of it.
He never did.
Just snapped quietly, a small smile on his face, pretending to be adjusting settings every time you caught him in the act.
“Stop taking pictures of me looking ugly,” you said as you leaned against a vending machine at golden hour.
“You never look ugly,” he replied without thinking.
You blinked. He clicked his shutter.
You smacked his arm. “Flattery gets you nowhere, Park.”
“I was talking about the vending machine, actually.”
“Oh, screw you—”
By late afternoon, the two of you were barefoot, wading through glowing water and walking across mirrored floors.
The floating flowers, the endless lights, the reflection of stars above and below you — it all felt surreal.
Sunghoon was quiet most of the time, too busy adjusting focus, waiting for the exact second a projection shifted, or the water stilled, or your silhouette lined up against the light.
“Stay right there,” he murmured, crouching low.
You stood still, bathed in blue and purple.
A single glowing lily floated past your ankles.
Click.
When he finally looked up from the lens, his expression was soft, like he’d forgotten where you were — like the whole room was quiet just for a second.
You waved your arms. “Earth to perv?”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, standing up and brushing dust off his knees. “Just… this lighting’s good.”
“Mm-hmm. You’re not slick.”
Dinner was ramen from a tiny shop hidden in an alley where no one spoke English and the broth was so rich it felt illegal.
You walked off the food through quiet backstreets, with neon signs humming above your heads and laundry flapping on upper balconies.
Sunghoon carried your bag without saying anything.
You bought him an ice cream without asking.
It was so easy. The kind of night you wanted to fold up and keep in your pocket forever.
At one point, you stopped to take a photo of your own — just a snapshot of him in the warm city light, licking ice cream and grinning.
“Got you,” you said, triumphant.
He raised a brow. “You finally captured my beauty?”
“No. I finally got proof you like vanilla.”
“You said you wouldn’t judge.”
“Too late.”
The fake train ambiance greeted you again as you entered the room — soft station chimes, muffled track sounds looping on the hidden speakers. You kicked off your shoes with a groan and threw your bag down like it betrayed you.
Sunghoon collapsed face-first on the bed. “We’ve walked 23,000 steps. I checked.”
“You’re dramatic.”
“My knees are 47 years old now.”
You laughed as you peeled off your socks. “Okay, Grandpa. Want me to book us an onsen for tomorrow?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he lifted his head slowly, eyes narrowing at the frosted-glass door in the corner.
“…wait. We still haven’t used the sauna together.”
You followed his gaze.
The in-room sauna and jacuzzi setup was tucked into the corner like an afterthought — sleek, surprisingly clean, and wildly over-the-top for the price. You hadn’t dared touch it yet.
You raised a brow. “You serious?”
He was already standing.
“I’m not walking like a gremlin tomorrow. Sauna it is.”
The small wooden sauna heated up quickly — enough for the two of you to sit side by side, towels wrapped around your waists, foreheads already glistening.
It smelled like cedar and something citrusy.
“I feel like we’re in a rich person’s armpit,” you muttered.
Sunghoon cracked up, head tilted back, eyes closed. “I feel like we’re about to get a motivational TED Talk from a man named Daisuke about financial freedom.”
You snorted. “We are literally boiling ourselves in a love hotel sauna. What freedom?”
There was a pause.
Then—
“This is nice though,” he admitted. “Like… surprisingly.”
You hummed, wiping sweat from your brow. “We deserve it. That yakitori hunt was a whole workout.”
A beat passed.
“Also, you were sweating this much at the gacha machine, so I feel like this is just your brand.”
“Don’t come for my capsule toys. They bring me joy.”
“Your suitcase is full of tiny plastic sushi. Let that sink in.”
After the sauna, you both flopped into the jacuzzi — towels still on, bubbles swirling lazily, the overhead lighting dimmed to a soft purple glow.
You leaned back against the edge and sighed so dramatically that Sunghoon mimicked it seconds later.
“Haaaaa~”
“Haaaaa.”
“…Why do you sound like a dying anime girl?”
“Why do you sound like a wounded elk?”
You flicked a handful of bubbles at him, and he retaliated by splashing water into your face.
By the time you both settled down, your cheeks hurt from laughing.
He nudged your foot underwater. “Hey. For real.”
You looked over.
“This whole day was perfect. Thanks for not letting me book some sad capsule hotel instead.”
You smiled softly. “Thanks for accidentally giving us the weirdest five days of our lives.”
A pause.
You both sank a little deeper into the water, the bubbles rising quietly between you.
Nothing else needed to be said.
Not yet.
After the sauna and jacuzzi, everything felt heavier — your limbs loose, your muscles relaxed, your brain pleasantly fuzzy in the best way.
Sunghoon handed you your toothbrush like always. Same side of the sink. Same rhythm. You brushed shoulder to shoulder, bumping elbows whenever one of you leaned over to spit.
You wore your oversized shirt — the one with faded cartoon prints and sleeves too long for your arms.
He wore a black tank top and gray sweats, his hair still damp and curling a bit at the nape.
It looked domestic.
Dangerously so.
You didn’t comment on it.
The sheets were still warm when you both flopped down again — you on your side of the bed, Sunghoon sprawled diagonally, legs halfway off the edge like a kid after a sugar crash.
"What do we watch?” you mumbled, tugging the blanket over your legs.
“I found a channel earlier that only plays weird food documentaries,” he said. “One of them was about a guy in Osaka who makes noodles with his feet.”
You blinked.
“That sounds unappetizing.”
“And yet I couldn’t look away.”
He flipped on the TV, and soon enough, soft narration in Japanese filled the room. Onscreen, a slow montage showed close-ups of dough, broth, and a man lovingly caressing noodles like they were his own children.
You both stared.
Then:
“His foot game’s strong,” Sunghoon muttered.
You snorted, smacking his arm. “Stop.”
A second later, he tilted the screen toward you and snapped a photo of your mid-laugh face.
“Delete it,” you said.
“Nope.”
“Sunghoon—”
“That’s a top-tier smile. Archive-worthy.”
You reached for the camera.
He held it just out of reach, laughing as you tried to climb over him, only to lose your balance and flop onto his side of the bed.
He oofed softly as your elbow landed against his stomach.
And then…
You didn’t move.
Neither did he.
You were both breathing, barely, quiet again except for the soft murmur of the food show and the faint rumble of train sounds from the wall speaker — still looping, still somehow comforting.
Your head rested near his shoulder. His arm lay beside you, palm up.
You didn’t think about how easy it would be to lace your fingers through it.
Because that wasn’t the point.
Not tonight.
Eventually, you mumbled, “I’ll fall asleep right here.”
“Good.”
“Then you’ll complain that I drool.”
“I always do. Doesn’t stop you.”
“…True.”
A beat passed.
Then Sunghoon shifted slightly, pulled the blanket over you too, and said, soft as a sigh:
“Night, dummy.”
You smiled into the pillow.
“Night, Hoon.”
You both woke up later than planned.
To no one’s surprise, the blackout curtains plus the post-sauna coma plus the gentle train track sounds had knocked you both out cold.
When you opened your eyes, Sunghoon was already awake beside you, scrolling on his phone with bedhead and one eye squinting at the light.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he greeted without looking.
You groaned and threw the blanket over your face. “Why are you always so chipper in the morning?”
“I already ordered breakfast. It’ll be here in ten.”
That made you peek out
“Pretty good options. Surprisingly tasty too.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Did you ate already?”
“I may have had a mini croissant. For science.”
The tray rolled in like a hotel drama — miso soup, boiled eggs, tamagoyaki, rice, fruit, juice, and coffee, all neatly arranged in little porcelain dishes.
“This is way too fancy for a place with a pole in the corner,” you whispered.
Sunghoon burst out laughing. “We should eat on the pole.”
“Try it. Break your back.”
You sat cross-legged on the bed, carefully pouring soy sauce into the tiny saucer while Sunghoon buttered his toast like an old man at a countryside inn.
It was… cozy. Stupidly cozy.
He took a photo of the spread — and then one of you holding a strawberry between your lips.
“You’re so annoying,” you said.
“Smile,” he replied.
And you did.
You both dressed quickly — jeans and sneakers, matching windbreakers by accident (he insisted you copied him), camera packed again.
The plan today was Shimokitazawa, the artsy thrift-store-filled neighborhood that smelled like espresso, vinyl records, and dreams of quitting your job.
You wandered between secondhand shops and cafés, trying on sunglasses, picking up ugly mugs, posing in front of graffiti.
Sunghoon’s camera was out the entire time — and even though he pretended he was just testing settings, you saw how he always pointed it at you when you weren’t looking.
You caught him once.
He didn’t deny it.
“I like how you look when you’re not trying.”
You blinked.
He looked away, adjusting the lens. “Lighting’s better.”
“…Right.”
It was small.
You reached for a cold canned drink at the exact same moment.
Your fingers brushed his. Barely. Briefly.
But it lingered — just a half-second too long.
You felt it. So did he.
Neither of you said a thing.
You were sitting on a bench outside a vintage bookstore, sipping soda while he reviewed the photos on his camera.
“What are you deleting?”
“Blurry ones.”
“Let me see.”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“Because some are mine.”
“…Some?”
He paused.
Then smiled a little — not in a teasing way this time.
“Some are just for me.”
You didn’t ask what that meant.
You just let it sit there between you.
Warm. Quiet. Weightless.
But not really.
You returned to the hotel a little earlier than Day 1, shoes dusty, legs tired, hands full of little finds — enamel pins, a thrifted shirt, a random keychain he insisted matched your vibe.
In the jacuzzi again. This time quieter. You both leaned back and let the water do the talking.
Later, you brushed your teeth side by side again, yawning into your sleeves, shoulders bumping gently.
You climbed into bed first. This time, when he laid beside you, you noticed how close your hands were on the blanket.
Not touching.
Just… close enough. You didn’t pull away.
Neither did he. It started small.
Just a joke, really. After another long day out — this time at the Shibuya Sky deck and walking through Harajuku — you’d peeled off your jacket and complained about how sweaty you were.
“You’re melting,” Sunghoon commented, flopping dramatically onto the bed while you stood near the mirror, tying your hair up.
“You’d melt too if you had boobs trapping heat.”
He snorted. “Do you want me to confirm that or—” You threw a pillow at him.
“Okay, but real talk,” Sunghoon said as the door hissed shut behind him. “This sauna is saving my life. I’m starting a petition to install one back home.”
You chuckled, stepping inside after him in your towel, feeling the warm steam immediately cling to your skin.
Tonight felt hotter somehow — and not just because of the temperature.
Maybe it was how Sunghoon looked right now. Hair swept back slightly damp, skin already glowing, the soft edge of his collarbone visible. His towel was secure but low, and he sat with one arm resting over the wooden bench behind you, casual, almost… cocky.
“So,” he started, turning slightly toward you. “You gonna keep avoiding the fact that you made a noise when you sat down yesterday?”
“I did not.”
"You groaned like you were starring in a drama.”
You blinked at him. “Are you being flirty right now?”
He smirked. “Would it work?”
You gave him a look.
He laughed, leaning his head back against the wall. “Relax. I flirt with everyone.”
“…No, you don’t.”
He looked at you again, slower this time.
You felt it — that shift.
The quiet drawl in his tone when he said, “Right. I don’t.”
Ten minutes in, the steam got thicker.
You leaned forward to reach for your water bottle, not realizing your towel had come a little… loose.
You tugged it quickly and pressed it tighter to your chest, but the damage was done.
Sunghoon’s eyes had flicked down.
And then—back up.
He cleared his throat and smirked. “…Nice catch.”
You threw him a glare, cheeks hot, but not from the heat.
“Don’t be gross.”
“I’m not being gross,” he said, tilting his head lazily. “I’m just observant. It’s part of my charm.”
“Your charm is a menace.”
“Yeah?” he said, voice dropping just enough to make your skin prickle. “Still keeping me around, though.”
Later, while drying off, you were both laughing over a dumb quiz show playing on the love hotel TV, towels replaced with your usual comfy clothes. But the air still hadn’t gone back to normal.
You sat on the bed, brushing your hair.
He sat behind you, watching something on his phone, absently letting his fingers toy with the end of your shirt hem.
You didn’t realize he was doing it until he stilled.
Then—
“You always wear this one,” he said softly. “It’s got a little hole in the back.”
You turned to look at him.
“You’re really paying attention, huh?”
His gaze didn’t waver.
“I always do.”
There was no laugh this time. No grin. Just the warm glow from the room lamp and the way his eyes dropped for a second — from your face, to your lips, to your collarbone — before he looked back up.
You swallowed.
He looked way too close all of a sudden.
And yet, not close enough.
You stood up.
Quickly. Casually.
“I’m brushing my teeth.”
“Okay,” he said behind you, quiet… amused. “Run away, then.”The night settled in earlier than usual — maybe because you both agreed your legs needed a break, maybe because the city lights felt better admired from the bed with snacks and cold drinks.
You kicked your feet up, pulling the blanket over your lap while Sunghoon scrolled through the hotel TV’s library.
"We’re not watching something sad,” you warned.
“Why not?”
“Because every time we do, you start doing that emotional whisper voice after.”
He raised a brow, amused. “‘If I die, tell my cat I loved her’ isn’t emotional. It’s factual.”
You snorted and popped a grape into your mouth.
He settled on a coming-of-age romance film — something soft, slow, with golden lighting and friends-to-lovers tension that hit a little too close.
You didn’t comment.
Thirty minutes in, the movie faded into the background. You were half-focused, shoulder-to-shoulder with Sunghoon beneath the same blanket, a bowl of chips between you.
He reached over to grab one, and his fingers brushed yours again.
This time, you didn’t move away.
Neither did he.
You felt him glance at you — not a quick flick, but a lingering stare.
“…What?” you asked, not looking at him.
"Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m admiring.”
Your heart thudded once.
“…What?”
He smiled slowly, eyes dropping to your mouth. “I said nothing.”
Somewhere between the third snack break and the movie credits, Sunghoon nudged your leg.
“Truth or dare?”
You looked at him sideways. “What are we, twelve?”
“Pick.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Truth.”
He leaned back against the headboard, one arm behind his head.
“Have you ever thought about kissing me?”
Your breath caught
He didn’t laugh this time. He didn’t smirk.
He just watched you — calm, unreadable.
You stared at him, pulse ticking louder.
“…Is that a real question?”
His voice dropped lower. “You chose ‘truth.’”
The silence stretched. You felt it thick in your throat, in the space between your knees touching beneath the blanket.
Then, softly—
“Once or twice,” you admitted.
His lips curved, slow and smug.
You shoved his shoulder, embarrassed. “Okay, your turn.”
“Dare,” he said immediately.
You blinked. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to lie.”
You stared at him.
“…Fine. I dare you to—”
“Kiss me.”
Your breath stalled.
“What?”
“I dare you to kiss me.”
He said it casually, but you saw the way his hand gripped the blanket — the slight twitch in his jaw, the sharp inhale he tried to hide.
You licked your lips slowly.
“Sunghoon—”
"It’s just a game, right?” he said, voice velvet-soft.
You looked at him.
At his eyes. His mouth. His flushed cheeks and the way he was so close but not making a move.
Like he was giving you control.
And that scared you more than anything.
Because suddenly, the game didn’t feel like a game anymore.
You leaned in.
Just a little.
Just enough that he felt your breath.
But before your lips touched, you pulled back and whispered, “Next round.”
He exhaled sharply, a chuckle slipping out — part relief, part frustration.
“You’re evil.”
You smiled.
“Just playing the game.”
“I’m sleepy,” you murmured, your voice barely above a whisper.
The tension from the game still clung to your skin, warm and heavy. Your heart was doing too much—pounding like you just ran up a hill instead of almost-kissing your best friend.
You tugged the blanket up and turned on your side, facing away from him.
Or so you thought.
Because as you lay back on the pillows, eyes half-lidded and breath evening out, your gaze landed somewhere else.
Above you.
The mirror on the ceiling.
You blinked.
It was such a stupid, love-hotel thing to have, and you hadn’t even paid attention to it since the first day. But now?
Now you saw everything.
You.
Sunghoon.
Lying side by side, under the same blanket, bodies close enough to share heat.
His head tilted toward you slightly, lips parted like he was going to say something—but didn’t.
Your breath caught.
The image in the mirror wasn’t what friends looked like.
It wasn’t casual. It was intimate.
Too much.
Not enough.
You shifted, just barely.
And in the reflection, you watched Sunghoon do the same.
His hand moved above the blanket.
Closer.
Not touching you—but hovering near your waist.
You felt his knuckles brush the hem of your shirt, barely there.
Goosebumps rose instantly.
Your eyes flicked up again—to the mirror.
He was watching it too.
Watching you.
“…Sunghoon,” you said, barely audible.
He didn’t move his hand. Didn’t blink.
“I know,” he said softly, like he already knew what was in your chest. “You’re sleepy.”
But he still didn’t pull away.
Instead, he let his fingers rest lightly against your side—just enough pressure to make you feel it.
His voice dropped, rougher now.
“But if you weren’t…”
Your stomach twisted.
“If I wasn’t?” you asked.
He met your eyes in the mirror.
“I’d kiss you,” he murmured. “And this time, you wouldn’t stop me.”
You couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
The air between you was thick. You felt the heat from his body, the blanket suddenly too warm. His words echoed, burning a hole into your chest.
Still, you didn’t move.
Not away.
Not toward him.
Just… there. Caught.
Heart racing.
Eyes locked in the reflection.
And then—
He pulled his hand away slowly.
A soft breath left your lips.
“Goodnight, Y/N,” he whispered.
You closed your eyes.
But you didn’t sleep for a long, long time.
Not with his voice still in your ear.
Not with his hand still ghosting your skin.
And not with that mirror burning above you, showing you something you couldn’t unsee.
“C’mon,” Sunghoon said, tugging your wrist gently as you both stepped out of the taxi and into the Tokyo night. “We’re not leaving Japan without at least one club night. Live a little.”
You gave him a look. “You’re the one who googled ‘clubs that don’t have a cover fee’ and filtered by ‘low noise.’”
“Exactly,” he grinned. “I’m a responsible party animal.”
You snorted, but let him guide you in.
The club was tucked away under a neon sign and a set of stairs, with a cozy, crowded feel—dark corners, glowing drinks, and music that thudded deep in your chest.
He ordered you both something sweet and sparkling. The kind of drink that made your lips sticky and your smile looser.
It was supposed to be harmless.
Just a night out.
You wore a black dress—Sunghoon’s pick, actually, from earlier that day.
“I’m not letting you pack a bunch of oversized hoodies for a night out,” he said back in the hotel. “Show some skin. It’s Japan. Everyone’s hot.”
So you did.
And now?
Now you were paying for it.
Two drinks in, you danced near the edge of the floor, swaying with the beat, laughing with Sunghoon beside you. His hand hovered low on your back—not touching, but close enough to be there if you stumbled.
Until he stepped away for a second to use the bathroom.
And they showed up.
Two guys—tall, confident, clearly a little tipsy.
“Hey, you alone?” one of them asked, smiling too much, eyes dipping low.
You smiled politely, shaking your head. “I’m with someone.”
“Oh?” The second guy grinned. “Boyfriend?”
Before you could answer, you felt it—a hand on your waist. Warm. Familiar.
Sunghoon.
“No,” he said smoothly, his voice sharp behind you. “She’s with me.”
You blinked, surprised by the edge in his tone.
Sunghoon wasn’t the jealous type. Or at least, he’d never acted like it before. Not when guys checked you out. Not when they flirted harmlessly.
But tonight?
He wasn’t joking.
One look at his face and you knew.
The guys backed off, muttering something in Japanese you didn’t catch. But you didn’t care. Not when Sunghoon’s fingers stayed on your hip even after they were gone.
You turned to him.
“…You okay?”
He stared at you for a second.
Then he laughed—short, breathless.
“You have any idea how you look tonight?”
You blinked. “Sunghoon—”
“No,” he said, pulling you gently toward a quieter corner of the club. “I let you out in that dress and thought, yeah, sure, I’ll be normal about it. But then I see guys eyeing you like they have a shot and suddenly I’m—”
He cut himself off.
You stared.
“Suddenly you’re what?”
He looked at you. Really looked.
And for the first time tonight, there was no filter.
“I’m not normal about you,” he said simply. “Haven’t been for a long time.”
Your heart stuttered.
The music faded into nothing.
“…Sunghoon.”
“I know,” he said, eyes flicking to your lips. “We’re best friends. This whole trip’s been fun. Flirty. Safe. But tonight?”
He leaned in.
“Tonight, I want to make it clear.”
Your back hit the wall, gently.
Not rough.
Not rushed.
Just enough to make your breath hitch.
“You’re with me,” he whispered, lips barely brushing your jaw.
And you didn’t move.
Not away.
Not at all.
The cab ride back to the hotel was dead silent.
Not because there was nothing to say.
Because everything had already been said — in the way Sunghoon looked at you when those guys tried flirting at the club, in the way his hand gripped your waist like it belonged there.
And in the way he whispered, low and rough:
“You’re with me.”
The words looped in your head the whole ride. And when you stepped into your room — the one with the ridiculous train-themed decor, mood lighting, and giant mirror above the bed — it was over.
The second the door clicked shut—
He kissed you.
Not like a friend.
Not like someone testing the waters.
Like he knew what you tasted like.
Like he needed it.
His hands were everywhere — cupping your face, sliding down your waist, pressing into your lower back until your bodies were flush. You were barely able to keep up with his mouth — all tongue, teeth, urgency.
You gasped when his lips left yours to nip your jaw.
“Sunghoon—”
“I told you,” he growled, voice wrecked. “I’m not waiting anymore.”
He walked you backward toward the bed, kissing you between every step.
You fell onto the mattress, breathless, heart racing. The mirror above showed your reflection — the two of you tangled in shadows and heat, your thighs parting instinctively as Sunghoon leaned over you.
“You don’t know,” he whispered, nose brushing yours, “how many nights I’ve watched you sleep in this bed.”
His hand slid under your dress, fingertips grazing your thighs.
“Thinking about this.”
You gasped when he squeezed your leg, his eyes never leaving yours.
“You’re soaked through,” he murmured.
“I’ve been—thinking about it too,” you admitted, cheeks warm.
That was all he needed.
Sunghoon yanked off his shirt, revealing the hard lines of his chest, the trail of muscle down his abs — you stared shamelessly.
He noticed.
“Like what you see?”
You nodded.
“Use your words, baby.”
“I like it,” you whispered, eyes blown wide. “I want all of you.”
He groaned. “Fuck, you’re gonna kill me.”
Then he was kissing down your neck, tugging your dress off slowly, his mouth dragging over every new inch of skin.
“No bra?” he murmured against your chest.
“You told me to wear something easy to take off,” you whispered.
His eyes burned.
“I was joking,” he growled, “but fuck, that’s the hottest thing you’ve ever said.”
His tongue circled your nipple before sucking hard, making your hips buck.
“Sunghoon—”
“Be patient,” he said, sliding your panties off. “I’m going to make you cum on my tongue first.”
Then he was kneeling at the edge of the bed, pulling your legs over his shoulders, and diving in.
You cried out.
He licked a stripe from your entrance to your clit, groaning like he’d just tasted heaven.
Then again. Slower.
His fingers gripped your thighs, keeping you open as he licked you deep — tongue teasing your folds, swirling around your clit, then flattening with just enough pressure to make your legs shake.
You tangled your fingers in his hair. “Sunghoon, please—please—”
He paused, pulled back just enough to speak.
“Say it again.”
You moaned. “Please, Sunghoon—make me cum—please—”
“Good girl.”
He dove back in, and you were gone.
Your orgasm ripped through you, thighs clenching around his head as you came with a broken moan of his name.
He didn’t stop — he kept licking, slow and lazy now, lapping up everything you gave him until you were panting, trembling.
He crawled back up your body and kissed you — letting you taste yourself on his lips.
Then you felt him.
Hard. Heavy. Pressing against your thigh.
You reached down, wrapping your hand around him, and his head dropped to your shoulder with a groan.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “If you touch me like that, I’m gonna lose it.”
You smirked, kissing his jaw. “Then lose it.”
He laughed — low and rough — then pulled back to line himself up.
You were still soaked. Still twitching from your first orgasm.
He met your eyes, voice hoarse.
“Tell me you want this.”
“I want this,” you whispered. “I want you.”
He slid in with one deep thrust.
His hips rolled into you, slow and deep.
One thrust — thick, stretching, deliberate.
You gasped, hands gripping his shoulders as he filled you to the hilt.
“Fuck, Sunghoon—”
“I know,” he murmured, mouth brushing your ear. “You’re perfect like this.”
He stilled inside you, chest heaving. You could feel how hard he was — how much restraint he was using just to not lose control.
Then he pulled back.
And pushed in again.
Deeper.
Your breath hitched.
Above you, the mirror reflected everything — the way your body arched into him, how your mouth parted when he bottomed out, the tension in his jaw as he watched you take him like you were made for it.
You whimpered.
“Look up,” he said softly.
You did.
And your entire body shivered.
The sight was unreal.
His body between your legs.
The way your back curved.
The way your nails pressed into his skin.
Sunghoon leaned in close, lips dragging across your jaw.
“Now imagine if you could see this again.”
You blinked, dazed. “What?”
He reached for his phone.
Tossed a look toward the dresser, a sly smirk playing on his lips.
“I brought the tripod.”
Your stomach flipped.
“You’re joking—”
“Nope.” He was already sliding the legs out, adjusting the angle toward the bed. “Consent. One hundred percent. Just for us. Just for tonight. I want to remember everything.”
Your thighs instinctively squeezed around his waist.
He placed the phone on the stand, hit record, and returned to you.
Settled between your legs again.
Caged you in with his arms.
Kissed you like it would never be enough.
“This okay?” he whispered against your lips.
You nodded, eyes wide, chest rising.
“Say it, baby.”
You swallowed. “Yes. I want it. I want you.”
He groaned — guttural, raw.
Then he started moving.
Long, slow strokes at first.
His hips grinding into yours, dragging over every sensitive spot with maddening precision.
His hand slid under your lower back, lifting your hips slightly — angling you better, deeper — until you were gasping his name.
“God—Hoon—”
“You hear that?” he rasped, breathless. “That sound you make when I hit here—”
Thrust.
You cried out.
“—that’s going to ruin me.”
His thumb brushed your clit in tight circles while he fucked you, rhythm getting messier — your thighs slick, sheets twisted, the air thick with skin and heat and moans.
“Look at you,” he whispered. “Look at how fucking pretty you are when I’m inside you.”
You forced yourself to glance up at the mirror again—
And it was filthy.
Your eyes glassy.
Your body bouncing gently with every stroke.
Sunghoon — hair messy, jaw clenched, sweat slicking his chest — completely lost in you.
His thrusts got faster.
Your fingers clawed at his back.
You were getting close again. Too close.
“Sunghoon—Hoon—I’m—”
“Let go,” he growled. “I want to see it. Want to see you cum all over me.”
His hand gripped your thigh tighter, holding you in place as he slammed into you, dragging your orgasm out until you were moaning shamelessly, your body shaking under him.
You came hard.
Eyes rolling.
Toes curling.
He groaned loudly, head dropping to your shoulder.
Then he pulled out suddenly — tugged his cock in his fist once, twice—
“Where?” he panted.
“Stomach,” you gasped. “Please—”
And he spilled with a sharp grunt, hot ropes across your skin, your belly, his hips still twitching from the force.
The room was silent except for your panting.
You both stared at the mirror.
Then each other.
Sunghoon let out a soft, broken laugh.
“...We’re fucked.”
The room was still warm.
The soft buzz of fake train sounds from the speaker had long since faded into the background, replaced by only your uneven breathing and the low whirr of the air conditioner above the bed.
Your body was still tingling.
Muscles relaxed, core aching in the best way, thighs sticky with the aftermath of everything you just shared.
Sunghoon was lying beside you — one arm tucked under his head, the other draped lazily across your bare stomach. His fingers traced little, absent-minded shapes there, gliding through the mess he’d left on your skin like he couldn’t bear not to touch you.
He looked wrecked. Hair messy. Eyes soft. Lips red from kissing too hard.
But the way he was looking at you now?
Completely different.
Like the teasing and jokes were stripped away.
Like he was finally seeing you.
And maybe for the first time—you were really letting him.
“You okay?” he murmured.
His voice was soft, a little hoarse.
You turned your head slowly, looking at him. “Yeah. More than okay.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “Good.”
Then, quieter, “Because that... wasn’t just for fun.”
Your heart stuttered.
“I mean—” he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, looking up at the ceiling. “I know we’ve been friends forever. I know this trip was supposed to be, like, low-budget ramen and chaotic sightseeing and those vending machines you’re obsessed with, and I definitely didn’t mean to—book a fucking love hotel—but—”
You cut him off with a quiet laugh, rolling over to face him. “Hoon.”
He looked at you, eyes wide.
Your fingers reached up, brushing his hair from his forehead.
“I know it wasn’t just for fun.”
You paused.
“...Did you really mean everything you said tonight? At the club? Back here?”
His gaze didn’t flinch.
“Every word.”
Your breath caught.
“You’ve... thought about this?” you asked, almost shy. “Us?”
He nodded slowly, like he was afraid he’d scare you off. “For longer than I should have.”
You swallowed, heart thudding.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He smiled, soft and bittersweet. “Because I didn’t think I had a chance. You’re...you. You flirt with ramen vending machines.”
You laughed, burying your face in the pillow. “I do not.”
“You do,” he teased. “You called that one in Shibuya a good boy.”
You giggled.
Then his fingers stilled on your stomach.
“But the second I saw that guy at the club looking at you like you weren’t the most precious thing in the room... I snapped. I couldn’t keep pretending.”
You looked up at him. “And now?”
He leaned in, brushing his nose against yours.
“Now I want to be the only one who gets to touch you.”
Your breath caught.
“I want to take you on real dates. Hold your hand in public. Make you breakfast. Wake up beside you without wondering if I crossed a line the night before.”
Your chest ached — in the best way.
You wrapped your arm around his neck, pulling him closer.
“Then let’s do that.”
His brows lifted slightly.
“Yeah?” You nodded. “You idiot. I’ve wanted this too.”
He smiled — slow and real, the kind that reached his eyes.
And then? He kissed you again.
Gentle this time. Lingering. No rush.
Just the start of something real.
When you finally broke apart, curled in the sheets, your limbs tangled—
Sunghoon rested his cheek on your chest, humming softly.
“We’re kind of gross,” he mumbled sleepily.
You blinked. “What?”
He pointed up lazily.
You looked. And laughed. The mirror.
Still foggy. Still showing your bodies — flushed and messy and completely tangled up in each other.
“Let’s clean up,” you whispered.
Sunghoon groaned dramatically. “Can’t move. Dead. Died from your pussy.”
You smacked his arm with a pillow. “Romantic.”
He grinned.
Then he sat up—still shirtless, still glowing—and stretched.
As you slipped off the bed to grab your robe, something caught your eye.
That little panel near the bathroom. The one that looked just a little too clean. Too new.
You padded over, curiosity tugging.
Pushed it open— And found the train.
“Sunghoon…”
Your voice was breathless, laced with awe and disbelief as you stared into the hidden room tucked behind the bathroom mirror.
He came up behind you, still shirtless, eyes scanning the strange, atmospheric glow pouring out of the secret space.
“…What the hell?” he murmured, stepping in beside you. The small room looked exactly like the interior of a luxury train car.
Gold-trimmed velvet seats lined both sides.
The projected windows showed nighttime scenery rushing past, as if the whole place were actually moving.
And above it all? Mirrors. Full-length. Perfect angles.
“Did you book this on purpose?” you whispered.
Sunghoon laughed quietly, slipping his arm around your waist. “You’re giving me too much credit.”
You turned to look at him, still flushed, still warm and full from earlier.
He stared back at you—his gaze darker now, hungrier.
“You know,” he said, voice low, “we can’t just find a secret room like this and not do something stupid.”
You shivered.
“Define stupid.” His lips ghosted your neck.
“Take off your robe,” he murmured.
You blinked. “Here?”
“Here,” he said, nodding toward one of the seats. “There.”
Then he tilted your chin toward the mirror above.
“So you can watch.” Your stomach flipped.
He pulled you inside gently, guiding you toward the plush velvet seat like it was a throne.
“Sit,” he said, voice deeper now. “Right here. Legs open.”
You did. Robe sliding down your arms, bare underneath.
The second you sat, the coolness of the velvet against your thighs made you gasp.
Sunghoon dropped to his knees between your legs, spreading them wider, mouth just hovering over your center.
He looked up at you once—dark eyes, flushed cheeks, messy hair. Yours.
“I didn’t get enough of you earlier,” he murmured. “Wanna taste you right. Wanna take my time.”
You whimpered.
Then his tongue was on you. Sunghoon devoured you.
Tongue slow and firm, licking up every drop, nose pressed into your folds, mouth working you open until your head fell back and your hips jerked against his mouth.
You glanced up, dazed—and moaned when you caught the mirror reflection.
Everything. Your legs trembling. Your hands gripping the seat. His messy hair buried between your thighs.
He glanced up mid-lick, locking eyes with you through the mirror.
“Keep looking,” he said, mouth shiny. “I want you to see what you do to me.”
He sucked your clit into his mouth then—hard. You gasped, the sound echoing in the quiet room.
“Oh my god—Sunghoon—!”
“You gonna cum again, baby?” he whispered, licking slow circles again. “Right here, in this fucked-up train fantasy room?”
You moaned—loud, desperate.
“Say it.”
“Yes—please—yes, I’m gonna—fuck—”
He flicked his tongue in a perfect rhythm, and when his fingers slid inside you—two, slow, deep—you shattered.
You came on his tongue, thighs shaking around his head, crying out as he licked you through it, swallowing everything you gave him.
When you finally stopped shaking, he kissed the inside of your thighs, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked up.
Still on his knees. Still hard.
But now? Smiling. Smug. Possessive.
“Still alive?” he teased. You gave a breathless laugh. “Barely.”
“Good,” he said, standing. “Because I’m not done with you.” He pulled you up to your feet and spun you to face the mirror.
Your reflection was glowing—lips parted, chest heaving, legs weak.
Sunghoon pressed up behind you, cock dragging along your ass as he leaned in to whisper:
“Bend over the seat.”
You obeyed—bare hands gripping the backrest, legs shaking as he kicked your feet further apart.
He stroked himself behind you, tip brushing your folds.
“Look how ready you are,” he murmured. “Already dripping again.”
He slid in with one thrust. You both moaned. You watched in the mirror as he grabbed your hips and began to move—slow at first, letting you feel every thick inch inside.
Then harder. Faster. Filthy.
The sound of skin slapping, your breathy moans, his rough grunts—it was insane. His hand slid around to grip your throat gently, tipping your face toward the mirror again.
“Watch, baby. Watch me fuck you.” You did.
And it was the most erotic thing you’d ever seen.You—bent over, mouth open in shock. Him—behind you, wrecked, hips snapping, muscles straining.
And you couldn’t last. You were already so full. So overstimulated. So his. “I’m—gonna—again—”
“Do it,” he panted. “Cum for me. Make a mess. I’m right behind you.” You came again—harder this time, louder, a cry ripped from your throat as your body clenched around him.
And with a final groan—“Fuck, yes”—he came too, spilling deep inside you, his hips twitching, hands gripping your waist tight as he gave you everything. You collapsed onto the velvet seat, breathless, shaking.
Sunghoon leaned over you, arms wrapped around your waist from behind.
You both stared into the mirror. Sweaty. Marked. Ruined.
“…Best love hotel ever,” you mumbled.
Sunghoon laughed, pressing a kiss to your shoulder.
“Welcome to the last stops, baby.”
The water steamed around you, warm and humming, tiny waves lapping at your sides as you sank back into the love hotel’s private jacuzzi.
The bathroom light was dim, glowing low and amber, reflecting off the tiled walls like candlelight.
You barely had time to close your eyes before a pair of arms slipped around your waist from behind.
“Round three,” Sunghoon murmured into your shoulder.
“Already?” you whispered, dazed. “You’re serious?”
“You’re mine now,” he said simply. “I’m never gonna be done.”
You moaned as he pulled you back into his chest, your legs floating around his hips, his hands sliding across your stomach beneath the water.
Then higher.
Until he had your breasts cupped in both palms.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “I’m obsessed.”
You bit your lip, gasping as he started to play with them — thumbs brushing your nipples, squeezing gently like he’d been waiting to get his hands on them all night.
“I always noticed,” he confessed, pressing kisses to the back of your neck. “Every time you stretched in front of me, every time your shirt clung to them when it rained—"
“Sunghoon—”
“—and now they’re mine,” he said, voice rough with need. “So I’m gonna touch them whenever I want.”
His mouth trailed down your neck, then he reached around, shifting you to straddle his lap in the water.
“You’re so fucking pretty,” he muttered, lowering his mouth to your chest.
Then he kissed your breasts—slow, wet kisses, tongue flicking across your nipple before he sucked it into his mouth.
You let out a soft moan, your hands burying in his wet hair. He groaned into your skin, pulling your body even closer until your tits were pressed to his face. His voice was muffled. “I could live right here.” You giggled breathlessly. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m obsessed,” he corrected, licking again. “Let me worship you.” You felt his cock harden again beneath you, hot and heavy in the water.
“Sunghoon…”
“I’ll be gentle,” he whispered, mouth brushing your chest. “One more. Just one more.”
He reached under the water, lining himself up, and slowly eased you down onto him — warm water swirling around your waists as you sank onto his cock, inch by thick inch.
You both groaned. It felt so full like this. So warm. Slippery. Intimate. His forehead pressed to yours, hands gripping your waist.
“Move for me, baby,” he whispered. “Nice and slow.”
You rolled your hips, riding him gently in the water, the movement easy and fluid with the water supporting your weight. And he couldn’t stop watching your chest.
“Fuck,” he moaned. “Bounce for me, just like that. Look at them—"
Your tits bounced with every movement, droplets clinging to your nipples, glistening under the soft light. His hands returned to them again and again — massaging, squeezing, sucking one into his mouth as you moved on him.
You whined. “You’re too into this—”
“I warned you,” he growled. “They’re mine now.”
Then he grabbed your hips, took over the pace, thrusting up into you as the water splashed gently around you. Slow, deep strokes. His cock dragging against your sensitive walls, your body already so used to him but still twitching at the stretch. You clung to him, lips brushing his. “You feel so good.”
“I want you to cum on my cock like this,” he breathed. “Wanna feel you clench around me again.”
His hand slid between your bodies, thumb brushing over your clit under the water — slow, tight circles until you were gasping again.
“Cum for me, baby,” he whispered against your lips. “While I’m buried inside you. I want to feel it.”
You did. With a broken gasp, body trembling in the bubbling heat, your walls tightened around him, clenching so hard he swore under his breath—
“Fuck—yes—fuck, you’re perfect—”
And then he came too, moaning into your mouth as he spilled inside you again, his arms tightening around you as if he couldn’t let you go. You stayed there, clinging to him, your body spent and warm, water lapping gently against your skin.
He kissed your forehead. Then your nose. Then your boob. Again.
“Seriously?” “What?” he said innocently. “They’re the love of my life now.”
The water steamed around you, warm bubbles churning against your skin as Sunghoon's hands gripped your hips tighter, pulling you flush against his hard body. His lips trailed hot kisses down your neck, teeth grazing just enough to send shivers racing through you despite the heat. "Mine" he growled low, voice rough with need, his cock already throbbing against your thigh, slick with the jacuzzi's warmth and his own arousal.
You arched into him, fingers digging into his shoulders as he lifted you slightly, the water sloshing around your waists. His mouth captured yours in a fierce kiss, tongue plunging deep, claiming every inch while one hand slid between your legs. Fingers parted your folds, stroking your clit with firm circles that made you gasp into his mouth. He didn't tease for long—Sunghoon never did when possession burned this hot. Two fingers pushed inside you, curling to hit that spot that had your walls clenching around him.
"Fuck, you're still so wet for me," he murmured against your lips, pumping his fingers faster, thumb grinding your clit. The water made everything slicker, hotter, your body responding with desperate bucks against his hand. But he wasn't done worshipping yet. Withdrawing his fingers, he brought them to your mouth, pressing them past your lips. "Taste yourself. Taste how much you want this." You sucked eagerly, tongue swirling around his digits, eyes locked on his darkened gaze.
Satisfaction flashed in his eyes as he pulled his hand away, replacing it with the thick head of his cock nudging at your entrance. But instead of thrusting in right there, he stood fully, water cascading off his toned chest and abs, muscles flexing as he hauled you up with him. Your legs wrapped around his waist instinctively, the jacuzzi's edge pressing into your back for leverage. "Not like this," he said, voice husky. "I want to fuck you standing, feel every inch of you gripping me while I hold you open."
He shifted, one arm banding around your back to support you, the other guiding his cock. The tip breached you slowly at first, stretching your pussy with that delicious burn as he sank in inch by inch. You moaned, head falling back, the steam-filled air thick with the scent of sex and chlorine. Water lapped at your joined bodies, but it was nothing compared to the heat building where he filled you completely, balls pressing against your ass.
Sunghoon groaned, hips snapping forward in a sharp thrust that buried him to the hilt. "God, yes—tight like this, just for me." He started a rhythm, powerful and unrelenting, each drive lifting you slightly against him, your breasts bouncing with the force. His free hand roamed, pinching your nipple hard enough to make you cry out, then soothing it with his mouth, sucking the peak between his teeth. You clung to him, nails raking down his back, urging him deeper.
The standing position let him angle just right, his cock dragging along your inner walls, hitting your g-spot with every plunge. Water splashed around you as he fucked harder, possessive grunts escaping him. "No one else gets this. No one else fucks you like I do." His pace quickened, hips pistoning, the slap of wet skin echoing in the steamy enclosure. Your pussy fluttered around him, building toward that edge, clit grinding against his pelvis with each thrust.
He sensed it, shifting his hold to free a hand, fingers finding your clit again. He rubbed in tight, fast circles, matching his brutal rhythm. "Cum for me. Milk my cock while I fill you up." The command pushed you over, orgasm crashing through you like a wave, walls spasming as you screamed his name. Sunghoon followed seconds later, thrusting deep one last time, hot cum flooding your pussy in thick spurts. He held you there, both panting, his forehead pressed to yours as the aftershocks rippled through.
But even spent, his grip didn't loosen. "We're not done" he whispered, already hardening inside you again. "I want more".
Sunghoon's cock twitched inside your still-pulsing pussy, the mix of his cum and your juices leaking down your thighs into the bubbling water. He didn't pull out yet, instead rocking his hips in slow, deliberate grinds that kept the friction alive, his mouth crashing back onto yours. The kiss was messy, tongues tangling with renewed hunger, his teeth nipping at your lower lip as he swallowed your whimpers. "You feel that?" he rasped between breaths, one hand cupping your ass to tilt you higher on his shaft. "I'm gonna fuck you until you're ruined for anyone else."
He thrust up again, harder this time, the water churning wildly as he bounced you on his length. Your oversensitive walls clenched around him, every slide sending sparks of pleasure-pain through your core. You gasped into his mouth, breaking the kiss to beg, but he silenced you with another deep plunge, his free hand tangling in your wet hair to yank your head back. His lips attacked your throat, sucking marks into the skin—dark bruises that would linger as proof of his claim.
The rhythm built fast, his hips snapping with possessive force, cock stretching you wide with each entry. Your clit rubbed against his base, the pressure coiling tight despite the fresh ache from your first climax. "That's it, take it all," he growled, fingers digging into your flesh hard enough to bruise. You shattered again sooner than expected, body trembling as another orgasm ripped through you, but he didn't stop. Sunghoon kept pounding, chasing his own release while your pussy fluttered helplessly around him, overstimulated nerves firing wildly.
"Fuck, yes—squeeze me like that," he grunted, finally spilling inside you with a guttural moan, hot ropes of cum painting your walls anew. He held you impaled, panting against your shoulder, but his cock stayed buried deep, semi-hard and insistent. Slowly, he lowered you both back into the jacuzzi, the warm jets massaging your joined bodies as he pulled you onto his lap facing him.
His hands roamed your back, tracing the scratches you'd left earlier, before cupping your face for a slower makeout. Lips brushed softly at first, then deeper, his tongue exploring lazily while his hips shifted beneath you. You felt him thickening again, the third round stirring as he broke the kiss to murmur, "On your knees. Show me how much you need my cock."
You slid down eagerly, the water lapping at your chest as you positioned yourself between his spread thighs. His erection stood proud, veined and glistening with your combined fluids. Wrapping your hand around the base, you leaned in, tongue flicking out to lap at the slit, tasting the salty mix of cum and arousal. Sunghoon's fingers threaded through your hair, guiding you gently at first. "Suck it. Take me deep."
Your lips parted, sliding over the head, hollowing your cheeks as you bobbed down, taking more with each pass. The jacuzzi's bubbles tickled your skin, adding to the sensory overload as you worked him with your mouth—tongue swirling along the underside, hand stroking what you couldn't fit. He groaned, hips bucking slightly, fucking your face with controlled thrusts. "God, your mouth... so fucking good. Look at me while you do it."
Eyes locked on his, darkened with lust, you hummed around his length, the vibration drawing a hiss from him. Saliva dripped down your chin, mixing with the water, as you deepthroated him, throat relaxing to accommodate his girth. His grip tightened, possessive, holding you there for a moment before letting you pull back for air. "Enough." he said hoarsely, hauling you up for another searing kiss, tasting himself on your tongue.
He spun you around then, pressing your back to his chest, legs draped over his as he positioned you. One arm locked around your waist, the other parting your thighs wide. "Spread for me," he commanded, fingers dipping into your soaked pussy, scooping out some of his cum before rubbing it over your clit. You moaned too cock drunk to speak, arching into his touch, but he was already lining up his cock, slamming home in one fluid motion.
This angle let him go deeper, the head of his dick battering your cervix with every upward thrust. Water splashed over the jacuzzi's edge as he fucked you relentlessly, his mouth on your neck, biting and licking. "You're mine to use"he whispered hotly, fingers returning to your clit, pinching and rolling it until you were sobbing with overstimulation. Your body betrayed you, hips grinding back despite the intensity, chasing the building pressure. "Yours only-fuck— yours." You managed to replied back.
He didn't let up, pace brutal, cock dragging against your g-spot with precision. The coil snapped violently—your pussy gushed around him, squirting in forceful arcs that mixed with the jacuzzi water, soaking his thighs. "Fuck, yes—squirt for me, baby," he praised, thrusting through it, prolonging the waves until you were a trembling mess.
Sunghoon came with a roar, flooding you once more, his body shuddering against yours. He held you close through the aftershocks, kisses turning tender, lips brushing your temple, your jaw. "All mine,"he murmured, finally softening and slipping out, cum trickling from your abused pussy.
Exhausted, he lifted you effortlessly, wrapping you in a towel before carrying you to the nearby lounge chair. The steam still hung in the air as he settled beside you, pulling you into his chest. His arms encircled you possessively, one hand stroking your hair as your eyelids grew heavy. "Sleep now" he whispered, voice soft and kissing the top of your head. You drifted off to the rhythm of his heartbeat, safe and claimed in his embrace.
The scent of miso soup and freshly baked melonpan woke you before sunlight did.
You blinked against the soft morning glow spilling in through the patterned blinds.
The mirror above the bed was foggy now from the jacuzzi steam the night before — a quiet, ghostly reminder of everything you’d done in this ridiculous love hotel.
The sheets were wrapped around you like a cocoon, and when you turned over, the space beside you was empty. But only for a second. Because then Sunghoon walked in, shirtless, hair a mess, tray in hand. Room service.
“Good morning, superstar,” he grinned. You sat up slowly, rubbing your eyes. “You ordered food?”
“I ordered everything.”
He plopped the tray down on the bed — steaming rice bowls, tamagoyaki, cut fruit in flower shapes, and melonpan fresh enough that you could smell the butter. Two iced coffees sat sweating in the corner. You blinked. “You remembered melonpan?”
“You moaned about it in your sleep,” he teased, climbing back into bed. You slapped his chest lightly. “You’re lying.”
“Maybe,” he grinned. “Maybe I just like hearing you moan.”
You groaned, flopping face-first into a pillow. “Stop talking.”
He chuckled. “That’s rich, coming from someone who begged me in a fake train room last night.”
You threw the other pillow at him.
He caught it mid-air. “I’m keeping this one. Smells like your shampoo.”
You peeked out from under the sheets, still flushed.
“Are you… always like this in the morning?”
“Only when I wake up with my favorite person naked beside me.”
He leaned over to kiss your cheek.
Then your shoulder. Then your chest.
You shoved him back with a laugh. “Eat your breakfast.” “I’m trying, but my meal’s hiding under all those blankets—ow, okay, I’m done—!”
He handed you a cup of coffee like it was the holy grail. You drank. Grateful. Warm in more ways than one. After a moment of silence, your voice dropped.
“So… this isn’t just a one-time thing, right?”
Sunghoon didn’t hesitate.
“Babe. I came like a dozen times and cried into your neck. You’re not getting rid of me.” You snorted into your cup. He reached across the tray, brushing your fingers with his.
“I mean it. I want you. All the time. After we go home. Even when you’re being annoying.”
You narrowed your eyes. “When am I annoying?”
“Specially when your annoying,” he smiled. He reached for his phone and, without asking, snapped a picture of you wrapped in blankets, coffee cup in hand, cheeks flushed from laughter.
You groaned. “No—delete that—!”
“Nope,” he grinned, adding it to an album. “This is my favorite version of you. Hair messy, barely alive, and mine.”
You went still. Then softly, “Yours?”
He looked up. “Of course.” Then quieter.
“...Always hoped you’d be.” You leaned in and kissed him slow. Sleepy. Full of a new kind of sweetness.
“Okay,” you whispered. “So what now?”
Sunghoon leaned back against the headboard, arm around you.
“We’ll finish the trip,” he said. “Take more pictures. Eat ridiculous food.”
Then, with a cheeky grin:
“See if the other rooms here have different themes. Maybe one with clouds? A plane? Hospital bed—?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay, but hear me out—”
You shoved a piece of fruit into his mouth.
He chewed, smug.
Then he laced his fingers through yours.
“I want to do this every year,” he said seriously. “Travel. Get lost. End up somewhere weird.”
as it turns out, i got reincarnated into park sunghoon’s gold-digging fiancée!
ʚɞ summary - after a truck sends you spiraling out of your old life, you wake in silk sheets and a diamond ring, trapped inside the body of cha y/n: the shallow, borderline-evil fiancée of ceo park sunghoon, fated to be discarded in popular webnovel melting the cold ceo’s heart. you know exactly how this ends: with sunghoon choosing your sweet wedding planner, lee soojin, on your wedding day while you stand alone, humiliated. so, of course, the most logical course of action is not to fight the plot. in fact, you’ll be the most pleasant, agreeable, and completely forgettable fiancée possible. but there’s just one problem with changing the storyline: it forces sunghoon to notice you. and the more you try to push him toward the love he is destined for, the more he pulls toward you instead. fate is one thing. desire is another. and when the man who was never supposed to even like you looks at you like you’re his world, walking away may cost far more than losing ever would.
ʚɞ tags - 18+ MDNI, f!reader, isekai/transmigration, angst, fluff, drama, slow-ish burn (?) vaginal sex (p in v), unprotected sex, breeding kink, window sex, office sex, jealous!hoon, wattpad-ish tropes yet again, sunghoon lowkey loses his mind bc the y/nussy is so good
ʚɞ w.c - 16k
THE LAST THING YOU REMEMBERED WAS THE BLARING HORN, the sound of screeching tires, and a truck’s grille filling your entire world. Then—
—nothing…?
You woke up to the pleasant smell of expensive linen and the feeling of your face pressed into a pillow softer than any cloud you’d ever imagined. Your head throbbed dully, and you groaned, pushing yourself up on elbows that felt strangely delicate, blinking against the morning light filtering through gigantic windows that showcased a city skyline you didn’t recognize at all.
What the hell?
The room looked like something from a spread from a luxury magazine. A chaise lounge in dove grey sat in the corner, next to a vanity table littered with crystal perfume bottles and jewelry boxes spilling over with gold chains and diamonds that glittered even in the soft light. You swung your legs out of the bed, your feet sinking into a plush, cream-colored rug. You were wearing silk pajamas—silk fucking pajamas!—a matching set in a blush pink that felt alien against your skin.
A full-length mirror stood opposite the bed. You stumbled toward it.
The reflection staring back was yours, and yet—it wasn’t. Your face, but perfected, hair that you usually kept in a hurriedly-brushed ponytail fell in artful, salon-fresh waves. Even your skin was flawless, glowing with the kind of health that only comes from expensive facials and a complete lack of real-world stress.
“Okay,” you whispered to the stranger in the mirror. “Okay, breathe. This is a dream. It has to me. A very, very detailed dream brought on by that last glass of soju and that novel you stayed up way too late finishing.”
The novel. Melting the Cold CEO’S Heart. It was a trashy, addictive romance you’d read on a whim, and the male lead, Park Sunghoon, was cold, ruthless, and unfairly handsome, trapped in a business arrangement—an engagement with a shallow, gold-digging socialite named… your blood ran cold as you remembered.
Y/N.
Your namesake, and the villainess of the novel. The one who was pathologically obsessed with Sunghoon’s money and status, who made the female lead’s life miserable, and who was unceremoniously dumped when Sunghoon finally broke free of his family’s shackles to be with his one true love, the sweet and humble wedding planner, Soojin.
You looked at the room around you. You looked at your perfect, manicured hands. You remembered the truck.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” you said, your voice echoing in the cavernous room.
The plot, as you remembered it, was straightforward. The real Cha Y/N would play the devoted fiancée, clinging to Sunghoon’s arm at every event, while secretly making the life of the female lead, Lee Soojin, a living hell. Sunghoon, cold to his fiancée, would find himself drawn to Soojin’s genuine warmth and resilience, and after a series of public scandals orchestrated by Cha Y/N, Sunghoon would finally snap, publicly denounce her, and run into the rain to confess his love to Soojin. Roll credits.
Your old life, by comparison, had been pleasantly predictable. You worked a mid-level office job at a small logistics firm, a job you were competent at but which offered no real passion. Your days were a blur of spreadsheets, lukewarm coffee from the breakroom machine, and polite, surface-level conversations with colleagues you’d never see outside of work hours. Your apartment was a snug, lightly cluttered one-bedroom. Your social life was limited to your best friend, Abby, who you only got to see about once a month for dinner when she wasn’t busy with her boyfriend, Heeseung. Weekends were for laundry, grocery shopping, and maybe a movie if you could muster the energy. It was fine, by all means. Safe. And, if you were being brutally honest with yourself in your most vulnerable moments, a little bit boring.
The thrill, the color, the feeling in your life came from elsewhere:
Webnovels.
They were your escape. During your lunch break, hunched over your phone at your desk. On the subway ride home, packed between strangers. Late at night, curled under your blankets with the screen’s glow the only light in the room. You devoured them. Regency romances, fantasy epics, modern-day dramas. You loved them all, but you had a particular, guilty fondness for the tropiest of the tropey: the cold, domineering male lead and the plucky heroine who thawed his heart.
You knew the formulas by heart. The accidental touch that sent sparks flying. The possessive glare across a crowded room. The misunderstanding that drove them apart for three agonizing chapters before the grand reconciliation. It was comfort food for your soul. In those pages, you could experience earth-shattering love without the risk of a broken heart.
Now, standing in this silent, opulent bedroom, the irony almost made you laugh. You’d fantasized about being in a story like this a thousand times, but—you’d always imagined yourself as the heroine, not the villainess slated for a spectacular downfall.
A soft knock at the door made you jump nearly a foot in the air.
“Miss Cha?” a polite, older woman’s voice called through the wood. “Your breakfast is ready. The car will be here in one hour to take you to Mr. Park’s office for the wedding planning consultation.”
Wedding planning. You felt, suddenly, very awake. That was today. Chapter Four, if you recalled correctly. The first official meeting between Cha Y/N, Sunghoon, and the wedding planner, Lee Soojin. The scene where the villainess would size up her rival with thinly-veiled contempt, make snide remarks about her choice of clothing, and generally establish herself as the obstacle to Sunghoon and Soojin’s true love.
Your stomach churned. You couldn’t do that. You physically couldn’t. The thought of being cruel to some innocent woman just trying to do her job made you feel ill.
But what was the alternative? If you weren’t the evil Cha Y/N, then who were you? A random office worker from another world, trapped in a fictional character’s body. If you started acting completely out of character, what would happen? Would the universe correct itself? Would you be thrown into a mental institution? Would Sunghoon’s powerful family have you quietly disposed of for being an unpredictable variable in their business merger masquerading as a marriage?
Panic, sharp and acrid, rose in your throat. You gripped the edge of the vanity table, your knuckles turning white. Think, Y/N. You have to think.
The original Cha Y/N’s fate was bankruptcy and social ruin after Sunghoon cut her off. She’d tried to fight it, to cling, to scheme, and it had only made her fall harder and more publicly.
So you had to survive. You couldn’t be that person. You wouldn’t. It was simple: do no harm, collect the checks, and get the hell out. Let Sunghoon and Soojin have their epic romance. You’d take the alimony and live quietly on a beach somewhere, far from this world of cutthroat socialites and emotionally constipated CEOs.
It was a coward’s plan, sure, but it was the only one that seemed to offer a path through this nightmare that didn’t end with you being publicly eviscerated.
You took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at the reflection again. “Okay, Cha Y/N,” you said to her. “Let’s do this.”
An hour later, you were in the back of a sleek, silent sedan, watching the city blur past. You’d chosen an outfit from the walk-in closet that felt the least like a costume and foregone most of the jewelry, wearing only small studs in your ears.
The driver held the door open for you in front of a towering glass skyscraper that seemed to pierce the clouds. The logo was etched into the side.
The lobby was cold and elegant, people in sharp suits moving with purpose across the vast marble floor, footsteps echoing everywhere. The receptionist, a woman with a smile as polished as the granite desk, took one look at you and nodded.
“Miss Cha. Mr. Park is expecting you. 67th floor, please.” She gestured to a private elevator whose doors were already sliding open.
The ride up was smooth and swift, and you watched the numbers climb, your heart doing a nervous tap-dance. The doors opened directly into a corner office.
The view was breathtaking, a panoramic sweep of the city and the river beyond. But the room itself was as cold as the man standing before the window, his back to you. He was tall, with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, silhouetted against the bright sky. He wore a charcoal grey suit that looked like it had been tailored directly onto him.
Then he turned.
Park Sunghoon.
The description from the novel didn’t do him justice. He was handsome in a way that felt almost aggressive. Sharp jawline, dark, intense eyes under thick, perfectly shaped brows, hair styled in a way that looked effortless and expensive. But it was his expression that really hit you. There was no warmth in his gaze, no flicker of recognition or welcome for his fiancée. And how could you fault him? Cha Y/N had been a piece of work.
“You’re early,” he intoned.
“Looks like I am.” you managed, your own voice sounding too small.
He said nothing, just looked at you for a beat longer than was comfortable. Then he gestured with a faint tilt of his head toward a large meeting table off to the side. “Sit. The planner will be here shortly.”
You walked to the table, hyper-aware of the click of your heels on the polished concrete floor. You sat in the chair he’d indicated, folding your hands in your lap to keep them from trembling. He didn’t sit. He remained standing by the window, the picture of impatience and disinterest.
The silence stretched, and you studied the grain of the table, the way the sunlight caught the edge of a glass water pitcher. Anything to avoid looking at him.
You’d read about his coldness, of course you had. You’d found it thrilling in the abstract, a challenge for the heroine to overcome, but experiencing it firsthand was different. It was isolating. It made you feel invisible, inconsequential. You understood, with sudden, painful clarity, why the original Cha Y/N had become so obsessed with his wealth and status. If you couldn’t have his warmth, you’d settle for the things his name could buy. It was a pathetic, hollow consolation prize, but it must have been something to hold onto.
Another soft knock at the door.
“Enter,” Sunghoon said, not moving from his post.
The door opened, and a woman stepped in. She was around your age, maybe a year or two younger. She wore a simple, professional cream-colored blouse and a black skirt. Her hair was pulled back in a neat, low ponytail. She carried a large portfolio and an iPad.
Lee Soojin.
Your pulse quickened. The female lead. The woman who, according to the plot, you were supposed to torment.
She bowed slightly. “Mr. Park. Miss Cha. Thank you for having me. I’m Lee Soojin, from Ever After Planning.”
She was exactly as described, warm and beautiful. She had a kind, fresh face, warm brown eyes, and a smile that seemed genuine, though right now, it was tinged with nervousness as her gaze darted between you and the imposing figure of Sunghoon. She clutched a large portfolio to her chest like a shield.
“Please, come in,” Sunghoon said, and his voice was different, softer.
The meeting was awkward, to say the least. Soojin presented floral arrangements and color palettes, her voice occasionally trembling. You, desperate not to play the villain, said nothing except, “That looks lovely,” or “Whatever you think is best, Miss Lee.” You kept your eyes on the swatches, avoiding Sunghoon’s probing stare. You could feel it on you, a laser of suspicion. The real Y/N would have been picky and dismissive, finding fault with everything to assert dominance.
Sunghoon, surprisingly, engaged. He asked practical questions about logistics, timelines, vendor reliability. His questions were sharp and intelligent. Soojin, after a few stumbling starts, began to answer with growing confidence, her passion for her work shining through. You saw the exact moment he noticed it: a slight tilt of his head, a fraction of a second where his gaze lingered on her animated face instead of the brochure.
There it is, you thought, a strange pang hitting you square in the chest. The beginning. The plan was working.
But then he turned that gaze on you. “You’re not yourself today.” His tone was neutral, but the question in it was clear: What’s your deal?
You met his eyes for the first time that day. “Well,” you said, your voice quieter than you intended. “Ms. Lee seems very competent. I just trust her expertise.”
He stared at you again, then gave a curt nod, turning back to Soojin, and the rest of the meeting passed in a blur.
THE MONTHS THAT FOLLOWED WERE A BIZARRE SORT OF DANCE. You attended obligatory social events on Sunghoon’s arm, fit the role of a silent, smiling accessory perfectly. You learned the rules of this world: who to nod to, who to ignore, which fork and knife to use where and why. And through it all, you were forced into proximity with Park Sunghoon.
At first, it was nothing but ice. Silent car rides, silent meals. You didn’t think there was ever a way to hold a conversation with Park Sunghoon. But survival instinct was a powerful thing when it kicked in, and the more nervous you got, the more your immediate instinct to be yourself began to show, especially once you moved in together.
The incident that started the thaw was, of all things, congee.
It was three weeks in. A late-night business dinner had left Sunghoon looking paler than usual, the sharp lines of his face drawn tight. You’d heard him return, the quiet click of the door, then nothing. An hour later, a faint, pained sound from the kitchen. You found him leaning against the island, one hand pressed to his stomach, staring into the empty fridge with blank eyes.
“Stomach ache?” you’d asked, hovering in the doorway.
He’d just grunted in response.
The real Y/N would have called for a maid, despite the ungodly hour. You, on the other hand, having grown up middle-class, were a veteran of questionable street food and late-night stress-eating, so you simply nudged him aside with your hip and rummaged through the pantry. “Sit,” you said, your tone brooking no argument. “You’re blocking the rice.”
He’d watched, silent and wary, as you boiled the rice into a soft mush, shredding the leftover roast chicken from yesterday’s dinner and adding slivers of ginger. The kitchen filled with a warm savory scent, and when you slid the bowl across the island to him, he looked at it like it was a foreign artefact.
“It’s just congee,” you said, suddenly self-conscious. “My mom used to make it when I was sick.”
He took a cautious spoonful. Then another. You had never cooked for someone before, but seeing the almost imperceptible relaxation of his shoulders, the way the tension drained out of his body, made you realize why your mother had loved it so much. When he was done, he placed the spoon neatly in the empty bowl and met your eyes. “It was nice. Thank you.”
You’d snorted. “High praise, coming from you.”
A brief flicker of a smile touched his lips. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
That was the crack in the ice, and after that, indifference became harder to maintain. The silent car rides began to fill with your commentary on the city passing by, or his dry observations about the people you’d just met at some function. Once, you found him one evening in the library, staring blankly at a contract, his tie loose. You’d placed a cup of tea next to his elbow without a word. He’d looked up, surprised, then nodded in thanks. Another time, you’d gotten locked out on the massive balcony during a sudden rain shower. He’d found you, drenched and laughing, and instead of chastising you, he’d handed you a towel with a shake of his head, a genuine, if exasperated, smile on his face. “Only you,” he’d muttered.
Then came the charity gala for the Seoul Arts Foundation. It was a stuffy, black-tie affair, and the champagne was flowing too freely. You, nervous under the scrutiny of a hundred socialites who knew the real Cha Y/N, drank more than you should have. Sunghoon, for reasons unknown, matched you glass for glass.
It was no surprise that the car ride home, inevitably, was filled with giddiness. You were slumped in the backseat, giggling at nothing, the city lights streaking past the window like liquid silver. He was beside you, his posture less rigid, a soft, unfocused smile on his face as he watched you.
“You’re different,” he said suddenly, his voice a low rumble in the dark car.
“Am I?” you hiccupped, turning to him. His face was so close. The sharp angles were softened in the shadows.
“Mm. Before. You were so… loud. Demanding. Everything was—all about money for you.” He reached out, his finger hovering near your temple, not touching. “But now…”
“Maybe I just grew up,” you offered, the lie tasting bitter.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes searching yours with an unnerving intensity. “No. It’s not that. It’s like you’re a completely different person.” He leaned closer, his breath warm and faintly sweet with champagne. “Who are you?”
Your heart hammered in your chest. The truth was a wild, desperate thing clawing at your throat. In your tipsy state, it slipped out, covered up in a joke. “Maybe I’m from a different universe,” you whispered, a playful, dizzy smile on your lips. “One where I’m not a horrible person.”
He stared at you. Then, to your utter astonishment, his lower lip pushed out in the faintest, most fleeting pout. You had never seen an expression so disarmingly childish and vulnerable on his face, but it was gone in a second, replaced by a slight scowl. “Stop messing with me,” he murmured, but there was no heat in it. He leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes, a small sigh escaping him.
The hangover the next morning was brutal, but at least it was a shared misery. You found him in the kitchen, grimacing over a glass of water, still in his rumpled dress shirt from the night before. You wordlessly made tea, and when you handed him a mug, your fingers brushed. He didn’t pull away.
Then you got sick.
It was a brutal flu, a personal betrayal from your own immune system. One day you were fine, the next, you were a shivering, aching heap buried under the duvet in your room. The maids fluttered in and out with tea and towels, but the apartment felt cold.
You drifted in a feverish haze, only semi-aware of the passage of time. But then—
You heard the firm, quiet tread of leather soles on parquet. The room darkened as a tall silhouette blocked the light from the hallway.
Sunghoon stood there, still in his work suit, his tie slightly loosened.
“The staff said you haven’t eaten,” he stated, his voice softer than usual.
“Can’t,” you croaked, turning your head into the pillow. “Everything hurts.”
You heard him set something down on the bedside table—a small tray. Then, to your shock, you felt the bed dip near your hip as he sat on the very edge of the mattress. You kept your eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm that had nothing to do with fever.
For a long, long while, all you could hear was your congested breathing. Then, a touch. Light, hesitant. Fingertips, surprisingly cool, brushing the sweat-dampened hair back from your forehead. The gesture was so tender, so utterly at odds with the Park Sunghoon you knew, that your breath hitched. His fingers stilled for a second, thinking he’d woken you. When you didn’t move, they continued, tucking the hair gently behind your ear.
He didn’t say a word. He just sat there, his hand eventually coming to rest, palm down, on the duvet beside your shoulder. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he stood up. You heard the faint clink of a spoon against ceramic. “There’s broth here when you can manage it,” he murmured.
He worked from the armchair next to your bed that day, the quiet tap of his laptop keys a strangely comforting sound. He’d glance over every so often, refilling your water glass without being asked. It was the most mundane kind of care, but it made your heart squeeze. No one in this glittering, fake world had taken care of you like that. It felt more intimate than any kiss the novel had described between him and Soojin.
Life settled into a strange, peaceful rhythm that was nothing like the plot you remembered. You weren’t friends, not exactly. But you were… something. Allies due to the nature of your situation, perhaps. Your conversations became longer. You discovered he had a dry, wicked sense of humor that only emerged when he was truly relaxed. You learned he hated mint chocolate and loved coffee-flavored ice-cream. And then, one evening, you were in his study, looking for a book he’d said was in there. Your fingers trailed over the spines on a high shelf when you knocked a small, ornate wooden box to the floor. It sprung open, spilling its contents: not jewelry or documents, but a handful of old, laminated badges and a single, well-worn ice skate blade guard.
Curious, you picked up a badge. Seoul Junior Figure Skating Championship, 1st Place, Park Sunghoon, Age 12. Another: National Youth Competition, Finalist. There were photos, too. A young boy with solemn eyes and a shock of dark hair, poised on the ice, his arms outstretched. The resemblance was unmistakable.
You were staring at a photo of him, gap-toothed, holding a trophy with a rare, bright, unguarded smile, when his voice came from the doorway.
“What are you doing?”
You jumped, the photo fluttering from your hand. He was leaning against the doorframe, his expression closed off, but you saw the flicker of something—embarrassment? pain?—in his eyes before the shutters came down.
“I’m sorry,” you said quickly, gathering the items with clumsy hands. “I knocked the box over. I didn’t mean to pry.” You held up one of the badges. “You were a figure skater?”
He walked in, taking the badge from your fingers. He looked at it for a long moment, his thumb tracing the raised lettering. “It was a long time ago.”
“Why did you stop?” The question was out before you could stop it.
He didn’t answer immediately. He carefully placed the badge back in the box, his movements precise. “My father,” he said finally, his voice flat. “He decided it was a frivolous pursuit for the heir of Park Holdings. That it wouldn’t build the ruthlessness required for business.” A humorless twist of his lips. “I suppose he was right, in a way.”
The sadness in his tone made you inexplicably upset. You thought of the cold, ruthless CEO you’d read about, the one who only melted for one person. You were seeing the fossil of the boy who had been melted down and reforged into that man.
On an impulse you didn’t fully understand, you spoke. “When was the last time you were on the ice?”
He looked at you, startled. “I don’t know. Over ten years?”
“We should go.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Ice skating. We should go. There’s that new private rink at your country club. We could rent it out. No one would have to know.”
He stared at you as if you’d suggested flying to the moon. “That’s absurd.”
“Is it?” You pressed, a sudden boldness rising in you. “You loved it once. Don’t you ever… you know, miss it? Just the feeling of it?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He looked from your face to the open box, to the photo of his younger, smiling self. The conflict in his eyes was a war you could almost see play out in front of you. Finally, he let out a slow breath. “That’s a pointless thing to do.”
But he didn’t say no.
Two days later, his assistant quietly booked the rink for a private two-hour session at midnight. He didn’t mention it to you. You only found out when a note, written in his sharp, elegant script, was left on the kitchen island next to your keys: 8 PM. Dress warm.
An hour later, you were in the empty rink, feeling utterly ridiculous in brand-new thermals. Sunghoon was already laced up, moving with a natural grace as he carved a slow circle on the pristine ice. He made it look effortless. You, on the other hand, sat on the bench, fumbling with the laces. Your fingers felt thick and clumsy. After a minute of struggle, you felt the bench dip beside you. He didn’t ask. He just took the skate from your hands, his fingers brushing yours.
“You have to tie them tightly. Ankle support is everything.”
He bent his head, his dark hair falling slightly over his forehead as he began to lace the boot for you, his movements sure and careful. You watched, mesmerized by the sight of Park Sunghoon’s elegant, powerful hands, the ones that signed countless deals, meticulously tying a double knot for you. It felt impossibly tender. Then he did the same with the other foot, his knuckles accidentally brushing the sensitive skin of your ankle. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold raced up your spine.
“There,” he said, looking up and meeting your eyes. “Now, stand up. Slowly.”
You did, taking one wobbly step onto the surface, and immediately felt your legs betray you. You windmilled your arms, a squeak escaping your throat.
“Careful, careful,” A strong hand closed around your elbow, steadying you. “Bend your knees. Not at the waist.”
“Easy for you to say,” you grumbled, but you bent your knees. His hand stayed on your arm, a firm, warm anchor.
“Now, glide. Don’t step.”
You pushed off, lurching forward. He moved with you, a silent, steady presence at your side. For the first ten minutes, it was a comedy of errors. You wobbled, you slipped, you clutched at his forearm with a grip that probably cut off his circulation. And through it all, he was patient. Surprisingly, infuriatingly patient.
“You’re thinking too much,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice as you stared at your feet in concentration.
“I’m thinking about not concussing myself on this ice!”
“Look at me. Not at your feet.”
You dragged your gaze up to his face. In the cool, bright light of the rink, he looked younger. The usual severity in his expression was softened.
“Better,” he said. “Now, just move with me.”
He took your hands in his, skating backwards and pulling you along. It was terrifying and thrilling. The world narrowed to the sound of blades on ice, the puff of your breath in the cold air, and the solid, reliable grip of his hands. You started to find a shaky rhythm.
“See?” he said, and you realized he was smiling. A real, proper smile that reached his eyes and made them crinkle at the corners. It transformed his face completely. Your heart did a funny little stutter that had nothing to do with skating.
“Don’t let me fall,” you said, the words coming out in a soft, breathless rush.
His grip tightened almost imperceptibly. He never looked away from your eyes. “I won’t.”
He guided you around the rink until your legs burned and your cheeks were numb with cold and laughter. Then, he demonstrated a simple spin, a blur of controlled motion that left you gaping. When he stopped, perfectly centered, he was breathing slightly harder, his face flushed.
He looked alive.
“Show-off,” you called, pushing off the wall to glide clumsily toward him.
He caught you easily when you overbalanced, his hands coming to rest on your hips to steady you. You were suddenly, acutely aware of the closeness. The heat of his body through the layers of clothing. The way his thumbs were pressing just above the waistband of your leggings. His face was inches from yours, his breath warm against your cold skin. His eyes were dark and searching.
You looked up at him, your own laughter dying in your throat. The rink was silent except for the hum of the chillers. For a heartbeat that felt like forever, neither of you moved. You could see the faint scar on his brow, the dark fringe of his lashes, the part of his lips as he breathed.
Then, a distant door clanged. The spell broke. He released your hips, his hands falling back to his sides as he took a small half-step back. “You’re getting the hang of it,” he said, his voice returning to its usual register, though it was a shade rougher and, if you listened hard enough, breathier.
All the way home, you replayed the moment at the rink over and over, the feel of his hands on you. It sparked a low, restless heat in your belly that was becoming frustratingly familiar.
That very heat continued to follow you, and it was driving you crazy. In the mornings, when he’d emerge from his bathroom, a towel slung low on his hips, his hair damp, his torso a landscape of lean muscle and faint scars you itched to trace. You’d mutter a good morning and flee to the kitchen, your face hot. Once, you came out of your room in just a thin camisole and pajamas to get water, forgetting he was working late at the dining table. The look he gave you—a slow, sweeping gaze that felt like a physical touch—had you scurrying back to your room, your skin prickling with awareness. You’d lie in your bed, in the dark, and imagine him in his room just down the hall. Was he asleep? Reading? Thinking about the company? Thinking about… you? Your mind would wander, unbidden, to the feel of his hands on your waist at the rink. To the solid heat of him when you’d stumbled against his chest. To the way his sweatpants hung on his hips. And then a slow, aching warmth would pool low in your belly, and you’d press your thighs together, frustrated and aroused in equal measure.
This was not part of the plan. Getting horny for your emotionally unavailable contract-fiancé was the fastest way to get your heart pulverized.
A WEEK LATER, SUNGHOON INFORMED YOU, OVER A BREAKFAST OF PERFECTLY POACHED EGGS, THAT YOU WOULD BE MEETING HIS FRIENDS.
“Friends?” you’d echoed, nearly choking on your toast. The novel’s Sunghoon had only business associates, rivals, and sycophants. Friends were never part of it.
“Yes,” he said, not looking up from his tablet. “Park Jongseong and Shim Jaeyun. They’re very insistent. They want to meet you badly.” He said it dryly, but you caught the slightest tension in his shoulders. “It’s a dinner on Friday, at Jay’s.”
Friday arrived, and with it, a low-cut dress that felt both too much and not enough. Sunghoon was silent in the elevator ride up, his profile sharp in the dim light. But when the doors opened into a sprawling, modern loft filled with the smell of gourmet food and the sound of jazz, his posture shifted. He placed a light, guiding hand on the small of your back.
“Sunghoon! You made it!” A man with a charming, lopsided grin and artfully messy hair bounded over, pulling Sunghoon into a brief, back-slapping hug. Jake, you guessed. His eyes, warm and curious, immediately landed on you. “And you must be the infamous Y/N.” He winked.
Another man approached, slightly taller, with a more composed elegance but a friendly glint in his eye. Jay, of course. He shook your hand firmly. “A pleasure. Come in, make yourself at home.”
The evening was nothing like the functions you’d gotten used to over the last few months, and you found that your initial nervousness bled away easily. Jay was dry and witty, Jake was sweet and genuinely funny. They teased Sunghoon mercilessly about anything and everything, and to your astonishment, he took it. He even smiled a real, relaxed smile that made your heart do that stupid little flip again.
And the best part was, they talked to you. Not to Cha Y/N, the socialite fiancée, but to you. Jay asked about your opinion on the new exhibition at the National Museum, and you found yourself in a debate about Norman Rockwell. Jake, hearing you hum along to the jazz track, pulled you into a conversation about it. You were in your element, laughing, arguing. You forgot, for a moment, the character you were supposed to be playing.
You also forgot to watch Sunghoon.
He had turned quiet, observing from his seat on the plush sofa, a glass of whiskey cradled in his hand. At first, you thought he was just back to being his usual reserved self. But as the night wore on and your laughter grew more frequent, you began to feel it—a tension emanating from him. When Jake leaned in to refill your wine glass, his hand brushing yours as he pointed to a particular album cover on the shelf, you felt Sunghoon’s gaze on you like a hand.
A few minutes later, when you got up to admire the view of the rolling countryside from the windows, Jake followed, standing close beside you to point things out. “There,” he said, his shoulder almost touching yours, “that’s where Sunghoon and I got hopelessly lost on a school trip. He was too stubborn to ask for directions. We nearly froze to death.”
You laughed, turning to him. “I can picture that.”
“Picture what?”
Sunghoon’s voice was quiet, right behind you. You hadn’t heard him approach. He slid between you and Jake with a smooth, deliberate movement. His arm came around your waist, his hand settling on your hip, pulling you back against him.
“Just reminiscing about your navigational failures,” Jake said, his grin not fading, but his eyes flicking between Sunghoon’s face and the hand on your waist.
“Mm,” Sunghoon murmured, his breath stirring the hair near your ear. His thumb moved, a slow, unconscious stroke against your dress. “Don’t believe a word he says. He was the one who dropped our map in the mud and got us lost in the first place.”
Despite the conversation not dying out, Sunghoon kept you anchored to his side, his fingers splayed on your hip, the warmth of his chest against your shoulder. Sunghoon’s interjections became more frequent in your interactions with Jay and Jake, his dry remarks steering the conversation away from anything that involved you and his friends directly interacting.
You couldn't say you didn’t expect that the journey back would be shrouded in a heavy silence. Sunghoon stared out the window, his jaw tight.
“Did you have a good time?” he finally asked, his voice devoid of inflection.
“I did,” you said carefully. “They’re lovely.”
“They seemed to think the same of you.” The words were clipped.
You turned to look at his profile. “Is that a problem?”
He didn’t answer. He just kept looking out at the passing lights, the muscle in his jaw working. The possessiveness he’d shown at the penthouse was gone, replaced by this cold, withdrawn sulk. It was so childish, and so utterly at odds with the man in the novel, who wouldn’t have batted an eye if the original Y/N had flirted with an entire football team. He’d found her disgusting, but he hadn’t cared. He’d been indifferent.
This wasn’t indifference.
The realization sent a dangerous thrill through you, followed immediately by a wave of guilt. You were messing with the script, and you had no idea what the new plot was.
Back at home, he headed straight for his study without a word. You stood in the grand living room, feeling unmoored. The heat from his touch still lingered on your skin, but the silent treatment felt worse than any cold remark. You took a deep breath and followed him.
He was standing by the window, a dark silhouette against the city’s glitter.
“Sunghoon.”
He didn’t turn.
You walked closer, your heels silent on the rug. “Are you angry with me?”
“No.” The word was short, final.
“You seem like it.”
He finally turned. In the dim light from the window, his expression was unreadable. “I’m not angry. I just don’t appreciate your…” he pretended to think. “Acting.”
“Acting?”
“The laughing. The leaning in. The wide-eyed interest in everything they said.” His tone was low, edged with something you couldn’t understand. “It was a bit much, don’t you think?”
A flash of irritation burst through you. “I was being polite. And for your information, I was genuinely interested. They’re good people, it was a normal conversation.”
“It didn’t look normal from where I was sitting.” He took a step closer. The air between you crackled. “Looked like you were enjoying their attention a little too much.”
You closed the remaining distance between you, stopping just an arm’s length away. You looked up at him, at the storm in his gray eyes. “Sunghoon,” you said, your voice tender. “They’re your friends. I was nice to them because they’re important to you. That’s all.”
But if anything, your softness seemed to make it worse.
A low, frustrated sound escaped him. He finally turned, but not to look at you. His gaze swept over his desk, the neat stacks of papers, as if searching for an escape. “That’s not the point,” he said, his voice clipped and cold.
The aching in your chest curdled into a sharp spike of annoyance. You’d spent the entire evening navigating his unpredictable moods, from his possessive display at Jay’s to this petulant silence. You’d offered an olive branch, and he was swatting it away.
“Then what is the point, Sunghoon?” you asked, the calm in your voice beginning to fray. “Because from where I’m standing, you invited me to meet the only people in your life who seem to actually like you, I had a genuinely pleasant conversation with them, and now you’re treating me like I’ve committed some kind of crime. So, please, enlighten me. What exactly did I do wrong? Was my laugh too loud? Were my interests too provocative?”
He flinched, just a tiny tightening around his eyes, but it was enough. He looked at you then, and the storm in his brown eyes was now a cold front. “You know exactly what you’re doing,” he said, the accusation falling like a blade. “You have this—” he ran his hands through his hair. “This way. You turn it on and off. For the press, for my employees, for my friends. That wide-eyed fascination. That laugh that makes men feel like they’re the wittiest person in the world. It’s an act. And a very convincing one, apparently.”
The accusation was so absurd, so wildly off-base, that for a second you were speechless. He was describing the original Y/N. Not you. You’d forgotten to act tonight.
That was the whole problem.
Your own frustration boiled over. “You are impossible, Sunghoon,” you stated, the words leaving your lips before you could temper them. “And you’re not even making sense. You’re jealous of your own friends for having a regular conversation with me. Do you hear yourself?”
You didn’t wait for an answer. The conversation was going in circles, spiraling into a void where his logic couldn’t follow. The warmth of the evening, the feeling of connection with Jake and Jay, the heat of his hand on your hip—it was all being poisoned by this stubborn, childish sulk. You were tired. The emotional whiplash was exhausting.
“You know what? Forget it,” you said, turning on your heel. The silk of your dress whispered against your legs as you strode toward the study door. “I’m going to bed. You can stand here and brood at the skyline all night for all I care.”
You reached for the polished brass handle, your fingers closing around the cool metal. You pulled.
The door didn’t budge.
A large, warm hand was splayed flat against the dark wood, just above your head, holding it shut. You hadn’t heard him move, but he was right there behind you, his body warm. The scent of his cologne enveloped you. You froze, your breath catching in your throat.
“Wait.”
His voice was close, right by your ear. It had lost its icy edge. Now it was just rough, scraped raw.
You didn’t turn. You stared at the grain of the wood, at his long fingers pressed white-knuckled against it. “Let me go, Sunghoon.”
“I said wait.” The hand on the door slid down, his arm now caging you in, his chest not quite touching your back but you could feel the heat of him through the thin layers of your dress and his shirt. “Just—please. Wait a moment.”
The fight drained out of you, replaced by a shaky, breathless awareness. You leaned your forehead lightly against the door, closing your eyes. “Why?”
A long pause. You could hear his breathing, slightly uneven. “Because you’re right,” he said, the words so quiet you almost didn’t hear them. “I’m being impossible.”
You blinked, your eyes still closed.
Huh?
He continued, the words coming out in a reluctant, stilted rush, as if being forced past a great internal resistance. “It wasn’t an act. I could see that. Tonight. With them.” He took a deep breath, his chest expanding behind you. “You were—yourself. And they liked you. Jake was practically hanging on your every word about that absurd painting with the floating clocks.”
“Dali,” you murmured automatically.
“Yes, Dali.” he echoed. He shifted, his arm brushing against yours, sending a shiver down your spine. “The point is…” he cleared his throat. “I’m not used to it.”
“To what? To people liking your fiancée?”
“To caring if they do,” he admitted. “To watching it happen and feeling like I…” He trailed off. “It’s unfamiliar. And I handled it poorly. I apologize.”
The formal, stiff apology was so like him, yet the vulnerability laced through it was entirely new. The annoyance melted away, leaving that strange, aching tenderness in its place.
You finally turned, slowly, under the arch of his arm. You had to tilt your head back to look at him. In the dim light, his handsome face was all sharp angles and shadow, but his eyes… they held a turmoil you’d never seen before.
“You were jealous,” you said, not as an accusation, but as a simple, gentle observation.
He held your gaze for a long moment, then looked away, his jaw working. A faint, almost imperceptible flush touched the high points of his cheeks. “I was. It was… illogical.”
“A little,” you agreed, a small smile touching your lips. “They’re your best friends. Jake looks at you like you hung the moon. Jay clearly adores you. They were just being kind to me because I’m with you.”
He looked back at you, searching your face. “You’re not upset?”
“I was annoyed,” you said honestly. “Because you were being a grumpy, silent statue and it was confusing. But I’m not upset.” You reached up, tentatively, and placed a hand lightly on his chest, over his sternum. You could feel the steady, strong beat of his heart beneath your palm. “It’s okay to feel things, Sunghoon. Even if they’re messy and confusing and don’t make sense.”
He stared down at your hand on his chest, then his gaze lifted to yours. His brows were knitted upwards. “I don’t know how to do this,” he said, the words so quiet they were almost swallowed by the room.
“Do what?”
“Any of it.” The admission seemed to unlock something. The words started to tumble out, low and rushed. “This. Having someone here. Someone who—who argues with me and really listens to me and doesn’t look at my friends as potential social climbing opportunities. Someone who gets annoyed when I’m being an ass instead of just simpering. And then seeing you with them, so natural, so easy… it felt like you fit. You fit into a part of my life that has nothing to do with mergers or board meetings. And I didn’t know what to do with that. I still don’t. It’s—well, it’s kind of unsettling. It’s ridiculous. I know it’s ridiculous. Jay would laugh himself sick if he knew. He’s probably already guessed. He’s annoyingly perceptive about these things. Which is another problem, because now I’ll have to hear about it for weeks, and he’ll make some comment about me being emotionally stunted, which is technically accurate but still rude to point out, especially when I’m the one usually paying for his overpriced whiskey—”
He was rambling. Park Sunghoon, the master of terse, cutting remarks, was rambling.
You let out a breathy, incredulous little giggle.
He stopped mid-sentence, his brows drawing together again. “What?”
You shook your head, your smile widening. “Nothing. It’s just… you’re cute when you’re flustered.”
He blinked. Cute. You were certain no one had ever used that word to describe Park Sunghoon in his entire life. A series of emotions flickered across his face: disbelief, offense, and then a dawning, bewildered wonder. The faint blush on his cheeks deepened.
“I am not,” he stated, but the protest sounded almost petulant.
“You are a little,” you insisted, your thumb making a small, unconscious circle on his shirt. “All this big, brooding energy because your friends and your fake fiancée got along too well. It’s adorable.”
He stared at you, utterly disarmed. The hand that wasn’t braced against the door came up, hesitated, then gently brushed a stray strand of hair away from your face. His touch was feather-light, tentative. “You’re the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met,” he murmured.
“I know,” you whispered back.
Your eyes dropped to his lips, then flicked back up to his. His gaze was locked on your mouth. For one heart-stopping second, you thought he might kiss you. The air grew thick, your breath coming shorter. His head dipped slightly, his eyes darkening—
—but then he stopped. He closed his eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath, and straightened. The moment shattered.
His hand fell from your face, and he took a small, deliberate step back.
He cleared his throat, looking anywhere but at you. “Go to bed,” he said, his voice rough, scraping over the words. “We have the drive to my parents’ estate tomorrow.”
THE PARK FAMILY ESTATE WAS LESS A HOUSE AND MORE A DISPLAY OF WEALTH. It was all severe lines, imported stone, and meticulously manicured gardens that looked like no one was allowed to walk in them. The air itself felt several degrees cooler when you stepped out of the car.
Sunghoon’s father, Chairman Park, was exactly as the novel had foretold: a man carved from glacier ice, a crueller, harsher version of Sunghoon. His greeting was a curt nod, his eyes assessing you. His mother, on the other hand, was far more complex. She was elegant, with a smile that reached her eyes but didn't quite warm them, and she welcomed you gracefully, complimenting your dress, asking after the wedding plans with a tone of mild interest.
Dinner was a silent, formal affair. The clink of silverware against fine china was deafening. Chairman Park grilled Sunghoon on work, dismissing his answers with grunts. He ignored you completely. Mrs. Park attempted lighter conversation, asking you about your family, your interests. You answered as blandly as possible, sticking to the script you imagined the original Y/N would have used: mentions of charitable boards, designer names.
“You must be so excited for the wedding, dear,” Mrs. Park said as dessert was served, a fragile porcelain cup of tea placed before her. “It’s such a wonderful opportunity to solidify your future.”
You nodded, forcing a smile. “Yes, of course.”
“Sunghoon tells me you’ve been spending a lot of time together since you’ve started living together. Getting to know each other.” Her smile remained, but her eyes were sharp and beady. “That’s good. A strong foundation of… understanding is so important in these arrangements.”
At the word ‘arrangement’, Sunghoon, beside you, went very still.
After dinner, Mrs. Park suggested a walk in the garden. “The roses are in bloom, Y/N. Come, let’s get some air.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. You followed her out into the twilight, the scent of roses indeed thick and almost cloying. She walked in silence for a while along a gravel path that wound past sculpted hedges and a large koi pond.
“You are a very different girl from the reports I received,” she began, her voice conversational. “The Y/N we researched was rather more acquisitive. I thought that before, you knew what this marriage was.” She turned to you. “A strategic alliance for your family’s benefit and for the stability of ours.”
You kept your eyes on the path, your stomach knotting.
“But it seems this new version of you,” she continued, stopping by the pond to watch the orange and white shapes glide beneath the water’s surface. “Is quite confusing for my son, I think. He is a man who values clarity. He understands transactions.” She turned to you, her smile still perfectly in place. “Your job, my dear, is to be a compliant partner and an asset to him. Not to… confuse him by making him question the nature of the transaction.”
The gentleness in her tone made the words cut deeper. “I’m not trying to confuse him,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.
“Aren’t you?” she asked, tilting her head. She let out a soft, pitying sigh. “You’re forgetting your place. This is a business arrangement. When the time is right, and his position is unassailable, you will both go your separate ways with the agreed-upon compensation. Any emotional complication is a breach of contract.” She placed a cold, delicate hand on your arm. “Do not make the mistake of believing this is a love story, Y/N. Remember who you are. And more importantly, remember who he is.”
Your head was spinning.
She gave your arm a faint pat. “I’ll leave you to enjoy the pond. Do find your way back before it gets too dark.”
She walked away, her footsteps silent on the gravel, leaving you alone by the darkening water.
The dam broke.
Tears, hot and shameful, welled up and spilled over. She was right. Of course she was right. You were an imposter in every sense. An imposter in this body, in this life, and now, an imposter in your own feelings. You were muddying the waters of a simple deal, risking everything for a man who was made to love someone else. The sobs came then, quiet and wrenching, your shoulders shaking as you stared blindly at the koi, your tears making small splashes in the pond.
You didn’t hear his approach. You only sensed a presence, and you quickly wiped your cheeks with the backs of your hands, turning your face away.
“Y/N?”
Sunghoon’s voice, close. Panic spiked inside you.
You couldn’t let him see.
“I’m fine,” you choked out, your voice thick. “Just—um. Admiring the pond. Give me a minute.”
“Look at me.”
“No, really, I’m—”
“Y/N.” His voice was low, but it was a command nonetheless. “Look at me.”
Slowly, you turned. The last of the twilight caught the tracks of your tears, glistening on your skin. His expression, which had been carefully neutral when he found you, shattered. His eyes widened, then darkened with fury.
“What did she say to you?” The question was a soft, deadly thing.
You shook your head, fresh tears falling. “Nothing. She didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”
“Tell me.” He took a step closer.
“She just—just reminded me of my place,” you whispered, the words tasting like ash. “That this is just an arrangement. That I shouldn’t… forget what it is. That I’m—I’m confusing you. And she’s right, Sunghoon, I am. I’m messing it all up, and I’m—” you sniffed. “I’m so sorry—”
“Stop.” The word was a whip-crack. He closed the final distance, his hands coming up to frame your face. His thumbs brushed the tears from your cheeks. “She has no right. No right to speak to you like that.”
“She does,” you cried, the frustration and heartbreak pouring out. “This is her world! These are her rules! I’m just a temporary fixture, and I’m acting like—like I’m something else. I’m sorry for being confusing. I’m sorry for the skating and the congee and for talking to your friends and for just… for just being here all wrong!”
You were babbling, tears streaming freely now. You tried to pull away, but he didn’t let you. Instead, he pulled you into his chest.
One arm wrapped tightly around your shoulders, the other hand cradled the back of your head, his fingers threading into your hair. He held you firmly, securely, as you cried into the crisp cotton of his shirt. He didn’t shush you. He didn’t tell you it would be okay. He just held you, his chin resting on the top of your head.
“Y/N,” he murmured into your hair. “You are the only thing that has made any sense in a very, very long time.”
You clung to him, your fists bunching in the fabric of his shirt. His hand moved from your head to stroke your hair, slow, calming strokes. You could feel the steady, strong beat of his heart against your cheek, and the last of your resistance melted away, and you sank into the embrace, letting him hold the pieces of you together.
You stood there for what felt like an eternity, wrapped in the silence of the garden and the sanctuary of his arms. The tears eventually subsided, leaving you hollowed out and shaky. He didn’t let go until finally, you took a ragged, shuddering breath. He leaned back just enough to look down at you, his hands moving to cup your face again. His thumbs wiped away the last of the moisture on your cheeks. His eyes searched yours.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
He kept one arm around you, guiding you firmly back toward the monstrous house, not to say goodbye to his parents, but straight to the car. He opened the passenger door for you, got in the driver’s side, started the engine, and pulled away from the estate without a backward glance.
You looked out the window, watching the dark countryside blur past, feeling the ghost of his arms around you, the sensation of his fingers in your hair. Your skin still tingled where he’d touched you. Then you snuck a glance at his profile, lit by the dashboard lights. His jaw was set, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, but the cold fury had settled into a deep, simmering resolve. He had chosen a side. And for tonight, at least, he had chosen yours.
Though, of course, life humbled you. Confusion had to come from the other side of the equation: Lee Soojin.
The wedding planning continued as normal. You made a point of being pleasant, supportive even. You praised her ideas, deferred to her taste. You were the dream client, and her initial nervousness around you melted into a warm, professional respect. You liked her. She was kind, hardworking, genuinely talented.
And Sunghoon always noticed her. It was natural that he did—that was how it was meant to go. In meetings, he was engaged, asking questions, offering solutions. You’d catch him watching her as she meticulously arranged sample centerpieces, a considering look on his face. Once, when she dropped a binder, he was out of his chair in an instant to help her gather the scattered papers. Their hands brushed. You saw the faint pink that tinged Soojin’s cheeks, the way she couldn’t quite meet his eyes afterward, and the jealousy brewing in the pit of your stomach almost became acidic.
It was exactly as the novel said. The cold CEO, melted by the genuine warmth of the commoner. You’d see them talking quietly in a corner of his office after a meeting had officially ended, and that strange pang would hit your chest again.
THE WORST WAS THE DAY OF THE FINAL VENUE WALKTHROUGH. You’d arrived separately from Sunghoon, caught in a snarl of downtown traffic.
The location was a stunning, glass-walled conservatory overlooking the river. By the time you rushed through the arched entrance, the late afternoon sun was casting long shadows across the polished floor.
You saw them before they saw you.
They were at the far end of the conservatory, standing on a temporary wooden platform that marked where the altar would be. Lee Soojin was pointing towards the ceiling, explaining something about hanging floral installations, her face animated with passion. And Sunghoon…
Sunghoon was listening. Not just listening, but absorbing it all. He stood beside her, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, his head tilted slightly toward her. The sunlight streamed through the glass panes, catching the dust motes in the air and painting them both in a soft, golden glow.
It was a perfect picture. The ambitious, brilliant CEO and the creative, warm-hearted wedding planner. He was asking a question, his expression serious but open, and Soojin smiled, gesturing with her hands as she answered.
You could see it, the rows of chairs filled with Seoul’s elite. The live music swelling. Soojin, in a simple, beautiful dress that wasn’t the one you’d picked, walking down this very aisle. And Sunghoon, waiting for her right there, on that platform, his brown eyes fixed only on her. The image was so vivid that it stole the breath from your lungs. Your chest constricted, a sharp ache that had nothing to do with the hurried walk from the car.
This was it. The real beginning of the end for Cha Y/N.
Sunghoon’s gaze finally flickered away from Soojin and landed on you, standing frozen in the doorway. The open, engaged expression on his face closed down, smoothed into the more familiar, neutral mask. He straightened up.
“You’re late.”
“Traffic,” you said, your voice sounding brittle and thin to your own ears. You forced a smile, directing it at Soojin, who had turned and was now offering you a polite, slightly nervous bow. “Sorry, Miss Lee. Please, show me what you’ve finalized.”
You walked forward, your heels clicking a sharp, lonely rhythm on the stone. As you passed Sunghoon to join Soojin by the platform, he did something unexpected. He reached out and briefly, almost absently, tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear. His fingers were cool against your heated skin. “You look flushed,” he murmured, his voice low enough that only you could hear. “Did you run?”
The gesture was so intimate. A week ago, it might have sent a thrill through you. Now, it just felt like salt in the wound. He’s just playing his part, a vicious voice in your head whispered. The attentive fiancé in front of the help. It doesn’t mean anything. He was just looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the world.
“Just the heat,” you lied, pulling away slightly, your smile feeling more like a grimace.
The rest of the walkthrough was agony. You nodded and agreed to everything Soojin proposed: the arch of white orchids, the string quartet placement, the timing for the sunset ceremony. But you felt like a spectator haunting your own life. Your responses were automatic. “Lovely.” “Perfect.” “Whatever you think is best.”
You watched Sunghoon and Soojin discuss the practicalities. Lighting cues for the photographer, the route for the caterers, backup plans for rain. Their rapport was seamless. He’d ask a sharp, logistical question, and she’d have a thoughtful, prepared answer. He’d nod, a flicker of approval in his eyes, and suggest a minor refinement. She’d consider it, then agree with a bright, “Yes, that’s much more efficient!” Every shared titter over a hiccup, every moment of unspoken understanding as they examined a floor plan, felt like a tiny paper cut on your heart. A hundred small, insignificant slices that left you feeling quietly, profoundly bloody.
As she got to her binder, Soojin tripped slightly on a loose cable snaking across the floor. Sunghoon’s hand shot out, steadying her by the elbow. “Careful,” he said, his voice soft.
“Oh! Thank you, Mr. Park,” Soojin stammered, her cheeks flushing a pretty, delicate pink again. She quickly righted herself, but her gaze lingered on his face for a second too long before she busied herself with her clipboard.
You looked away, your throat tight.
A little while later, as you were examining sample table linens, Sunghoon stood close behind you, leaning over your shoulder to point at a fabric swatch in Soojin’s hand. His chest brushed against your back. “I like the ivory better, not the stark white,” he said, his voice a soft rumble near your ear. “It’ll be less harsh under the lights.”
You stiffened, every nerve ending hyper-aware.
“Yes,” you managed to whisper. “Okay. The ivory is better.”
He stayed there for a moment longer than necessary, and then he straightened up, the warmth leaving your back.
The walkthrough concluded with polite bows and assurances. Soojin promised to have the revised layouts emailed by the morning. Sunghoon gave a curt nod. “Your work is impressive, Miss Lee. Thank you.”
The praise, so directly given, made Soojin beam. “Thank you, Mr. Park! I won’t let you down.”
No, you thought, the ache in your chest deepening. You certainly won’t.
That night, back in the penthouse, you were curled on the vast living room sofa, a book (decidedly not a romance) open but unread on your lap. You were replaying the image of them by the window, trying to quash the hollow feeling it left behind. This was the plan. This was what you wanted. For them to fall in love, for the story to proceed, so you could leave.
So why did it feel like this?
You heard his footsteps first, then the subtle shift in the air as he entered the room. He didn’t sit. He came to stand behind the sofa, looking down at you. You kept your eyes on your book, but you could feel his gaze like a physical touch, tracing the line of your shoulder, the curve of your neck where your hair had fallen away.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice dropping into that lower register that seemed reserved for these late-night moments.
You swallowed. “Nothing. Just tired.”
The lie hung in the air. He was quiet for a long moment. You could almost hear him weighing his next move. Then, you felt the cushion dip slightly as he leaned forward, his hands coming to rest on the back of the sofa, one on either side of you.
“You’ve been quiet since the venue,” he stated, his voice a soft rumble near your ear. “Was it something Miss Lee said?”
The mention of her name was like a splash of cold water. You closed your book with a soft snap. “No. She was perfect. Everything is perfect.” You made to get up, to escape to the safety of your room.
A hand, firm and warm, landed on your shoulder, gently pressing you back down. “Y/N.”
You froze. He almost never used your name. It was always “you,” or “Miss Cha” in formal settings. The sound of it in his voice, so close, did something dangerous to your insides.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, you turned your head to look up at him. He was leaning over the back of the sofa, his face serious, his storm-cloud eyes searching yours. The distance between your faces was less than a foot. You could see the faint stubble along his jaw, the slight pulse at the base of his throat. Your breath caught.
“I don’t believe you,” he said softly
Fine, you wanted to say. Something did happen. The entire plot of a trashy romance novel happened. And I saw you smiling at her, and it’s supposed to happen, but it feels all wrong now.
“I mean it,” you said instead. “It’s nothing. Really.” You offered him a weak smile. “Just pre-wedding jitters, I guess.”
He studied your face for a long moment, his own unreadable. Then he nodded slowly, not looking convinced. He reached out, and for a heart-stopping second, you thought he might touch your face. But his hand just brushed a stray strand of hair from your forehead, the contact brief.
“Okay. Get some rest,” he said, his voice quiet. He stood and left the room, leaving you alone with the echo of his touch and the churning confusion in your gut.
Here lay the entire problem: the more you saw of the real Park Sunghoon, the more the fictional version paled in comparison. The attraction you’d felt for a character became a terrifyingly real pull towards the living, breathing man. You’d catch yourself watching him, a hollow ache blooming in your chest, before violently shoving the feeling down. He’s not for you. This story isn’t yours. His happiness is with Soojin
The pang in your chest was no longer alien, it was a constant, dull companion. And it was your cue to exit, stage left.
Enough. You had played your part. You had been harmless. You had, against all odds, built something resembling a civil friendship with the male lead. Now it was time to give him his freedom, take your cushy payout, and vanish. You had your lawyer draw up a simple, clean, no-fault dissolution of the engagement agreement, and then you requested a meeting in his office. The same office where you’d first met Soojin.
HE WAS AT HIS DESK, BUT HE WASN’T WORKING. He was waiting for you, leaning back in his chair, watching you as you entered. The afternoon light slanted across the room, splashing everything in gold and shadow.
“You wanted to see me,” he said. His voice was deceptively casual, but his posture was alert.
You managed a nod, your throat suddenly dry. The leather folder in your hand felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
He pushed off the desk and closed the distance between you in a few unhurried strides. Before you could step back or offer a handshake—any kind of businesslike gesture—his arm slid around your waist, pulling you gently against him. He dipped his head, his nose brushing the hair at your temple as he inhaled softly. “It’s nice to have you here,” he murmured, the words a warm puff against your skin.
You forced yourself to relax into the half-embrace, your mind screaming at the contradiction. This was the man who’d taken care of you when you were sick, who taught you to skate. This was also the man whose destiny was written in ink, intertwined with another woman’s name. The hollow ache in your chest expanded, threatening to swallow your resolve.
“I just needed to talk to you about something,” you said, your voice steadier than you felt. You extricated yourself from his hold.
He frowned, returning back to his desk. “Is that right?”
“Yes.” You placed the sleek leather folder on the desk between you. “I need you to sign these.”
He didn’t look at it. His eyes stayed on your face. “What is it?”
“The termination of our engagement.” The words came out steady, practiced. “My lawyers have already reviewed it. It’s very straightforward. The settlement terms are there, and I think you’ll find them reasonable.”
For a long moment, there was nothing but silence from him. The gold light glinted off the edges of the folder, off the sharp line of his cheekbone.
He didn’t move. He didn’t blink.
Slowly, so slowly, he leaned forward. He didn’t reach for the folder. He placed his palms flat on the desk, his knuckles white. When he spoke, his voice was a low, controlled vibration.
“What?”
“I’m calling off the arrangement,” you repeated, your own voice sounding thin in comparison. “It’s for the best. We both know this was never a real—”
“For the best,” he echoed, cutting you off. The control was cracking. You could see it at the edges—a muscle jumping in his jaw, a storm gathering in those dark eyes. He pushed back from the desk and stood up, the movement fluid and predatory. He loomed over the desk, over you. “For the best? Are you serious? You come into my life, you—you change everything, you act like a completely different person for months, and now you just… you just drop this on my desk and say it’s for the best?”
“Sunghoon,” you startled at the emotion in his voice, taking an involuntary step back. “We both don’t want this. It’s a business deal that’s run its course. You can be with—”
“With who?” he snapped, his voice rising. He came around the desk, stopping a few feet from you. The space between you crackled with his fury. “Who is it that you think I want to be with? Tell me.”
“Soojin!” you blurted out. “Lee Soojin! It’s obvious, Sunghoon. You’re good together. She’s sweet, she’s genuine, she’s everything that—that this arrangement isn’t. You should be with her. You’re meant to be with her.”
He stared at you as if you’d started speaking in tongues. The anger seemed to freeze, then shatter into pure, unadulterated disbelief. “Soojin,” he scoffed, the name a flat, incredulous syllable. “Our wedding planner.”
“Yes! You talk to her, you laugh with her, you look at her like…” You trailed off, the memory of those looks twisting inside you.
“Like a competent professional whose work I respect?” he fired back, taking another step closer. You could see the faint flecks of gold in his irises, the rapid pulse at the base of his throat. “Is that the crime? Is that what this is about? You’ve decided, based on God-knows-what, that I have feelings for our wedding planner, and so you’re, what? Nobly stepping aside? Is that it?”
It was too close to the truth. You floundered. “It’s logical. This engagement is a farce. We should both be free.”
“Free?” he laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “Are you fucking with me?” He was right in front of you now, close enough that you could feel the heat radiating from him, smell the subtle, clean scent of his cologne. His gaze bored into yours, searching for something you were desperately trying to hide. “For months, I’ve been trying to understand you. I thought—I actually thought…” He broke off, shaking his head, a hand raking through his perfect hair in a gesture of utter frustration. “And now you hand me this. Did I do something? Did I upset you? Is this some new, elaborate game? Because if it is, I need you to tell me the rules right now, because I can’t keep up.”
The pain in his voice, the sheer, bewildered hurt mixed in with the anger, was your undoing. This wasn’t in the novel. The Sunghoon in the novel would have taken the papers with relief, maybe a cutting remark. He wouldn’t be standing here, looking at you like you’d just reached into his chest and pulled out his entire heart.
“It’s not a game,” you whispered, your own resolve crumbling. “And you didn’t do anything wrong. You’ve been—you’ve been lovely. That’s the whole problem.”
“That’s the whole problem,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “I’ve been lovely, so you’re leaving.” He ran his hands through his hair. “That makes no sense. None of this makes any sense, Y/N, I don’t accept this.”
“You have to sign the papers,” you said weakly.
“I don’t have to do a damn thing,” he said, and the final shred of his control vanished. His eyes blazed with conviction. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to walk in here, change every single thing, and then just walk away because you’ve decided what’s for the best. You don’t know what’s best for me.” He leaned in, his face inches from yours. His breath was warm against your skin. “The only thing I know for certain right now,” he said, each word deliberate, hammering, and emphasised, “is that I am not signing those papers.”
“You have to,” you insisted, your voice trembling despite your resolve. “Sunghoon, this isn’t real. What we have is a contract. You’ll get over this. In a month, you’ll look back and be grateful I let you go to be with someone you actually—someone who actually means something to you. Soojin is—”
“Enough.” The word was a guttural snarl that vibrated in the marrow of your bones. His hand, still hovering near your arm, finally closed around your wrist firmly. “Enough about Lee Soojin! You think this is about her?”
He pulled you closer, the motion so sudden you stumbled a half-step forward. The storm in his eyes had broken.
“You want to know what I’ve been thinking about?” he demanded, his voice a ragged scrape of sound. “When I’m in a meeting so boring I want to put my head through the glass, I think about coming home. Not just to this place. To wherever you are. That’s home. I imagine walking in and finding you asleep on the sofa with a book on your chest. I think about picking it up, reading the page you dog-eared, just to know what was in your head before you drifted off. If you’re in the kitchen, I think about you humming to yourself, that off-key little tune you do when you’re making tea, and I wonder what would happen if I came up behind you and put my hands around your waist.”
Your breath hitched, trapped in your throat. This wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be. This was a deviation, a crack in the universe.
“And you think I’ve been—been thinking about her?” He let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Before you, this place was just a building. I’d work until I couldn’t see straight just to have an excuse not to come back.” His eyebrows were drawn together. “You’ve fucked me up, Y/N. Now I find myself watching the clock like some pathetic highschooler, inventing reasons to wrap things up early. Because you’re here.”
He leaned in, his forehead almost touching yours. “You want to know when I think about Lee Soojin? I think about her when she’s emailing me timelines and invoices. That’s it. She’s a good planner, and she’s doing an excellent job planning a wedding that I don’t want with anyone but you.”
“You don’t mean that,” you whispered, a last-ditch defense. “It’s just… the arrangement, Sunghoon. It’s confusing your feelings—”
“Y/N,” He released your wrist, but only to bring both hands up to frame your face, his thumbs stroking over your cheekbones. The touch was devastating in its tenderness. “You think I don’t know what I feel? You think this is confusion? This is the only thing that has ever been clear to me.”
“Sunghoon, please—”
“No.” The word was soft, final. “It’s you. It’s only you. It has only ever been you.” His voice broke on the last word, the raw vulnerability of it slicing through you. “Do you understand? There is no one else, there will never be anyone else for me.”
The world tilted. The solid ground of the plot, of your predetermined escape, crumbled into dust beneath your feet. He was looking at you like you were the sun, but you were just a thief standing in its light.
“You’re wrong,” you choked out, tears spilling over now, matching his. “You have to be wrong. This is a trick. I tricked you. I didn’t mean to, but I did. I’m not her, Sunghoon. The person you think you—the person you feel this for, it’s not me. It’s a lie.”
His brow furrowed, bewildered concern overtaking his features. He wiped a tear from your cheek with his thumb. “What are you talking about? Of course it’s you. Who else would it be?”
“The real Cha Y/N!” you cried, the words tearing free from some deep, secret place of panic. “The one who was supposed to be here! The person I was a year ago! That’s who you were supposed to be engaged to. That’s who you were supposed to hate. And I—I came in and I messed it all up. I was nice to Soojin. I made you congee. I laughed with your friends. I’ve been pretending to be someone,” you sniffled. “Someone better, and you fell for the act. You fell for this—this character.” You were sobbing in earnest now, the guilt and fear and desperate, unwanted hope pouring out of you. “You’re a good man, Sunghoon. You’re just—you feel responsible because I’ve been kind. That’s all this is.”
For a long, suspended moment, he just stared at you, his hands still cradling your face. The anger had drained from his expression, and, to your surprise, he wasn’t looking at you like you were crazy. He was looking at you like he was finally, finally putting the pieces together.
“A character,” he repeated slowly. His thumbs stilled on your skin. “You think you’ve been playing a part.”
“Yes.”
“And the real Cha Y/N… you believe she was someone else. Someone I was meant to despise.”
“Yes.”
He took a deep, slow breath, his gaze searching every inch of your face as if seeing it for the first time. “The night in the car. After the gala. You said you were from a different universe.” he said slowly. “I thought you were joking.”
You couldn’t speak. You just looked at him, your eyes wide with terror.
His voice dropped to a whisper, filled with awe and a terrible, heartbreaking softness. “You weren’t joking, were you?”
The last of your resistance collapsed. You shook your head, a tiny, helpless movement.
“Oh, Y/N,” he breathed. The sound was full of wonder. His grip on your face gentled even further. “My impossible, ridiculous girl. Do you really think it matters to me?” A faint, incredulous smile touched his lips, though his eyes were still wet. “Do you think I’m some honorable hero from one of your books?”
You flinched at the accuracy of it.
His smile faded, replaced by that same conviction. “I told you. I’m not a hero. I’m a selfish man. I want what I want. And I have never, not for one second since you woke up in this world, wanted anyone but you.” He leaned closer, his gaze dropped to your lips, then back to your eyes, dark with a hunger that stole the air from your lungs. “I have spent the last few months in a special kind of hell, Y/N. Do you have any idea what that’s been like? To have the woman I’m contractually bound to be the only woman I can’t fucking have? To watch you walk around in those little sleep shorts, with your hair messy in the morning, and have to pretend I don’t see it? To sit across from you at breakfast and want to clear the entire table with my arm just to get my hands on you?” He leaned closer, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. His voice dropped to a vicious whisper that scraped over every nerve ending. “I’ve thought about bending you over this very desk. I’ve thought about pinning you against that glass and watching the whole city see who you belong to. I’ve thought about your mouth, your thighs, the sounds you’d make if I finally stopped being a gentleman. I’ve fucked my own hand more times these past few months than in my entire life before you, and every single time, it was your name I bit into my pillow to keep from shouting.”
A dizzying wave of heat crashed through you.
“Sunghoon,” you started, but you had no words.
“No,” he growled, pulling back to look at you, his gaze scouring your face. “Listen to me.” He released your wrist only to bring both hands up to frame your face, his touch searing. “You are not leaving me. This engagement is not ending. The only thing that’s ending is this pathetic charade where we pretend this isn’t real.”
He released you so suddenly you swayed. In one fluid, violent motion, he snatched the leather folder from the desk. You watched, hypnotized, as his hands searched for the papers. He tore them in half, then quarters, then let the pieces flutter to the floor.
“The only paper you’ll sign next,” he said, his voice low and final, “is our marriage certificate. Do you understand me?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. His attention was already on his tie. With a sharp tug, he loosened the knot of his silk tie, the dark fabric slithering free. His eyes never left yours as he began to stalk toward you, a predator with its prey finally cornered.
You took a step back. Then another. Your heart was a wild drum against your ribs. The heat between your legs was a throbbing, insistent ache. Your back hit something cool and unyielding—the massive floor-to-ceiling window. The panoramic view of the city sprawled behind you, a dizzying drop of steel and glass. You were trapped between the cold glass and the furnace of his body.
He closed the final distance and planted his hands on the glass on either side of your head, caging you in.
“Now,” he breathed out. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me you haven’t thought about it. Lie to me.”
You couldn’t. Your breath hitched, your lips parted. A small, desperate whimper escaped you.
That was all the answer he needed.
He kissed you like he was starving, and you were the first thing he’d had in a lifetime. He kissed you like he was trying to erase every word about leaving, every mention of another person’s name. His teeth grazed your lower lip, a sharp sting of pleasure-pain that made you cry out against his mouth. Your hands flew up to clutch at the crisp fabric of his shirt. A low groan rumbled from his chest into yours.
He swallowed the sound, his tongue tangling with yours, deep and filthy. When he finally broke for air, it was only to drag his lips along your jaw, his breath hot and ragged against your skin.
“You think I could look at anyone else,” he growled, his voice a scrape against your ear as he bit your earlobe. “When you’re in my house? In my bed? Fuck.” His hands left the glass and gripped your hips, fingers digging in through the thin fabric of your dress. “Every night. Every goddamn night, Y/N.”
“Sunghoon—” you whimpered, the explicit confession flooding your system with heat.
“Y/N,” he breathed out. He spun you around, your front pressing against the cool, unyielding glass. The city sprawled below, and your breath fogged the window. His body covered yours from behind, his erection a hard, insistent line against the curve of your ass. He pushed your hair aside and buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply. “I couldn’t stand it,” he whispered, the words a dark, delicious sin directly into your ear. One hand slid around your waist, splaying possessively over your lower belly. The other hand yanked at the hem of your dress, gathering it up around your waist. The cool air kissed your bare thighs, and you shuddered. “Tell me you thought about it, too. Tell me you touched yourself, thinking about my hands on you.”
“Yes,” you breathed, the admission torn from you.
“Good.” The word was a satisfied rumble. His fingers hooked into the lace of your panties. With a sharp tug, the delicate fabric tore, and he palmed your bare ass, then slid his hand between your thighs.
You were soaked. Achingly, shamelessly wet for him.
He groaned, a deep, pained sound. “Look at this.” He dragged two fingers through your slickness, circling your clit with a pressure that made you cry out and press your forehead to the cold glass. “All that talk of leaving,” he breathed out, his voice thick with lust, “but your body knows the truth. It knows who it belongs to.”
He pushed a finger inside you, then a second, curling them expertly. Your inner muscles clenched around him, a pulse of pure need. You moaned.
His other hand slid up your torso, roughly palming your tits through the silk of your dress before finding the zipper at the side. With a sharp tug, he pulled it down, the fabric gaping open. He shoved the material off your shoulders, baring you to the waist. The cool glass met your feverish skin, your nipples pebbling into tight, sensitive points against the smooth, unyielding surface.
“See?” he whispered hotly against your ear, his fingers still working inside you, stretching you, preparing you. “See how pretty you look? Pressed against my window. My view.” He bit down on the junction of your neck and shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to brand you. “I want the whole city to see. I want every man in every building to look up and see my pretty little wife getting fucked by her husband. To know you’re taken. That you’re mine.”
A shudder of pure, wanton heat racked your body. “We’re—we’re not married yet,” you gasped out, a feeble defense as you ground your hips back against his hand. “We’re just—hngh!—business partners.”
His fingers stilled. Then, slowly, he pulled them out. You whimpered at the loss, the emptiness. You heard the rustle of clothing, the clink of his belt buckle, the slide of a zipper. Then the replacement of the hot, heavy weight of his erection pressed against the cleft of your ass with the velvety head of his cock nudging against your soaked folds.
“Is that so?”
His voice was a low, dangerous purr against the shell of your ear. He held his cock there, just brushing your pussy, his hips making tiny, maddening circles that smeared his pre-cum against your sensitive folds.
“If we’re not married,” he continued, his tone deceptively light, almost conversational, as his hands gripped your hips, “then I suppose this would be improper. A breach of our purely business arrangement.” He pulled back slightly, the loss of his heat a physical pain. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should stop.”
“No,” you gasped, the word torn from you. You tried to push back against him, but his grip was iron, holding you still. “Sunghoon—”
“No?” he echoed, mock-thoughtful. One hand smoothed over your bare hip, his thumb digging into the sensitive dip. “But you were so clear about the terms just now. About it being just business.” He leaned in, his lips brushing your ear. “Business partners don’t do this, do they, Y/N?”
You were trembling. Your muscles clenched around nothing, aching. “Sunghoon, please.”
“Please what?” he purred, his other hand coming up to circle your throat. “Use your words. Tell me what you need.”
You were beyond pride, beyond the script of the novel, beyond everything but the pounding of your blood and the empty, throbbing want between your legs. “I need you,” you gasped, your forehead grinding against the cool glass. “I need your cock. Please. Please, just… fuck me. I need it. I need you inside me.”
“Where inside you?” he demanded, his voice dropping to a filthy whisper. One hand slid from your hip, around to your lower belly, pressing down. “Here?” He rocked his hips, the blunt head catching on your entrance, pushing in just a single, devastating inch before retreating. A broken cry of agreement left your lips. “You feel that? That’s where I belong. That’s where I’m going to fill you up.”
“Please,” you sobbed, shameless now. “Please, Sunghoon, I need it so bad—”
He sheathed himself to the hilt.
The world dissolved into a white-hot shock of sensation. The stretch was immense, breathtaking, a burning fullness that stole the air from your lungs completely. You screamed, the sound muffled against the glass. He was so deep, you could practically feel him in your womb.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his body going rigid against yours, his forehead dropping to your shoulder. “God, you’re tight. You’re taking me so well, baby. So perfect for me.”
He didn’t move for a long moment, letting you feel every inch, letting your body adjust to the overwhelming intrusion. You could feel the heavy throb of him inside you, the way your own muscles fluttered and clenched around him, trying to pull him deeper.
Then he moved.
He pulled out slowly, almost completely, dragging it out before slamming back in. A choked cry was punched from you with each relentless thrust thrust that jolted you forward into the window, your palms squeaking against the glass. The sound of skin slapping against skin, of his ragged breaths and your desperate moans, filled the silent office.
“You thought you could leave?” he panted, his pace increasing, becoming less controlled, more frantic. He wrapped one arm around your waist, hauling you back onto him with every drive of his hips. “You thought you could walk away from me?” He slammed into you, and a sharp cry was punched from your chest. “I’d have found you. I’d have torn the world apart to bring you back. You’re mine.”
“Big words,” you managed to taunt, your voice shaking. “For a man who—ah!—needed a contract to get a wife.”
“You have a smart mouth for someone getting split open on my cock,” he snarled. The arm around your waist tightened, and his other hand came down in a sharp, stinging slap on your ass.
The shock of it made you clench around him harder.
“Fuck,” he hissed, his thrusts becoming harder, more erratic. “You like that?” He spanked you again, on the other side, and you moaned, pushing your ass back into the contact, into his thrusts. “This perfect cunt,” he hammered into you, “this perfect body. All mine. In a month, you’ll be my wife. Then it’s forever.” His breaths were shaking too, now. “You’ll carry my children. You’ll wear my ring and my marks and my cum every single day until you forget there was ever a time you weren’t mine.”
Your nails scrabbled against the smooth glass. “You’re—you’re insane,” you gasped out.
“For you,” he growled, nipping at your shoulder. “It’s all for you.” His pace became brutal, a piston-like drive that had you seeing stars with each impact. The tightness in your belly wound faster, faster, a spring of sensation ready to snap. You could feel the sweat slick between your bodies.
“That’s it,” he whispered, watching your desperate, pleasure-twisted expression in the darkening reflection of the glass. “See how beautiful you are? Taking all of me. Made for me. My perfect girl.” He slid a hand around your hip, his fingers finding your swollen clit, rubbing tight little circles. “You want me to put a baby in you, don’t you?” he breathed. “You want to be so full of me you can’t forget for a second who you belong to.”
Your hips rocked back, meeting his thrusts, seeking more, deeper. “Yes,” you whimpered. “Yes, Sunghoon, please.”
In one brutal, fluid motion, he spun you around. Your back hit the glass with a soft thud, the city lights a dizzying backdrop behind him. Before you could process the new position, his mouth was on yours, swallowing your gasp. His tongue mapped the interior of your mouth as his hands gripped your bare thighs, hiking them up around his hips. He entered you again in this new, face-to-face angle, and it was somehow deeper. You could see his face—the dark flush on his cheekbones, the sweat beading at his temples, the madness in his eyes.
His cock sank back into your soaked pussy with a slick thrust, stretching you wide in this new angle that let him grind right against that spot deep inside. Sunghoon groaned low in his throat, his forehead pressing to yours as he started moving again, slow at first, savoring the way your walls clenched around him, pulling him in like you were made to milk every inch. "Fuck, you’re incredible," he rasped, voice rough with awe. "So tight, so wet for me. ‘S like your body's begging to keep me forever."
You clung to his shoulders, nails digging into the taut muscles of his back through his shirt as he picked up the pace, hips snapping forward. Each plunge drove him deeper, the head of his cock dragging along your inner walls, hitting that sensitive bundle of nerves that made stars burst behind your eyelids. The cool glass bit into your spine, his pelvis grinding against your clit with every thrust. All you could focus on was Sunghoon: his breath hot on your neck, his hands bruising your thighs as he held you open, fucking you so hard you were sure you’d forget your own name by the time he was done.
"That's my girl," he murmured, lips brushing your ear, his rhythm turning relentless. He loved it, the way your pussy fluttered around his thick length, the obscene wet sounds of him sliding in and out, the way your tits bounced with each thrust. He shifted his grip, hiking you up higher so that one hand could slide up to cup your breast, thumb flicking your hardened nipple while he lowered his mouth to the other.
Your head fell back against the window, a series of punched-out moan and whimpers tearing from your throat. His thrusts grew harder, faster again. You could feel him everywhere—his cock throbbing inside you, his hands on your body, his mouth on your tits, and the tightness climbed further and further, your clit pulsing under the friction of his body—until it snapped. You cried out his name as you rode the waves of your orgasm, legs trembling in his hold.
Sunghoon followed seconds later, burying himself to the hilt with your name on his lips. His cock pulsed, hot spurts of cum flooding your depths, marking you from the inside out. He held you there, grinding deep as he emptied himself. Then slowly, carefully, he pulled out. A hot trickle slid down your inner thigh. He released you from his grip gently, his expression utterly shattered. He looked at you—your flushed face, your kiss-swollen lips, your dress rumpled around your waist—as if you were a miracle.
He leaned down and kissed you softly. “I’m in love with you, you impossible woman,” he whispered against your lips. “I think I have been since you shoved me out of the way to make congee.”
A watery laugh-sob escaped you. You wrapped your arms around his neck, holding on.
He kissed your forehead, your eyelids, the tip of your nose. Then his expression grew serious again, though the tenderness remained, and he reached for his discarded suit jacket, draped over his desk chair, and wrapped it around your shoulders. Then looked at the scattered shreds of the termination agreement on the floor, then back at you, a dark gleam in his eye. “And just in case you get any more noble, self-sacrificing ideas…” He placed his large hand over your lower belly again, thumb stroking the skin. “We’re not done here. We’re going home, and you can forget about work tomorrow.”
THREE YEARS LATER, THE SOUND OF GLEEFUL SHRIEKS WAS BETTER THAN ANY ALARM CLOCK.
You stirred, a soft smile already on your face before you even opened your eyes. The early morning sun filtered through the gauzy curtains of the bedroom in the penthouse—your penthouse, your bedroom—covering everything in warm, honeyed light. The space beside you in the vast bed was empty, but still warm. You could hear the distant, deep complaints of Sunghoon’s voice mixing with the high, piping laughter of your daughter, Via.
You pushed yourself up on your elbows, one hand automatically cradling the gentle, firm swell of your belly. Twenty weeks along with your second. A little brother for Via, the ultrasound had confirmed.
Padding out to the open-plan living area, you leaned against the doorframe, watching. Sunghoon, dressed in soft grey sweatpants and a worn t-shirt, was on his hands and knees, being conquered by a two-year-old warlord in ugly green dinosaur pajamas. Via was perched triumphantly on his back, tiny hands fisted in his shirt, shouting “Daddy, horsey! Faster!”
“I am a CEO,” Sunghoon grumbled, but his voice was full of laughter as he obediently crawled a few more feet across the rug. “I negotiate several deals before you even eat breakfast. I am not a horse.”
“Horsey!” Via insisted, shrieking.
“You heard the boss,” you called out, grinning.
Sunghoon’s head snapped up. His face, which still took your breath away, softened instantly when he saw you. Even with sleep-tousled hair, he still made your heart do that stupid flip with a smile that reached his crinkled eyes. “Look, Via, Mama’s awake,” he said, carefully rolling so he could scoop your giggling daughter into his arms as he stood.
“Mama!” Via reached for you, and Sunghoon carried her over, depositing a wriggling, warm bundle into your arms before leaning down to kiss you, slow and sweet.
“Good morning, baby.” he murmured against your lips. “How did you sleep?”
“Perfectly,” you said, meaning it. You kissed Via’s dark hair. “Unlike someone who was apparently running a rodeo at 7 AM.”
“She has her mother’s energy,” Sunghoon said, his hand coming to rest on your belly, his thumb stroking the curve. “And her mother’s terrible sense of timing.” he mock-frowned. “Why’d you have to get up now? I was just about to bring you breakfast in bed.”
“Mm, no,” you leaned into him. “This is much better.”
my first long-ish fic...thats why i used dividers but wow its lowkey too many sweats anyway she is my baby this took me so long (literally over a month lol) but i hope u like her....... to be honest with u guys,,, i dont like it 😭 i was super excited abt this idea but i dont like at all how it came out and i honestly think i could have done so much better but i just wanted to get this done even if it was shit i cant lie im sorry 😞 it felt so weird to finish off after everything,, im still pretty torn up about it so if anything at all came off a little weird thats my bad 🥲🥲🥲 anyway i hope u liked it tho, and i hope ur all doing good and keeping healthy (and boycotting belift !!) <3 much love from ur mona heedimples 💝
Some of y'all do not have a single ounce of digital literacy in your bones and you should not be allowed on the internet until you do. How are we still believing everything y'all see on the internet? On fucking twitter of all places? In the 21st century??? "This was all an experiment by HYBE and Enhypen was the scapegoat" meanwhile, the source: trust me bro, i read through hybe's 400 page report in korean + chatgpt citations. LIKE????? Guys, let's be vigilant now...
At some point, it stops being "support" and starts becoming blatantly disrespectful. When people are overanalysing every single fucking thing that they cannot even smile without some bitch on the internet saying "he's forcing it" or "he has no remorse" like please? Let's be serious.
I think it's pretty clear by now that Heeseung made that choice, whether he was driven to it or not. Am I upset? Yes. Do I think this could've been handled better? Definitely. But what i'm not going to do is sit here and pretend Jungwon, Jay, Sunghoon, Jake, Sunoo or Ni-ki did something wrong to deserve boycott from their own "fans".
At this point, I think I can clearly see how this fandom is moving. Twisting and turning rumours to fit your agenda is NOT helping anyone. In fact, we are all watching, IN REAL TIME, our own fandom sabotaging and causing irreversible damage to the members' careers. The last thing I want is to project my wants and beliefs onto the members and Heeseung as if they don't already have a whole ton of shit on their plates. I refuse to take part in it, and I would rather face reality as painful as is if it means I get to support all 7 on their own paths.
If y'all don't agree with me, then feel free to unfollow me. On god, i'm actually getting so tired.
Synopsis: At Hogwarts, you were golden. He chose darkness and shattered you. Years later, you hesitate to kill him. He kills for you instead. Now you teach at Hogwarts, trying to forget him. But Park Sunghoon never forgot you, now he has decided he won’t lose you twice.
a/n: Welcome to the first part of this series. It occured to me very late that it became too long to be a oneshot, so i had to cut it up. Now this first part is.. almost like an epilogue, but more detailed. So enjoy! REBLOGS AND COMMENTARY IS APPRECIATED!
Your father always called you a handful.
Not cruelly. Never cruelly. It was usually said with a tired sigh and the faintest hint of pride in his eyes, like he couldn’t decide whether to scold you or applaud you.
“You’ll go far,” he’d tell you, hands clasped behind his back as he watched you duel older cousins twice your size. “But that appetite for danger of yours will drag you down if you’re not careful.”
You always brushed him off, always laughed it off.
Because you were extraordinary.
Top marks. Impeccable wand control. A natural duelist. Pure-blooded and well-bred, raised with old magic. Professors at Hogwarts praised your essays, your reflexes, your instincts. You wanted to be an Auror — and you had the discipline to get there. Your grades never slipped. Your ambition was steady, focused, sharp.
But there was that other side of you.
The side that liked testing spells just to see how far they could stretch. The side that found creatures with too many teeth fascinating instead of frightening.
You liked teeth and claws and things that could kill you if you made one wrong move.
You liked danger. And yes, maybe you liked chaos just a little too much.
You were exceptional with hexes — quick, creative, controlled. You knew the difference between harmful and humiliating, and you preferred the latter. There was an art to embarrassment. A craft.
Filch and Mrs. Norris simply happened to be easy canvases.
Their patrol routes were predictable. Their reactions were theatrical. Their paranoia made everything better.
And then there was Peeves.
Peeves adored you.
You were one of the few students who could keep up with him — who could invent chaos instead of merely react to it.
Tonight’s prank had been meticulously planned.
You had enchanted one of the suits of armor near the third-floor corridor — the one Filch always passed during his late-night rounds. A simple trigger charm. Once activated, the armor would screech accusations at him in a booming, dramatic voice while releasing a cloud of bright purple smoke and a cascade of glittering sparks that clung stubbornly to fabric.
Harmless.
Humiliating.
Perfect.
You crouched behind a stone pillar, wand tucked into your sleeve, heart beating with anticipatory delight. Peeves hovered beside you, vibrating with barely contained excitement.
“He’s coming,” Peeves whispered, grinning wide enough to split his face. “Oh, this will be delicious—”
Footsteps echoed.
Measured. Even.
Not the shuffling, irritated stomp of Argus Filch.
But you were too excited to notice.
The suit of armor detonated into sound.
“FIIIIILCH YOU MISERABLE CAT-OBSESSED—”
Purple smoke burst outward in an impressive plume. Sparks rained down like cursed confetti.
And instead of wheezing outrage—
There was a sharp intake of breath. A cough. And a distinctly masculine voice snapping in surprise.
Peeves vanished. Just—gone.
“Coward,” you muttered under your breath, heart plummeting straight into your shoes. You stepped out immediately, because unlike poltergeists, you had dignity.
“I am so sorry — that was not meant for you, I thought you were Filch, I swear I would never—”
The student turned.
Your apology died mid-sentence.
Park Sunghoon.
He stood in the fading smoke like something carved from it — tall, composed, dark hair slightly mussed from the magical blast. Purple glitter clung to the shoulders of his robes and dusted the sleeve near his wrist. The torchlight along the corridor caught in his eyes, sharpening them into something almost metallic.
You had seen him before. Everyone had.
Pure-blooded. Ravenclaw. Top of the year in nearly everything. Brilliant. Ruthless. Quiet in a way that didn’t invite pity but demanded space.
You had seen him across the Great Hall, sitting alone at the Ravenclaw table with a book open. You shared—what? Two classes? Advanced Charms and Ancient Runes. You were almost certain you had never actually heard his voice before.
Not properly. Not directed at you.
And now he was staring at you. Not angry in a loud way. Just… displeased. Assessing.
Your pulse began behaving very unprofessionally.
“I’m sorry,” you repeated, softer now, suddenly hyperaware of the distance between you — or lack thereof.
He blinked once.
“It’s fine,” he said.
Merlin.
You had not been prepared for that, not prepared for how the sound slid down your spine.
You had not expected that voice.
“It was meant for Filch,” you added quickly, because for some reason you felt compelled to defend yourself.
“I gathered,” he replied dryly.
There it was.
A faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not amusement. Not quite. Something restrained.
Up close, he was unfair.
Sharp jaw. Dark lashes. Eyes that looked like they held thoughts he would never share, like they held too much thought and too little mercy. There was something composed about him, something restrained — like he was constantly holding something back.
And he was tall.
You had to tilt your head slightly to maintain eye contact, and that realization alone sent your traitorous heart into a frenzy in a way that was deeply inconvenient.
He didn’t fidget. He didn’t brush the glitter off his robe. He didn’t even look embarrassed.
He simply stood there, taking you in like you were the unexpected variable in an equation he hadn’t planned for.
“You’re in Advanced Defensive Theory,” he said.
Not a question.
You blinked. “Yes.”
“You argue with Professor Whitmore.”
“I contribute,” you corrected immediately.
“You interrupt.”
You scoffed softly, folding your arms over your chest like you were in the middle of a casual debate instead of standing inches away from a boy who made your pulse behave irrationally.
“In my book,” you said breezily, “that’s the same thing.”
His eyebrow lifted slightly.
You pushed on, brushing him off with a careless tilt of your head. “If someone is wrong, I correct them. If someone is vague, I clarify. If Professor Whitmore insists on explaining defensive counter-curses like we’re first years, I improve the lecture.”
A faint curl of satisfaction settled in your chest. You were used to winning arguments. Used to people reacting — either with amusement or exasperation.
Sunghoon did neither. He just stared at you.
It wasn’t a blank stare. It wasn’t empty. It was sharp and focused, like he was dissecting your words instead of responding to them. His gaze didn’t flicker away when you shifted your weight. It didn’t falter when you met it head-on.
If anything, it deepened.
“You’re not going to argue back?” you asked lightly, attempting to reclaim some of your usual confidence.
He didn’t answer. He just continued staring.
And Merlin help you, but that was worse. Because it felt like he was waiting for something. Watching for something. As if he already knew how you would react and simply wanted to see it unfold.
Your fingers fidgeted slightly at your side before you forced them still. “Anyway,” you said, shifting gears, “I really am sorry. That wasn’t meant for you.”
Still nothing. Just those dark eyes, steady and unrelenting.
For someone so quiet, he had a presence that was almost suffocating. Not loud. Not overbearing. Just… intense.
It made your skin feel too tight.
“I didn’t expect anyone else to be walking through here,” you added, softer this time.
His gaze flickered — just barely — to the enchanted armor, now standing innocently against the wall as though it hadn’t just screamed obscenities.
Then he looked back at you.
“How did you do it?”
You blinked.
“…What?”
“The trigger,” he clarified calmly. “How did you bind it?”
For a second, you simply stared at him.
That was not the question you expected.
“I—” You faltered, thrown off. “I’m sorry?”
His expression didn’t change. “The suit of armor. You hexed it to respond. How?”
Confusion washed over you, followed quickly by something like surprise.
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t offended. He was curious.
“You’re asking about the enchantment?” you said slowly.
“Yes.”
The simplicity of it unsettled you.
You glanced back at the armor instinctively, as if expecting it to answer for you. “It’s not complicated,” you said after a moment, though your tone lost some of its usual teasing edge. “It’s a layered charm.”
He didn’t interrupt.
You found yourself explaining before you consciously decided to. “I used a modified auditory trigger,” you said, gesturing vaguely with your hand. “The armor only activates when it detects ‘Filch’ spoken within a certain radius.”
“And the smoke?” he asked.
“Basic dispersion charm. Non-toxic. Stains fabric for about an hour, though.” You winced slightly. “I may have overdone the glitter.”
His gaze flicked to his shoulder again. Then back to you.
“You stacked the enchantments,” he observed.
“Yes.”
“In sequence?”
“Of course.”
“You’re not supposed to be able to layer that many minor charms without destabilizing the trigger,” he said evenly.
You blinked at him, surprised despite yourself.
“I stabilized the core,” you replied automatically. “Anchored it to the armor’s existing ward structure.”
His eyes sharpened. “How?”
“Why do you care?” you asked quietly.
“Because it worked.”
It shouldn’t have felt like praise. But it did.
Your pulse skipped.
“I adjusted the matrix,” you admitted after a beat. “There’s a binding symbol carved inside the base. It redirects excess magic back into the object instead of letting it disperse.”
Another stretch of silence.
You expected him to challenge it. To critique it. To tell you it was inefficient. Instead, something shifted in his expression.
Interest.
“You modified the runes yourself,” he said.
“Yes.”
“How long did it take you?”
“Like one minute.”
His gaze lingered on you in a way that made your stomach flip.
“It was just for fun,” you added. “I wasn’t exactly writing a thesis.”
“You shouldn’t waste that on pranks.” There was no condescension in his tone. Just a fact.
Your chin lifted instinctively. “I don’t waste anything.”
His lips twitched almost imperceptibly. “I can see that.” He glanced once more at the armor, then back at you. “Next time,” he said calmly, “tell me before you try something like that.”
“Why would I do that?”
“So I can see it up close.”
You stared at him, thrown off balance in a way you didn’t appreciate. “You want to supervise my rule-breaking?” you asked lightly, trying to regain control of the moment.
“I want to see how your mind works when you’re not being graded.”
That did something to you. Because most people liked you for what you produced. Your scores. Your boldness in class.
But Sunghoon wasn’t impressed by results. He was curious about process.
You tilted your head, studying him the way he’d been studying you.
“You’re strange,” you decided.
A faint flicker of something — almost amusement — passed through his eyes.
“So are you.”
And somehow, that felt like agreement.
After that night, he didn’t disappear back into quiet observation.
He sought you out.
The next time you entered Advanced Defensive Theory, the seat beside you was occupied.
By him.
He didn’t acknowledge it. Didn’t look at you when you sat down.
He never made a spectacle of it. Sunghoon didn’t do spectacle.
He existed beside you like a shadow that chose to stay.
You found yourself looking for him.
In the Great Hall, your eyes would drift to the Ravenclaw table without permission. In the library, you’d pretend not to notice him already seated near the section you favored. In corridors, you’d sense him before you saw him.
By fifth year, people had started noticing how Sunghoon was always there. Always just slightly behind you. Or beside you. Close enough that the space between you felt claimed.
He didn’t touch you often in public. But when he did, it was obvious.
A hand at the small of your back when a corridor grew too crowded. Fingers brushing yours briefly before class began. Standing half a step in front of you when someone he didn’t like tried to linger in conversation.
He never raised his voice. He never made scenes.
He didn’t need to.
People felt the quiet warning in his stare. The calm certainty in the way he said, “She’s busy,” without asking your permission — but somehow knowing you didn’t mind.
And you didn’t.
Because it wasn’t suffocating.
It was grounding.
You liked knowing someone that sharp had chosen you.
The Yule Ball was when everything shifted.
Until then, whatever existed between you and Sunghoon had lived in the spaces between words — in shared glances across classrooms, in late-night study sessions that stretched a little too long, in the way he always seemed to appear at your side without being asked.
But the Yule Ball made things visible, bringing it to the light.
You had agreed to attend with a boy from your house — charming, well-liked, perfectly acceptable. The kind of boy your parents would approve of. The kind that smiled easily and didn’t carry storms behind his eyes.
He’d asked weeks in advance, red-faced but hopeful. You had said yes because it was simple.
Because Sunghoon hadn’t asked.
In fact, he hadn’t said anything at all when invitations began circulating. No jealousy. No claim. Not even curiosity. Just that same unreadable expression he always wore when he was thinking too much.
You told yourself it didn’t matter.
The night of the Yule Ball, the Great Hall was transformed — floating candles suspended beneath an enchanted winter sky, snow drifting lazily along the ceiling, frost-kissed trees lining the walls. Music swelled from the corner where instruments played themselves in elegant harmony. Students glittered in dress robes and jewel-toned gowns, laughter echoing against marble floors.
You felt beautiful. Confident.
Your date was attentive, polite. His hand rested at your waist as you danced, guiding you through the rhythm.
And yet— You felt it.
Across the room. A weight.
Your eyes found him without trying.
Sunghoon stood near one of the ice sculptures, half-shadowed by flickering candlelight. Dark robes tailored perfectly to his tall frame. Hair pushed back just enough to reveal the sharp lines of his face. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t dancing. He was watching.
Not the room though. No he was watching you.
You looked away first.
The music shifted into something slower. Your date’s hand slid lower on your waist — just slightly. Enough to be noticeable. Enough to feel presumptuous.
“You clean up nicely,” he murmured near your ear, breath warm against your skin. His fingers pressed a fraction too firmly against your hip.
You stiffened.
It wasn’t overtly inappropriate. But it wasn’t respectful either.
Across the ballroom, Sunghoon went very still. The kind of stillness that meant calculation.
You barely saw the movement. Just a subtle shift of his wrist. A controlled flick.
Your date’s foot caught on absolutely nothing. He pitched forward, balance vanishing beneath him as though the floor itself had betrayed him. Robes tangled. Shoes scraped uselessly against polished marble.
He went down hard.
A ripple of gasps. Then laughter.
Your date scrambled upright, face burning crimson, muttering something about slick floors.
You excused yourself with an apologetic smile and crossed the ballroom, ignoring curious stares. The music swelled behind you, but it felt distant now.
You found him near the edge of the Hall, partially obscured by the silver branches of an enchanted tree.
“You hexed him,” you said quietly.
“Yes.” No hesitation. No attempt to deny it. “He was inappropriate.”
Your brows lifted. “I could’ve handled it.”
“I know.”
That answer threw you.
You expected defensiveness. A justification. Instead, his voice remained calm.
He stepped closer. Close enough that you felt the warmth radiating from him despite the winter air drifting through the enchanted doors.
“I didn’t want you to,” he said. “He touched you like he thought you owed him something.” The possessiveness wasn’t loud. It was precise.
“And you think I owe you?” you challenged softly, though your voice lacked bite.
His gaze locked onto yours.
“No.” A pause. “I think you’re mine.” The words weren’t playful. They weren’t flirtatious.
Your heart hammered so loudly you were certain he could hear it.
“You don’t get to decide that,” you whispered.
“I already did.”
You should have stepped back. You should have bristled. Instead, warmth flooded your chest. It wasn't like he wasn’t claiming control over you, but like he was claiming commitment to you.
The difference mattered.
He leaned down slowly — giving you time to move if you wanted to.
You didn’t.
When his lips met yours, it wasn’t rushed. It was controlled intensity. Like he was memorizing the feeling.
Your fingers curled into the front of his robes, pulling him closer without thinking, while his hand slid to your lower back, anchoring you there.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested briefly against yours.
“You should’ve told me,” he murmured.
“Told you what?”
“That he asked you.”
Your heart skipped.
“You never asked me.”
His jaw tightened slightly. “I don’t compete,” he answered quietly.
You smiled faintly. “That’s arrogant.”
From that night on, there was no ambiguity. You were together. And together, you were formidable. You loved him. Not because he was gentle. But because when he chose something — or someone — he never did it halfway.
You didn’t see the warning signs. You didn’t question the intensity.
You were young and in love.
And completely unaware of how dangerous it would become when the world outside Hogwarts demanded something darker from him.
The change began in the summer before sixth year, subtle and insidious, like ink bleeding slowly across parchment.
You didn’t notice it immediately — how could you, when you were separated by distance and the obligations of separate worlds? Letters had always been your bridge. His used to arrive heavy with detail: sharp observations about Ministry decrees he found illogical, notes on experimental charm variations he’d tested in the quiet of his family estate, even the occasional dry remark about a tedious pure-blood gathering where politics masqueraded as polite conversation. He wrote in that precise, slanted script, filling margins when the page ran out, as if he couldn’t bear to leave anything unsaid.
Then the replies grew shorter.
Not colder, exactly. Still polite. Still him in their careful construction.
I’m well.
Studying.
Family obligations are tedious.
Don’t do anything reckless.
You stared at the sparse lines, turning the parchment over as though more might appear on the reverse. You told yourself it was the pressure of summer — pure-blood families demanded appearances, alliances, endless dinners where every word was weighed like galleons. You knew that life. You lived echoes of it yourself. So you wrote longer letters in response: the Kneazle at your creature assessment internship that nearly took a chunk out of your sleeve, the new hex variation you’d been perfecting (more elegant containment, less backlash), how the days felt longer without him near.
He never acknowledged those parts.
The train ride back to Hogwarts should have felt like returning to solid ground.
The platform at King’s Cross thrummed with familiar chaos — trunks clattering over stone, owls hooting indignantly from cages, students calling greetings across the steam. The scarlet engine huffed impatiently, ready to pull away.
You stepped onto the Hogwarts Express with that old thrill sparking in your chest, scanning the corridor instinctively.
There he was.
Sunghoon stood near the far end, posture rigid, dark robes immaculate. He looked… honed. Leaner, sharper, as though the summer had stripped away anything soft. His features stood out more starkly — high cheekbones, jaw set in quiet tension, dark hair pushed back.
Your heart lurched forward before your feet did.
You wove through the crowd.
“Sunghoon—”
He turned.
For the briefest instant, something flickered in his eyes — relief, perhaps, or recognition so raw it almost hurt to see. Then it disappeared.
“You look well,” he said. The words sounding practiced, like lines from a script he didn’t entirely believe. No smile. No step toward you.
You tried for lightness. “You look like you forgot how to write more than two sentences.”
His gaze flicked down the corridor — scanning faces, checking distance — before returning to you.
“I was busy.”
“With what?”
“Things.”
The train lurched into motion. Compartments filled with chatter. You reached for his hand out of long habit.
He let you take it. But his fingers didn’t curl around yours the way they used to. The grip was there — present, but restrained. Distant. Like he was permitting contact rather than returning it.
You told yourself it was nothing.
The first weeks of sixth year unwinded in small fractures.
He still walked beside you to classes. Still claimed the seat next to yours in shared classes. Still dismantled questions with that same surgical intelligence. But he no longer lingered.
After lessons, he rose quickly. “I have something to handle.”
“With who?” you’d ask, keeping your tone casual.
“It doesn’t concern you.”
The phrase settled between you like a wall, repeated often enough to feel rehearsed.
He stopped the small touches, no idle tracing of your wrist while you read side by side, no hand at the small of your back when corridors grew crowded. He stood near, but the space between felt hollow. Air where warmth used to be.
When another student flirted with you — bold, harmless — he didn’t react. No sharpened stare. No quiet step forward. He simply watched, detached, expression unreadable.
That detachment cut deeper than any flash of jealousy ever had.
One night in the library, the air thick with dust and candle smoke, you couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“You’re distant.”
He didn’t lift his eyes from the page.
“I’m studying.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Silence.
You reached across the table and gently closed the book in his hands.
“Talk to me.”
His jaw flexed, then he looked up at you. His eyes weren’t cold. They were exhausted — shadowed beneath, darker than you remembered, as though sleep had become optional. His shoulders carried perpetual tension, braced for impact.
“You’re overthinking,” he said quietly.
You searched his face for the boy who once told you he didn’t underestimate you.
“Are you pulling away from me?” The question landed heavy.
For a heartbeat, vulnerability cracked through, then it vanished, sealed behind composure.
“No.”
But he didn’t reach for you. Didn’t soften the line of his mouth. Didn’t offer the reassurance you ached for. The absence of those things hurt more than any denial.
You began noticing the edges of something larger.
Whispers among certain pure-blood circles. Quick glances exchanged in corridors. Conversations that broke off when you approached. Sunghoon spent time now with people he once dismissed — sons of old families, names that lingered in the darker corners of wizarding news.
“You’ve made new friends,” you said once, trying to keep it light.
“They’re useful.”
Useful. The word landed like a curse.
You worried. But pride and trust kept you from chasing.
Sunghoon had always been intense. Maybe this was simply… evolution. Family pressure. Sixth-year expectations. The weight of futures already mapped out.
You decided to give him space.
You stopped reaching first. Stopped asking where he disappeared to. Stopped pressing when he drew the line with “It doesn’t concern you.”
You smiled in public. Threw yourself into studies, into Auror training, into anything that filled the hours without requiring you to name the growing silence.
At night, though, alone in your dormitory, the questions returned.
You would lie awake, staring at the ceiling as moonlight spilled through the window, replaying every small shift: the way he flinched — just barely — when your fingers brushed his forearm once; the way he scanned corridors before speaking your name; the gradual cooling of his voice.
Love didn’t vanish overnight, you told yourself. People changed under pressure. Brilliant minds bent strangely under strain.
But distance, once offered, sometimes refused to take root.
You tried. Gods, you tried. In the weeks that followed, you became an expert in finding ways to avoid most interactions. You arrived to class three minutes late so the seat beside him was already taken by someone else—usually a wide-eyed third-year who didn’t know better when you smiled apologetically and claimed the far end of the row. You lingered in the library only until the candles burned to half-height, then packed your things with brisk efficiency before he could suggest walking back together. In the corridors you kept your eyes forward, chin high, laughter a little louder when your friends surrounded you, as if volume alone could fill the hollow space he used to occupy.
You told yourself it was kindness. Space. The gift he seemed to want.
He never thanked you for it. Instead, the opposite began to happen.
At first it was small things, easy to dismiss as coincidence. He appeared at the entrance to the Great Hall just as you were leaving breakfast, falling into step beside you without a word, his shoulder brushing yours once, twice, before you could widen the gap. When you chose a different table in the library—tucked and out of sight—he was already there the next evening, book open to the exact page you needed, as though he’d known your research schedule better than you did.
You tried harder.
You stopped going to the Astronomy Tower at midnight, the place that had once been yours without discussion. You joined a study group for NEWT-level Potions that met three evenings a week in the dungeons—loud, crowded, safe. On the fourth night, you slipped out early, expecting an empty corridor.
But it wasn’t.
He was leaning against the stone wall opposite the dungeon stairs, arms folded, silver prefect badge catching the torchlight like a warning. The same unreadable expression, but something sharper beneath it now. Tension in the line of his jaw. A muscle ticking once, twice.
“You’re avoiding me,” he said.
You paused mid-step, heart lurching against your ribs. “I’m giving you space. You said—”
“I didn’t say disappear.” His answer came faster than usual.
The corridor felt suddenly narrower. Torch flames flickered as though the air had shifted. You swallowed. “I’m not disappearing. I’m… respecting your boundaries.”
His eyes narrowed fractionally—the only crack in the composure. He pushed off the wall in one fluid motion and closed the distance until only a handspan remained between you. Close enough to see the faint shadows under his eyes, the way his lashes cast spidery lines across his cheeks in the low light.
“My boundaries,” he repeated, tasting the word like it was foreign. “Is that what you think this is?”
You lifted your chin. “You flinch when I touch you. You vanish for hours and come back smelling like rain and smoke. What else am I supposed to think?”
For a moment he said nothing. Just looked at you—really looked, the way he used to when the whole world narrowed to just the two of you. Then his hand moved, slow enough that you could have stepped away. His fingers brushed your wrist, then closed around it.
“I don’t want space,” he said. The words were barely above a whisper, but they landed like a spell. “I never asked for space.”
“Then what do you want, Sunghoon?” Your voice cracked on his name despite every effort to keep it steady. “Because you’re pulling away and holding on at the same time and I can’t—I can’t breathe in the middle.”
His thumb traced once over the pulse point at your wrist, feeling the frantic beat there. Something fractured in his expression—brief, almost invisible, but you caught it. The same flicker you’d seen on the train platform the first day back. Relief edged with pain.
“I want you here,” he said. “Even when I can’t… even when I shouldn’t.” His free hand lifted, hesitated, then tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear with a gentleness that contradicted every sharp line of his posture. “I need you close enough that I can still see you. Still know you’re safe. Still—” He stopped. Swallowed. “Still feel like I’m not completely gone.”
You could feel the tremor in his fingers against your skin, the way his breathing had shallowed. This was the boy who never made spectacles, never raised his voice, never admitted weakness—and yet here he was, confessing in a dungeon corridor that smelled of damp stone and old potions, that the distance you’d offered was carving him open.
You should have pulled away. Should have demanded answers. Instead your free hand rose of its own accord and settled against his chest, right over the place where his heart hammered beneath layers of wool and restraint.
“You’re scaring me,” you whispered.
“I know.” His forehead dropped to rest against yours. “I’m scaring myself.” His gaze traced every line of your face as though he were memorizing it again: the arch of your brows, the curve of your mouth. He looked at you like you were the last solid thing in a world that had begun to slip through his fingers.
His hand—the one still wrapped around your wrist—lifted slowly, until his fingertips grazed the edge of your jaw. He tilted your face up the barest fraction, the gesture was so careful it almost hurt.
Then he closed the distance.
His lips brushed yours once—soft, testing, almost a question. When you didn’t pull away, didn’t push away, he pressed again, firmer this time. Still slow. But the restraint was fraying; you could feel it in the tremor that ran through his fingers, in the way his breath hitched against your mouth.
You didn’t kiss him back.
You let him have this—let him pour everything he couldn’t say into the careful press of his lips, the way he lingered at the corner of your mouth as though afraid to demand more. His other hand came to your waist, fingers splaying wide, anchoring you against the cold stone wall at your back without caging you. He kissed you like he was apologizing. Like he was asking permission with every slow slide of his mouth over yours.
And then—he pulled you closer.
One decisive tug, erasing the last sliver of space between your bodies. Your chest pressed flush to his, the hard planes of him meeting the softer give of you, and something inside you simply gave way.
You melted.
The resistance you’d been clinging to dissolved in a rush of heat and want and relief so sharp it bordered on pain. Your lips parted on a soft, involuntary sound, and you kissed him back.
Your arms moved without conscious thought. Up. Around his neck. Fingers sliding into the dark silk of his hair at the nape, threading through the strands he kept so ruthlessly neat. You tugged—just enough—and he groaned.
The sound vibrated against your mouth, low and rough and wrecked. It sent a shiver racing down your spine. His control snapped another fraction; the hand at your waist tightened, the other sliding up to cradle the back of your neck. Long fingers curled around the column of your throat, guiding your head exactly where he wanted it so he could angle deeper.
The kiss turned molten.
His tongue slipped past your lips, slow at first, exploratory, tasting you like he was relearning every inch. Your fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him closer still, and he answered with a low sound that made your knees threaten to buckle.
His free hand began to wander, skimming up your side, thumb brushing the underside of your breast through fabric before continuing, mapping the line of your ribs, the dip of your waist, the sharp edge of your shoulder blade. You arched instinctively into the touch, and he took advantage—pressing you harder against the wall, thigh sliding between yours just enough to make you gasp into his mouth.
Your palms slid down from his hair to the broad span of his shoulders, feeling muscle that hadn’t been quite so defined last year. He’d always been lean, elegant, precise. Now he felt lethal. Like a blade that had finally been sharpened to its full edge.
Another groan rumbled through him when your nails dragged lightly down his back. He retaliated by sucking your bottom lip between his teeth—gentle, then firmer—until you moaned, the sound swallowed by his mouth.
Sunghoon’s mouth left yours only long enough to drag hot, open kisses along your jaw, his teeth grazed the sensitive spot just below your ear and you arched.
You retaliated by sliding your hands under his robes, over the crisp white shirt he always kept buttoned to the throat like armor, his abdomen contracted under your touch, a sharp inhale escaping him when your nails scraped lightly just above the waistband of his trousers. He was breathing unevenly now. You felt the evidence of how much he wanted you pressing insistently against your hip, and the realization sent a fresh wave of heat pooling low in your belly.
His fingers found the first button of your shirt—popped it open with a deft flick. Then the second. Cool air kissed the newly bared skin of your collarbone, your sternum, and he followed it with his mouth—kissing a slow path downward until your head tipped back against the wall with a soft thud. Your shirt hung half-open now, one side slipping off your shoulder with your robe. His hand slid inside, cupping the soft swell of your breast through the thin fabric of your bra, thumb brushing over the peak until it hardened under his touch and you whimpered his name.
“Quiet,” he murmured against your skin, voice wrecked, but the command lacked its usual steel. It sounded more like a plea. “Someone could—”
You cut him off by tugging his shirt free of his trousers and dragging your nails down his sides, harder this time. He bucked against you once—instinctive, helpless—and then his mouth was back on yours, tongues sliding together in a rhythm that matched the frantic press of hips. His free hand dropped to your thigh, hitching your leg up around his waist so he could settle more firmly between them. The friction was devastating. You rocked against him without thinking, chasing the pressure, and he groaned so deeply it felt like it came from the center of his chest.
His belt buckle clinked softly as he shifted—fingers fumbling for the zipper of his trousers with less grace than usual. You helped, impatient, your hand brushing over the hard length of him through fabric before he managed to free himself. The sound he made when your fingers wrapped around him—low, broken, almost pained—sent a shiver racing through you. He thrust shallowly into your grip once, twice, forehead dropping to your shoulder as though the sensation had short-circuited every thought he’d ever had.
You were both lost in it now—clothes askew, breaths mingling, bodies straining toward the same desperate edge. His hand slipped beneath your skirt, fingertips teasing along the edge of your underwear, pressing just enough to make your hips jerk—
A sharp, indignant meow.
High-pitched. Close. Too close.
You both froze.
Mrs. Norris stood at the end of the corridor, tail lashing, yellow eyes gleaming with accusation in the torchlight. Her thin, mangy frame was silhouetted against the flickering flames, ears flattened, mouth open in another warning yowl that promised Filch wasn’t far behind.
Reality crashed in like ice water.
Sunghoon swore under his breath—vicious—and released you so fast you nearly stumbled. You scrambled back against the wall, hands flying to your shirt. Fingers shook as you fumbled buttons back into place, missing the first one twice before managing to close the top enough to look halfway decent. Your bra strap had slipped down your shoulder; you yanked it up, cheeks burning.
Sunghoon moved with the same frantic efficiency. He tucked himself back into his trousers with a wince, zipped up, fastened his belt in one swift motion. His shirt was still untucked, hair mussed beyond repair, lips swollen and glistening. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand like that could erase what had just happened.
Mrs. Norris hissed again, louder.
“Bloody cat,” Sunghoon muttered, voice hoarse. He grabbed your wrist and tugged you toward the nearest darkest alcove, pressing you both into shadow just as distant footsteps echoed from the stairwell. Filch’s wheezy voice drifted down, calling for his infernal pet.
You held your breath, heart hammering so loudly you were sure it would give you away. Sunghoon’s chest rose and fell rapidly beside you, his hand still locked around your wrist like he couldn’t bear to let go even now. His thumb stroked once—unconscious, soothing—over your racing pulse.
The footsteps paused. Mrs. Norris yowled once more, then trotted off toward the sound of her owner’s voice. The corridor fell silent again.
Neither of you moved for a long moment.
Then Sunghoon exhaled—shaky, almost a laugh.
“We’re going to get expelled one day,” he said quietly, voice still rough around the edges.
You turned your head just enough to meet his eyes. They were dark, pupils still blown, but the corner of his mouth twitched in something dangerously close to a smile.
“Worth it?” you whispered.
He looked at your mouth then back to your eyes. “Every damn time.”
He leaned in, pressed one last, slow kiss to the corner of your lips—soft this time, almost tender—before stepping back and straightening his robes with shaking hands. “Come on,” he murmured. “Before they return.”
You followed him on unsteady legs, shirt still crooked, hair a disaster, skin still burning where he’d touched you.
From that night onward, he kept you close.
It felt, at first, like a gift. Like the calendar had flipped backwards, to when every glance carried promise and every brush of shoulders felt like a secret. In the days that followed, he was there—always there—whenever you came to him.
You slid onto the bench beside him at the Ravenclaw table in the Great Hall one morning, still half-asleep, and before you could even reach for the pumpkin juice, his arm had already draped casually around your shoulders. Just close enough that the warmth of him seeped through your robes, close enough that anyone looking would see the claim without him ever needing to speak it.
In the library, he had already claimed your usual table, you came and sat beside him, greeting him lovingly. When your quill rolled off the edge, he caught it mid-fall and set it back. When you leaned over to point out a note, his head tilted toward yours until your temples nearly touched, breath warm against your cheek. Perfect. Attentive. Exactly the boyfriend who once memorized the rhythm of your pulse.
It should have felt like coming home.
But the more it happened, the more you noticed the pattern beneath the perfection.
He never came to you first.
Never.
Not once.
You were always the one to seek him out. You were always the one to slide onto the bench beside him, to claim the chair across from him, to walk the extra corridor to where he usually studied. If you didn’t—if you waited, testing—he simply… wasn’t there. He didn’t appear at breakfast looking for you. Didn’t linger outside your common room. Didn’t send an owl asking where you’d gone. He existed in his own orbit, precise and self-contained, and only intersected with yours when you crossed into his path.
And when you did, he became flawless.
Strategic.
The word lodged in your chest like a splinter.
You began to watch him more closely.
His social circle hadn’t changed since the summer. If anything, it had tightened. The same cluster of pure-blood students—tall, pale, impeccably dressed— always murmuring in low voices when professors passed. Names that carried old weight: Malfoy, Zabini, Nott, Greengrass, even a Lestrange boy two years above who’d returned for his NEWTs with a permanent sneer. They spoke of blood status the way other people spoke of Quidditch scores—casual, dismissive. Half-bloods were “adequate, at best.” Muggle-borns were “a temporary inconvenience.”
Sunghoon sat among them.
Not loudly. Not performing. But he was there—listening, nodding once in a while, offering the occasional dry comment that made them laugh in that sharp, knowing way. When one of them sneered at a Gryffindor first-year who’d tripped over their own robes, Sunghoon didn’t join in. But he didn’t correct them either. He simply looked away, jaw tight, and changed the subject.
You hated it.
Every time you caught him at their table, something cold twisted in your stomach. You hated the way their eyes slid over you when you approached—like you were an interesting specimen rather than a person. You hated the way Sunghoon’s posture shifted fractionally straighter when you were near. You hated most of all that he still let you pull him away from them—let you thread your fingers through his and lead him toward the doors—without ever once apologizing for where he’d been sitting.
Because he was smart. Brilliant, really.
He should know better. He did know better. And yet he stayed in their orbit.
You told yourself it was survival. Pure-blood politics were a chessboard, and Sunghoon had always played three moves ahead. Maybe he was gathering information. Maybe he was protecting himself. Maybe he was protecting you.
But the doubt had taken root now, small and poisonous. Because when you weren’t there—when you didn’t cross into his path—he didn’t reach for you. And when you did, his perfection felt less like love and more like compensation. Like he was trying to keep you tethered with touches and kisses and murmured promises so you wouldn’t look too closely at the company he kept when your back was turned.
One evening in the library, you watched him from across the stacks.
You hadn’t meant to hide. Not really. You’d come looking for a specific volume on advanced counter-curses and the section had offered the perfect vantage. You could see without being seen. Or so you’d thought.
Sunghoon sat at the long oak table near the center of the room, flanked by Nott and Zabini. The three of them formed a closed triangle: heads bent over the same length of parchment, quills moving in lazy unison. From this distance their voices were a low murmur, punctuated by the occasional soft scrape of ink on paper and the rustle of turning pages. They looked like any other group of sixth-years cramming for NEWTs.
Except they weren’t.
You noticed it in pieces.
First, the way their eyes flicked outward—not randomly, but with purpose. A Hufflepuff girl with ink-stained fingers and a second-hand robe walked past, head down, hurrying away. Nott’s lip curled, just enough. He leaned in and muttered something. Zabini’s shoulders shook once in silent laughter. Sunghoon didn’t laugh. But the corner of his mouth twitched—small, almost imperceptible. Then he added something under his breath. Whatever it was made Nott snort outright and Zabini cover his mouth with the back of his hand.
Next came a Ravenclaw boy—lanky, glasses perpetually slipping, the kind of student who always answered questions too eagerly in class. He passed within ten feet of their table, arms full of books. Zabini tilted his head, murmured something about “eager little half-bloods thinking they belong here.” Nott smirked. And then, almost casual Sunghoon spoke.
“Careful,” he said, voice carrying just far enough for you to catch it. “He might hear you and start crying to McGonagall again.”
The words were dry. Detached. But they landed like a spark on dry tinder. Nott barked a short laugh. Zabini leaned back in his chair, eyes gleaming. The Ravenclaw boy faltered mid-step, cheeks flushing, then hurried faster without looking back.
You felt your stomach turn over.
Sunghoon had instigated it.
Not in the theatrical way some Slytherins liked to perform. But he’d fed it. A single sentence—perfectly timed—and the others had latched on like wolves scenting blood. He didn’t join in the laughter. He simply returned to the parchment, expression serene, as though he’d commented on the weather.
You pressed your back harder against the shelf, heart thudding unevenly. The candle closest to you threw long shadows across your hiding place. You told yourself to leave. To walk away before you saw anything else that would make the splinter in your chest dig deeper.
But you stayed.
Another student passed—a Muggle-born Gryffindor fourth-year, red tie askew, laughing too loudly at something her friend had said. Zabini’s gaze tracked her like a hawk. He opened his mouth.
Before he could speak, Sunghoon lifted his head slightly.
And looked directly toward you.
A tiny, involuntary squeak escaped you, barely audible, swallowed instantly by the library’s hush—but it felt deafening in your own ears.
He couldn’t see you… could he?
You were hidden. Well hidden. Tucked behind two rows of towering tomes on goblin rebellions, half-obscured by a ladder and the angle of the shelf. Your robes blended with the shadows. There was no way…
And yet his gaze had locked exactly on your position.
For one frozen second his eyes narrowed—searching, assessing—then softened in recognition. The faintest curve touched his lips. Not a smile. Something private. Something that said I know you’re there.
Your pulse roared in your ears. Why would he look here? How could he possibly—
Nott’s voice cut through the silence, casual and amused.
“Oi, Park. You’ve gone soft staring at the shelves again?” He followed Sunghoon’s line of sight, squinting into the gloom. “Or is that your little flower lurking back there?”
Sunghoon didn’t flinch. Didn’t look guilty. He simply leaned back in his chair, arms crossing loosely over his chest, and let one brow lift in mild interest.
“She’s not lurking,” he said evenly. “She’s studying.”
Zabini chuckled low. “Studying us, more like. Must be thrilling, watching the future of wizarding society at work.”
Nott grinned, sharp and lazy. “Lucky bastard, though. Perfect girlfriend, isn’t she? Loyal. Pretty. Doesn’t ask too many questions.” He nudged Sunghoon’s elbow. “Bet she melts every time you look at her. Must make the rest of it easier.”
Sunghoon’s expression didn’t change.
But you saw it—the micro-second tightening at the corner of his eye. The way his fingers flexed once against his sleeve. He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet. Almost gentle.
“She’s more than that.”
Nott opened his mouth for another quip, then closed it again when Sunghoon’s gaze slid sideways to him. Something cold and unreadable passed over Sunghoon’s face.
Zabini cleared his throat, suddenly very interested in the parchment again. Nott shrugged, smirk fading into something more neutral.
Sunghoon’s eyes returned to the shadows where you stood. He didn’t beckon. Didn’t call your name. Just held your gaze across the distance until the weight of it became unbearable.
Your heart hammered against your ribs so hard you were sure the sound would carry.
You sighed.
It slipped out before you could stop it—soft, defeated, the sound of someone who had already lost the argument with themselves. Your shoulders dropped a fraction. The book you’d been clutching like a shield felt suddenly ridiculous in your hands.
And then you stepped out.
One foot, then the other. Candlelight caught on the edges of your robes as you emerged from the alcove’s gloom into the open aisle. You kept your chin up, eyes locked on his, refusing to shrink even as heat crawled up your neck.
Sunghoon’s gaze sharpened the instant you crossed into the light.
It wasn’t the soft, private look he’d worn a moment earlier. This was something else—something honed, possessive, almost predatory. His eyes narrowed fractionally, with the faintest tilt of his head, like a predator acknowledging movement in the grass.
Then he lifted a hand.
Slow. Elegant. Palm up, fingers relaxed—except for the index one.
He crooked it.
Once.
A single curl of his finger.
Come here.
The gesture was small. Insignificant to anyone watching who didn’t know him. But to you it landed like a spell—silent, binding, impossible to ignore. Your feet moved before your mind could catch up. One step. Another. Crossing the open floor toward their table as though pulled by invisible thread.
Nott and Zabini noticed. Nott’s smirk widened into something lazy and approving. Zabini leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching the exchange like it was private theater staged just for him.
Regret hit you like cold water the second your body obeyed.
Why did you do that?
Why did you let one crooked finger pull you across a crowded room like a summoned house-elf?
You’d walked to him. In front of them. Because he crooked a finger.
Like you were his. Like you’d always been his.
Nott let out a low whistle, soft enough not to draw Madam Pince’s attention. “Merlin. That was almost poetic.”
Zabini chuckled under his breath. “She comes when called. Convenient.”
Sunghoon didn’t acknowledge either of them.
You however turned your head just enough to side-eye them.
Nott first—lounging with one elbow propped on the table, chin resting on his fist, dark eyes glittering with amusement. The smirk hadn’t faded; if anything, it had deepened into something smug, satisfied, as though your obedience had confirmed some private bet he’d made with himself. Zabini was worse in his stillness—arms crossed over his chest, one brow arched in faint, mocking approval. Neither of them said anything more. They didn’t need to. Their silence was loud enough: Look at her. Look how easily she folds.
Heat crawled up the back of your neck—anger, embarrassment, a sharp twist of something you refused to name. You let your gaze linger on them a second longer than necessary, letting them see the edge in your expression. Not fear. Not submission. Just cold, quiet warning: I see you too.
Nott’s smirk only widened at the challenge, lazy and predatory, like he found your defiance amusing rather than threatening. Zabini tilted his head, dark eyes gleaming with detached interest, as though you were a particularly interesting exhibit in a glass case.
Before either of them could open their mouths again, Sunghoon moved. Without looking away from your face, without so much as shifting his shoulders, he extended one long leg under the table. The motion was casual, almost lazy—until the toe of his polished shoe connected with the side of Nott’s bench. A single, firm push.
The bench scraped back and Nott’s balance vanished.
He pitched sideways with an undignified yelp, arms windmilling for half a second before he hit the floor in a sprawl of robes. A soft thud, followed by the unmistakable clatter of ink bottle rolling under the table. A few nearby heads turned; someone stifled a laugh behind a book.
Nott scrambled up almost immediately, face flushed crimson, mouth already opening on a retort.
“Enough,” Sunghoon said. Voice low. Flat. Final.
Nott recovered quickly, righting himself with exaggerated nonchalance, but the smirk faltered for half a second. Zabini raised both brows, amusement flickering, though he said nothing.
Sunghoon’s attention never wavered from your face.
“Sit,” he said. Low. Quiet.
You glared at him.
The look you gave him was pure venom—narrowed eyes, lips pressed into a thin line, every line of your body screaming don’t you dare think this fixes anything. You wanted to turn on your heel. Wanted to leave him there with his smug friends and his carefully curated distance. Wanted to prove you weren’t the girl who came when called.
Your jaw tightened. Your hands curled into loose fists at your sides.
He didn’t flinch.
Instead he reached out and hooked two fingers through the belt loop at the side of your skirt. One gentle tug. The impact was soft. Cushioned. Because the second you were close enough, his arm slid around your waist. He drew you in until your side was flush against his, until the length of your thigh pressed along his, until there was no space left for doubt. His hand settled at the dip of your waist—then drifted lower. Dangerous. The heel of his palm rested just above the curve of your ass, fingers splayed wide enough that the tips brushed the upper swell through your skirt. Not groping. Not crude. Just a claim so blatant it made heat flare low in your belly despite everything.
His scent washed over you in the next breath—cedarwood, clean parchment, the faintest trace of winter air that always clung to him after flying. It curled into your lungs like smoke, familiar and devastating. Your shoulders wanted to drop. Your spine wanted to soften. You hated it.
You let yourself halfway melt anyway.
Your head tipped—just a fraction—until your temple brushed his shoulder. Not forgiveness. Just exhaustion. Just the bone-deep relief of being held when everything else felt like it was slipping.
Nott, back on the bench now, robes askew and pride clearly bruised, let out a low, mocking whistle.
“Merlin, Park,” he drawled, leaning back with renewed amusement. “You’ve got her trained better than a Cruciatus curse.”
Zabini leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin resting on laced fingers. His voice was silk over steel.
“She looks good like that, though. All flushed and obedient.” His gaze slid over you—slow, appreciative, lingering a second too long on where Sunghoon’s hand disappeared against your side. “If you ever get tired of the brooding Ravenclaw routine, love, my bench has plenty of room.”
You stiffened.
Sunghoon’s arm tightened around you, then his head turned. When his eyes met Zabini’s, the temperature in the immediate radius dropped ten degrees.
“Shut. Up.”
Nott opened his mouth—probably to push, because that was what Nott did—but Sunghoon’s gaze slid to him next. One look. That was all it took. Nott closed his mouth again. Shrugged. Picked up his quill like nothing had happened.
Zabini exhaled through his nose and leaned back, pulling his own book toward him.
“Fine. Touchy tonight, are we?”
They both bent their heads over parchment.
They weren’t studying. Not really. Quills moved in lazy strokes. Eyes flicked sideways every few seconds—watching, waiting for the next crack in composure. But they kept their mouths shut. Kept their teasing leers to themselves.
Because the message was clear:
She’s mine. Back off.
You felt the tension in his frame—the way his fingers flexed once against your side, the way his breathing stayed even despite the storm you could sense coiling beneath his skin.
His thumb stroked once—slow, soothing—along the line of your waist.
A silent promise. Or maybe a silent apology.
You weren’t sure which.
For weeks you tried—really tried—to give him the benefit of the doubt. You told yourself the library incident was a one-off, a momentary slip under pressure from Nott and Zabini’s goading. You reminded yourself that Sunghoon had always been sharp-tongued when cornered; it was part of what drew you to him in the first place. The way he could dismantle someone with a single sentence and never raise his voice. You loved that about him. You still did, in the private moments when it was just the two of you and the rest of the world felt far away.
But the moments weren’t private anymore.
You watched it happen again and again.
In the corridors between classes, when a nervous Hufflepuff fourth-year dropped their books in front of him—Sunghoon didn’t help pick them up. He stepped over the scattered parchment, glanced down at the trembling kid, and murmured something low enough that only the cluster of pure-bloods around him caught it. Whatever it was made them laugh loudly. The boy flushed scarlet and scrambled to gather his things alone.
You loved your boyfriend.
You did.
You loved the boy who once hexed your date at the Yule Ball because his hand had rested too low. You loved the boy who kissed you like you were oxygen in a room without air. You loved the way he memorized spell structures and shared them with you in late-night whispers, the way his fingers traced protective runes on your skin when he thought you were asleep.
But not when he was like this.
Not when he let those words slip so easily. Not when he chose silence over correction. Not when he fed the cruelty instead of starving it.
You tried to bring it up.
The first time was in the empty Charms classroom after curfew, moonlight spilling through tall windows, turning the desks silver. You’d waited until the castle quieted, until it was just the two of you and the faint hum of sleeping portraits.
“Sunghoon,” you started, voice low. “The things you say—the things you let them say—”
He turned from the window where he’d been staring out at the dark grounds.
His expression was unreadable.
Then he crossed the room in three strides.
Before the next word could leave your mouth, his hands were on your waist—lifting, turning, pressing you back against the nearest wall with controlled force. Your breath caught. His mouth crashed into yours, hard and claiming, swallowing whatever protest you’d been forming.
You tried to push back—palms flat against his chest—but his body caged you, pinning you in place. His hands roamed. Under your shirt. Along your ribs. Cupping your breasts through fabric until your nipples peaked and you gasped into his mouth. Fingers digging into your hips hard enough to bruise. Drowning every coherent thought.
When he finally pulled back—just enough to let you drag in air—your mind was already fogging. Eyes glassy. Lips swollen. Knees trembling.
He looked down at you, smirking—slow, dark, victorious. “Can’t even finish a sentence without melting for me.”
The words should have stung. Should have made you shove him away. Instead heat flooded your core. Your thighs clenched around nothing. A soft, broken whimper escaped before you could stop it.
He chuckled—low, cruel—and kissed you again. Slower this time. Deeper. One hand sliding down to palm your ass, squeezing hard enough to make you arch. The other fisted in your hair, tilting your head so he could devour your throat—teeth grazing, then biting, marking you in places your collar wouldn’t hide.
By the time he let you go, you couldn’t remember the exact shape of your argument. Only the taste of him. The ache between your legs. The way your body betrayed you every single time.
It happened again the next week…
And the week after…
Every time you tried to confront him—about the comments, about the company he kept, about the way he let poison seep in—he turned it into this. Into something so intense it erased everything else.
Into him winning. Always winning.
You started coming to class late.
Lips bruised and swollen. Shirt buttoned crooked, collar barely covering the fresh hickeys blooming purple along your collarbone, the faint crescent of bite marks peeking above your tie. Your hair mussed in ways no brush could fix. Eyes still glassy, cheeks flushed, walking with that careful, slightly bow-legged gait that made your friends exchange knowing glances and then look away.
One of them caught your wrist once in the corridor, voice low and worried.
“Are you okay?”
You forced a smile. Nodded. Lied.
“I’m fine.”
You weren’t.
You were exhausted.
Torn between the boy you’d fallen in love with and the one who was slowly disappearing into something darker. Torn between the way your body still craved him and the way your heart ached every time he chose silence over standing up.
You stopped trying to bring it up. Not because you agreed. Not because you stopped caring.
You told yourself one day you’d find the strength to surface. One day you’d make him listen without letting him turn your body against your mind.
One day.
But for now…
For now, you just tried not to look too closely. Tried not to hear the quiet cruelty in his voice. Tried not to notice how the boy you loved was slowly being replaced by someone colder.
Tried not to notice how the relationship tilted, into something slow, insidious, and toxic at the edges. Not broken. Just… off-balance. Like a potion left too long over flame—still drinkable, still sweet in places, but with a bitter aftertaste that lingered no matter how much honey you tried to stir in.
And then the showing-off began.
It started small. A hand on the small of your back as he steered you toward the Slytherin table during free study. Sunghoon didn’t ask if you wanted to stay. He simply guided you to the center of the group, sat you beside him on the bench, and rested his arm along you back like a king displaying his favorite trophy.
“Look who I brought,” he said, voice smooth as polished obsidian. His fingers traced idle circles on your shoulder, right where everyone could see. “My girl.”
The title landed like a claim. Not girlfriend. Not even your name. My girl. Possessive. Proud. Delivered with that quiet, effortless arrogance he wore so well now.
You flushed instantly—cheeks burning, gaze dropping to your lap. You wanted to shrink. To disappear behind Sunghoon’s shoulder. But he wouldn’t let you. His hand slid lower, fingers splaying across your ribs, pulling you closer until your thigh pressed flush against his.
Whenever you tried to pull away—whenever the discomfort crested and you’d whisper, “Not here, Sunghoon, please”—he’d turn it around so smoothly you almost believed him.
“You’re ashamed of me?” he’d ask, voice low and wounded, eyes wide with feigned hurt.
You’d shake your head, throat tight, but the words would tangle. Because part of you did want the dark thrill of being claimed so publicly by the boy everyone else feared a little. And he knew it. That's why he used it.
He started taking you to their private gatherings. He’d walk in with you tucked under his arm like a living accessory, robes slightly askew from the way he’d kissed you breathless in the corridor beforehand. He’d seat you on his lap in front of everyone, one hand resting casually on your thigh under the table, fingers pressing just enough to make you squirm while they discussed bloodlines and loyalty and power.
You wished you could have spoken up.The words had burned on your tongue. This is wrong. They were right there, heavy and sharp: Blood doesn’t decide worth. Everyone at Hogwarts has the right to be here. To learn. To become something greater than the families that birthed them. Muggle-born, half-blood, pure-blood—none of it matters when a spell lights up the same way in every wand.
You wanted to say it out loud. Wanted to cut through the laughter when they sneered about “mudbloods cluttering up the good seats in Potions.” Wanted to look them in the eye and ask how many generations of “superior blood” it took before cruelty became tradition. Wanted to stand up—literally push Sunghoon’s hand off your thigh and stand—and remind them that the castle didn’t check blood status at the gates. How the Sorting Hat never asked for a family tree.
But Sunghoon wouldn’t let you.
It was like he could read the exact moment the rebellion formed behind your eyes. Every single time. His fingers would tighten, a hard press against the inside of your thigh under the heavy oak table, thumb stroking once, twice, right where the hem of your skirt met skin. A silent don’t. His other hand would slide up your spine beneath your robes, fingertips tracing the knobs of your vertebrae until you shivered, until your breath caught and the words dissolved on your tongue.
Or worse—he’d kiss you. Right in the middle of someone else’s sentence. His tongue sliding against yours until your mind blanked and your fingers curled helplessly into the front of his shirt. When he pulled back, your lips would be glossy, your cheeks flushed, and the conversation would have already moved on. The moment was gone. Your courage with it.
He always knew.
Sometimes he’d rest his chin on your shoulder, eyes half-lidded, and murmur against your neck, “You’re thinking too loudly again.” As if your thoughts were something he could taste in the air between you. As if he’d already mapped every moral line you were trying to draw and had decided, long ago, exactly where to blur them.
You started falling down the rabbit hole.
Late at night, alone in your dormitory, the questions gnawed at you like gnats.
Were you even better than them?
You were pure-blood. Old family. Wealth that meant your vault at Gringotts had its own dragon on retainer. Your parents had rooted connections at the Ministry, kept a summer manor where portraits of ancestors sneered down. On paper, you belonged in their circle. You had the blood, the money, the connections.
But your family had never spoken like that.
Your father valued the house-elves with please and thank you. Your mother hired Muggle-born tutors for advanced Arithmancy because “talent is talent.” You had grown up believing Hogwarts belonged to everyone who could make a feather float on their first try. Blood status was a footnote, not a verdict. You had never looked at a first-year with patched robes and thought lesser.
Never.
Yet here you were.
Complicit.
Every time you watched a Hufflepuff girl fall when Nott “accidentally” tripped her in the corridor, you said nothing. Every time Zabini drawled about how “certain bloodlines dilute the magic,” you bit your tongue so hard it bled. Every time Sunghoon added his quiet, cutting remark, you felt the guilt coil tighter in your stomach like a serpent.
You told yourself you were protecting the relationship. That if you spoke, he’d pull away harder. That you couldn't make him choose. That love meant standing beside him even when the ground turned to quicksand.
But the truth was uglier.
It was getting harder to meet your own eyes in the mirror.
You started avoiding your friends entirely. Started walking the long way around the Great Hall so you wouldn’t have to see the Muggle-born students laughing together, unaware of how their joy was being dissected at another table. Started excusing yourself from study groups when the conversation turned to “why some families still cling to old prejudices.”
Because every time you opened your mouth to defend someone—anyone—the memory of Sunghoon’s voice in your ear, his mouth swallowing your protests, would rise like a tide. And you would stay quiet.
You hated the person you were becoming.
You hated how easily your body still arched into his touch even while your mind screamed this is wrong. You hated the way shame and desire had started to braid together so tightly you couldn’t tell them apart anymore.
And still, Sunghoon would turn to you in the empty room, eyes dark and soft all at once, and kiss you like you were the only pure thing left in his world.
“I need you,” he’d whisper against your swollen lips, hands already sliding under your clothes. “Stay with me. Please.”
And you would.
Because loving him had become a kind of drowning where you sank a little deeper into that rabbit hole—questioning your own goodness, your own courage, your own right to judge.
The rest of the year passed like that—slow, suffocating, a quiet erosion.
Exams came. You aced them—both of you did—because brilliance was the one thing neither of you ever lost. But the victories tasted hollow. You celebrated in empty classrooms instead of the common room, his mouth between your legs while your notes lay scattered on the floor, his name the only word you could remember when he finally let you come. Afterward he would hold you against his chest, and whisper how perfect you were. How no one else could ever understand what you had.
You believed him because believing anything else would have broken you.
End-of-year feasts passed in a blur of house banners and golden plates. You sat beside him at the Ravenclaw table, his arm draped over the back of your chair, fingers occasionally slipping beneath the collar of your robes to brush the fading hickeys he’d left the night before.
Then slowly the castle emptied. Trunks rattled down staircases. Owls screeched farewell from the Owlery. You said goodbye to friends with smiles that didn’t reach your eyes, promising letters you already knew you wouldn’t write. Sunghoon vanished into the crowd the morning of departure—gone before breakfast, no note, no goodbye kiss. You told yourself it was better this way. Cleaner. You told yourself the distance might give you space to breathe, to remember who you were before his hands and his voice rewrote you.
The Hogwarts Express carried you back to King’s Cross in heavy silence. You sat alone in a compartment near the back, forehead pressed to the cool glass, watching the countryside blur past. Your reflection looked older, eyes shadowed in a way that had nothing to do with lack of sleep.
Platform 9¾ was chaos when the train finally hissed to a stop. Families reuniting, house-elves scurrying with trunks, parents calling names over. You stepped onto the platform last, suitcase heavy in your hand, heart heavier still. You scanned the crowd once—half hoping, half dreading—and saw nothing.
You sighed and adjusted your grip on the handle.
Then arms came around you from behind.
Strong. Familiar. Unmistakable.
You froze for half a heartbeat—then melted.
Your suitcase slipped from your fingers with a dull thud. Your back pressed into his chest, head falling back against his shoulder as though your body had been waiting for this exact moment all year.
He kissed the top of your head, then his right hand lifted in front of your face.
A small velvet box rested on his palm.
He flicked it open with his thumb.
Inside lay a ring.
Sleek black metal—almost obsidian in the dim platform light—shaped like a slender serpent. Its body coiled once around an invisible axis, head raised, tiny navy blue eyes glinting with captured fire. Beautiful in the way only dangerous things can be.
“For you,” he murmured against your hair, voice rough with something you couldn’t quite name. “To show you my love. My devotion. That no matter what happens—no matter who tries to pull us apart—you’re mine. And I’m yours.”
The platform noise faded to a distant hum. The crowd blurred into watercolor. All you could see was the ring. All you could feel was the steady rise and fall of his chest against your back, the warmth of his arms caging you in the gentlest prison.
You turned in his hold.
His eyes were unguarded for once, with zero calculation. Just raw need. Just him.
You surged up and kissed him.
Hard. Desperate. Months of silence and guilt and drowning poured into the press of your mouth against his. He groaned—low, wrecked—and kissed you back with equal force.
When you finally broke apart, gasping, foreheads pressed together, he lifted the ring between two fingers.
“Do you accept it?” His voice cracked on the last word—barely, but you heard it.
You stared at the serpent. At the blue eyes that seemed to watch you back. Then you looked up at him.
“Yes.”
The moment the word left your lips, the ring moved.
The black snake uncoiled in a fluid ripple of metal, slithering across his palm like liquid shadow. It glided onto your waiting finger—cool at first, then warming rapidly to match your skin temperature. The serpent’s body wrapped once around the base of your finger, before coiling around. The blue eyes flashed once—bright, alive—then stilled. But you felt it: a faint pulse, like a second heartbeat against your skin. Binding. Eternal.
You stared, stunned.
Sunghoon only smiled before he lifted your hand to his lips. Kissed the ring. Kissed the knuckle just above it. Then pressed another kiss to the inside of your wrist, right over the racing pulse.
You didn’t know yet what the ring truly meant. You didn’t know yet how tightly its coils would one day bind you.
The holiday passed in a fever dream of snow and silence.
Your family’s manor was as it always had been—grand, glittering, suffocating in its perfection. Crystal chandeliers refracted firelight across marble floors. Portraits of stern ancestors murmured approval when you passed. Your parents asked polite questions about NEWTs and future prospects, never once mentioning the black serpent coiled around your finger like a living tattoo. They noticed it, of course—they always noticed everything—but they said nothing. Pure-blood etiquette demanded discretion when it came to marks of devotion, especially when the giver came from a family as old and shadowed as Sunghoon’s.
And before you knew it, the calendar had turned.
September 1st arrived cold and sharp. The Hogwarts Express waited at King’s Cross like an old promise, scarlet engine huffing steam into the September sky. You stepped onto Platform 9¾ with your trunk levitating behind you, heart hammering in a rhythm you couldn’t name—anticipation, dread, braided together so tightly you couldn’t separate them.
You found an empty compartment near the middle of the train. Seventh year. Last year. No time to mess around. NEWTs loomed like storm clouds. Auror applications waited in Ministry offices. The war whispers that had once been background noise now felt like thunder rolling closer every day.
The door slid open.
You didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Sunghoon looked… insanely good.
Taller, somehow, though that was impossible. Dark hair pushed back just enough to reveal the clean line of his brow. Charcoal wool hugging shoulders that had broadened another inch, sleeves rolled once to expose the pale skin and the faint shadow of veins. His tie was loose, the knot imperfect, silver-and-blue stripes against crisp white.
Before you could open your mouth—before you could say hello, or I missed you—he surged forward.
Three strides. Door slamming shut so hard behind him that the curtains followed with a flick of his wand. The locking charm snapped into place so fast the air crackled.
Then he was on you.
Hands framing your face, thumbs brushing your cheekbones as though mapping something he’d dreamed about all summer. His mouth crashed into yours—hard, desperate, tasting faintly of peppermint. You gasped against him; he swallowed the sound, tongue sliding in without preamble, claiming every inch like he was reminding you who you belonged to. You clung to the front of his sweater, knuckles white, body already arching toward him like gravity had reversed and he was the only solid thing left in the world.
The kiss turned frantic almost immediately.
Sunghoon’s breathing grew ragged against your lips, little hitches and low groans vibrating between you. His hands slid from your face to your waist, fingers digging in with bruising force, urgent, like he needed to feel solid proof that you were real, here, his. He kissed you harder, deeper, teeth catching your bottom lip and tugging until you whimpered. The sound seemed to snap something inside him.
He broke the kiss just long enough to mutter, hoarse and wrecked, “Fuck—I can’t wait.”
Before you could process the words, his arms banded around your ribs. In one fluid, effortless motion he lifted you. Your legs instinctively wrapped around his waist for balance; your skirt rode up your thighs as he turned, dropped heavily onto the cushioned bench seat, and pulled you down with him.
You landed straddling his lap, knees sinking into the worn velvet on either side of his hips.
The compartment rocked gently with the motion of the train, but neither of you noticed. Sunghoon’s hands were already everywhere—sliding up your thighs, shoving your skirt higher until the fabric bunched uselessly around your waist. His palms were hot against your bare skin, calluses from Quidditch broom handles dragging deliciously as he gripped the backs of your thighs and yanked you forward until your core pressed flush against the hard ridge straining against his trousers.
You both moaned at the contact—low, broken sounds that tangled in the air between your mouths.
He surged up to kiss you again, but this time it was messier, hungrier. His tongue stroked yours in filthy imitation of what he wanted to do lower. One hand left your thigh to fist in your hair, tugging your head back so he could drag open-mouthed kisses down your throat—sucking hard enough to leave fresh marks over the faded ones from last term. You felt the sharp sting of teeth, then the soothing lap of his tongue, and your hips rolled forward without permission, grinding down on him in helpless little circles.
“Fuck,” he hissed against your collarbone, hips bucking up to meet yours. “You have no idea—how many nights I thought about this. About you like this. On me.”
His hand slid between your bodies, fingers hooking into the waistband of your underwear and tugging the fabric aside. Cool air hit slick skin for half a second before his fingertips found you—sliding through your folds, circling your clit once, twice, then pressing inside with no warning.
You cried out—sharp, needy—and he swallowed it with another bruising kiss.
“Shh,” he breathed against your lips, even as he curled his fingers deeper, stroking that spot that made your thighs shake. “Someone might hear. Though…” He smirked, dark and dangerous. “Maybe I want them to. Maybe I want the whole bloody train to know exactly what I do to you.”
You clenched around his fingers at the words; he groaned like you’d punched the air out of him.
“Still so tight… Still so fucking perfect.” His thumb found your clit, rubbing circles while his fingers pumped slow and deep. “Ride my hand, baby. Show me how much you missed me.”
Shame burned somewhere distant in the back of your mind, but it dissolved under the heat of his touch, under the way his eyes devoured every twitch of your expression. Your hips rocked forward, chasing the pressure, grinding down until the heel of his palm pressed hard against you with every roll. Your hands scrambled for purchase—fingers threading through his dark hair, tugging until he hissed.
He watched you fall apart, eyes blown black, jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. The hand not buried inside you gripped your hip hard enough to leave fingerprints, guiding your movements when your rhythm faltered.
“That’s it,” he rasped. “Just like that. Let me feel you come all over my fingers before I fuck you properly.”
The filthy promise tipped you over.
Pleasure snapped through you like a whip, sharp and blinding. You buried your face in the crook of his neck to muffle the cry, body shaking as you clenched around his fingers, hips stuttering, thighs trembling on either side of him. He worked you through it, murmuring praise the whole time.
“Good girl. So good for me. Missed this—missed you clenching around me like you never want to let go.”
When the aftershocks finally eased, he withdrew his fingers slowly, letting you feel every inch. Then he lifted them to his mouth and sucked them clean—eyes locked on yours the entire time—tongue swirling around the digits like he was savoring something rare and precious.
You stared, dazed, lips parted, chest heaving.
He smiled and leaned in to kiss you again. You tasted yourself on his tongue.
“Welcome back to Hogwarts,” he murmured against your swollen mouth.
The train whistle blew somewhere distant—long and mournful—as though warning the world what was coming.
But neither of you cared.
The year had just begun.
And Sunghoon was already claiming every inch of you like he intended to keep you forever.
You really thought—foolishly, desperately—that this could be a normal year.
Seventh year. Last year. The one where everything was supposed to fall into place: NEWTs, career counseling sessions with McGonagall, late-night study marathons that ended in exhausted laughter then desperate kisses against cold stone. You pictured it like a photograph from someone else’s life: you and Sunghoon walking side by side to breakfast, shoulders brushing, sharing notes, stealing quiet moments in the library without the weight of eyes or expectations pressing in. Normal. Safe. Achievable.
It wasn’t like that at all.
Classes started unforgiving. You threw yourself into them with the kind of single-minded focus that had always carried you through. Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts—you aced every practical, every written essay, every drill. Professors nodded in quiet approval. Your classmates whispered that you were “Ministry material,” that the Auror Office would be fighting over your application.
Herbology was the exception. The greenhouse felt like a different world—humid, alive in ways that refused to bend to logic alone. Mandrakes screamed when repotted; Fanged Geraniums nipped at your fingers; Venomous Tentacula wrapped around your wrist once and left a bruise that bloomed purple for a week. You struggled. Badly. So you found a tutor: a quiet Ravenclaw fifth-year who spoke to plants like they were old friends and never once looked at you like you were failing. Twice a week in the empty greenhouse after dinner, you repotted, pruned, fertilized. Progress was slow, but it was progress.
Potions, though…
Potions should have been easy. You’d always been competent. But seventh-year NEWT-level was brutal—complex brews with thirty-seven ingredients, timing measured in heartbeats, cauldrons that could explode if you so much as breathed wrong. Your first Draught of Living Death came out the color of weak tea instead of smooth pearl. Slughorn raised one brow and gave you an Acceptable with visible disappointment.
You needed help.
And the person who could help best was Sunghoon.
He was brilliant at Potions. Always had been. Precise, intuitive, the kind of student who could identify a misstep in someone else’s brew from across the dungeon just by the color of the steam. Last year he’d tutored you through sixth-year theory in between classes, his voice low and patient. You thought—hoped—that seventh year could be the same. But it was impossible.
Because you barely saw him.
Now he wasn't like.. gone, no he simply… just wasn’t there. Wasn't present.
One morning he’d kiss you goodbye outside the Great Hall, lips lingering, promising to meet you after lunch for Potions revision. By dinner he was gone. No owl. No sighting in the common room or corridors. You’d wait—first patiently, then anxiously— asking his housemates if they’d seen him, but nothing.
He’d reappear two, sometimes three days later. Tired. Paler. Shadows under his eyes like bruises. Hair mussed in a way that wasn’t your fault. Robes slightly wrinkled, as though he’d slept in them.
You’d corner him immediately—heart in your throat, voice shaking despite every effort to keep it steady.
“Where were you?”
He’d look at you for one long, aching second. Then the mask would slide back into place.
“Sick,” he’d say. “Nothing to worry about.”
You didn’t believe him.
Not the first time.
Not the fifth.
Not the tenth.
Because the absences grew longer. The excuses stayed the same. And every time he came back, he came back… further away.
He touched you less in public. No more casual arm around your shoulders in the corridors. No more hand at the small of your back when crowds pressed too close. When you sat beside him at meals he’d let you lean against him, but his arm stayed on the table instead of around you. His smiles were smaller. His kisses—when they happened—were quick, almost perfunctory, like checking a box.
Conversations became clipped. Surface-level. He asked about your day, listened to your answers, but never offered his own. When you tried to press—about the absences, about the shadows in his eyes, he’d shut it down.
“Not now.”
“I’m fine.”
“Stop worrying.”
Each refusal landed like a small cut. Shallow at first. Then deeper. Until the worry became something constant, something that lived under your ribs and made it hard to breathe when he wasn’t there.
You started crying in the shower so no one would hear. Started gripping the ring on your finger until your knuckle turned white, as though the serpent could somehow summon him back. Started lying awake at night staring at the canopy, replaying every disappearance, every excuse, every time he’d looked at you like he was memorizing your face before walking away again.
It broke you. Like ice cracking under too much weight.
You still aced Charms. Still smiled in the Great Hall when friends asked how you were.
But inside, the drowning had returned. Colder this time.
Because the boy who once claimed every inch of you like he intended to keep you forever was slowly slipping through your fingers. And every time you reached for him, he gave you the same soft, tired lie:
“Nothing to worry about.”
You worried anyway. You worried until the worry became the only thing that felt real, it clung to you like damp robes after a storm—persistent, chilling, impossible to shake off no matter how tightly you wrapped yourself in denial.
It followed you through autumn’s golden decay and winter’s brittle frost. Every morning you woke with the same hollow ache in your chest, checking the foot of your bed for an owl that never came, scanning the Ravenclaw table at breakfast for the familiar dark head that was increasingly absent. Sunghoon became a ghost in his own life. He still appeared—enough to keep the rumors from exploding—but never for long. A quick kiss in an empty corridor before vanishing again. A hand brushing yours under the table in the Great Hall, then gone before you could lace your fingers through his. Notes left on your pillow in that precise, slanted handwriting: Library tonight? followed by nothing when you arrived.
When he did speak to you, his voice was flatter, stripped of the warmth that once lived beneath every word. He answered questions with single syllables. He stopped initiating touch. Stopped pulling you onto his lap in the courtyard. Stopped whispering filthy promises against your throat until you were trembling.
You told yourself it was the war whispers growing louder. The disappearances were Order business, or family business, or something he couldn’t share yet. You told yourself that the distance was temporary. Protective.
But the worry didn't go away. It lived in your throat like a stone. It woke you at 3 a.m. staring at the canopy, replaying every half-smile, every excuse, every time he’d looked at you like he was saying goodbye without words. It made your hands shake when you brewed potions, your cauldron bubbling over more than once because your mind was elsewhere.
By March the castle felt colder than the grounds outside. The snow had melted into gray slush; the sky stayed low and leaden. You were going crazy thread by thread, and Sunghoon was the only one who could have stitched you back together—but he was never there long enough to try.
You finally had enough on a Thursday afternoon when the sun broke through for the first time in weeks, weak and watery, turning the courtyard into a patchwork of pale light and long shadows.
He was there—miraculously—sitting on the low stone wall near the fountain, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing. Robes open at the collar, tie loosened, hair falling into his eyes. For one stupid, hopeful second your heart leapt the way it used to.
You crossed the courtyard without thinking. Grabbed his wrist—harder than you meant to—and pulled.
“Come with me.”
He looked up, startled. Opened his mouth—probably to brush you off with another I’m busy—but something in your expression stopped him. He let you drag him away from the curious stares of a few lingering fourth-years, through an archway, down a narrow passage lined with dusty tapestries, into a small, forgotten study room that smelled of old books and forgotten ink.
You slammed the door behind you then you turned to face him.
“What is your problem?”
Your voice cracked. You hated it—hated how small you sounded, how desperate—but the dam had broken.
Sunghoon leaned back against the nearest desk, arms crossed, expression carefully blank.
“There’s no problem.”
“Don’t!” You stepped closer. “Don’t lie to me again. You disappear for days. You come back looking like death. You barely look at me, barely touch me, barely speak to me. You’re pulling away and I can feel it every single second and I’m—” Your voice broke again. “I’m losing my mind, Sunghoon. Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”
He looked away—jaw tight, throat working once. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Stop it!” The shout surprised even you. You closed the distance until you were inches from him, hands fisting in the front of his robes. “Stop treating me like I’m stupid. Like I can’t see it. Like I don’t feel it every time you leave without a word. I’m your girlfriend! I—” Tears burned hot behind your eyes; you blinked them back furiously. “I love you. And you’re letting me drown. Just tell me. Whatever it is. I can handle it. Just don’t keep shutting me out.”
For a long moment he said nothing.
Then something cracked.
His hands came up—fast, almost violent—and gripped your wrists, yanking them off his robes. His eyes—those eyes you’d once thought held entire galaxies—were stormy now.
“You want the truth?” His voice was low at first, dangerous. “Fine.” He stepped forward, forcing you back until your spine met the wall. He didn’t cage you with desire. This was different. This was anger. This was something breaking.
“I fell out of love with you.”
You froze. Breath stopped. Heart stopped. Everything stopped.
He stared down at you—chest rising and falling too fast, eyes glittering with something that looked dangerously close to tears.
“I tried,” he said, quieter now, voice cracking on the edges. “I tried so fucking hard! Every time I came back I told myself I could still feel it. That I could still want you the way I used to. But it’s gone. It’s just… gone.”
You shook your head—small, helpless jerks.
“No...”
“Yes.” He laughed once—harsh, hollow.
The tears were falling freely now—hot, unstoppable, dripping from your chin. You didn’t bother wiping them away. What was the point? He was already looking at you like you were something he used to care about. Something he’d outgrown.
Sunghoon stepped back. Just one step. Enough to put space between you that felt like miles.
“You think I like this?” His voice dropped lower, colder. The warmth that once lived in it had frozen over completely. “You think I enjoy watching you cry every time I walk away? You think I don’t see how pathetic it’s become? How you cling to me like I’m still the same boy who kissed you in the Great Hall like the world was ending? Newsflash—” He spat the word like venom. “—that boy died the first time I came back and realized I didn’t miss you. Not the way I was supposed to.”
Each sentence landed like a slap. You pressed your back harder against the wall, as though the stone could absorb some of the pain.
“You’re suffocating,” he continued, merciless now. “You hover! You wait! You look at me like I owe you answers I don’t have. Like love is a fucking contract I signed and forgot to renew! I can’t breathe around you anymore. Every time you open your mouth to ask where I’ve been, every time you touch me like you’re scared I’ll vanish again—it just reminds me how much I don’t want this. How much I don’t want you.”
The black serpent on your finger pulsed—sharp, frantic, like it was trying to protest. You looked at it, but your vision was blurring.
Sunghoon followed your gaze. His jaw tightened.
“That ring?” He laughed again—bitter, empty. “I gave it to you because I thought it would keep you. But it didn’t work. Nothing works. You’re still here, still begging, still crying, and I still feel nothing… It’s over, don't bother trying to change my mind.”
He didn’t wait for your response. Didn’t give you time to argue, to plead, to scream. He simply turned away, robes swirling once, and walked out.
The door shut behind him with a loud slam.
Your knees hit stone. Your palms pressed flat against the cold floor. And then the sobs came—ugly, wrenching, tearing out of your chest like something alive. You curled in on yourself, forehead to knees, arms wrapped tight around your middle as though you could hold the pieces together.
You cried until your throat was raw. Until the tears ran dry and left salt tracks on your cheeks. Until the room felt too small and too big all at once.
You didn’t know—couldn’t know—that Sunghoon hadn’t gone far.
He’d walked blindly through corridors, past startled portraits and flickering torches, until he reached the seventh-floor corridor. The blank stretch of wall opposite a tapestry. He stopped. Pressed his forehead to stone. Closed his eyes.
The door appeared almost instantly.
The Room of Requirement opened for him like it had been waiting.
He stepped inside and the door sealed shut behind him with a soft, final thud.
For one heartbeat there was silence.
Then he shattered.
A loud shout ripped out of him, furious and broken. He spun and slammed his fist into the nearest surface—a wooden table the room had conjured, already cluttered with potion vials and spellbooks he didn’t want. The table cracked. Vials exploded in sprays of glass and liquid. He didn’t stop.
He grabbed a chair and hurled it against the far wall. Wood splintered. He kicked over a bookshelf—tomes and books tumbling like dominoes. He picked up a heavy crystal orb the room had provided (for what purpose he didn’t care) and smashed it against the floor. Shards flew. He stepped on them, grinding them under his heel.
He then sank to his knees in the wreckage.
The first sob came quietly—almost surprised. Then another. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes like he could force the tears back inside. His shoulders shook. His breathing came in ragged gasps.
“I lied,” he whispered to the empty room. “I lied—I lied—I lied—”
The words dissolved into another broken cry.
He curled forward until his forehead touched the cold stone floor—shards biting into his palms, blood smearing across his skin—and cried like something inside him had finally ruptured beyond repair.
Because he hadn’t fallen out of love with you.
He’d fallen so far into it—so deep, so violently—that the only way he knew how to keep you safe was to make you hate him enough to leave.
The war was coming. The mark under his sleeve had burned hotter every day since summer. The disappearances weren’t sickness. They were initiations. Tasks. Orders.
He couldn’t drag you into that darkness. He couldn’t watch you burn because of him.
So he’d burned the bridge himself.
And now—alone in a room full of broken things like him—he paid the price.
He cried until his voice gave out.
Until the room, sensing his exhaustion, softened the floor beneath him into something almost like a bed.
Until the last sob faded into silence.
The first weeks after the breakup were a suffocating collapse.
You didn’t speak. Not to your dormmates, not to the professors who asked why you were missing from class, not even to the house-elves who timidly left trays of food by your bed because you hadn’t appeared in the Great Hall for days. Words felt like glass in your throat, useless, sharp. So you stayed silent. Curled under your blankets with the curtains drawn tight, staring at the dark canopy until your eyes burned. Sleep came in fits and when you woke, the ache in your chest was still there, heavier each time.
You skipped classes. The ones you’d once aced without effort. You told yourself you’d catch up tomorrow. Tomorrow never came. Food lost all taste; the house-elves’ carefully arranged plates went untouched until they vanished again. Your robes hung looser on your frame. Your reflection in the dormitory mirror looked like a stranger—hollow cheeks, shadowed eyes, lips perpetually chapped from biting them to keep from crying again.
The first bad grade arrived like a slap.
An Outstanding in Charms had become an Acceptable in Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall’s note was polite, concerned, but the howler from home arrived the next morning, your owl dropping it right in front of you with an apologetic hoot before fleeing.
The scarlet envelope exploded open the second your fingers touched it.
Your mother’s voice—cold, furious, magnified tenfold—filled the room.
“—disgraceful! You are wasting your potential! After everything we’ve sacrificed? After the tutors, the connections, the expectations? You will pull yourself together this instant or so help me you will spend the summer scrubbing cauldrons at St. Mungo’s until you remember what ambition looks like! Do not test us further! Me and your father are ashamed—do you know what this looks like to the Ministry?—fix this, or don’t bother coming home for Easter!”
The parchment shredded itself mid-sentence, scraps fluttering to the floor like dead leaves. You sat frozen, face burning, tears stinging fresh behind your eyes.
But something else ignited too.
Rage—not at your parents, not at the howler, but at yourself. At the version of you who had let Sunghoon hollow you out until there was nothing left to fight with.
That afternoon you dragged yourself to the library.
You sat at the same table you used to share with him. Opened every textbook you’d ignored for weeks. Summoned every scrap of willpower you had left and channeled the pain—the sharp, jagged thing in your chest—into focus.
From that day forward, you rebuilt.
You went to every class. Sat in the front row. Took notes until your hand cramped. Asked questions when you didn’t understand. You met the Ravenclaw girl in the greenhouse twice as often as before; the plants didn’t judge, didn’t leave, didn’t stop loving you just because you were hurting. You brewed potions until your cauldron sang perfect colors again. Your grades climbed steadily.
You rejected everyone who tried. A Hufflepuff sixth-year left a note in your bag confessing he’d liked you since fourth year. You ripped it at the first word. A Ravenclaw boy from your study group asked you to Hogsmeade the following weekend. You looked him in the eye and said, “I’m not interested.” Polite. No explanations. No room for hope.
You locked everyone out.
Housemates were allowed small mercies—quiet good mornings, shared chocolate frogs during late-night revision—but nothing deeper. The world narrowed to your dorm, the library, the great hall, the classrooms. Anything beyond that felt like risk. Like vulnerability. Like another chance to break.
You tried to erase him.
The scarf he’d once draped over your shoulders after Quidditch—into the fire. The charmed quill he’d given you that never ran out of ink—snapped in half and discarded. The tiny vial of Amortentia-scented perfume he’d gifted you one Valentine’s poured down the drain, vial shattered against the sink.
You tried to take off the ring.
Every night for a week you sat on the edge of your bed, gripping the serpent between thumb and forefinger, pulling.
The first time it hissed—low, warning, almost hurt. The metal tightened like a shackle, coiling so hard your skin turned white and pain shot up your arm. You gasped, released it immediately. The snake loosened again, almost apologetically.
You tried again the next night. Same result. Hiss. Tighten. Pain.
By the third attempt you were crying—quiet, furious tears—yanking until your skin bruised and the ring refused to budge. You screamed into your pillow. Punched the mattress. Cursed him in every language you knew.
Then you stopped.
You stared at the black serpent curled around your finger, pulsing faintly with something that felt dangerously close to a heartbeat—and whispered, “Fine! Stay!”
You told yourself it was because the snake didn’t want to leave. That it was enchanted loyalty, nothing more. That you were keeping it out of stubbornness, or spite, or practicality.
But deep down—bone-deep—you knew the truth.
You were relieved.
Relieved that something—anything—of him refused to let go. Relieved that one small piece still clung to you the way you still, traitorously, clung to the memory of him. The ring was the last tether. The last proof that he had once looked at you like you were everything.
You left it on.
Sunghoon, meanwhile, became a stranger in every way that mattered.
He walked the corridors like a shadow wearing his face. Head down. Shoulders rigid. Robes immaculate but eyes dull. When you passed in hallways he didn’t glance up. Not once. Not a flicker. Not even the accidental brush of eyes that strangers sometimes share. You might as well have been invisible. A ghost he’d already exorcised.
You told yourself it hurt less this way.
Yeah… you were a liar.
The lie was necessary. It was the only thing that kept your feet moving through the corridors when every instinct screamed to stop, to turn, to force him to look at you even if it was only to see hatred in his eyes instead of nothing. You repeated it like a mantra during the long, hollow weeks that followed: It hurts less if I pretend he never existed. You whispered it while brushing your teeth in the dormitory bathroom mirror, avoiding your own gaze. You muttered it under your breath while walking past the Ravenclaw table and forcing your eyes straight ahead. You clung to it in the middle of the night, when you had to press your palm against your mouth to keep from crying out.
But pain has a way of becoming fuel when there’s nothing else left to burn.
It pushed you forward.
Through the endless revision sessions in the library. Through the practical exams where your wand hand shook for the first five minutes until muscle memory took over. Through the nights when sleep refused to come and you stared at the canopy, tracing the ghost of his touch along your collarbone until the memory turned sour and you rolled over to bury your face in the pillow.
Before you knew it, NEWTs arrived.
And passed.
You walked out of the last exam—Potions, ironically—feeling nothing at first. Just the dull throb of exhaustion behind your eyes and the faint metallic taste of adrenaline fading on your tongue. Results came by owl two weeks later while you were home for a brief break. The envelope was heavy, official, sealed with the Ministry crest. Your parents watched in silence as you broke it open.
Top percentile, the accompanying letter said. Auror recruitment had already flagged your name. An interview was scheduled. A training position awaited—if you accepted.
Your mother’s eyes glistened for the first time in years. Your father actually smiled—small, restrained, but real. They hugged you. Told you how proud they were. How you’d honored the family name. How the Ministry would be lucky to have you.
And you were proud too.
Not the bright, shining pride of someone who’d won without scars. This was quieter. Harder-won. The pride of someone who had been cracked open, hollowed out, and still managed to stand upright long enough to cross the finish line.
a/n: 6AM. I say thank you. I go sleep. Part 2 will be posted soon. <3
REBLOGS AND COMMENTARY IS APPRECIATED!
summary: Yeonjun’s got a lot on his plate. Not only does he have to worry about being a star student, but he also has to be the city’s web-slinging hero. And a lab intern. And a semi-decent roommate. And a little bit in love with you.
pairings: yeonjun x fem!reader
word count: 18.9k
tags: fluff, smut (mdni), some angst, spiderman!yeonjun, his webs shoot from his actual wrists like tobey maguire’s spiderman, college au, yeonjun is a cute awkward charming nerd, inaccurate science stuff sorry, blood, physical violence, lots of spidey shenanigans, campy weird action scene teehee, small arguments
smut tags: making out, heavy petting, webs as cuffs LOLLL, thigh riding, edging, fingering, praise, unprotected sex, cum eating, oral (f rec.), yeonjun is so playful and such a tease
notes: omg she’s finally here!!! i am so excited to get this out to u guys hehe<3 tysm for all the love on the teaser, i hope spideyjjun steals ur heart. enjoy the fic !!!
Saving the city can suck sometimes. Homework sucks significantly more. If Yeonjun had the option to zip through the city chasing some bad guys instead of sitting here trying to finish his calculus assignment, he’d be flying out his window in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, responsibility is a virtue, and Yeonjun cannot swing through the city for no good reason.
The one good thing about this tedious, awful calculus homework is that if it’s hard enough, he always gets a text from you. His body springs to life when he hears his phone buzz, rushing to pick it up and check the notification.
[you] have u done the calc homework
[you] how do you solve #4 :(
Do most of your conversations revolve around your shared class? Yes. Does Yeonjun ever get tired of teaching you the concepts? No, never. In fact, he stretches out his explanations as long as possible to keep you talking to him longer. Yeonjun never knew before that math talk could make his heart flutter.
“So, does that make sense?” he asks after a long-winded explanation. He’s almost out of breath after spewing out so much math jargon, but being on a call with you for ten minutes has similarly breathtaking effects.
“Yeah. Thanks, Yeonjun.” He bites back a giggle upon hearing your words. “You should seriously be teaching this class,” you say with a laugh.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t—I mean, I’m—I’m more of a science guy,” he stammers out, lips tightening into a thin line at the embarrassment of stumbling over his own sentence. “Our professor’s pretty cool, too,” he adds as if that saves him at all.
“Is he? Maybe I should start going to his office hours,” you muse.
Oh. Well in that case, your professor sucks. Yeonjun can’t have you stop coming to him for math help; you’d never talk to him at all if it came to that!
“He’s not that cool,” Yeonjun says. You laugh, and he huffs out a short chuckle too.
“Noted. I’m gonna go now, but thanks for helping me. You’re the best.” Your praise goes straight to Yeonjun’s head, making him feel like the greatest man to ever live. He doesn’t even feel this accomplished after going out on his little spidey-missions.
He’s a beat too late to say goodbye or good night to you, the call already hanging up as he opens his mouth to speak. He melts into a puddle over his desk, sighing out as he plays back his conversation with you in his head. He thinks you have the prettiest voice he’s ever heard. You’re so smart, too. He never has to over exert himself to get you to understand, though he would happily do that for you.
He jolts up as his roommate walks into his dorm. Yeonjun glances at him quickly as he straightens out his posture, picking his pencil back up and returning to his homework.
“Hey,” his roommate, Soobin, greets quietly. Yeonjun didn’t know Soobin prior to this semester, but he’s been pretty nice. He’s very quiet, but very respectful of Yeonjun’s space. It’s much appreciated, considering Yeonjun’s hiding a few of his red and blue spandex suits in his closet.
“Hey. How was your day?” Yeonjun asks, only half-interested in the conversation.
He watches Soobin shrug from his peripheral as he slides off his shoes. “Normal,” he answers.
Yeonjun nods. “Cool.” The conversation kind of dies after that, which is fine. Soobin isn’t the most extroverted person, and Yeonjun doesn’t push him to talk more than he’s willing to. He sometimes forgets he even has a roommate with how quiet it gets in the room.
Yeonjun regains his focus a minute into the silence. His eyes widen when he realizes that there’s now a doodle of your face on his calculus homework—when did that get there..? His face heats up as he grabs an eraser from his desk’s drawer. Thank god he didn’t do this assignment in pen.
──── ──── ──── ──── ────
Yeonjun’s not really paying attention to the professor, finding more interest in taking quick glances at you. You’re wearing a different bracelet today. It’s really pretty—maybe he should compliment you on it. Is it weird to lean in and tell you that? Are you close enough where he can compliment you without looking weird and creepy?
He rests his head in his hand and starts doodling in his notebook, mindlessly scribbling on the page while he waits for the lecture to end. He thinks of quick conversational things to say, something to discuss in a few minutes when it’s time to pack your bags and leave. Interesting class, right? Who would’ve thought—Yeonjun looks up at the projector to see the professor’s notes—the shell method… would be so cool… Maybe he shouldn’t say that, actually.
He’s honestly better off not trying to strike up a conversation with you at all; the chances of it leading to total and utter embarrassment lean greatly towards one hundred percent. He just wishes he had a little more spine, or that he was naturally a little cooler. The only interesting thing about him is something he can’t even talk to you about, or with anyone at all.
Yeonjun barely registers it when the professor dismisses class. He steals one last glance toward you, lips parting like he finally built up the courage to speak, but the words build up in his throat and die on his tongue. He seals his lips and focuses his gaze back on his own things, closing his notebook and shoving it in his bag. It’s not worth it. He decides he’ll just keep his mouth shut.
“Hey Yeonjun?”
Yeonjun almost jumps out of his seat, and he has to fight away his nerves as he turns to you. You’re packing your things back into your bag, not even looking at him. A part of him thinks he might be hearing things until your eyes meet his, waiting for an answer.
“Yeah?” he responds, voice coming out strained. He clears his throat.
“We’re friends, right?” you ask. He blinks, feeling like this is some kind of trick. He analyzes your face, making sure there’s nothing snide or teasing hidden in your question. You look honest enough, which puts him at ease.
“Yeah, for sure.”
“I hope that’s not sarcasm,” you say, getting up from your seat and adjusting your bag over your shoulders.
“It’s not! Really, we’re friends,” he reassures. You walk past him and he follows, leaving the classroom and entering the busy hallway.
“Well, good. I wanted you to go with me somewhere.” Your statement is wildly cryptic, and it leaves Yeonjun’s mind whirling with the possibilities of what you might offer.
“Right now?” he asks. “I-I have class…” As much as he likes you, he really can’t risk dropping his grade due to missed attendance.
You laugh, “No, tonight. There’s this party, and I”—you keep talking, but Yeonjun barely registers it. He’s never partied in college before. What would he even do at a party? He can’t handle his drinks well, and he’s not sure how well he’d blend into that kind of environment. He’s scared he’d make a fool of himself.
As you leave the academic building, you turn to Yeonjun, raising a brow in question. You must have asked him for his confirmation. Yeonjun forces his brain to rack up a response.
“Could you text me the details..?” Yeonjun asks. You relax a little at his words, nodding happily. You pull out your phone, ready to text him now. Yeonjun feels his heart pounding. He catches sight of the time on your phone, noticing he’s only got five minutes until his next class. The hall he’s supposed to be in is at least a three minute walk from here.
“There,” you say, awarding Yeonjun with a grin so bright that being late to class might just be worth it. “I really hope to see you there.” You tilt your head a little, and Yeonjun feels starstruck.
“You will,” he promises mindlessly.
──── ──── ──── ──── ────
Yeonjun feared he might’ve been in trouble when his professor asked him to stay after class. Turns out, it’s something much worse.
“Yeonjun, do you think you could help in the lab later today?”
Yeonjun doesn’t think much before he nods. “Yeah, of course, how much later?”
“Around 6 this evening,” his professor answers. Yeonjun’s heart drops. That would be perfectly fine any other day, but he promised to go out with you today. Of course the party would start at the same time Yeonjun’s professor wants him to stop by the lab.
“I’m not sure I have the time,” Yeonjun says quickly, suddenly fidgety and feeling antsy to leave the room. “I’ve got this… thing to do.” His professor doesn’t look too convinced. Yeonjun wants to facepalm himself. Yeah, great excuse.
The professor sighs, but Yeonjun starts up again before his professor can say anything. “I can come in earlier! I’m free right now, so I could just go over after this.”
“The cells we’re working with need a full 24 hours in culture for the sake of our research. Are you sure you can’t push your plans forward? Or back?” he asks.
Yeonjun’s stomach twists with guilt. He knows he shouldn’t let his professor down. Yeonjun’s kind of counting on him to write his recommendation letter for a graduate program, too.
“I’ll push the plans back,” Yeonjun says, giving in. He hopes the dejection isn’t too evident in his voice. His professor smiles and pats Yeonjun’s shoulder in thanks. He half-listens as his professor gives him the usual rundown of what to do during and after the process, nodding along and holding back the frown that tries to tug at his lips.
When Yeonjun finally leaves the building, he lets out the heaviest sigh of his life. His shoulders sag, and he feels like he might be the unluckiest person in the world. You finally give him attention outside of just asking for homework help, and the universe just had to intervene. This is laughable. It’s also stupid. Annoying. Frustrating.
There’s a pout etched onto Yeonjun’s face as he walks back to his dorm. He’s got a couple hours until he needs to go to the lab, so maybe he can take a nap or tidy up his room a little. His head hangs low, gaze transfixed on the sidewalk, kicking along a small pebble that keeps him company on the way.
He only picks his head back up as he walks past a certain field of grass, one he often finds you sitting in. Sometimes you’re on your laptop, sometimes you’re taking notes in a textbook, but most of the time you’re just lounging and doing nothing. It’s almost inspiring. Yeonjun would probably benefit from relaxing and decompressing more.
You’re there, sitting cross-legged on the grass, peaceful and silent. You look up suddenly, making eye contact with Yeonjun. His face flushes, but before he can turn his head in embarrassment, you raise your hand and wave. Yeonjun almost stops in his tracks. You’re waving at him, acknowledging his existence yet again.
He smiles and waves back, failing to tame his heartbeat as he takes the sight of you in. He’s forced to look away when he nearly stumbles over the pebble he’s been kicking around—“Oh, shit!” he utters, quietly enough to not draw attention to himself.
He glances back at you casually, making sure you didn’t witness him tripping. Fortunately, you’re on your phone, no longer paying him any mind.
Back at his dorm, Yeonjun stands by his closet, contemplating what exactly to wear tonight. He also has to make sure his outfit is lab-friendly, so the loose sweater he’d been eyeing is a no-go. He sighs, looking at himself in the mirror. Maybe the t-shirt and jeans he’s wearing now will suffice.
Time passes slowly, slow enough for Yeonjun to clean his half of the room, make himself a small meal in the communal kitchen, and even read a chapter ahead in his calculus textbook. He almost feels relieved when his alarm sets off to go to the lab, eager to get his work over with.
He’s determined to get this done quickly enough to still see you tonight. The thought of letting you down the one time you ask him to hang out is almost painful. He imagines the frown you’d wear next time he sits next to you in class. He can’t let that happen; he has to make sure he gets to you.
He throws on his lab coat and adjusts the goggles to fit onto his face. He sighs as he grabs containers of various chemical compounds from the cabinet, leaving them on the counter as he fetches the other materials he needs. With everything set out in front of him, he grabs the petri dish of cells and glances at the procedural note his professor left.
Yeonjun’s done this enough times to get into the swing of things, so he’s not too concerned with double checking his every move. His bigger priority is getting this done as fast as possible so that he can get to you. Lab work is never particularly fun or interesting, so he passes the time thinking about you.
The smell of the chemicals burns Yeonjun’s nose a little, and he wonders for a second if he’d been zoning out too much. He picks up the procedural note and glances over the measurements again, making sure he’s been adding the right amounts of everything. If he does something wrong and messes with the cell culture, he risks not being allowed back in the lab. He should probably slow down a bit, even if it means making you wait longer.
He’s more careful throughout the rest of the process, pushing back the worries that he might’ve messed something up. He continues to reassure himself that everything’s okay as he finishes up his work, placing the lid back on the petri dish and storing it away. He writes the date and time on a piece of tape that he sticks onto the lid, then finally lets his body relax as he steps back.
He cracks his knuckles to alleviate the stiffness that had been building there and rolls his shoulders back, groaning at the soreness of his muscles. All the fine motor movements from working in a lab does a number on his arms and fingers.
He hears a rattle, and he turns quickly to make sure he didn’t knock anything over in his haste. His eyes scan the room, but nothing looks amiss. He shakes the feeling and sheds himself of his lab gear, eager to head to you at the party already.
It’s been over an hour, and the thought of you waiting so long for Yeonjun’s arrival strikes guilt inside his chest. He opens his phone to find the path he needs to walk to get to the house the party’s being held in, eyes bugging out when he sees that it’s a twenty minute walk from the lab. Shit, by then you’ll have been waiting an hour and a half for him to show up!
He groans, trying to think if there’s a better way to get to you. The buses around campus don’t stop at the street he needs to get to, and it’s not like he has one of those electric bicycles or scooters that everyone seems to love. He wonders now if it might be a worthy investment. He pouts and throws his head back, totally drained from everything happening today. His eyes land on the tops of the academic buildings and the tall trees overhead. Maybe there is another way to get there after all.
No, he shouldn’t. That would be way too reckless. He’s already gone through the whole power and responsibility spiel, and he’s not in the mood to get himself in trouble for acting rashly. But if no one sees…
He turns his head and scans for people in each direction. No one’s around. No one would know, and he really needs to get to the party before he makes himself look like an asshole. He checks for anyone one last time, then aims his wrist towards the sky.
“Yeonjun! What’s up!”
Yeonjun startles and brings his arm back to his side hastily. He whips around to see who’s talking to him and lets out a breath when he sees his friend who had just exited the lab building. “Taehyun, hey man,” he says, ignoring the anxious pounding of his heart. That was way too close. Lesson learned.
“Didn’t catch you at the physics meet last week. Everything alright?” Taehyun asks. Yeonjun really hopes this conversation doesn’t take too long. The last thing he needs is another ten minutes piled on top of how late he already is.
“I’m good, I was just”—controlling a fire set by some idiot arsonist, then trapping said arsonist with his webs until the cops arrived—“uh, kind of sick.”
Taehyun hums and nods. “Well, we missed you bro, hope you’re feeling better. I’ll see you around!” Yeonjun waves and returns the smile his friend gives him, then walks as fast as he can to the location you sent him. He manages to get there in fifteen minutes instead of twenty, only at the expense of heavy breathing like he just finished a marathon.
When he gets to the entrance, there’s two men Yeonjun has never seen in his life guarding the door. He almost scoffs. What is this, some kind of nightclub?
“You got the money?” one of the guys ask.
“What?” Yeonjun scrunches his brows and leans his head forward a little, thinking he might have misheard him.
“No money, no entrance,” the other man says.
“Dude, come on!” Yeonjun whines.
“House rules. Stop wasting our time and get out of line.”
“No, no, I’ll”—Yeonjun sighs, reaching into the back pocket of his pants to fetch out his wallet. “How much?” he asks. The men tell him, and he bites back the complaints that almost push past his lips. Yeonjun slaps the bills into the guy’s open palm. They finally open the door for him, and Yeonjun steps inside.
He’s taken aback by how many people are cramped into this place. The house is pretty big, but there’s at least a hundred people mingling around, which makes space tight. He squeezes past the crowd with muttered apologies, but no one seems to pay him any mind. He scans every room for you, but it’s a little hard to do it efficiently when there’s so many faces to check. A part of him fears you might’ve left already.
He pulls out his phone, ready to text you and ask, before he feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns at the action and smiles when he’s met with your pretty face. “Hey, you!” you exclaim. “I thought you bailed on me.” There’s no real bite to your words, but it still makes Yeonjun frown.
“I’m sorry. I had to do this lab thing, and”—
“It’s alright, don’t explain. You’re here now!” you say. “Did you have anything to drink?”
Yeonjun shakes his head. “I don’t drink much.”
“Me either,” you say. You look out the window, then grab onto Yeonjun’s hand. His brain short-circuits, and he has to stop his eyes from going all dumb and wide. “It’s kinda stuffy in here. Let’s go outside.”
Yeonjun puts up no fight as you lead him out the back door, walking out into the yard. There’s almost as many people out here as there are inside, but the lack of walls means there’s more space to move. It’s much more breathable.
He takes quick glances at your face, trying to decipher what you’re staring so hard at. Your gaze is fixed on a small group of people just sitting and laughing. All the guys have girls in their laps, and a few girls stand around them, sipping their drinks. They all look happy. And drunk.
“Did you want to join them?” Yeonjun asks. He doesn’t know any of those people, but he’ll go if that’s what you’d like. It’s not like there’s much else to do when you’re not drinking or dancing.
The LED lights that line the house reflect in your eyes, making them dazzle extra bright. Your eyes dart to the group one last time before you shake your head. “Nah. Let’s just sit down and talk.” Yeonjun gladly obliges.
You find an empty spot to sit at, looking up at Yeonjun after you situate yourself. He laughs a little, “You really like sitting on the grass, huh?”
You smile at him and pat the ground next to you. “Don’t act like you’re too good to connect with nature.”
“It’s more about getting grass stains on my pants,” Yeonjun says, but sits beside you anyways.
You turn your head to him, and something about seeing your face this close makes it hard for him to keep eye contact. It’s quiet for a few seconds before you speak up, “So how come you said yes to the party?”
Something about your question strikes fear inside Yeonjun. Did you find him out? Do you know he likes you? Maybe this is some kind of humiliation ritual you’ve set him up for.
“Cause you asked,” he answers, voice a little meek as he fidgets with his hands in his lap.
“And if it was someone else who asked?”
Yeonjun thinks for a second, but he can’t come to an answer. “I don’t know. Like who?”
You hum and look into the crowd of people. Your head turns back to him after a couple seconds. “Like Yerim,” you say.
Yeonjun laughs as if the scenario is ridiculous, mostly because it is. Yerim would never even give him the time of day. She’s notorious for being cold to anyone who she isn’t interested in. Somehow, that seems to attract a bunch of guys to her. Not Yeonjun, though.
“No chance I’d go,” he says.
“So what makes me different?” you ask.
A lot of things. You’re nice, and you’re smart, and you’re down to earth, and you’re a beacon of warmth. Everything makes you different.
“Cause we’re friends,” he says instead. He wants to punch himself after the words leave him. This was his chance to flirt with you, yet he couldn’t even muster up the courage to give you a single compliment.
You nod. “I’m just asking cause… well, I guess I’m just surprised you agreed to come.” Your eyes meet his, warm and kind. “Thank you for that, by the way.”
Yeonjun’s stomach does flips when you look at him like that. “You’re welcome.” It goes quiet for a moment, so he continues, “I think this was worth handing over the last of my cash for.”
You burst out laughing. “They made you pay?! Why didn’t you just say you’re here with me?”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” he says. He bites his tongue after the words leave him. Who is he to assume there will be a next time? He hopes you don’t call him out on it.
“We should just go somewhere else next time. There’s a lot of places downtown that I want to visit,” you suggest, bumping his shoulder with yours. Yeonjun almost explodes.
“We should do that then,” he agrees. He’s not sure what suddenly drew you to him as more than some kind of tutor, but he thanks the universe for bestowing him with all this luck.
“There’s that bakery that opened a couple months ago,” you mention.
Yeonjun lights up. “Oh my god, I’ve been wanting to go there too!”
You squeal in excitement and clasp your hands together. “Let’s do that next. Tell me you’re free on Sunday,” you say.
“I don’t know, things come up last-minute sometimes. I’ll let you know.” It’s hard to make plans when he’s basically living a double life. Then again, he did agree to going out with you tonight on a whim. He’s not very consistent with his rules. He pushes the thought back.
Your eyes land back on the group of people hanging out and laughing. Yeonjun frowns, and he wonders if he’s not entertaining you enough. He doesn’t want to keep you from having fun.
“Why do you keep looking at them?” he asks, curious and soft. He hopes he’s not prying.
“They’re just some friends,” you answer.
“Oh. Why don’t we go say hi, then?” he offers.
You pull your lips into a tight line. “I’d rather not.”
“That’s alright,” Yeonjun says. You give a small smile in appreciation.
“What about you?” you ask. He tilts his head, not knowing what you mean. You continue, “Who’s in your friend group?”
Yeonjun laughs awkwardly and shrugs. “I mostly hang out with the physics honor society,” he admits.
“That’s cool. You must have a good bond.”
“We do,” he says. “How’d you meet your friends?”
You smile at him, and something in your face tells Yeonjun that it’s a complicated story. You sigh dramatically and lean back a little, “I met them at parties. Does that surprise you?”
Yeonjun’s not sure if that’s a rhetorical question. “No. You’re friendly. I can see why people come to you,” he answers.
“Thanks,” you say, voice a little quieter.
“Are you friends with your roommate?” he asks.
“I don’t have one. I live in a single dorm.”
Lucky. If Yeonjun had the extra money to spare, he’d be dorming alone too. It would definitely make heading out as Spider-man easier; he’d just be able to change in his room and jump out his window. Assuming no one is around to see, that is.
“That must be nice,” he says.
You shrug. “It’s alright. What about you? You got a roommate?”
“Yeah. We’re…” Yeonjun struggles to find a word to describe his relationship with Soobin. They’re not exactly friends, but they’re peaceful with each other.
You laugh and finish the sentence for him, “Roommates and nothing more.” There’s a lilt to your voice when you say that, and you wiggle your eyebrows like that’s supposed to suggest something.
“Ignoring your insinuations, yeah, pretty much.”
“I’m just kidding,” you say. He’ll let you make jokes at his expense all you want, it doesn’t bother him. Especially not when it means he gets to see you all giggly and happy. He thinks that you look the prettiest like this. Yeonjun would stare at you smiling up at him forever if he could.
The sound of a guy calling your name pulls Yeonjun from his stupor. He blinks at the man standing before the two of you, then looks at you with scrunched brows as if to ask who is that?
His unspoken question is answered the next second. “Hey, Kai,” you say. When Yeonjun gets a better look, he realizes that this is one of the dudes in the group you kept looking over at.
“Who’s this guy?” Kai asks, jutting his chin toward him.
“I’m Yeonjun.” He goes to hold out his hand for Kai to shake, but quickly puts it back down upon realizing that might be weird.
“Oh, Yeonjun from calculus. I know you,” he says.
“I didn’t know you’re in that class too,” Yeonjun muses.
Kai laughs, “I’m not. Y/n just talks about you.”
Yeonjun nearly melts. You talk about him. This is the best day of his life.
“Anyway,” Kai continues, looking at you again. “I need a couple more people on my beer pong team. You guys down?”
Yeonjun turns to you to gauge your reaction. He can’t really tell what you're feeling, not even when you face him as you contemplate your answer. Yeonjun shrugs, as if to tell you that he’s down for whatever you want to do.
“I think I’m good,” you say.
“Ah, alright, you bummer,” Kai jokes, stepping back and sending you a bright smile. “Continue your convo with the calc lord, I insist.” He’s gone after that, jogging off to the rest of his friends, setting up the game.
“Calc lord?” Yeonjun repeats, amused.
Your laugh is accompanied by a roll of your eyes. “He means it nicely, I swear.”
“Well, depending on how well he does in this game, I might start calling him beer pong lord,” Yeonjun says. You push at his shoulder as your laughter continues.
Yeonjun already knew he likes you a lot, but as the night goes on, he finds out that you’re even better than he thought. Conversation unfolds easily with you, even if Yeonjun’s answers are dorky and awkward at times. He feels exactly how he thinks you look when you sit in the grass alone: content and peaceful.
He’s not sure how many minutes or hours have passed when you ask him to walk you back to your dorm. All he knows is that tonight could have stretched into infinity, and that would’ve been fine. He follows you into the building, then into your room. He’s not sure why. It just feels right.
“Thanks for bringing me back,” you say. Yeonjun smiles and nods. He leans against the wall and stares out the window. You live on the top floor of your building, so the view’s pretty different from Yeonjun’s second story view. This would be a fun room to swing out of.
“Do you need anything else?” Yeonjun asks. A smile slowly takes over your face, and you cross the room to stand in front of him. You blink up at him, and something about it feels flirty. If he wasn’t biting his tongue so hard, his thoughts would have slipped right past his lips: you look cute.
You break the short moment of silence with a giggle. “Just for you to promise me we’ll hang out again,” you say, voice barely over a whisper.
Yeonjun has to remind himself to breathe and be normal. “I promise,” he says. He even holds out his pinky to seal the deal. You curl your pinky around his, accepting the playful gesture.
“Did you want to stay?” you ask. You look out the window, then back at him. “I’m okay with sharing my bed.”
That definitely flusters Yeonjun. “Oh, no, I’m—I was gonna just walk back to my dorm or something. Or take a bus. I don’t know. Thank you, though.”
You laugh. Hopefully not at his sputtering and rambling, but Yeonjun has a feeling that might be why. “Alright, then. Good night, Yeonjun.”
Your soft voice has Yeonjun wanting to backpedal and say he’ll stay the night, but he swallows down the words. He smiles at you as he backs away toward your door. “Good night,” he says, standing in your doorway.
“Yeonjun,” you call, stopping him before he could leave. He turns, waiting for your words. He’s surprised to see that you look a little shy. “I’m really happy I asked you to come with me. Tonight was fun.”
Butterflies erupt in Yeonjun’s stomach, and he feels like he could float from how giddy he is. “I’m happy too,” he says.
He steps out into the hall, thoughts lingering on how overwhelmingly good his time with you was. His mind is clouded with rosy memories of his night with you, and he finds himself repressing the urge to twirl around and jump for joy. He’ll probably be skipping all the way home, imagining all the possibilities of what could come next between you.
──── ──── ──── ──── ────
It’s Sunday, and Yeonjun knows exactly why you’re calling. He stares at his phone, then back at the man in front of him tangled up in webs. Yeonjun shoots another web over the guy’s mouth.
“Sorry, gotta take this,” he says. “Stay right here.” He slings himself onto a branch of a tall tree nearby, just to make sure no one can listen in as he accepts your call.
“Hey Yeonjun!” Your voice is so cheerful that it makes Yeonjun giggle. He even swings his feet in the air as he sits on the branch.
“Hi Y/n,” he greets, hoping his voice isn’t too muffled through the mask of his suit.
“Did those last-minute plans end up showing, or are you down to try out that bakery?” you ask. Yeonjun frowns, hating to let you down when you sound so happy.
“I’m really busy today, I’m sorry,” he says, shoulders sagging from how awful he feels. He’s got a whole lab procedure to write once he’s done sorting out the crime scenes of today.
“No worries, maybe we can go after class sometime.”
He frowns. “I wish I could, but I got another class right after ours. Let me check my schedule, I might be able to”—
“Are those sirens?” you interrupt, and Yeonjun looks out to the street. He’s grown so accustomed to the sound of those things that it didn’t even register. “Where are you?” you ask.
“I’m… uh,” Yeonjun stammers, focusing on the cops getting out of the car and making their way towards the criminal.
He tunes into the cops’ conversation. “Looks like Spider-shit’s been here already,” one of them comments in a gruff voice.
The other cop huffs out a laugh. “He’s always meddling in with petty crimes. What do you think this guy did?”
“Jaywalking?” The cops chuckle.
“Not like he can explain with that over his mouth.” He points to the web Yeonjun placed on the man a minute ago.
Yeonjun scowls. He’s not sure why the cops hold so much scorn for him, but if they’d like to know, then the petty crime that Spider-shit helped stop was an armed robbery. If these guys were a little better at their jobs, he wouldn’t have to meddle in all the time.
“Hello?” you ask, and Yeonjun reels his attention back to his conversation with you.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m just coming back from the store. Crazy stuff going on today.”
“Oh. Well, stay safe,” you say.
“Thanks, I will.” He sees the cops looking around, probably trying to spot him, so he flattens his back against the tree and tries to talk a little quieter. “I’ll see you in class, I gotta go.”
“See you!”
Yeonjun sighs once the call ends. His suit doesn’t even have pockets, he just carried his phone with him today in case you contacted him. Stupid? Mildly. Inconvenient? Very. He had one less hand to work with when dealing with today’s crime culprits. To hear your voice, though? Worth it. He smiles like an idiot as he swings over to the next nearest building, making his way back to his dorm.
──── ──── ──── ──── ────
Yeonjun’s professor accompanies him to the lab today, overseeing the procedures for the day. The feeling of his professor watching over his shoulder is more nerve-wracking than any day spent fighting crime on the streets. He’s usually careful with his work in the lab, but he’s extra, extra careful on these days.
He pauses when he retrieves the petri dish of cells. He briefly considers the possibility that he’s crazy and just seeing things, but Yeonjun’s pretty sure that the clump of cells just moved. Like, uncanny movement. He holds his breath.
He stares at the clump, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. It doesn’t jerk around anymore, so maybe it was just his imagination. Fear still creeps up his neck at the idea of the research going wrong. He remembers feeling like he messed up at some point last time he was here, and the realization is making his skin grow clammy.
“What is it?” his professor asks, taking a step closer to Yeonjun.
“Nothing, I was just thinking,” he quickly responds, keeping his voice calm and steady. He brings the petri dish to the table and does his best to forget what he saw earlier. Yeonjun fears how his professor would react if he told him something unprecedented might be occurring. It happened so quickly that he can’t even tell if his mind was just playing tricks on him. Maybe he’s just extra nervous today.
He wipes the sweat off his palms onto his lab coat, bringing the necessary materials to the table to continue the research. His professor reads off the instructions slowly, and Yeonjun pretends he doesn’t feel his stomach twisting as he works with the cells.
He tries to calm down as he walks back to his dorm, but there’s a permanent chill shooting down his spine. There’s no way the clump should have moved like that—it shouldn’t show any observable motion at all, not without some kind of electrical stimulation.
Maybe he just jerked the dish too harshly. He was pretty nervous, so it would make sense. He must have been shaking and just didn’t realize. That would explain it. That would put Yeonjun at ease.
He can try to convince himself that everything’s fine, but he can’t stop the anxious thrum of his heart. Apparently the fear reads on his face, too, because Soobin’s quick to notice it when Yeonjun enters the dorm.
“Are you okay?” Soobin asks. Yeonjun’s not sure what must have given himself away. He pays more attention to breathing slowly and talking casually.
“I’m good,” he answers. He doesn’t expect Soobin to push the subject considering how quiet he always is, but Soobin’s gaze isn’t leaving Yeonjun. He must be really concerned.
“Did something happen?” Soobin asks. Yeonjun sinks into his desk chair, covering his face with his hands as he groans. “Sorry,” his roommate apologizes, turning away from Yeonjun to look at his laptop instead.
“No, you’re good, it’s just…” Yeonjun sighs. He might as well get this off his chest. “Some lab thing.”
Soobin nods, not asking any further. Now that Yeonjun’s started though, he doesn’t feel like stopping.
“I think I might’ve fucked up,” Yeonjun admits.
“How?” Soobin’s playing some video game on his laptop as he talks, which actually puts Yeonjun at ease. It feels less pressing, less like an interrogation or a confession and more like a normal conversation.
“The cells I’m working with are being weird. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I saw it right. I just feel crazy now.” Yeonjun rubs his palms against his eyes in frustration and exhaustion, soothing the headache he’s got building up.
Soobin hums. The little shooting sounds and animated voices coming from Soobin’s game fill the room until Soobin speaks again, “Did anyone else see?”
“No. My professor was there, but he didn’t notice.”
Soobin shrugs. “You’re probably fine then.”
Honestly, Soobin’s nonchalance to the situation eases Yeonjun’s worries a lot. He knows he can get in his head sometimes, especially when it comes to doing everything right, so to hear he’ll be fine lifts a weight from his shoulders.
“Yeah, probably,” he agrees. He basks in comfortable silence for a minute now that his heart isn’t beating so hard.
“By the way, have you bought more laundry detergent yet?” Soobin asks.
Ah, shit. “Tomorrow, I promise.”
──── ──── ──── ──── ────
Being Spider-man is tasking, but it’s usually pretty cool. Not everyone gets to zip around the city and restore peace in people’s neighborhoods. Not everyone, however, has to worry about getting stabbed by a criminal in the middle of the night.
Yeonjun always stays until the cops arrive. It almost feels essential, just to make sure justice gets served. This time, he can’t.
He has to stop himself from groaning too loud when he feels the knife pull out from his side. The man in front of Yeonjun is already stuck to the side of a building, held there with a thick layer of web, so there has to be someone else. He turns around to look at the perpetrator, but the world moves a lot slower than normal.
Yeonjun blinks hard, focusing on breathing and staying conscious. The coward who stabbed him is wearing a ski mask, and he’s running away quickly. Yeonjun can’t let him leave. He moves forward and ignores the searing pain that sets his body alight. He straightens out his shaky arm and aims his wrist at the man, but the web that shoots out is just as weak as Yeonjun is.
Frustrated, Yeonjun growls and forces himself to move faster. It burns, he’s never felt any kind of pain like this, but he can’t let this man walk free. He can’t let this man stab another innocent person. Even with his staggered pace, limping as he tries his best to catch up to the man, he advances quickly.
He breathes hard and holds the air in his lungs as he aims again at the man, brows furrowed with angry determination beneath his mask. He lets out a loud grunt as he shoots his web out, and finally, it lands. The criminal falls as the web captures his ankle, keeping his leg stuck to the ground.
Yeonjun huffs as he traverses the rest of the way toward the man, nothing but fury in his veins as he shoots another web out. This one’s bigger, covering the man’s back and securing him to the pavement. He picks up his head and looks at Yeonjun with fear in his eyes, but he doesn’t care. He can’t. All he feels is pain and anger and pain and pain and so much fucking pain.
Yeonjun’s not the vengeful type, but getting stabbed really tests a person’s limits. He shoots more webs over the guy, making sure he won’t be able to move a muscle until the cops arrive.
Yeonjun doesn’t waste his breath making snide comments, though he does have a few choice words for him. He takes off the man’s ski mask and resists the urge to deck his face. He’s got fear etched into his expression, but Yeonjun finds it hard to feel sorry for him. The man starts begging for his life, and Yeonjun scoffs. Of course he’s not going to kill this man—no matter what, he doesn’t end people’s lives. A city’s hero shouldn’t get to decide who lives and dies.
Yeonjun stumbles away after finding a passerby to call the police. Now that the adrenaline’s gone, Yeonjun feels less mad and more scared. He’s really bleeding now; his hand comes up soaked when it presses against the wound. What the hell does he do? He can’t die like this.
He can’t go to the hospital with a stab wound. There’s no way for him to make up some alibi that wouldn’t just trace Spider-man’s identity back to him. He hisses through gritted teeth as he frantically scans his surroundings, looking for somewhere to go. The only thing that’s coming to mind is you, and it’s aggravating. He could be dying right now, and all his useless mind can do is think of you. Maybe it’s all the blood loss, and he’s just getting delirious, or maybe it’s a sign. It’s not like he has many good options right now.
There’s not enough time to think about it. He zips through the city and back onto campus as fast as he can, ignoring the splitting pain in his side that shoots up his body every time he moves. It’s getting harder to breathe, suddenly feeling suffocated by his mask, but he has to hold on. He’s not far away now.
He remembers the view from your window. He remembers exactly which room to shoot himself up to. He adheres himself to the wall outside your room and pulls his mask off, leaning his forehead onto the cold glass of your window with a sigh of relief. He catches his breath and knocks with a shaky fist. He’s really sorry for having to wake you up at this hour, but he has a feeling you’ll understand.
He doesn’t wait long. You're trudging out of bed and making your way toward the window, tired eyes blinking slowly. You look really cute. Everything is spinning around him, but he focuses on you. You’re still groggy and out of it until you meet Yeonjun’s eyes through the glass. As soon as you see him, it’s like you wake up immediately.
He watches your jaw drop, your frantic hands racing to open your window. His vision is nearly blacking out, and he tries to blink away the dizzy feeling in his head the best he can.
“Yeonjun?!” you squeak as he drags himself through your window and into your room. He can’t even hold himself up anymore, weak body collapsing to the floor. He groans and leans against the wall, clutching his side. He ignores the sickening feeling of blood dampening his hand, sticky and warm against his palm and between his digits.
You pick him up by the underarms, grunting as you heave him toward your bed. He notices how shaky your arms are, and he tries his best to pick up his own weight, even if it hurts like hell. He’s burdening you enough as is coming here so late.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to go to,” he says, catching his breath as you guide him to lay on your bed. He’s half-aware of how bloody and dirty he is, but you seem fully ready to let him stain your sheets. Concern and confusion fill your wide eyes, and Yeonjun can hear every word that you don’t say.
Luckily, you save the unnecessary questions for later. “What do I do?” you ask. Your hands tremble as they peel the shirt of his suit up, just enough to expose his midriff and the nasty damage to his side. You gasp upon seeing how bad it is, hardly able to stomach it, opting to look into his eyes instead.
He wants to respond to you, if not to answer your question then just to comfort you, but breathing is enough of a chore on its own right now; talking seems almost impossible. Watching you panic about this is shattering him. He makes an effort to move his arm out toward you, just to hold your hand and reassure you, but he doesn’t have enough strength.
You lift from the bed and open up a bottle of water, pouring some of the cool liquid over his head. It’s relieving against his burning skin and keeps him from losing consciousness. It also makes him realize how dehydrated he is.
“Please sit up,” you beg, placing a hand underneath his head to lift it a bit. He comes up just enough to drink some of the water you feed to him, swallowing down the rest of the bottle. He collapses back against your pillow once he’s finished, feeling much better just from that.
You come back with another bottle of water and pour small bits at a time over the gash in his side. He hisses and tenses up each time it hits his skin, but he knows you have to do this. He doesn’t want to make it harder by thrashing around and complaining, so he bites his tongue and keeps his body stiff.
The sheets soak beneath him as you continue emptying the water bottle over the wound. He should help you clean up after this; he doesn’t want you dealing with his mess all alone. A few minutes pass before you discard the plastic bottle and grab a t-shirt from your dresser.
You press the bunched up cloth against his injured skin gently, and he holds back any grunts that threaten to slip out. It’s like you can sense his pain despite his efforts to hide it, because you keep murmuring apologies to him.
“I’m okay, don’t be sorry,” he reassures. He doesn’t think you believe him, judging by the way lips stay tugged into a frown.
A quietness falls over the room. You pull your t-shirt away from his body and observe the wound, and your fingertips on his torso send electricity throughout his body. It doesn’t hurt so much now.
“You’re not bleeding anymore,” you point out.
He hums. “That’s good.” Your hand grazes the skin just outside the gash. There’s a soothing effect in the way your fingers glide against him, pressure so light that it’s barely there.
“You need stitches,” you say quietly, like you hate to break the news to him.
Yeonjun doesn’t mind. “You got a needle?” he asks. You fidget with the fabric of Yeonjun’s suit as you sigh and look away.
“I do,” you say. You don’t sound too confident, though. He doesn’t know what to do to make you feel better.
You grab his hand like it’s second nature to do so, and the action would be romantic if only you didn’t have that nervous look on your face. He can practically feel your heart pounding, and he’s dying to let you know that everything’s okay.
“I trust you,” he breathes out. He makes sure he’s looking you in the eye so you can see how much he means it. He’s risking everything by trusting you, but he’s not scared. He feels safe even with his life in your hands, his secret identity in your knowledge. If there was something more sacred and dangerous to give up than that, he’s sure he’d be okay lending that to you too.
It feels much more real when you have your needle and thread in hand. Yeonjun can’t contain his noises anymore, whimpering in pain when he feels the sharp tip pierce his skin.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you say quickly and desperately. “I’ll do it fast.”
He hisses as he feels the thread start to tug his wound shut. He throws an arm over his eyes, as if not watching you treat him will stop the piercing feeling. All his muscles are tensed up no matter how much he tries to relax, but he keeps his breathing steady and lets you do your work.
It’s not too long before you’re tying off the final knot and discarding your needle onto your nightstand. You run your thumb over the stitch, gentle and slow. Yeonjun takes his arm off his face and fixes his gaze on you, watching you scrutinize your work with scrunched brows.
“It feels fine. You did perfect,” he says, wanting to keep you from judging yourself too harshly. He wants to thank you, but the words feel so awkward building up in his throat.
“I don’t have a big enough bandage to put over this,” you say, still fixated on his injury. Yeonjun tries to sit up, but your hand on his shoulder eases him back down. “Don’t move too much.”
“Y/n…” he starts, but you give him a pointed look, and he decides to shut up and listen. He relaxes against your mattress.
“I wish I had some clothes to change you into,” you mutter after he pulls the shirt of his suit back down. The spandex isn’t super comfortable against his fresh stitches, but it’s easy to ignore in comparison to the searing pain of the open wound. He’ll have to throw out this suit; it’s bloodied beyond repair, and he has plenty of back-ups anyway.
“It’s alright,” Yeonjun says. You shuffle on the mattress until you’re laying down beside him. “Aren’t the sheets wet?” he asks, surprised at how unfazed you seem.
You let out a small laugh, and that frown finally leaves your face. “I don’t mind. I wanted to lay down.”
“I’ll buy you new sheets,” Yeonjun promises. “And a new needle. And I’ll explain everything to you, I swear. Please don’t”—
“Yeonjun,” you cut off. He shuts his mouth. “That stuff doesn’t matter. Are you okay now?”
He nods. “I’m okay.”
“That’s all I care about.”
The room falls into a comfortable silence. Yeonjun stares at the ceiling and wonders how much this is going to change things between you. He has some hope that this will make you two even closer, but a small part of him fears that you won’t want to associate with him anymore. He wouldn’t blame you; it’s not like being close to Spider-man isn’t a riskless situation. He doesn’t regret coming to you tonight, though.
He feels your eyes on him a moment later, and he can only bring himself to look at you for a second before returning his gaze to your ceiling. You must find that funny, because he hears you chuckling beside him.
“You know, I wasn’t expecting this when you said you’d hang out with me again.” There’s a softness in your voice that makes Yeonjun feel lightheaded. Not the losing-too-much-blood kind of lightheaded, but the oh-god-I-really-like-her kind—this one’s much more preferable and much more welcome than the former.
“I’ll have to make it up to you,” he says.
“How do you plan on doing that?”
He turns his head to face you, and something feels awfully domestic about getting to lay this close to you in your bed. It’s hard to breathe when you’re smiling at him so eagerly, when there’s a glint in your eyes that tells Yeonjun you’re having fun. There’s an itch all the way down to his bones that begs him to push forward and kiss you already, but he resists.
“I’ll find a way,” he whispers.
The room gets quiet again, and Yeonjun supposes he should leave. It’s not like he can wait for the sun to rise and walk out of your room in his bloodied Spidey-suit glory. He’s not sure what time it is right now, but he knows that if he doesn’t leave soon and get some sleep, he’ll be passing out in his classes.
“Thanks for fixing me up,” he says, pushing himself off your bed and stretching his limbs. He feels beyond sore, wincing at the pain that shoots through his body. You sit up immediately, scrambling to stop him.
“You’re leaving? Are you crazy? Stay here!” you insist, trying to drag him back to the bed. He turns his head to you and smiles, and something about the silent plea in your eyes lights up his heart. He keeps his feet on the ground and resists your efforts, even though he wants nothing more than to spend the night with you. It’s just not smart and not worth the risk.
“I can’t,” he says. You pout and stand before him, blinking up at him so prettily that he almost changes his mind. “It’s dangerous.”
“I know. I just wanted to keep you.” That makes Yeonjun giggle.
“Sorry. Maybe next time.”
You swat his chest. “Don’t let there be a next time. You almost scared me to death.”
“I’ll make sure to tell the next knife-bearer you said that,” Yeonjun jokes. It gets the laugh that he was hoping for out of you.
“Well…” you start, eyes darting between his own. He barely has time to register it when you press a kiss against his lips, your movement so hesitant and shy. It’s soft. It’s sweet. It’s over before he knows it. He blinks at you dumbly—it’s all he can do to not pass out like a dork in front of you. Your smile is just as soft and sweet as your kiss was. “Just stay out of trouble,” you finish, patting his chest gently.
“I’ll try.”
“I guess I’ll see you in class, then,” you say.
“Yeah,” he agrees. He should go now. He should make use of his feet and back away, but he stays planted in his spot. You sway girlishly in front of him, hands clasped behind your back.
“Good night,” you whisper. Yeonjun can’t help it—he pulls your face in so he can feel your lips on his again, more properly this time. They’re pillowy and dreamy, and Yeonjun could just melt into you. He doesn’t linger longer than he has to, backing up just enough to see your face. You mirror the glee that he feels in his own expression.
“Good night,” he echoes. He backs away and grabs his mask, slipping it back on. He opens your window back up and slings himself to the nearest tree. Each time Yeonjun looks over his shoulder, he sees you leaning at your window smiling right back at him. His heart does a little flip. On second thought, maybe getting stabbed is kind of cool.
──── ──── ──── ──── ────
Despite how well last night went, Yeonjun wakes up with a heavy weight on his shoulders. Every ounce of confidence that his interaction with you last night might have given him is completely gone the moment he remembers it, and sheds away at itself further when he notices you skipped class. A dreadful thought creeps up his spine: are you avoiding him?
Maybe you woke up regretting it all. Maybe you realized how ridiculous and stupid getting involved with Spider-man is, and you’re just protecting yourself before you can be burdened further. The classroom feels hot and suffocating, and fresh air sounds really nice right now, but Yeonjun stays put in his seat. He doesn’t want to make a scene and start freaking everyone out. To the best of his ability, he pushes his fears down and saves his panic for later—preferably for after he talks to you and gets some answers.
He doesn’t even open his notebook in his last class of the day. He shows up just for attendance purposes, then zones out staring at his desk for the rest of the hour. Time passes far too slowly; Yeonjun’s itching for the lecture to end so he can talk to you already. He’s practically running out of class as soon as it’s dismissed, but finds himself slowing down the moment he’s outside the building.
He’s pretty sure he knows where to find you. The bigger issue is figuring out what the hell he’s going to say. Is there any way to start this conversation without being awkward? Hey, thanks for saving my life last night. Also I am indeed that hero or whatever taking care of criminals in the city, hope you don’t mind! He feels so lame.
It’s wishful thinking to hope that you won’t care about what happened last night—well, except for the kissing part, but that’s probably not as important right now. He’ll push aside that conversation until the more important one happens.
He wants to run away the moment he sees your figure in the distance, sitting exactly where he thought you’d be. His tongue suddenly feels like lead, too heavy and useless to try talking to you. He gathers his breath and walks across the field, not letting himself back out now. You deserve to be given a little peace of mind. He’s sure today must have been confusing for you, that clarity hit you like a train this morning the same way it did to him.
You look over your shoulder when he reaches you, staring up at him and squinting your eyes from the sun. “How’d I know you’d come find me?” you ask, half-amused.
Yeonjun gives you a short laugh, unsure of himself as he sits on the grass beside you. It feels a little like he’s invading your space. He’s seen you sitting alone on this field as if it was all yours so many times.
“I thought I should thank you again,” he says, a little shy. He feels like he owes you a lot for last night. The whole city probably owes you a lot for saving him, honestly.
You look at him with a small smile, leaning your head on your bent knees. “Mhm. Shouldn’t I be thanking you, Spider-man?” There’s a teasing quality to your voice, and it makes Yeonjun laugh nervously. He should probably address that.
“I really hope you won’t tell anybody.”
“I won’t. I’m still finding it hard to believe anyway,” you say. Your sentences are all laced with a tiredness and exhaustion that Yeonjun can’t help but to feel at fault for. “It’s just weird to know it now.”
Yeonjun hums. He can sympathize with you on that—it must be really bewildering to know your classmate is the one swinging around town shooting webs at criminals. He just hopes you can forgive him for dragging you into this.
“Spider-man’s a little less cool now, huh?” he jokes, keeping his voice quiet even though no one’s around.
Your smile is full and genuine, and Yeonjun’s heart skips a beat. “I always thought he was a little lame,” you answer. Yeonjun’s ego bruises at that. You continue, “But I think he’s kind of interesting now.”
He can only hope that you don’t see the blush that takes over his face. He looks away to hide it, but he feels your gaze on him. “I don’t know if I’m that interesting,” he says, acting all humble. It’s clearly bait, and he hopes you’ll catch it.
“I can be the judge of that. Let me get to know you more,” you offer. Yeonjun bites his cheek to stop himself from grinning at this massive win.
“Well, we still have that bakery to go to,” Yeonjun mentions, and judging by the way your eyes gain a new sparkle, you seem to like the idea.
“You don’t have any more classes today, do you?” You already look ready to go.
Yeonjun doesn’t bother hiding his excitement anymore, letting his smile take over his face. “I don’t.” You’re standing up the next second, and Yeonjun’s quick to follow.
The bakery is a cute, cozy little place near some other restaurants downtown. There’s no seating inside due to the lack of space, but that’s made up for by the giant row of sweet selections to choose from. Yeonjun’s stomach rumbles in anticipation as his eyes jump around to look at each confection.
After buying your treats, you lead Yeonjun to a nearby bench. You both open your pastry boxes and bite down on the baked goods eagerly. You hum in satisfaction, nodding at the taste. “Wow, we should go here again,” you say, going in for another bite.
Yeonjun chose a sweet cheese bread, which he completely devours within a couple minutes. You don’t eat as fast as him, but he doesn’t mind waiting for you. He makes conversation in the meantime: “How come you skipped class today?”
You laugh a little around your mouthful of food, swallowing before you answer, “I barely slept. There was no way I could’ve focused if I went.”
Yeonjun hums in understanding. “I barely slept too,” he says.
“But you still went,” you add. “I guess you’re better than me.”
Oh god, he hopes you didn’t take it that way. “Not at all!” he rushes to say.
You smile and pat his shoulder. “I know. You’re just a star student, that’s all.”
Is that a compliment? Yeonjun blushes anyway. “I like to do well,” he says.
“I mean, considering everything you’re balancing, yeah, you are doing pretty well.”
Yeonjun laughs awkwardly in response, barely able to take your praise. He’s pretty sure you’re alluding to what you found out about him yesterday. “Thanks,” he mutters, all humble.
“Do you wanna talk about last night?” you ask, finishing your last bite.
“Sure,” Yeonjun answers, feeling a smidge of nervousness returning to him. It’s quiet for a few seconds. “Did you have any questions?” he asks. He feels more bashful than anything else, but it’s better than coming off as braggadocious.
You hum in thought, pouting your lips while you conjure up some ideas. “Was that your first kiss?”
He’s completely taken aback by your question—and a little embarrassed, quite frankly—and he scrambles to spit out a response. You’re stifling your laughter before he can even get his defense out. “No! I had my first kiss in, like, high school!”
“I’m just teasing,” you admit. “You’re a good kisser.” The compliment goes to Yeonjun’s head, playing in a loop while he floats on cloud nine. You liked kissing him. He should do it again and again, just to keep you happy. And for more selfish reasons, too.
Your voice breaks through his thoughts when you speak again, “Do you feel better today? Are you healing alright?” The joking tone leaves your voice, replaced with genuinity and care.
“I feel fine,” he answers. He pulls up his shirt to show you the wound, all stitched up and starting to heal over.
You wince. “Good thing I finished my food already. That killed my appetite.” Yeonjun laughs at your grimace and releases his shirt, falling back into place. “You should really put a bandage over that,” you suggest.
“I don’t have any.”
You shake your head in disbelief, though your amusement reads on your face. “You should be more prepared.”
Your concern is cute to Yeonjun. “I know,” he says.
“So who stabbed you?” you ask.
He shrugs. “No clue. He’s probably in a cell now.”
“Did it hurt?” you ask, though the answer is obvious.
“Like hell,” he says.
“How’d it even happen?” Honestly, Yeonjun’s not too sure about that either. He can usually sense imminent danger before it comes, but maybe he was too focused on the crimes he’d already been dealing with.
“He came up behind me while I was handling another criminal,” he answers.
You hum, getting off the bench and tossing your trash in a bin nearby. You start walking off then, and Yeonjun follows mindlessly. “Must be tough being Spider-man,” you say.
“Careful how loud you say that.” Yeonjun tenses as someone walks past the two of you, praying they were out of earshot when you said that. He sighs in relief when he sees the person had headphones in.
“Right, sorry. There’s just so much I wanna know now.” You turn a corner, taking a path leading back to campus.
Your curiosity excites Yeonjun, and he’s ready to answer whatever question you come up with. Some of his stories have serious entertainment value to them.
“Ask me, then,” he invites. You twist your head to smile up at him for a second.
“How’d you get like this? Were you just born this way?”
Yeonjun laughs at the idea. He swings his head around to make sure no one’s around when he answers, “No, a radioactive spider bit me.”
“When did that happen?” you ask. Yeonjun reminisces the first few weeks after the bite, thinking back to those initial feelings of fear and dread when he realized something had happened to him.
“In high school,” he says. It was super bewildering back then to change so drastically, yet be forced to act so normal. It’s much easier now—he’s had years to adjust—but he was a teenager when it first happened. That’s a lot for a kid to take on. He had to act like he was the same Choi Yeonjun his classmates had grown up with, and not some mutated superhuman dealing with the stresses of his new identity. Of course, he did that whole Spider-man thing to himself, but it was the right thing to do. He doesn’t regret it.
“Does anyone else know?”
“My uncle did, but he’s gone, so now it’s just you.” He looks at you, lips twitching upward.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” you apologize, voice growing soft. He realizes that you’re in front of your dorm building now, and he supposes this is where he should leave. His eyes dart between yours, like he’s waiting for you to tell him to go. To ask him to stay.
“Are you doing anything today?” he asks. Maybe he sounds desperate. He doesn’t really care.
“Catching up on some work,” you say.
“I’ll give you my calculus notes.”
You smile. “That would be nice.”
Yeonjun didn’t even take notes in calculus today. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.
“Can I stay?” He’s teeming with hope and bravery today. You open the door to your building and signal him inside, and he has to hold back the victorious giggle that almost escapes him as he trails behind you.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of questions and answers. Yeonjun’s never talked so openly about being Spider-man before, and a part of it feels healing. You study hard while he rambles about stories of the little things he’s done throughout the years. Some are funny and make you cackle, and some draw your attention away from your textbook so you can look at him in shock. It’s impossible for Yeonjun to wipe the grin off his face—not when he bids you good night, not when he walks back to his dorm, not even when lays in bed to sleep. His heart never lets up on that jittery rush it has for you.
──── ──── ──── ──── ────
A quintessential part of the college experience, Yeonjun’s come to find out, is trying out all the different ramen brands to see which one is the best. He’s a fan of whichever one he’s chowing down on right now, and a 5-pack of this barely puts a dent in his bank account. Seems like a winner.
He glances over at his dorm’s door when it opens, curious to see that Soobin brought someone over. Yeonjun isn’t bothered by that, though; if this guy is anything like Soobin, he’s not worried about getting annoyed.
“You can remember to buy ramen but not detergent?” Soobin asks, chuckling. Yeonjun chooses to read that as a joke instead of a passive aggressive comment.
“Ugh, dude, I keep forgetting, I’m sorry,” he apologizes. Yeonjun points at Soobin’s friend and continues, “This your friend?”
“Yeah, I’m Beomgyu,” the friend introduces. Something about him looks a little familiar.
“Nice to meet you,” Yeonjun greets with a nod.
Soobin grabs some clothes from his closet then turns to the door. “I’m gonna go change and then we can head out,” he says to Beomgyu, then heads off to the bathroom.
When the door shuts, Yeonjun returns his attention to his ramen and ignores Beomgyu’s presence as best as he can. That doesn’t last too long, though, cause soon enough, Beomgyu’s breaking the silence: “Are you still hanging out with Y/n?”
Yeonjun turns in his seat to face Beomgyu. He’s not sure how Beomgyu would know that, but Yeonjun entertains the question nevertheless. “Yeah. You know her?” he asks.
“She’s my friend,” he says. “Kind of.”
Yeonjun already feels something weird in the air. He’s waiting for the turn that this conversation is bound to take. He finally pieces together why this guy looks so familiar; he’s one of the boys at the party in the group that you kept looking over at. Now Yeonjun’s really curious.
“Why do you ask?” The question comes out a little hesitantly.
“I’m telling you this man-to-man, I think you might be getting played,” Beomgyu says.
Yeonjun’s immediate reaction is only confusion. How would you be playing him? You’ve been nothing but sincere with your feelings—or, that’s what it seemed like, at least. Now Yeonjun’s doubting himself. A part of him doesn’t believe it and doesn’t want to indulge in this conversation any further, but he’d start spiraling whether or not Beomgyu explains himself now. Worry swirls in Yeonjun’s stomach.
“Why?” he asks despite himself.
“This is just what I’ve heard, but apparently she had a thing with Kai, and he started talking to another girl, so she wanted to get back at him. I don’t know, though.”
Kai. That boy who came up to you at the party. Yeonjun remembers him.
He doesn’t want to show how much those words affect him, but shit. Hearing that hurts. His body feels weightless, like he’d be falling over if he wasn’t sitting at his desk. He nods as he exhales slowly, keeping his heart from going haywire.
“Huh,” is all he says. Soobin comes back the next second, and Beomgyu heads out with him after that, and the world keeps spinning on, but Yeonjun feels trapped in that moment. He waits to wake up in a sweat, hoping this is all some nightmare that’s going to end, but the wake never comes. He’s forced to deal with his whirling thoughts instead.
None of this can be true. It wouldn’t make sense. You kissed Yeonjun. You said you were interested in him. If this was all a lie, how will Yeonjun ever trust anyone again? When he came to you bleeding out, you saved his life. When you found out his secret identity, you kept it safe. Yeonjun miscalculated something that night—there is something more sacred and dangerous to trust you with than those things: his heart.
He doesn’t even want to finish his ramen anymore. His fingers brush against the wound that’s healing pretty well thanks to you, and a thought crosses his mind. The night that you kissed him was the night you found out he was Spider-man. An especially sickening question starts to haunt him. Did you only start liking him because of that?
Yeonjun feels played. He’s always known that he was a fool, so he doesn’t know why he’s so surprised, but really? Beer pong lord?
Five minutes is hardly enough to process the information Beomgyu dumped onto Yeonjun, but that’s all he gets, because now his alarm is going off and telling him to go over to the lab. He drops his head to his desk with a groan. It’s like an anchor’s been tied to his heart, sinking further and further until it makes him his stomach churn.
The fresh air feels good in Yeonjun’s lungs as he walks over to the lab. A permanent pout is etched onto his lips, unable to stop thinking about you. Good things. Bad things. Everything. Each memory hurts now.
He probably looks like some depressed college kid, walking around with his hood up and head down. He should be less pathetic, pick himself up and get himself together. It’s not like you two were really anything anyway. A kiss doesn't always mean something to everyone. Maybe it’s his fault for assuming that for you, it did.
It’s not just that, though. Yeah, kissing you made Yeonjun feel alive in a way that only swinging through the city could compare to, but there’s so much more to you than that. It’s the way you talked to him, the way you cared for him, the way you looked at him. How the hell do you fake that kind of connection? Hurt splits him at the seams like he’s being torn in two, but he keeps walking like nothing’s wrong.
“Yeonjun!” He recognizes that voice immediately. He pulls his eyes off the sidewalk and catches sight of you walking up to him. He almost forgot that he walks past your little field on the way to his lab.
It feels like he’s the one keeping a secret, palms clamming up as you stand in front of him. He stops in his tracks to allow you the conversation. “Hey,” he says.
“What are you up to?” you ask. He fidgets with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Should he just act normal? Should he let you get away with using him? When he thinks about it like that, it puts a sour taste in his mouth.
“I’m headed to the lab. Got some stuff to do, and it’s time sensitive, so…” he trails off awkwardly, looking off into the distance instead of at you.
“Oh, okay,” you say, sounding a little dejected. Yeonjun shouldn’t be feeling bad for you right now, but he can’t help it. It makes his chest clench to hear the joy leave your voice. “Maybe we can hang out after? Just to study or something,” you offer.
Yeonjun sighs, “Maybe.”
You’re quiet for a second as you assess him. “Are you okay?” Concern fills your voice, and when he brings his vision back to you, he can see it in your eyes too.
“I’ll talk to you about it later,” he says.
You frown, taking in his flat expression. You must gain some insight from that, because then you’re asking, “Did I do something?”
He wants to hold his head, feeling defeated and frustrated and sad and a million other different things. He’s not sure how to label it. He’s never felt emotions this complex before, probably because he’s never liked anyone this much before.
“Oh god, did I?” you repeat, more fear in your voice at Yeonjun’s lack of a response. It strikes him and deflates his will to be dismissive about it, not wanting you to sit here worrying for the rest of the day. Curse his soft heart.
“Just come with me,” Yeonjun says, continuing on the path to his lab building. You follow beside him, taking long strides to match his quick pace. He notices you struggling to keep up, so he slows down, even though it might make him a few minutes late.
“I’m sorry,” you apologize. He can feel you looking at him, but he keeps his eyes ahead.
“You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for,” he mumbles.
“Tell me then,” you plead. The thought of having to talk about this with you makes him feel sick. He doesn’t know if he can even choke up the words without getting nauseous.
“Let me clock into my lab first.” The rest of the walk is silent; you keep quiet even as you enter the room with him, watching him take off his sweatshirt and put on his lab coat. You’re quiet even as he goes through the study procedure, not even lingering near him to see what he’s doing. He feels a little cruel for it, wondering if he’s just torturing you by forcing you to stand silently and worry about what he must be upset at you for.
He steals a glance at you. You’re leaning against the wall by the door, so many steps away, keeping so much distance. He bites his lip and looks away, figuring it’s time to start the conversation.
“I want to talk to you, but I don’t want you to lie to me,” Yeonjun says, breaking the long stretch of silence. He walks toward you, stopping before he gets too close.
“I won’t. I’m not gonna hide anything from you.” It’s funny you say that.
“Do you like Kai?” His question catches you off guard, your frown leaving your face.
“No,” you answer.
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay. So why did Beomgyu tell me you used me to get back at him?”
He watches you stiffen at the question. “How do you know Beomgyu?” you ask.
“Please just answer me,” Yeonjun says. He doesn’t want to run around in circles, he just wants to hear the truth from you.
“I don’t like Kai anymore.” Something about that sentence hits like a stab to the gut. Yeonjun would know the feeling.
He tsks and shakes his head, ready to walk away and end the conversation, but you continue, “Please let me say the whole story.” Yeonjun sighs and meets your eyes. He decides to hear you out, only because a part of him is dying for you to make this right.
“Go ahead,” he says.
“I invited you to the party because you’re my friend, and I think you’re cute, but also for really petty, stupid revenge. It was so dumb and I’m so sorry, I feel so fucking bad for that now,” you explain. Yeonjun thinks back to how excited he was when you asked him. He remembers the rush of butterflies, the nervousness that pooled in his stomach, the adrenaline through his veins when he realized he finally had your attention.
You continue, “But I swear on my life, Yeonjun, the second we went outside at that party, I realized how unfair it was. I wanted to make Kai jealous, but when we were standing out there, I couldn’t do it. You’re a good person, and I felt fucking awful, and I didn’t go through with anything, and I’m glad I didn’t. You gave me one of the best nights of my life that day. I mean that. Seriously.”
There’s sincerity in your eyes, so Yeonjun knows you’re not lying. The ache in his chest is dull now, but still there. He can’t believe you planned to use him as some pawn to get back at Kai.
“Why’d I have to hear it from someone else? Why couldn’t you tell me yourself?” he asks. It’s pathetic how his voice carries more heartbreak than anger.
“Cause I didn’t want you to misunderstand and leave!” you explain, desperate. “Yeonjun, please. I don’t care about Kai anymore. I haven’t even talked to him since the party.”
Yeonjun wishes he could feel comforted by your words, but all he feels is hurt. He has this terrible thing where he can’t stop asking questions that will only batter him worse. “So you didn’t really like me?”
You take a step closer to him, placing both hands over your heart. Yeonjun’s not blind; he can see the fear in your eyes, the worry that he might walk away. He doesn’t have it in him to relieve your stress right now.
“I always liked you. I like you more every day,” you answer. There’s honesty in your words, which Yeonjun appreciates. It doesn’t quite melt away his insecurities, though.
Yeonjun can’t bear looking at you any longer, dropping his gaze to the floor and stepping back. He’s ready to leave, thinking he needs the night to himself to stare at the ceiling and contemplate this whole situation.
You stop him before he can get too far. Your hand hooks onto the sleeve of his lab coat, shaking as you cling to him. It’s so pitiful that it ruins the monstrous image Yeonjun’s trying to fit you into in his mind. Against his better judgment, his eyes meet yours again.
He’s about to speak—maybe to console you, to get some of that sadness out of your eyes—but the sound of glass breaking behind him makes him turn with wide eyes, searching for the damage. He’ll be the one stuck replacing any broken equipment; he can only pray that it wasn’t a more expensive piece.
His eyes flit across the room, but he finds nothing. Is he seriously losing his mind? Every time he’s in this lab, there’s something new giving him a mini heart attack. He brushes this off as some kind of paranoia. He considers talking to his professor about taking a break from the lab, just until he can restore his sanity.
“Let’s just head out of here,” Yeonjun says, unable to rid himself of the chill down his spine.
“Do you still like me?” you ask, unable to move on from the conversation. You stay planted in your spot as Yeonjun takes off his lab gear. He groans internally at your question—of course he still likes you. Do you think his feelings are so malleable? His adoration for you feels like an immovable boulder. He can’t even stay mad at you for as long as he wanted to, though he tries not to let you win too easily.
He sighs out your name instead of answering. He waits for you at the door as he throws his sweatshirt back on, and you trudge forward with a pout. Once his sweatshirt is slipped over his head, he catches sight of something behind you, heart stopping entirely.
“What the hell—?!” he emits, eyes growing wide as the cell clump he’d been working with expands out past its storage spot, spilling out onto the floor. The broken glass earlier must’ve been from the petri dish—shit, he should’ve checked. It’s discolored now, so dark it’s nearly black, and growing more rapidly than it should be able to.
You spin on your feet to see what Yeonjun’s looking at, yelping when you see the growth. You back up quickly and bump into Yeonjun’s chest. “What’s happening?” you ask, turning your head back to look up at him.
“I don’t know,” he answers. He has to think fast, because it doesn’t look like the cell replication is stopping any time soon—if anything, it looks like it’s growing exponentially. The clump is a goo-like substance, slowly spilling out further and further onto the floor, looking something like tar as it expands out. “We’ll have to trigger rapid apoptosis,” he says.
“How do we do that?” you ask. Yeonjun’s not sure either, so he doesn’t bother to answer. He opens one of the cabinets and pulls out all the different liquid chemicals he can find. One of these is bound to do something.
You hold yourself and watch him carefully, still looking shy and desperate and nervous from your argument. Yeonjun’s not sure why you seem to be more bothered by him not reassuring you that he likes you than by the clump that grows behind you. Your attention remains on him the whole time.
“Are you mad at me?” you ask.
“No,” he answers sharply and quickly. He has bigger issues to be worried about than staying mad at you.
“I promise I wasn’t lying. I won’t talk to Kai ever again.”
“Why are we having this conversation right now?!” Yeonjun asks, frustrated.
“Because it’s important to me that you know!”
He ignores you in favor of unscrewing the lid to one of the acids, hoping it could digest the cells. When he pours it onto the clump, a loud hiss rings through the room and smoke comes up from the mass. It doesn’t seem to dissolve the cells, though.
He emits an exasperated groan, opening the lid to another chemical substance, and you rush to do the same. He can’t stop to think about how dangerous this is, too focused on controlling the problem before it gets irreparable. You and Yeonjun pour chemicals onto it at the same time, and it seems to react. The tar-like blob thickens now, erecting itself up from the floor languidly.
You and Yeonjun back up, watching with fearful eyes as it stands. It moves like it’s alive, like it’s a living organism. It’s eerily silent for a room as you two stare at the mass in shock. Then, rapidly, it comes charging at you, attaching itself to your cardigan as you shriek. Yeonjun acts fast, running to you and grabbing your waist, adhering his feet to the floor to keep you from getting dragged any more. You shed your cardigan quickly before tugging it back from the blob. It tears from how harsh you pull it, but you don’t seem to care, chucking it to the opposite side of the room.
This is an unfortunate time to see you in a tight-fitting tank top. Your chest heaves from the panic of being grabbed by the organism, rising and falling as you start to steady your breath. You look over at him, and he finds himself blushing and removing his gaze from you in embarrassment. God, now he’s the one struggling to focus on the bigger problem.
Yeonjun directs his wrist at the blob, shooting a web at it to keep it from charging at you again. The web sends the mass flying back until it collides with the wall. Though it can’t remove itself from the confines of the web, it still slowly grows, and it will be able to expand enough to attack again soon. Still, this should buy you two some more time.
“You should leave,” Yeonjun says, coming to you and cupping your face. His eyes beg you to go, strung up on the possibility of you getting hurt.
“I won’t,” you say, grabbing onto his wrists.
“Please. You’re too important.” His hand strokes through your hair like you’re something precious.
You take his hand and kiss it. “You are too. I won’t leave.”
He sighs. He knows he’s not winning this, there’s too much determination in your words. Before he removes his focus from you, he thinks he should tell you one last thing. “Just so you know, I like you too.”
You’re barely able to hold back your smile, but Yeonjun can’t stay and watch your reaction. The mass continues to grow over the confines of the web, and he has to find a way to control it before it overcomes the binds. He opens the binder that holds the descriptions of all the lab materials, hoping he can find something useful in there. His eyes flit across the words, scanning for the chemicals that will be his saving grace.
He stops when he reads the description for nitric acid. The words digest and dissolve kick his body to life, hope stirring inside of him. “Come here with the nitric acid!” he shouts over his shoulder.
“Which one is that?” you ask hurriedly, scanning through the different bottles of chemicals.
“It’s in a brown translucent bottle. Quick!” Before he can panic further, you’re racing to his side with a bottle of the acid. Yeonjun quickly pours it over the mass, watching it shrivel when the liquid hits its surface. A weight lifts off Yeonjun’s shoulders when he realizes he finally found something that works. The bottle doesn’t hold nearly enough, though, because Yeonjun empties it out before he can melt the organism completely.
He turns to you expectantly, and you’re rushing back to the counter where all the chemical substances are held. You’re turning each to read the labels, growing more aggravated as you fail to find another container of nitric acid. You curse as you swing the cabinet doors open, checking if there’s any stored away in there.
You pull out a bottle from the cabinet, reading it quickly. “Would sulfuric acid work?” you ask, looking at Yeonjun like you need him to say yes.
“It would react with the nitric acid,” he answers. You groan.
“You think I know any of this stuff?!” You go back to searching through the cabinet.
“Yes! You’re, like, the smartest girl I know!” Yeonjun exclaims, equally as frustrated.
“You must not know a lot of girls then,” you huff. You finally pull out a bottle that seems to match, running over to Yeonjun. He takes it from your hands and pours the liquid over what remains of the clump, watching it dissolve until all that’s left is a murky puddle on the floor. He plops the nitric acid onto a table, finally letting himself take a full breath. He tastes the chemicals swirling in the air, but he can’t bring himself to care about any toxins filling his lungs. He’s worn out, crouching down in exhaustion with a groan.
When he picks his head up from between his arms, he searches for you. You’re bent over one of the tables, head tucked between your arms as half your body rests over the surface. You must be just as drained as him. He stretches his body out as he stands back up, then approaches you at the opposite side of the table. He rests his elbows onto the tabletop, leaning forward to be closer to you.
“You get feisty when you’re working under pressure,” Yeonjun teases, breathless laugh escaping him. You lift your head to look at him, and he can see how you hold back your amusement.
“I could say the same about you,” you respond. You seem winded, still breathing hard as you push yourself off the table and pick up your cardigan from the floor. You hold up your cardigan and examine the damage. It’s stained and ripped and looks disgusting. You pout. “This was my favorite one…”
“Don’t worry, you’re pretty good at stitching things back up,” Yeonjun says, coming up to you and taking the cardigan from your hands to tie it around your waist. You look up at him, something fond shining in your eyes.
“I guess I am,” you say, tugging on Yeonjun’s sweatshirt to pull him closer to you. You wear a dopey smile as you stare at him, hands resting on his shoulders, and Yeonjun really hopes that you do what he knows you’re both thinking about right now.
You don’t leave him waiting long; your hand comes to his jaw to bring his face to yours, and the next second, Yeonjun’s having the best kiss of his life. It feels like a reward after the shitshow that today’s been. For it to come to this, he’d relive it a dozen more times.
“Wait,” Yeonjun says, pulling back. “Are we dating now?”
“Haven’t we been dating?” You look at him like he’s a fool, and it endears Yeonjun endlessly.
“Oh, I’ve already told, like, three people that you’re my boyfriend.” There might be real hearts in Yeonjun’s eyes right now.
“Good,” he says, coming in for another quick kiss. “I’m all yours.” His words are uttered against your lips, since he can’t seem to pull himself away from you.
You gladly accept his kisses, and he has to keep himself from getting too drunk off your taste. He has to remember he’s still in a lab with a bunch of chemicals filling the air—it’s probably a good idea to get out. Even though he doesn’t want to, Yeonjun steps back and looks around at the mess throughout the room. Given everything that happened, it’s not awful. A mop would take care of ninety percent of the problem.
“We should clean this up,” he sighs.
“Yeah,” you agree. Neither of you make a move. You start laughing after a few seconds, and Yeonjun returns his attention to you with a cheeky grin.
“No, let’s just leave,” he suggests. He’s exhausted. He’ll explain everything to his professor tomorrow, he can’t take any more of this today.
“Should we go back to my place then?” you ask. Yeonjun does a very poor job of hiding his excitement. He wants more than anything to hold you to his chest and zip across campus to get to your dorm, but alas, he does the smart thing instead. A ten minute walk has never felt more like ten hours in his life, and seeing your dorm building finally come into view has his heart racing in anticipation.
Yeonjun’s all over you the minute your door closes behind him. He doesn’t let your lips disconnect for a second—not to talk, not to breathe, because nothing’s more important than tasting your lips on his.
Your back falls to your mattress, and Yeonjun’s mind briefly wanders to the last time you two were here. Having you sprawled out beneath him is quite different than you patching him up above him. In a way, that moment felt like the start of something bigger between you. The initial spark came long before it, but that night is what caused fire to catch. He feeds the flame now, fingers untying the cardigan at your waist and throwing it to the floor. Your shirt’s the next thing to go, and he only pulls away long enough to shed the cloth off of you.
His mouth on yours is ravenous and unwilling to waste any more time. He feels up your stomach, cherishing the warm flesh with eager fingers. He trails his hands up to your chest, feeling your breasts over your bra. You gasp when he squeezes experimentally, and it encourages him to continue, movements growing hungry.
You break away from the kiss, panting for air while Yeonjun latches onto your jaw. He’s insatiable, sucking your skin and placing kitten licks over the mark after. He hovers his face over yours, biting back his grin when he sees how hazy your eyes have become.
You catch his face in your hand, cupping his jaw and thumbing his cheek. The action makes his heart soar, and he leans into your warm touch. Your smile turns from soft to wicked when you push your thumb between his lips, and he engulfs the digit without a fight.
“I like you,” you say as he sucks your thumb, blinking up at him adoringly like he’s not doing some lewd act right now. He swirls his tongue around you before popping it out of his mouth, kissing your fingertip then taking your hand in his own.
“I like you too.” His free hand goes behind your back to search for your bra clasp, fumbling with it clumsily until he gets it to disconnect. You pull the material off, and Yeonjun’s cock twitches in his pants when he takes in the sight of you. A part of him feels wrong for doing this, like this is too dirty, but a larger part of him can’t wait to indulge in you. He’ll just make sure to take you out for dinner after.
Yeonjun throws his sweatshirt and shirt to the floor, pride swirling inside him when he sees the way you ogle at his skin. You lay your hand over his chest, trailing your fingers over the expanse teasingly. He takes your wrist and drags your hand away.
“You don’t deserve to touch me. I’m still upset about Kai,” he says. It’s a lie, but he’s in a playful mood. Your hand makes its way back to his chest despite that, so he grabs it and brings it to the bed, shooting a web over your wrist so you can’t move it. He giggles. The whole web-slinging thing comes with some perks.
“Oh, come on,” you sulk as he does the same to your other wrist. He leans back for a moment, looking down at you all proud. A few different sights flash through his mind, endless possibilities of how he could make the most of your hands being restrained. Maybe he should punish you for ever liking Kai in the first place, keep you on the edge until you’re chanting apologies into the air. He could also just indulge in your body greedily, taste every inch of you without your hands pulling him away. The ache in his pants grows at the thought.
You sigh in satisfaction when his hand meets your clothed core. Your hips grind against his hand, and he allows you to use him to find your pleasure. Your hands close into fists as Yeonjun lets you ride his open palm, still fighting against your restraints.
“How much do you like me?” Yeonjun asks. His free hand holds your waist, fingers brushing against your skin gently.
“So much,” you answer, never abandoning your rhythm. “You’re so smart, and handsome, and funny, and—nngh—and good to me…” Yeonjun’s hand travels from your waist to your chest in reward, thumb rolling over one of your nipples.
“Yeah, I am good to you. I stay with you even though you’re mean to me.”
You shake your head at his statement. “I’m not mean to you,” you say.
He laughs at how you try to control yourself, how serious your tone gets. Your hips slow, so he takes measures into his own hands and moves his palm against your cunt instead. If he presses down hard enough, he can feel how wet you are even through your pants.
“You are,” he says. “You use me to get other men.” He knows that’s not true now, but a part of him is still a little bruised by the idea. He figures that airing out his insecurities like this might help him, and it makes him feel less vulnerable.
“No! That’s not true!” Yeonjun ignores you and takes off your pants, letting them join the other articles of clothing on your floor. He short circuits when he sees the wet patch on your panties. A sense of shame must fill you then, because your legs clamp shut to block his view.
“Hey, be nice,” he says, opening your legs back up. He holds you open as he presses his knee to your folds, and he can feel your arousal even through the fabric of his sweatpants. He’s squealing internally, overjoyed to have you soaking for him, but he keeps his calm on the outside.
Your hands push against the webs again, shaking the mattress a little. You pout at him. “I want to touch you,” you whine.
“Sorry about that,” he says. He matches your pout as his hands smooth down your legs, lazily exploring your flesh. He grabs your hips and positions them up a little so that you’re pressing into his thigh. He hears the moan that gets caught in your throat as he drags your cunt against him, holding back a satisfied smirk.
“Should I tell you what I like about you?” Yeonjun asks, something silky and smooth in his voice. You nod, rolling your hips over his thigh. “Say pleaseeeee,” he prompts.
“Please,” you echo. He giggles.
“Again.” He’s having fun.
“Please, Yeonjun,” you beg, sweet voice dripping with need.
He releases your hips so he can pull off your panties, tugging you back onto him once you kick the cloth off your ankles. He can really feel how wet you are now, and it makes a knot form in his stomach. He wants you more than anything.
“I like how pretty you are,” he starts, leaning over you to press kisses against your neck. “And I like how cool you are.” His mouth travels a little lower, sucking at your collarbone. “And I like how I can talk to you for hours and never get bored.” His lips smother your chest, just above your tits, familiarizing himself with every inch of your skin. Your hips buck against him when he presses his thigh more firmly between your legs. “And I like how wet you get,” he laughs.
His mouth finds your breasts then, tongue swirling teasingly around one of your buds. Your nipples perk up, begging for his attention. He drags his tongue over to your other mound, sucking at the swell of flesh, moaning against you. The taste of your skin in his mouth makes him feel high.
You whine, hips rolling more fervently against him, chasing your approaching high. Yeonjun busies himself with delivering kitten licks to your nipples, watching the way they glisten with his saliva after he runs his tongue across them a few times. He peels himself off of you when your rhythm gets unsteady, not wanting you to cum yet. There’s a look of betrayal on your face as he disconnects from you, not touching you at all anymore.
“Yeonjun,” you moan, wrapping your legs around his waist and pulling him in. “I need to cum.” Your needy cunt grinds against the tent in his boxers, hungrily trying to get yourself off. He lets you have your fun for a minute, enjoying the feel of your warm, wet slit coating his clothed cock, before holding your hips still and keeping you from moving. That doesn’t stop you from digging your heels into his back, pushing him harder against you.
He removes your legs from him, holding you open as he plunges two fingers into your cunt. Your heat takes him in so nicely, the slide of his digits inside you made so easy from how slick your cunt is. You arch your back, moaning out as he curls his fingers inside you.
“Tight girl, gotta stretch you out,” he says, scissoring his digits to prepare you. Your arousal pools out of you, dripping onto the mattress as Yeonjun fucks you on his fingers. “Need to get you ready for me.”
“Mhm, need your dick,” you say. You look so helpless like this, laying back and letting Yeonjun fuck his fingers into you however he wants. He increases his speed just because he can, knowing you can’t pry his hand away, grinning when you emit a surprised gasp. Your walls start tightening around his fingers, a warning of your orgasm, and Yeonjun pulls his hand away before you can get there.
You’re whining his name again, thighs clamping shut to relieve the pressure. He shushes you as he tugs his boxers out of the way, stroking his cock as he watches the way you tremble. Poor thing.
“You want me to fuck you?” he asks. Your legs spread open immediately in invitation. He watches as a glob of arousal drips out from your core.
“Yes,” you breathe out. He pumps his shaft a few more times before bringing it to your folds, letting your wetness coat his tip. “Put it in,” you beg, jerking your hips up. He ignores your plea, bringing the head of his cock to your clit to tap on it a few times. The stimulation sends a buzz through you, and Yeonjun coos at you sweetly.
“Want you to feel so good,” he says, aligning his tip to your hole and starts pushing in. You throw your head back and groan, and he gives your neck a wet kiss. “Wanna be the best you’ve had.” He sinks in slowly, letting your walls adjust to him inch by inch. You feel like heaven around him, and his fingers dig into your hips to keep himself from losing his mind. He wants to meld himself into you.
He grinds his pelvis against you when he bottoms out, steadying his breaths so he doesn’t lose himself too quickly. His moans are deep and airy, while yours are whiny and pathetic. He trails a hand up your body until he’s cupping your face, bringing your attention to him. You look dazed, and he wants to watch you fall apart. He needs to see your perfect face scrunched up with pleasure, eyes glassy and mouth open, going stupid from how fucked out you are.
He presses a light kiss against your lips, then leans his face into the crook of your neck. He finally starts pulling back, slamming back into you with a whimper. Your cunt takes him so readily despite how tight you are, your arousal making him glide in and out of you so easily.
“Gonna be perfect for you,” Yeonjun promises. “Be a good boyfriend. Fuck you every day. Keep you happy.” He lifts himself up to watch your mouth fall open as he thrusts into you. He presses against your stomach to feel himself inside you, moaning whorishly when he does. It makes him fuck you harder, desperation coursing through his system.
You can barely speak from how far gone you are, stuttering out curses and whimpers of his name. He brings his thumb to your clit, rubbing at the swollen bud to get you clenching around him. He groans at how tight you get, sucking him in like your body was meant to take him.
“Need you to cum now,” Yeonjun says, feeling his high looming over. “Gotta feel you milking my cock, let me see it.”
“Kiss me,” you say breathlessly, mouth hanging open as you wait for him to take it. He obliges eagerly, shoving his tongue into your mouth with a needy whine. He licks into you as if this will coax your orgasm out, and it does. Your walls clamp around him, and he’s barely able to move from how tight you get. He circles your clit diligently, only letting up when your body jolts in overstimulation.
He pulls out soon after, only having to stroke himself a few times before he’s spilling his seed onto your stomach. He groans as he milks himself for every last drop, hand shaking as he releases the last of it. You look hot painted with his cum; he bites his lip and squeezes your thighs, needing more and more of you.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he says, making you turn your head away shyly.
“Thanks. You are too.” His stomach flips, feeling proud that he earned your praise. He lowers himself to your torso, lapping at the milky strands of his cum. He cleans you nicely, swallowing down his own release until your stomach’s coated in only his saliva. He brings himself to your slit to lap at it languidly, loving the little whines you emit at the sensation.
“Did so good for me, thank you,” he murmurs into your cunt. He pushes his tongue into your entrance, slowly fucking the muscle inside you. You sigh and roll your hips against his face, relaxed and melting into the feeling.
“Y-you’re good too,” you praise. He licks his way up to your clit, taking it into his mouth and letting his tongue roll over the bud. He likes to hear that he’s being good for you, it makes him feel like he’s worthy of you. He thrives off your happiness, so he feels content as he pleases you with his mouth.
He never wants to let you go. He wants you in his arms forever, he wants to stay in this room and live the rest of his life with just you by his side. This much is enough for him. He glides his hands down your thighs, letting his fingers lightly drag along your skin. He opens his mouth a little more to taste more of you, to kiss your folds more hungrily. He presses the tip of his tongue to your bud, focusing the pressure right against it until he hears you mewl.
“Right there!” you gasp out, pressing yourself further into Yeonjun’s face. He hooks his arms around your thighs to keep you in place, making sure you don’t jolt away when your orgasm creeps up on you. He flicks his tongue over your clit repeatedly, feeling your thighs shake in his grasp. He doesn’t stop until you’re releasing on his face, coating his mouth and chin with your essence.
He detaches himself after a minute, licking his lips and letting go of your legs. He sits up and smiles at you, taking in how pretty you look. He holds your jaw so he can kiss you, and he can’t help but to giggle into the kiss. This is so surreal. He would have fainted if he knew one month ago that this would be happening to him.
“Hi,” you say when he finally pulls his face from yours. This feels like a dream.
“Hi,” he echoes, butterflies fluttering in his stomach. He cherishes the smile you give him.
“So when does this dissolve?” you ask, tugging at the webs holding your arms in place. Yeonjun scratches his neck bashfully. That's enough of an answer for you. “Yeonjun…” you sigh, body deflating.
“Less than two hours!” he rushes to say.
“Two hours?!”
“It’s not that bad. I think we can pass the time,” he says, failing to hold back his smile.
Your eyes flit down to his stirring cock. “I guess I have nothing better to do,” you give in. Yeonjun sees right through your nonchalant act, but he lets you get away with it. He has better things to busy himself with than arguing about that.
──── ──── ──── ──── ────
You bring Yeonjun to the market after learning about the laundry detergent debacle. You place the item in your basket, shaking your head at him as you do. “I can’t believe your roommate had to tell me to get you to buy this.”
Yeonjun raises his hands in defense. “I get busy sometimes,” he says.
“With coming to my dorm every other night?” you ask with a raised brow, walking into the next aisle.
Yeonjun drops a candy bar into the basket alongside the detergent. “No, with lab stuff, and class stuff, and Spidey stuff,” he corrects. He picks up a bottle of your favorite drink as he passes by it on the shelf. “And with girlfriend stuff,” he adds sweetly.
“Right,” you say unconvincingly, smiling as you nod your head.
Yeonjun grabs a pair of sunglasses off a rack, placing them on his face and turning to you with a grin. “How cool are these?” he asks, pointing at himself.
You laugh and lift the sunglasses up so they rest on his head. “So cool,” you answer. You tilt your head to check the price on them. “You should totally spend the last of your money on them.”
He pulls the glasses off his face to check the price tag, eyebrows raising in reaction. He puts them back on the rack. He can’t get rid of the smile on his face as he watches you shop, endeared and swooned by every little thing you do. It’s small moments like these that make him feel like the luckiest guy on earth.
“We should get bandages. I can’t believe you don’t have any,” you say, looking for where the item would be in the store.
“There’s a lot of things I don’t have. I’m operating on a limited budget,” he explains. It’s not like he can tackle a job on top of everything else he does. He’s grown accustomed to his ways of living, accepting that he’s become the male college student stereotype.
“I’m glad I stepped into your life then,” you say, throwing a box of bandages into your basket. “I’m actually scared you’d die without me.”
Yeonjun can’t help but to laugh at that. “I would die without you,” he agrees. He follows you as you continue walking around the store, aimlessly searching for anything you might need. You stop when you feel your phone buzz, pulling out your phone upon receiving a notification, checking it curiously. He reads the message over your shoulder; it’s an alert from your local news station about some rescue mission for a bunch of dogs that ran loose from their shelter just now. You turn to him with a knowing smile.
“That’s your cue, Spider-man.”
notes: god i loved writing this so much…. i hope u like spideyjjun just as much as i do<3 i would love to hear ur thoughts if u have anyyy!!! tysm for reading hehe
synopsis ₊˚⊹⋆˙⟡ jake's life is built on routine. early mornings, packed lunches, and a five-year-old daughter who knows exactly how to cause the right amount of chaos. he's content with keeping things easy and predictable. until you move in across the hall one day, slowly and quietly becoming part of their every day. from accidental run-ins to forced dinners to shared mornings and lingering touches, jake realizes that sometimes—home isn't a place you build on purpose. maybe it's the one you stumble into, and maybe she's just across the hall.
warnings ✦ ݁˖ 18+ // family & domestic themes // sim jiuen is a menace // angst angst, miscommunication, very confusing feelings // avoidant attachment issues // lots & lots of tension, HEAVY on the slowburn // jake is still awkward bc it's jake but like hot awkward // mentions of parent abandonment // profanity // alcohol consumption // features uncles enha LOL // heavy pining // LOTS of domesticity // y/n is younger, ages not explicitly mentioned ˗ˏˋ nsfw tags ᝰ.ᐟ soft dom!jake, unprotected sex, oral sex, fingering, dry humping, rough sex, doggy, praise kink, daddy kink, creampie, heavy on the breeding kink (...jake never learns), calls reader 'momma', anddd choking kink.....bc yeah
°˖➴ .ᐟ addie ── wow ok so im sad im done writing this fic bc this truly has had me in a chokehold bc i LOVE this concept so much :') like wdym dad jake with a lil daughter and he's hot and awkward and takes care of her and is just so soft ㅜㅜ anyways prob the quickest i've written a fic given usually it takes me months so ty for everyone's luv & support & excitement <33 a massive shout out again to juni @yuons for this idea and then of course special mentions to my luvs ronnie & kiki for planting some ideas thru out this fic & beta reading & their support i luv my frens @heejamas @hoonieyun <3 i genuinely had so much freaking fun writing this,,dilf jake & sim jiuen i luv u LOL HOPE U ALL ENJOY ! ৻( •̀ ᗜ •́ ৻)
they say having kids will change your life.
your sleep schedule. your priorities. your definition of love. and jake agrees with all of that, obviously. he’s not an idiot.
but what no one really tells you—what none of those parenting books or late night reddit threads or overly cheerful pediatricians mention? is how much kids also sharpen your life. how they turn it into something precise. measured. carefully arranged so nothing spills over.
jake’s mornings start the same way every day. alarm at 6:12AM (not 6:10, too early. not 6:15, too risky). coffee brewed before the sun is fully up. socks paired and re-paired because somehow they never match. and then a five year old’s voice drifting down the hallway asking questions that absolutely do not need to be asked before sunrise.
he packs lunch with muscle memory. apple slices. sandwiches. no peanut butter because of that one kidin class with an allergy whose mom sends passive-aggressive emails. a juice box that he knows will come back unopened. a sticky note with a doodle and a message that he pretends is just something he does because it’s cute, and not because his daughter reads them like they’re the law.
and life is…fine. quiet. predictable in the way that feels earned, safe, and steady. and jake likes it that way.
which is exactly why, when sim jiuen barrels full-speed down their apartment hallway one afternoon after being picked up from school—ignoring every rule jake has ever taught her about inside voices and walking feet—jake already knows something is about to go wrong.
this is what he gets for disrupting the routine.
for the record, routines are sacred. they are survival. and today, jake had broken it—slipping an extra sugar cookie into jiuen’s lunchbox this morning because she looked particularly sleepy and small at breakfast and he felt particularly soft and he’s clearly trying to uphold his title as World’s Best Dad.
an avoidable mistake. a sugar-fueled one.
“ji—slow down!”
but it’s too late.
because right as she rounds the corner, there’s a collision. a gasp. and then a very loud, deeply concerning thump.
and because jake is 1) tired, 2) a father, and 3) a man who works out maybe twice a week on a good month, he’s too out of breath from sprinting after his child to fully process what’s happening at first.
one hand is still gripping jiuen’s backpack, the bright pink, aggressively sparkly thing swinging wildly by his side—while his free hand instinctively goes to his hair, attempting to smooth down what he’s fairly certain is day-two-and-not-washed.
but he finally looks up. and that’s when he sees you.
jiuen stands directly in front of you, eyes blown wide, hands planted firmly on your knees like she’s just discovered something monumental, maybe life-altering even, in her very impressive five years of existence.
you, on the other hand, have a cardboard box labeled kitchen??? in messy marker, the question marks thick and uneven like you added them after the fact, once you realized you had absolutely no idea what was supposed to go in there. your hair is pulled into a messy knot that’s surrendered in multiple places—stray strands loose around your face in that very specific way that suggests nothing except moving day exhaustion, and you’re blinking down at his child like you’re not entirely sure what just ran into you either.
jiuen grins.
“hi!” she says immediately, the bright smile on her face saying she’s completely unbothered by the concept of personal space or strangers.
jake closes his eyes. just briefly. just long enough to mentally sigh and add stranger danger refresher to tonight’s ever growing list of things he’s probably forgetting to do as a parent. but when he opens them again—he feels it. the shift. the stutter. the barely there change in the air, like the moment right before something tips over and the trajectory of everything changes.
because now the confusingly labeled box that was in your hands sits abandoned on the floor beside you, and you’ve crouched down in front of jiuen without hesitation, meeting her at eye level like it’s second nature. your smile mirrors hers—it’s warm, wide, completely unguarded—and jake doesn’t process what you’re saying at first, but it’s the way your voice sounds. the way it doesn’t feel practiced or forced or overly polite in that adult talking to a child way.
and that’s when he knows.
jake already knows, deep in his bones, with the certainty of someone who’s survived long enough to recognize danger when it’s standing right there in front of him—that whatever calm, careful rhythm he’s built for himself?
you’re about to ruin it.
because here you are, and now that jake’s actually looking—he takes you in.
you can’t be that much younger than him, judging by the faint, familiar look sitting just beneath your eyes, the kind that doesn’t come from staying up too late partying or bad decisions, but the quieter kind. the kind that comes from long days, early mornings, and figuring out in real time how to answer when life already started asking things of you.
your cheeks are pink and flushed, probably from hauling boxes up and down all afternoon, and there’s a soft sheen to your skin that tells him it has nothing to do with sweat and effort and everything to do with the fact that you just…look like that. it’s subtle and unassuming, the kind of natural glow from within that isn’t trying to be noticed—and yet somehow demands jake’s full attention anyways.
and your hair, despite the chaos of it, falls perfectly around your face anyways—enough for jake to have to blink twice when he finally sees your face—and you’re wearing nothing but a simple white tank top and shorts, casual and effortless in a way that feels almost illegal considering there is, in fact, a five-year-old child living directly across the hall from you and this is, very clearly, meant to be a family-friendly building.
jake swallows hard. he feels his pulse kick somewhere hard and low all because he’s witnessing the new neighbor’s tank top cling to her like second skin, and he almost wants to scold himself for acting like a pathetic thirteen-year-old-boy discovering girl's shoulders for the first time.
he has to look away. he has to. because if he doesn’t, he’s going to stand here like an idiot, staring, while his five-year-old watches and the hallway slowly catches fire.
life is…fine. this is fine, completely fine. a normal reaction to the new neighbor. nothing to read into. except his brain, traitor that it is, offers the deeply unhelpful thought that if you look like this on moving day? then jake might be absolutely, unquestionably screwed. and he hasn’t even learned your name yet.
he clears his throat, once. then again.
“uh—sorry,” he starts, gesturing vaguely between you and the small human still beaming up at you like she’s already won at life at the age of five. “she, um. she runs.”
jiuen starts nodding enthusiastically. “i run really fast!”
jake sighs, squeezing his eyes, “too fast.”
you giggle, the sound soft and surprised, like you hadn’t expected this interaction—and it immediately makes something in his chest tighten in a way he does not appreciate.
“it’s okay,” you say easily, pushing yourself up from your crouch. “honestly the highlight of my day.” your eyes flick briefly to the box still sitting near your feet. “you know how it is, moving day.”
jake’s eyes follow yours to the box before looking back at you, humming in agreement, “yeah, that…pretty much tracks.”
then there’s a beat. a small pause where he knows he should say something else. introduce yourself. be normal. adult.
instead, what unfortunately comes out is, “you’re…uh—new.”
brilliant.
you tilt your head at him, a small look of amusement on your face, like you’re very aware of the obvious fact and are choosing to be kind about it.
“is it the boxes,” you tease lightly, “or the fact that i look disheveled and smell like cardboard?”
jake pauses for another beat before he exhales a quiet laugh. “…little bit of both?”
then, realizing he’s still standing there like an idiot, he straightens slightly and finally does the thing he should’ve done ten seconds ago. “i’m ja—”
“i’m jiuen!” the tiny human standing between you and jake beats him to it with enthusiasm, thrusting her hand out toward you, grin wide and eyes crinkling at the corners, clearly thinking this moment is about her and not her dad. “and that’s daddy!”
your smile softens immediately as you look back down at the little girl, taking her hand and giving it a very serious shake.
“well, hi jiuen,” you say warmly. “that’s a pretty name for a pretty girl. nice to meet you.”
your voice is gentle, easy. the kind that makes jake have to consciously remind himself that he needs to keep breathing because he’s being weird for no reason and this is simply what nice people just sound like.
then, slowly, you lift your gaze.
“and you too…” you add, eyes flicking back up to his, lips curling faintly. “…daddy.”
forget about breathing.
jake thinks he forgets how lungs work. literally.
he lets out a breath that sounds more like something he’s been holding in for too long by accident.
“jake,” he says, clearing his throat and finally extending his hand. it’s awkward. a little stiff. like it’s been a while since he’s introduced himself to someone who isn’t five years old or a teacher. “i’m jake. we, uh—we live right there.” he nods towards his apartment door, unnecessarily.
you glance down at his hand, then back up at him, smiling as you take it.
“y/n,” you reply easily. then you tilt your head, gesturing toward your obviously still open door, “and i live right there.”
and something small and traitorous flutters in jake’s chest at that. at how light your voice is, like you’re not overthinking this at all—like you aren’t at all aware of the way his pulse is racing, or how thoroughly you’ve already disrupted any sense of balance he thought he once had just by standing there.
he shifts his weight awkwardly before glancing down at the box still sitting by your feet. then at the few others stacked haphazardly just past your open doorway. then back at you.
“do you, uh—” he starts, already regretting it halfway through. “do you need help with those?”
it’s an offer he makes automatically, reflexively. years of carrying groceries one-handed while holding a sleepy kid with the other have rewired the way his brain works permanently.
you follow his gaze and smile, shaking your head.
“i’m okay,” you say simply, “i think i’m gonna call it a night anyways, it’s been a long day.”
“i can help!” jiuen then announces, voice loud and enthusiastic as she’s already stepping forward like she’s ready to carry the entire box herself.
jake gently grabs the back of her collar, halting her mid-step, her back softly thudding against his legs with an oomph. “you helped enough today.”
she pouts. “but y/n needs help.”
and jake has to pretend that your name doesn’t sound different coming from her voice, like it already belongs there.
you giggle softly, “i’ll survive, promise. but thank you, jiuen.”
jiuen studies you seriously, like she’s deciding whether or not to believe that. then her face brightens again, sudden and sincere. “you’re really, really pretty,” she says as if this is important information you should have. “do you wanna come over?”
jake’s head snaps up.
“ji—”
you blink. then laugh again, this time a little louder, glancing at jake with amused surprise.
“wow,” you say, looking back to smile at jiuen. “that’s very generous of you.”
jake clears his throat. “she’s…friendly.”
you tilt an eyebrow at him. “that’s one word for it.”
“daddy says i’m really good at making friends," jiuen nods proudly.
he exhales, rubbing a hand over his face, muttering, “i say a lot of things.”
you tilt your head, watching him with a soft smile before you bend slightly back down to match jiuen’s height. “hey,” you say gently. “i think you should probably get some rest, yeah? you had a big day.”
jiuen considers this seriously. then sighs long and dramatically. “okay.”
jake feels relief for only exactly half a second. because then his karma—small, loud, and wearing light-up sneakers—points a finger between the two of you, “but you have to come over soon!”
you glance up at jake again, eyes bright with amusement, but laced with something else jake refuses to acknowledge for his own sake.
“i’ll…think about it,” you say, and he tries to ignore the tone behind it.
jake feels like he should say something. anything. step in. regain control of the situation.
but instead, he hears himself say, “she’s usually in bed by eight.”
he has no idea why he said that.
why. did. he. say. that.
a flicker of surprise crosses your face before it softens into something small and knowing.
“good to know.”
jiuen beams, clearly satisfied—and clearly oblivious—finally allowing herself to be guided inside. jake opens the door, nudging her gently forward, but she looks back one last time.
“bye, y/n!”
“bye, jiuen!” you reply warmly, just as the door closes.
and suddenly, it’s just the two of you in the hallway. everything settles differently now, thicker somehow. enough to make jake shift his weight again, sliding his hands into his pockets, very aware of how close you’re standing. close enough to notice the faint scent of laundry detergent and something citrusy and…yeah, cardboard.
“well,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, “i’m right across the hall. if you, uh…need anything.”
you meet his gaze, smiling softly. “i’ll remember that.”
another pause. and not awkward exactly, but just the kind of linger that happens when neither of you is in a hurry to be the first one to leave.
eventually, you step back towards your door, fingers brushing the doorframe as you turn.
“i’ll see you around, jake.”
jake nods immediately, too fast, eyes wide in a way he can’t seem to control.
“yeah. see you around.”
and as your door closes, jake stays where he is for a beat longer than necessary, pulse racing. because this—this is another thing they don’t teach you about kids:
sometimes, they know what belongs to you long before you do.
jake learns that life goes on. it always does.
no matter the disruption—no matter how unexpected, how citrus-scented, how unfairly and distractingly pretty that disruption might be—life keeps moving forward. coffee still brews. mornings still come too early. a five-year-old still needs lunch packed and hair brushed and shoes tied.
life goes on, yes. but change? change has a way of slipping in quietly. unannounced. making itself comfortable before you realized it’s even there.
a few days pass. not enough time for anything to really change drastically. not enough time for routines to fully unravel or for habits to break. but just enough time for jake to become aware of you in the quiet, peripheral way when people notice things and pretend they don’t matter.
like in the damp little cluster of wet shoes you leave outside your door after it rains, lined up neatly like you meant to deal with them later and absolutely did not. or in the simple welcome mat you’ve placed outside your apartment, like it’s always been there. or in the way certain evenings suddenly smell like garlic and butter and something warm and familiar drifting from across the hallway, making him pause and think, oh. someone’s cooking.
and it definitely isn’t him.
but you.
he hasn’t actually seen you much, though. no hallway run-ins. no brief waves or awkward small talk. not even a coincidental meeting in the lobby or the package room. just evidence of your alleged existence, scattered quietly around him like proof he keeps pretending not to collect.
which is fine. good, even. he tells himself that.
until one evening, everything takes a turn. and that turn comes in the form of his own blood—powered by fruit snacks, unfiltered opinions, and, apparently, a complete disregard for social decorum.
she’s already tired. a long day of coloring inside the lines (mostly), playing house on the playground jungle gym, and surviving on dinosaur nuggets and chocolate milk finally caught up to her. her backpack is slipping down one shoulder, sparkly shoes half-scuffed from dragging her feet, energy running on stubbornness and stubbornness alone.
and jake’s already bracing for it. he tightens his grip on jiuen’s hand, mentally flipping through his usual de-escalation techniques when the typical evening meltdown comes. calm voice. eye level. he likes to think he’s good at this whole parenting thing. a professional, even.
they make it exactly three steps down the hall.
“—I WANT Y/N TO COME OVER FOR DINNER.”
jake freezes mid-step.
“ji,” he hisses quietly, already crouching to her level, hands gently but firmly holding her arms. “inside voice.”
“no,” she says and definitely not with her inside voice. her tone wobbles dangerously, “you never invite her. you promised!”
“i didn’t promise,” jake says carefully, whispering now as he glances instinctively toward the neighboring doors. “she just moved in, and we don’t—”
“I LIKE HER,” jiuen announces, louder now, voice climbing as tears prick the corners of her eyes. “AND YOU’RE BEING MEAN.”
the hallway suddenly feels too long. too narrow. too echoey. jake can feel it. he can feel his neighbors’ heads turning from behind their doors with curiosity.
“okay,” he says, taking a deep, slow breath, attempting calm. he gives his daughter a stern look as best as he can. “let’s go inside first, and then we can talk about—”
“no!”
jiuen stomps her foot. once. then again. then repeatedly, her palms now balled into fists at her sides.
“I WANT HER. I WANT THE PRETTY NEIGHBOR OVER NOW.”
“shhh—ji—”
“she’s really pretty, daddy,” she adds, as if this is the final, irrefutable point he can’t argue against.
jake squeezes his eyes shut. this is happening. in public. in the hallway.
“please, princess—” he whispers again, desperation slipping through despite his best efforts as he tries, and fails, to gently steer her tiny body toward their apartment door. “we can talk about this after dinner.”
“I DON’T WANT DINNER,” she cries. okay. she’s crying now. this is happening. “I WANT HER.”
and then—
your door opens.
jake’s soul leaves his body.
you step out, brows furrowed, hair loose and down this time, concern softening your face as you take in the scene in front of you: a very teary-eyed five-year-old, a very stressed dad crouched beside her, and one very sparkly pink backpack abandoned on the floor.
“uh,” you say gently, one eyebrow lifted. “everything okay?”
jake stands up immediately, mortified. “i am so sorry. she’s—she’s just tired. i’m so sorry.”
you smile, amused more than anything, walking towards jiuen and crouching down in front of her before jake can stop you.
“hey,” your voice cuts in softly, gentle and grounding all at once. one hand lifts instinctively to wipe the tear slipping down jiuen’s cheek. “what’s going on?”
jiuen sniffles dramatically. “daddy said you’re not allowed to come over.”
that’s when you tilt your head up and glance at jake, eyes bright with humor, mischief flickering there like you’ve already decided to enjoy this.
“wow,” you say lightly, “that’s harsh.”
jake blinks. he feels his ear’s burning already.
“it’s not—” jake starts, panicking. “i didn’t—”
jiuen turns back to you, another tear rolling down, another sniffle, “he’s being mean.”
you nod like this is serious business. “well, that's not good.”
jake lets out a quiet groan. he briefly considers banging his head against the door. just once. for clarity.
“and now,” jiuen continues, voice trembling again, “he said you can’t come over ever.”
jake’s head snaps up. “that’s—what? that’s not—”
you stifle your giggle, pressing a hand to your chest as you gasp softly. “ever?”
jiuen nods quickly.
the hallway suddenly feels very, very small.
“well,” you say thoughtfully, glancing between the two of them before your gaze settles back on jake—your smile turning into very specific kind of dangerous. “i do happen to have some free time tonight.”
jake stiffens. he silently prays to whatever higher power that might still be listening that this is a joke. that this is where you laugh it off and go back inside and pretend none of this ever happened.
“and,” you continue, tone easy, playful, teasing, “if daddy doesn’t mind me crashing dinner…”
and then jiuen’s face lights up instantly.
“YES!” she cheers, grabbing your hand with both of hers and tugging it excitedly.
jake opens his mouth. closes it. opens it again.
“i—uh,” he clears his throat, scrambling. “i mean, you don’t have to—”
“it’s okay,” you shrug, standing now, still smiling at him, still holding jiuen’s small hand in yours. “i don’t mind.”
jake looks at you. then looks at his daughter. then back at you again. and realizes—too late—that this is his fate. that his fate is being emotionally blackmailed by his own flesh and blood, simply because she has perfected the art of puppy eyes and is currently holding hands with the pretty neighbor who smells good and laughs easily. and so, how exactly is he supposed to say no?
he exhales slowly, the sound less about the situation at hand and more so about grounding himself because in a few seconds you’re about to be in his apartment. with him. and with his child. and it suddenly feels like a much bigger deal than it should.
“…okay,” he says finally, voice a little strained. “dinner sounds good to me.”
jiuen’s already tugging you toward the door, bouncing on her heels as she waits. jake unlocks the front door and steps aside to let you both in, his heart thudding a little harder than it should over something as simple as letting someone inside.
“uh—” he starts, then stops as he follows you in from behind, because welcome to my humble abode feels both too formal and wildly insufficient when you’re already stepping past him.
and jake's apartment is nice, he'd like to think. spacious, but not in a way that feels empty. it’s cozy and lived in, in the way that matters. the kind of space that’s clearly been shaped by routine rather than decoration. there’s a shoe rack by the door with pairs in varying sizes—tiny sneakers with light up soles shoved randomly next to bigger ones. a half-folded jacket draped over the back of the couch like it was meant to be put away and simply wasn’t. crayons and coloring books stacked neatly on the coffee table, and next to them, a lone plastic dinosaur guarding the tv remote.
you glance around politely, curious but not nosy, and jake suddenly becomes painfully aware of everything.
the family calendar stuck to the fridge with mismatched magnets. the crooked drawing taped beside it, stick figures holding hands under a sun that’s a little too big, labeled ME & DADDY in uneven marker. the faint smell of laundry in the air because he forgot, again, to move the wet clothes into the dryer this morning, and the small pile of plates still in the sink from breakfast, abandoned sometime between packing a backpack and tying shoes.
it’s not messy. it’s not spotless either. it’s real. you smile at the thought.
jiuen kicks her shoes off immediately, shoving them toward the corner of the rack before darting into the living room like she owns the place (and, well, she does). you hesitate for half a second, then slip your own shoes off, lining them neatly by the door as jake watches.
“sorry,” he says beside you, gesturing vaguely at the space like he could somehow explain it. “it’s…not usually this chaotic.”
you shake your head, smiling, “it’s cute.”
and that word—small, simple, probably something you said out of politeness—lands somewhere in his chest and stays there.
there’s a brief moment of silence after that, just long enough for jake to realize he should probably, definitely say something, considering you’re just standing there now, inside his apartment, and he’s doing a very poor job of pretending he isn’t staring.
“i’ll be in the kitchen,” he finally says, pointing toward it as if it isn’t directly in front of the both of you. he gestures again, unnecessarily. “make yourself at home, jiuen usually watches her show while i prep dinner.”
you hesitate for a second, like you’re deciding where you belong in the space, before trailing after him anyways as he heads towards the kitchen.
“i can help,” you offer.
he shakes his head immediately, “you’re a guest.” he’s already pulling things out of the fridge—chicken, leftover vegetables, a half-used bottle of sauce.
you arch a brow, leaning lightly against the counter, watching him with an expression that’s equal parts amused and thoughtful, “i invited myself over, jake.”
jake lets out a small laugh, defeated.
fair.
“okay, fine. you can, um—wash and cut the vegetables, if you want.”
jiuen’s head immediately pops out of nowhere as she climbs onto her chair at the dining table, chin propped on her hands as she watches from across the kitchen bar.
“daddy never lets me help cook,” she states casually. then, after a thoughtful pause, adds, “he must really like you.”
jake chokes on absolutely nothing.
“i—princess,” he says, recovering far too slowly, eyes avoiding yours, “that’s because you can barely reach the counter.”
you laugh, the sound easy and warm, already rolling up your sleeves as you move toward the sink. you grab the vegetables jake set out without asking, rinsing them carefully under the water like you’ve done this, in his kitchen, a hundred times before.
and everything after that kind of falls into something that almost feels like routine.
not the routine jake’s used to, no. not the familiar soundtrack of a cartoon playing too loudly in the living room while he stands at the stove, squinting at his phone and failing spectacularly to follow a “simple” cooking tutorial that somehow requires three different pans just because jiuen had a specific craving. no, tonight is different.
instead of high-pitched characters singing nursery rhymes, it’s jiuen’s voice carrying across the kitchen as she narrates her entire playground adventure from today to you—you, who’s listening, genuinely, and reacting to all the right parts. instead of jake cooking alone, there’s the soft steady sound of you chopping vegetables beside him, your elbow slightly bumping against his in a way he doesn’t seem to mind.
he pretends not to notice the way you cut everything into careful, bite-sized, jiuen-sized pieces without being asked. pretends not to notice the way you slide the vegetables into the pot he’s currently stirring, easily and unintrusive, like you already know where things go. the way you move easily in his kitchen, not hesitating, not hovering…just fitting.
dinner itself goes smoother than jake expects. which surprises him, because he’s not exactly known for being smooth—especially not in situations like this. especially not when his own child is a small ball of chaos and he’s never quite figured out what to do when he’s in unfamiliar situations. and having someone like you sitting at his dining table—like it’s normal, like you belong there—definitely counts as an unfamiliar situation.
nothing about this is normal. and it’s not because you’re sitting in his usual seat besides jiuen (because she insisted, and as has been clearly established, jake is powerless against that), but because he can’t remember the last time it was just him, his daughter, and someone else at this table.
maybe last month, when his parents surprised them and showed up with new toys and enough meal prepped food to last weeks. but that doesn’t count. that was grandparent obligation. this feels different.
“do you cook a lot?” you ask from across the table.
“eh,” jake shrugs, spoon clinking awkwardly against his bowl of rice. “enough to keep us alive.”
“that’s impressive,” you tease. “high bar.”
he huffs a laugh before he can stop himself.
and the conversation slips easily into place after that, weaving itself between the sounds of jiuen slurping her soup and attacking her noodles with her newly acquired chopstick skills. you ask about where he’s from. he asks why you moved. how long he’s lived in the building. what you do for fun. what he does for a living.
and jake answers carefully, not guarded, but deliberate and thoughtful. like he’s choosing his words because he hopes they land somewhere that matters to you. and you do the same. nothing heavy, nothing rushed. just the quiet sense of two people learning each other in real time. observing. taking mental notes. letting something small and unspoken take shape between them without neither noticing it.
jiuen’s stories find their way into the conversation too, popping up between bites and questions.
“and then,” she says proudly, pausing dramatically, “i colored outside the lines.”
you gasp at her. “a rebel.”
jake shakes his head, lips twitching, “i raised a menace.”
you grin at him, the look sharp and playful, “she gets it from you, doesn’t she?”
he pauses, eyes narrowing slightly, something playful yet unreadable flickering there before he recovers, “hey.”
you just smile back, innocent.
dinner eventually winds down slowly, but not all at once. just in the way that good things do, stretching themselves out like they’re reluctant to end. plates get cleared, except jiuen’s, who casually pushes hers towards jake across the table as if asking him to finish it for her like this is a long-standing silent agreement.
her stories taper off into softer commentary. words replaced by yawns. her head droops, then rights itself up, then droops again. the kitchen light hums quietly overhead, and somewhere in the living room, the clock ticks steadily, marking time neither of you seem eager to acknowledge.
eventually, jake stands and gathers the plates, stacking them carefully in the sink like he’s buying himself time.
“alright,” he says, glancing at the clock before turning to jiuen. “bath time.”
she groans instantly, slumping dramatically in her chair. “already?”
“yes, already,” he replies, tone firm but familiar, the kind of stern that doesn’t actually mean he’s serious. you catch the exchange and smile before you can stop yourself. “say goodnight to y/n.”
and jake barely has time to process it before jiuen hops off her chair and goes to where you’re standing in the kitchen, wrapping her arms around your waist without hesitation and pressing her cheek against you like this has always been happening. like this is normal, and you’re not the neighbor he met only last week, standing in his kitchen, quietly rearranging his sense of self.
it shouldn’t hit him the way it does. but it does, and he fails to ignore it. something about the way you instinctively hug her back, one hand resting between her shoulder blades, the other smoothing over her hair—like you’ve done this before and like you’ll continue doing it. it makes something in jake’s chest shift, something unfamiliar. and terrifying.
not because he’s standing in his own apartment, surrounded by the life he’s already built for himself—but because suddenly, somehow, that feeling of home seems to be tied to a person that, for once, isn’t the five-year-old little human he raised.
but to you.
jake’s throat tightens.
“goodnight, jiuen,” you murmur softly. “sleep well, okay?”
jiuen pulls back just enough to look up at you, short arms still looped around your waist. “you’ll come over again?”
you smile at her. “if your dad lets me.”
she turns and squints at the innocent man caught off guard, standing not too far behind her. “you better.”
jake exhales, something like a laugh slipping out, “go get ready.”
she grins, satisfied, and soon disappears down the hallway, calling out, “goodnight, y/n!”
and when she rounds the corner, it’s suddenly quiet again.
jake clears his throat just to fill the air. “well,” he says, breaking the stillness. “that was fun.” he says it because he means it. and he hopes, quietly, that you don’t hear it as just politeness.
“it was,” you agree, just as softly, not moving from where you stand. “you’re really good with her, you know.”
something warm creeps up jake’s neck. he shifts, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides as he searches for a response that doesn’t feel too much for a moment like this.
“oh—” he starts, then shrugs lightly. “i mean. i try. most days.”
you let out a small laugh, but nod, watching him with an understanding that feels deeper than the moment calls for. then, you simply add, “she’s lucky.”
jake rubs the back of his neck. and because he doesn’t know what to say and panicks, he then gestures toward the door, suddenly aware of how close you’re standing in front of him and because his five-year-old is just down the hall. “i can, um—walk you back.”
he immediately realizes how ridiculous that sounds when you live ten feet away. maybe less. but he hopes you say yes anyways.
“yeah,” you nod, moving to slip your shoes on as he opens the door for you. “thank you.”
he walks beside you for all ten feet of it, close enough to feel your warmth, but far enough to keep things safe. he stops in front of your door, hands slipping back into his hoodie pockets.
“well,” you say quietly, turning to face him. “thanks for having me.”
he smiles, small and genuine, eyes steady on yours, “thanks for inviting yourself over.”
you laugh under your breath, eyes flickering away for a moment before finding his again. there’s a pause again, as you both seem to register the natural lack of space between you, the shared breath, the way neither of you is in a hurry to end this.
eventually, your hand finds the doorknob behind you. it lingers there for half a second before you turn it.
“goodnight, jake,” you say, glancing back at him one last time.
“goodnight,” he replies, and it comes out quieter than he intends.
your door closes with a gentle click.
and jake is left there, exhaling slowly, staring at the wood of your door like it might finally offer him answers it didn’t the last time he stood in this exact spot only days ago. days ago, when he was actively choosing to ignore the feeling that stirred in his chest the moment he first saw you at the end of this hallway, white tank top, hair up, kitchen??? box and all. but now—whatever this is, whatever slipped so quietly into his life—it’s asking him to notice it. and this time? jake doesn’t think he wants to look away.
he sighs quietly to himself, retreating back to his own apartment and silently shutting his door before turning around.
and nearly jumps out of his skin.
“—JESUS, ji—”
and jiuen is standing right there. at the end of the hall, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
“you told me not to ever use God’s name in vain,” she says sternly, marching towards him with purpose before planting herself in front of him.
jake ignores her. “why are you staring.”
“i’m not staring,” she says defensively, folding her arms again. “i was waiting.”
“for what?”
“for you.”
he sighs tiredly, “i thought i told you to start the bath.”
she tilts her head, studying her dad with an intensity that makes him deeply uncomfortable. then, very matter-of-factly, and very much ignoring what he just said, “i like her.”
jake rubs his face. “you’ve mentioned.”
“she’s really pretty.”
“yes,” he mutters, sidestepping her and continuing down the hall. “you’ve mentioned that too.”
jiuen spins around to follow him and squints. “so you don’t think she’s pretty?”
jake stops. slowly, he closes his eyes, debating if he wants to choose peace for the night.
“princess,” he says carefully, opening them again, “that’s not what i said.”
“that wasn’t an answer.”
he exhales through his nose. then—
“she is,” he admits quietly. “she’s pretty.”
jiuen gasps. an actual, audible gasp. the light enters her eyes again.
“i knew it,” she says, spinning around once before marching toward the bathroom, a new bounce in her step. “i knew you were acting weird, daddy.”
“i was not acting weird, what—”
“you were,” she insists. “your voice did the thing.”
“what thing.”
“the thing where you don’t talk a lot because you’re nervous.”
jake nudges the bathroom door open and flicks on the light, his voice deadpan, “you are five.”
she hums casually, climbing onto the little step stool by the sink, legs swinging as she watches jake start the water. “when is she coming over again?”
“okay, woah—,” jake stares at the running water, dipping a hand to check the temperature. not too cold, not too hot. “slow down.”
“she can help me color,” jiuen continues, completely ignoring his attempts at creating boundaries. “and we can watch movies. and she can sit by me again.” a pause. then, thoughtfully, and very seriously, “and maybe she can sleep over and stay for breakfast.”
jake freezes.
he looks back at her, at the way her feet swing innocently, like the implication of what she just said won’t casually rearrange his entire life’s trajectory.
“breakfast?” he repeats.
“yes,” she nods, very seriously. “pancakes. my favorite.”
he turns back to the tub, now squeezing bubble bath into the water like this conversation is not happening. “you’re planning very far ahead, princess.”
“she said she might come over again.”
“she said she’d think about it.”
jiuen hums, unbothered. “that means yes.”
jake snorts, hands now guiding her towards the tub. “you’re very confident, ji.”
she beams up at him with nothing but the unfiltered opinions and innocence of a five-year-old, “i like her, daddy.”
he pauses again, looking down at her with something in his expression softening in a way he doesn’t bother to hide anymore.
“yeah,” he says quietly. “i know.”
and silently, to himself, he acknowledges the part he hasn’t said out loud yet. the part he’s been circling around since the hallway.
me too.
jiuen steps into the tub, splashing immediately. “she feels nice.”
jake blinks. “…feels nice?”
“yeah. she hugged me,” she states like it’s obvious. “and she smells good.”
his chest tightens. he ignores it. clears his throat. “okay. bath.”
she giggles as he hands her a toy, distracted and already moving on. until, “daddy?”
“mm?”
“you should be nice to her.”
jake swallows, eyes squinting. “i am nice.”
“no,” she says, humming thoughtfully, head tilting. “nice nice.”
jake closes his eyes again.
“bath,” he repeats, voice tired but fond and full of something else knowing he’s not ready to name quite yet.
something warm, something hopeful. and something that already feels a little like home.
jake tries—really, really tries to snap everything back into place.
tries to pretend that he didn’t lie awake far longer than he should have that night, staring at the ceiling long after jiuen had fallen asleep, replaying moments he keeps telling himself don’t mean anything. tries not to linger on the sound of your laughter, or the way you soften without thinking around his daughter. the way your eyes light up when you smile. the careful sincerity in your voice, like you choose your words because you mean them.
he tries. tries to get back into the rhythm over the next few days. back into the carefully constructed routine he’s spent years perfecting. because routines are reliable. predictable. safe. and whatever you are, you are none of those things.
but he doesn’t know if he even seems to mind anymore.
6:12AM. the alarm goes off exactly once. coffee brewed. mismatched socks. apple slices packed into tupperware, a peanut-butter-free sandwich wrapped just right.
and one cookie.
only one. no matter how small and cute jiuen looks this morning in her uniform, hair clipped back with the ones she picked out, coat buttoned up crookedly because she insisted on doing it herself. no matter how she smiles up at him over her breakfast pancakes with crumbs on her lips and sleepy eyes.
he cannot and will not risk another sugar-fueled sprint down the hallway. he has learned his lesson.
the routine continues. he grabs his keys, her backpack, checks the clock, and out the door. jiuen’s hand slips into his automatically as they step into the hallway, her fingers small and warm and safe in his palm.
and then your door opens.
jake stops.
you step out in workout clothes, hair pulled back, ear buds dangling loosely around your neck. there’s a brief second where all three of you just pause. like the universe is giving him half a second to prepare.
he does not.
he cannot, because you’re standing there, wearing that, and looking like something he has no business imagining at 7:15AM in the morning with his five-year-old daughter holding his hand.
“oh!” you say softly, surprised, but smiling. first at jiuen, then back up at jake.
jiuen lights up, the sleepiness in her eyes immediately fading. “good morning!”
“good morning, jiuen,” you reply, crouching just slightly so you’re closer to her height. “you look very official today.”
she beams, both hands holding the straps of her backpack proudly, “i have school.”
“i can tell,” you reply seriously. “very important business.”
jake watches the exchange like he’s witnessing something sacred and mildly terrifying. like this is a glimpse into a life that feels far too close for comfort.
you straighten up, your eyes moving to him now. “—and good morning, jake.”
“morning,” he manages, and his voice lower and rougher than usual. and he hopes you blame it on the early hour and not the fact that he feels a strange and unfamiliar heat pooling low and tight in his gut just from seeing you like this.
it’s too early for this. too early for you to look good in the way no one warns you about. fresh. awake. effortless. like you didn’t even try, and somehow that makes it worse.
“are you guys walking over?” you tilt your head, ponytail sliding over one shoulder as you shift your weight from one foot to the other, the motion small but enough to make the cropped hoodie on you ride up, exposing another small inch of the curve of your waist and the faint dip where your leggings sit low on your hips.
jake’s eyes drop before he can stop them. automatic, unintentional, but fully unavoidable. he forces his gaze back up. too late. the image is already burned in.
“uh—” he clears his throat, trying to sound normal. “yeah. it’s not too far from here.”
jiuen then tugs at his hand, suddenly bouncing slightly in place, “wait—are you walking me too, y/n? is that why you’re here?”
jake’s head snaps to you above jiuen’s head.
you look back.
and for a split second, something unspoken passes between you. a question, an invitation, then, like crossing a line neither of you were ready to acknowledge out loud, you smile.
“yeah,” you nod easily, smiling at jiuen like this was always the plan and not, in fact, a three-mile run. “totally.”
jiuen’s smile stretches wide.
jake doesn’t miss the way your eyes flick back to him, gentle and reassuring. he knows the look on his face gives him away—eyebrows lifting just slightly, mouth pressing thin in that i am so sorry way.
you answer it with nothing but a small smile in your eyes. and something in jake warms at that. something subtle that he definitely didn’t need to contribute towards his already confusing feelings, but now undeniable and evidently, there.
and that’s how it happens.
that’s how the three of you end up walking together down the block together, the morning air still cool and damp with dew, the neighborhood waking up around you. a dog barks somewhere in the distance. the sun still hangs low in the sky. a school bus passes by.
jiuen chatters the entire way. about school. about her favorite color (it was pink yesterday, purple today). about how she’s very fast at running but not allowed to race in hallways anymore, not after the incident.
and jake watches as you listen—nodding, reacting, laughing at all the right parts like every detail matters. because to jiuen, it does. he catches it from the corner of his eye, pretending he’s focused on the traffic lights and crosswalk signals instead of the way you lean in just a little when jiuen speaks. the way your attention never wavers. and the way his heart beats a little quicker at the view.
“do you run, y/n?” jiuen’s small voice cuts in, peering up at you as her hand still swings lightly in jake’s larger one.
“sometimes,” you answer. “mostly when i think too much and my brain needs to quiet down.”
jake smiles to himself before he can stop it. you catch it.
“what?” you ask, tilting your head slightly, already half-smiling.
“nothing,” he says, shaking his head. “that just…yeah. that makes sense.”
because it does. because he understands the need to outrun your own thoughts—how they can pile up when you slow down. the constant calculations. the quiet questions he never says out loud ever since five years ago.
is he doing enough? is he doing too much? is she happy? is he happy?
because it’s not just his life he’s trying to keep steady anymore. it’s hers. every choice carrying some sort of weight, every mistake feeling like it echoes louder and lingers longer when you’re responsible for another human being.
so yeah, he gets it. gets the impulse to move. to breathe. to find a rhythm that drowns out the noise if even for a little while.
you don’t push for more. you just look at him for a second longer, soft and curious, like you’re piecing something together without needing him to explain it out loud.
jiuen skips a few steps ahead, then suddenly stops short, gasping dramatically as she spins back around to the both of you.
“today’s friday!” she exclaims like everyone is supposed to know what that means. “it’s movie night!”
she then plants herself directly in front of you, halting both you and jake mid-step.
“you should come join us!” jiuen’s eyes grow wider as she stares up at you with excitement.
jake pauses.
he really should’ve seen this one coming.
a quiet sigh slips out as he makes, again, a mental note to have a conversation with his daughter about asking dad for permission before inviting people over.
he looks at you. then back at her. then squeezes his eyes shut and questions how he somehow raised a child completely unburdened by social anxiety.
this is on him. absolutely his fault.
“—okay, look,” he cuts in quickly, both hands already on jiuen’s shoulders and turning her back around towards the school’s entrance in the short distance, “we’re here. let’s get you to class.”
at the school gates, it’s chaos in the way only elementary schools can be. kids everywhere, backpacks too big for their own bodies, parents lingering, coffee cups in hand and sleepiness in their eyes.
and jiuen forgets everything the moment she spots her friends. she’s gone in an instant, running towards a small cluster of just-as-tiny-beings already show-and-telling their new bracelet, new hair clip, look what my mom packed for my lunch today!
but then, just as quickly—they all notice you.
“jiuen—” one of them whispers but it’s not really a whisper because they’re five and so, naturally, it’s loud and clear, “—is that your mom?”
and jake chokes. actually chokes. he inhales wrong, coughs hard, eyes flying wide as his head snaps towards you before darting back to the small cluster of children now openly staring at where the two of you stand side by side.
“what—no—” he starts, words tangling somewhere between his brain and his mouth because how did he let himself get in this situation?
but you’re already laughing, instinctive and bright, lifting a hand to cover your mouth like you’re not entirely sure what the correct response is either when both of you clearly know what it is.
“no,” jiuen shakes her head firmly, turning back to her friends matter-of-factly. “she’s my dad’s really pretty lady friend.”
jake stops breathing.
oh. god.
there’s a collective pause.
then—
“ooooh,” a random kid says—jake doesn’t know which one, but he’s pretty sure it’s the same kid with the peanut allergy and passive-aggressive mom. “she looks like a mom.”
“yeah,” another voice adds from the group. “can she play with us?”
jiuen perks up immediately, spinning back toward you and jake, eyes shining. “can you?”
you giggle and crouch slightly, meeting her at eye level like this is the most reasonable request in the world.
“maybe later,” you say softly. “after daddy picks you up. then we can do movie night.”
jake swallows.
hard.
you really need to stop calling him that. for his own mental health. for his continued ability to function normally. especially in public.
and especially when you just naturally included the casual we in your proposition and he’s now too busy short-circuiting to register it. the easy way you already folded yourself into their evening like it was already decided by fate itself.
he might’ve missed it entirely if jiuen didn’t light up on the spot, joy and excitement blooming all across her face.
“YES!” she cheers. “you’re going to love movie night!”
and jake barely has time to recover before she spins on her heel, throwing one last wave over her shoulder.
“bye, daddy! bye, y/n!”
and just like that, jake’s left standing there, mind several seconds behind his body, very stunned and very well aware of the fact that you’re still standing next to him.
“so…” your voice slips in quietly as you turn to look up at him. you tilt your head, expression open and curious in a way that looks innocent—but jake is starting to think there’s nothing accidental about the way you do that anymore. “movie night?”
he blinks, needing a moment to fully reenter his own body. “uh—yeah. yeah. if you’re down, i mean.” he clears his throat, instinctively straightening up. “she, uh…she gets excited quickly. just kind of throws ideas out there without thinking.”
you give him a smile. soft, small, understanding. “she’s five, jake. she’s not supposed to think too much.” a light shrug. “that’s kind of the magic of that age.” then you pause, like you’re deciding whether to say the next part. “plus, i technically invited myself over. again.”
jake lets out a quiet laugh, rubbing the back of his neck as his gaze drifts briefly towards the school doors before finding its way back to you. “well—” he exhales. “clearly, jiuen loves you. so…you’re welcomed over anytime.”
the words settle between you.
between the way he’s standing just a little too still and how you haven’t stepped back and the quietness of the early morning where everything feels a little too real.
you study him for a beat, something amused and unmistakably intentional flickering in your expression. like you’re deciding how honest you can be. deciding just how far to push.
“mmm,” you hum softly, the corner of your mouth lifting. “is that for before or after eight?”
jake’s breath stutters. his thoughts derail, scattering somewhere between what you’re implying and the way you’re looking at him right now—like you’re aware of the line and choosing to hover right at the edge of it.
he searches for words. any words. something smart, something adult.
something that doesn’t give him away—but maybe gives him away just enough. enough to let you know that he’s thought about it. about what crossing the line would look like, about what after eight might look like.
nothing comes. his mind is both painfully blank and full in the worst way.
and before he can even attempt to say something smooth, something that might maybe, maybe help his case, at all—
“alright, well,” you say casually, stepping back like nothing just happened and jake isn’t standing in front of you and having thoughts he shouldn’t be having this early in the morning in front of his daughter’s elementary school, “—gonna go on my run now.”
you adjust your earbuds, already moving to turn away.
“i’ll see you later?” you add over your shoulder, looking back at him one more time, and it’s just long enough to make him wonder if this moment meant the same thing to you as it did to him.
and as he watches you jog away, something in jake finally settles.
which says a lot, because jake has never been good at certainty. he doesn’t really know how to fold fitted sheets. doesn’t know how to answer when jiuen asks questions that start with why and end somewhere completely out of his realm. still doesn’t know what her kindergarten teacher means when she insists on a five-subject notebook versus two-subject on the school supply list.
jake’s spent most of his life figuring things out as he goes. adjusting, learning by necessity.
but this? this, he knows.
because as he watches your figure grow smaller down the block, his thoughts still stuck where you left them—on the way your voice dripped sweet but dangerously only a minute ago and the look in your eyes enough to say more than he needed to ever hear—
jake understands something with nothing but clarity.
he now knows nothing about you is coincidental anymore. not the timing. not the teasing. not the way you look up at him then pull away like you know exactly what you’re doing.
and that jake doesn’t just want movie night.
he wants it all. everything that has to do with you.
you, not as a passing thought or a harmless curiosity or the girl-across-the-hall, but as something chosen. something built, something real, something that feels like home.
he wants what comes after eight. before eight. and everything in between.
jake is at a crossroads.
which feels dramatic. but also, accurate, considering he’s currently standing in the middle of his living room, staring down at his couch like it might give him all the answers he’s been silently begging for.
and the couch in question has definitely seen better days. one armrest sinks a little too much, the springs on the far end squeaks faintly if you sit down too fast, and there’s a barely noticeable dip in the middle from years of movie nights that were really just him and jiuen slowly falling asleep to whatever animated movie was playing.
but now it’s suddenly important. because tonight isn’t just movie night.
it’s movie night.
and jake is painfully aware of two things:
one — he does not know how to host another adult without spiraling.
two — he does not know how to be around you without spiraling.
which makes the idea of hosting you in his apartment, for the second time no less, an objectively terrible plan.
and yet.
he’s still standing there, staring at the couch, questions firing off in his head in rapid-fire.
which seat is y/n going to take? is it weird if i sit directly next to her? should jiuen sit between us? is that too domestic? or somehow less domestic? do people think about this? do normal people actually think about this? would she want a blanket? an extra pillow? does she get cold easily? what movie snacks does she like? why didn’t i ask what snacks she like?
jake looks down at the coffee table. the bowls are out. popcorn in one, chips in another. napkins neatly stacked. remote control placed intentionally at one end of the table, positioned just right so it doesn’t look like he tried too hard (he tried very hard), but also so it’s clear he’s not the kind of man who loses the remote every night and blames it on the couch gaps like a liar.
this is stupid, he tells himself. he’s being stupid.
“y/n’s here!”
jiuen’s voice rings through the apartment before jake even has time to look up, her tiny hand already swinging the door open with the enthusiasm of someone who has never once her life considered stranger danger.
“ji, what did i tell you about opening doors before asking me—“
and then jake stops.
because there you are.
and you’re standing in the door like you’ve stepped straight out of a very specific fantasy he absolutely will not get into the details of right now.
you’re wearing pajamas, real ones. not the cute, intentional matching set kind—although he’s not sure he’d survive that either—but soft sweatpants that hang low on your hips and an oversized sweater that he thinks could probably double as a dress if you felt like it. your hair is loose, a little messy in that end-of-the-day way, and in your hand sits a tub of ice cream like this is the most normal thing in the world and not simultaneously his worst nightmare and saving grace all in one.
jake forgets how to blink.
this is…worse than this morning. worse than workout clothes. worse than a white tank top. because this feels intimate in a way his brain absolutely did not prepare him for. this is what you look like when you’re home. when you’re comfortable. when you’ve stopped trying and started existing—unfiltered, unguarded, entirely yourself. like this is the version of you reserved for quiet nights and people you trust.
jake’s brain was not built for this.
every thought he prepared, every carefully constructed plan about seating arrangements and blankets and snacks and emotional readiness immediately disappears. nothing left. not a single coherent thought in sight. just the overwhelming, bone deep realization that movie night was a terrible idea.
“i brought ice cream!” you lift the tub and spoons like a peace offering in one hand, your smile bright and instant.
jiuen gasps, both arms shooting up on instinct before she, evidently, realizes she’s very much too short and settles for grabbing your free hand instead.
“ICE CREAM?” she squeals, already tugging you inside without waiting for permission. “daddy never lets me have ice cream on movie night!”
“that’s because movie night is already ninety percent sugar,” jake says automatically, still standing there with the door wide open like an idiot, “and ice cream makes you sleepy—and also…hi.”
you glance back at him. he’s leaning against the doorframe, watching you in that way he’s started to do without realizing it—like he’s trying not to stare, but he’s memorizing anyway.
you smile at him, soft and knowing, “hi.”
and it all seems casual. seems normal. like this is nothing. like you didn’t just walk into his apartment in your house slippers and soft clothes and that familiar citrusy scent and quietly rearrange his entire evening the way you have been doing ever since you moved in.
“i hope this is okay. i figured movie night deserved ice cream.”
jake finally steps aside, letting the door close behind you. and the apartment immediately feels smaller, in the best way possible. warmer. familiar. like the space shifted to make room just for you.
“yeah,” he says, letting out a small laugh as he follows you and jiuen to the living room. “of course. i’m a dad, not a monster.”
jiuen’s already climbing onto the couch, scrambling straight for the middle cushion—no hesitation, no second thoughts. unlike her own father, who absolutely would have overthought it for the next ten minutes if it were left up to him (and well, he did).
“i’m sitting in the middle!” she’s already making herself comfortable under a throw blanket before she pats the space beside her and points determinedly, “y/n here.”
then the other side.
“and daddy here.”
well, that’s one of jake’s problems solved.
he watches as you sit down next to jiuen without question, turning toward her with full attention like this seating arrangement has always been decided ever since he bought this couch years ago.
“so,” you say seriously, hands folding in your lap as you look at her seriously. “what movie are we watching?”
“we’re watching the princess one!” jiuen announces immediately. “the new princess one!”
“you mean the one we watched last week?” jake asks exasperatedly as he sits down on jiuen’s other side.
“yes,” she replies, unwavering. “but again. because y/n wasn’t here.”
you laugh again, and jake watches the way you tuck your legs beneath you without thinking. the way the tub of ice cream already sits on the coffee table with three spoons laid out next to it, two big, one small. the way that nothing about this should feel normal, but it does.
jake tries not to think about it.
“alright,” you say, reaching for the remote and hanging it to jiuen. “princess movie it is.”
and then everything settles into place, in that quiet, familiar way things do when they’ve been done a hundred times before and will be done a hundred times more. like if a stranger took a good look at the moment in front of them, they might think this is what every friday looks like in the sim household. except it isn’t. this is the first time. and yet, somehow, it already feels like something they’ve been doing for years.
jiuen insists on turning the lights off because “it’s cozier that way,” and jake lets it happen even though he knows she’ll be out cold in forty minutes. she narrates the first ten minutes of the movie, loudly. you react to every single comment like it’s important, nodding when she nods, gasping when she gasps, leaning in when she leans. jake watches that more than the screen. watches the way your hand absently smooths over jiuen’s hair. the way you tilt your head slightly when she murmurs something about the princess’s dress. like it matters that you hear her, like you want to.
the ice cream gets passed back and forth too—jiuen to you, you to jake, jake back to you, then back to jiuen, spoons clinking softly against the tub, the rhythm of it so easy and unthinking it almost feels practiced.
somewhere around the second act, jake realizes his shoulders aren’t so tight anymore, that he feels less hyperaware of your every move and your overwhelming presence. he allows himself to shift comfortably, stretching one arm along the back of the couch until his fingers brush your shoulder accidentally. accidentally, but enough. enough to send a spark through his entire being, but still so light that maybe you don’t feel it. if you do, you don’t pull away. and neither does he.
eventually, right around the forty minute mark like jake had predicted, jiuen shifts. her head dips, body rolling instinctively onto her side. and before anyone can stop it, she’s curled into you, cheek resting in your lap, small legs stretched across jake’s, tangling the three of you together beneath the blanket.
jake adjusts the blanket automatically, careful not to wake her. you don’t flinch at any of it—the closeness, the way it happens so naturally, the strange domestic weight of the moment. he watches from the corner of his eye as your hand keeps moving through jiuen’s hair, slow and steady, until her eyes finally flutter shut.
“she’s asleep,” you eventually whisper, barely moving as your eyes meet his.
jake nods, throat tight as he looks at you. “told you it was the ice cream.”
you let out a quiet laugh, gentle enough not to disturb her, eyes drifting back to the screen. his hand still rests near your shoulder. you still don’t move.
the movie keeps playing, but it’s long forgotten now. everything feels too soft, the room dim, only lit by the glow of the tv and the warm lamp from the kitchen. jake tells himself not to stare. tells him to focus on literally anything else.
he fails.
your breathing eventually evens out and jake realizes you’ve drifted off too—your head slightly tipped to the side now, resting close to where his hand sits on the back of the couch. and you look so soft—unguarded, lashes resting against your cheeks, hair framing your face perfectly. the glow of the tv paints your face in warm light, catching on the gentle rise and fall of your chest.
jake doesn’t move. he just watches. watches the way one of your hands still cups jiuen’s head, fingers absentmindedly threaded through her hair like you’re keeping her safe even in her sleep. the way you’ve leaned towards him without even realizing it. like instinct. like he’s where you belong.
jake looks back at the screen when he thinks he’s been staring for too long, but the movie means nothing now. animated colors flicker past, a princess sings, and he’s pretty sure some frog is talking. he absorbs none of it. all he can feel is the silent weight of the moment. the warmth of his daughter against his leg. the warmth of you just inches away. the fragile, impossible peace of it all.
eventually the credits roll and jake has to face the fact that he’s being selfish. that he’s been sitting here, not moving, just watching you breathe like this moment is something he’s allowed to keep. that’s you’re someone he’s allowed to keep. that you’re more than just the neighbor he just met and somehow already can’t imagine not knowing.
he turns back to you, takes in the vision in front of him one more time, then gently nudges your shoulder.
“hey,” he murmurs as you slowly stir awake. “you can stay. i mean—if you want. the couch—”
you blink the sleep from your eyes, clearly disoriented for half a second before smiling up at him softly. “hey.”
jake’s breath stalls, quiet and helpless, as you look up at him like that. he thinks his heart is going to jump straight out of his chest right here, right now, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.
“hi,” he whispers back, because he thinks his brain can’t manage to think of anything else in his moment.
for a moment, neither of you move. not because you don’t want to, but because something about the space between you feels fragile. feels aware—of the look in his eyes as he looks as you, and the look in your eyes as you look at him. of how easily this could become something else. of how much it already has. and—definitely not for the first time tonight—jake realizes that, for once he isn’t overthinking about jiuen, or the overly animated princess and talking frog, or the way his couch creaks when someone shifts. he’s only thinking about you.
you eventually rub your eyes carefully before letting out a small yawn. “let me help.”
he watches as you carefully slide one arm beneath jiuen’s shoulders, one under her knees, and lift her from your lap with a slow, practiced ease. she stirs a little, a quiet, involuntary sound leaving her throat as she wiggles then settles to press her cheek against your shoulder, tiny fingers curling instinctively into the fabric of your sweater. you adjust your grip, one hand coming to cradle the back of her head, the other holding her close. she doesn’t wake still—just settles, breathing soft and steady again, like she knows she’s safe.
jake watches it all happen like it’s something holy.
you follow him down the hallway with quiet steps, the apartment hushed around you, the only sound filling air the low hum of the fridge and jiuen’s gentle breathing as you carry her to her room.
jake leans against the doorway of her dim room, heart caught somewhere between his stomach and his throat as he watches you tuck jiuen into bed—smoothing the blanket over her small shoulders, nudging her favorite stuffed animal closer to her chest, pressing a gentle kiss to her head.
“goodnight, princess,” you whisper.
something in his chest cracks open.
by the time you both make it to the front door, everything feels impossibly quiet. you step into the hallway that separates both your places but turn back toward him, lingering just inside the frame of his doorway. jake doesn’t move and neither do you.
“thank you,” you say softly. “for tonight.”
“anytime,” he replies, the word coming out more honest than he meant it to. then, after a pause, “and…thank you for inviting yourself over. again.”
you laugh under your breath, eyes dropping to the floor before lifting back to his. and suddenly, there’s a pause. the kind that stretches. the kind that tells him something is about to happen.
jake steps closer before he can talk himself out of it.
you don’t move away.
you’re close enough now that he can see the small changes in your expression, the slight part of your lips, the way your pupils are blown wide in the dim overhead light. his hand lifts almost on its own, as if he was in a trance from looking at you alone, brushing a loose strand of hair back from your face, knuckles grazing your cheek.
you inhale slightly, your breath hitching sharply as his thumb lingers there, warm against your skin. for a moment, he just stays like that, eyes searching yours, as if memorizing the feel of you, the way you look standing beneath his touch, so still and so impossibly his in this stolen pocket of time.
slowly and carefully, he leans in.
he watches you swallow.
your eyes flicker to his mouth for a brief second before back to his eyes, now wide and dark and wanting.
“goodnight, yn,” he murmurs, voice low and barely above a breath.
“goodnight, jake,” you whisper back, but neither of you move.
his hand settles at your jaw, not even thinking as he lets his body take over, his thumb sliding to rest against your bottom lip, pressing down just enough to part it further. the pad of his thumb is warm, slightly rough from years of holding jiuen’s hand, fixing toys, carrying grocery bags. it feels almost obscene in its gentleness.
your breath stutters, and a tiny, involuntary sound escapes your throat that makes his stomach drop. you’re so close now that he can feel the exact shape of your lips without contact, the faint tremor in your exhale over his mouth like an agonizing tease.
every nerve in his body is screaming at him to close the distance, every ounce of restraint he has gone, especially as he watches the way a small, “jake…” slips out of your lips like a confession, half plea, half surrender as his thumb presses a little harder against your lip. and then he watches as your eyes flutter closed and the way you lean in, lips ghosting his in an aching hover—
“daddy?”
jiuen’s voice cuts through the moment.
you jump apart. jake spins so fast it almost makes him dizzy.
a soft gasps leaves your lips at the same time as a quiet, frustrated curse slips from under jake’s breath as he turns and sees jiuen standing in the hallway outside her room, eyes half-lidded, one hand rubbing at them, her stuffed animal in the other one.
“you forgot to tell me goodnight,” she mutters sleepily, completely unaware of the scene occuring in front of her.
jake inhales sharply through his nose, eyes squeezing shut for a split second in what looks like pure frustration, heat crawling up his neck as he straightens up and eventually settles for something halfway between a sigh and a laugh as he walks over and bends to scoop her up.
“’m sorry princess,” he murmurs, “come here.”
you’re still standing there, frozen, cheeks flushed under the building’s hallway lights, lips parted like you forgot how to close them as you watch him.
“i—um,” you start, voice too high and a little too breathless, “i should…i should go. goodnight. again.”
jake nods quickly, still holding jiuen close. “yeah. yeah.”
you hesitate for just a second longer, eyes heavy as they meet his.
“goodnight, jake.”
“goodnight,” he says one last time before he watches you unlock your door with fumbling fingers and click the door shut behind you.
so jake doesn’t really know how this works.
or more accurately, it’s been a long time since he’s found himself anywhere near this kind of situation.
having a five-year-old daughter tends to do that to a person. dating doesn’t exactly slide neatly into a life that revolves around bedtime routines and color-coordinating outfits and making sure tiny humans don’t put rocks in their mouths. and he’s had…opportunities, sure. maybe not normal ones per say, but they’ve existed.
like back when jiuen was still a toddler and his friends had decided it was their personal mission to get him back into society…by attending mommy and me classes.
“maybe you’ll meet a hot mom there,” heeseung had said once, bouncing a one-year-old jiuen on his lap as she happily tugged on his hair like she discovered uncle hee is her new favorite toy now.
jake had shot him a look so serious that heeseung thought he was about to be threatened.
“do not say that in front of her. and also, those classes are for the baby. and it’s literally called mommy and me. not daddy and me. i’m not going.”
heeseung just shrugged in a way that said well, i tried before going back to making ridiculous faces at jiuen. from the other end of the couch, sunghoon looked up from his phone. “i think you should go. isn’t it supposed to help with development or something? social skills. brain stuff. seems good for her.”
jake slumped back on the couch, muttering, “doesn’t change the fact i’ll be the only dad at mommy and me.”
“so what?” sunghoon shrugged, clearly not having ever experienced the stress of a twenty-something-year-old with the responsibility of raising a toddler. “break the patriarchy or whatever.”
jake stared at him, horrified. “that is not how that works.”
and yet, that following thursday, jake found himself sitting cross-legged in a pastel-colored room, jiuen balanced on his lap, singing songs about farm animals and hand motions and friendship and feelings, surrounded by a circle of moms and their respective mes doing the exact same thing.
and yeah, sure, there were some cute moms. a few of them even approached him afterward, cooing at jiuen like it was their only opening line.
“she’s so cute,” one of them had said brightly. “looks just like you.”
and jake, because he’s jake, had panicked and blurted something about diaper brands. so needless to say, none of those conversations went anywhere.
so yeah, it’s safe to say it’s been a while since jake had anything to do with feelings.
but then you came into the picture. and now jake doesn’t really know how this work. because how exactly do you go back to how things once were after you almost kissed the girl across the hall? the same girl who now occupies far too much space in his thoughts. the one he thinks about when he’s lying awake at night. when he’s packing lunches in the morning. when he’s stepping into the hallway and secretly hoping, every single time, that her door will open.
but that’s just the thing. he hasn’t seen you ever since that night, which he thinks is almost a cruel joke sent from the universe itself, considering just less than a week ago, he froze at the sight of you in workout clothes, half-convinced and half-hoping you were joking when you offered to walk jiuen to school with him.
now? now he’s going out to check the mail a little too often than necessary, even though he’s lived in this building long enough to know deliveries only come on tuesdays and thursdays. he even started looking through the peephole every time the elevator dings, only to frown when it’s just another neighbor, and very much, not you. and yeah, okay, he’s not proud of that one.
but now, he doesn’t know what to do.
because now, it's late at night on a wednesday, rain tapping steadily against the windows, jiuen fast asleep down the hall. and jake should be getting ready for bed too. but because jake is still jake, and old habits die hard, he’s sprawled on the couch, watching late-night reruns of glee when at exactly 9:27PM, the tv flickers once. then twice. then goes dark.
the lamp on the side table follows. then the kitchen light that he had left on.
shit.
jake should’ve expected as much. blackouts always happen during storms, and this building—charming as it is—has never been known for its hasty speed when it comes to generators. that’s why, over the years, jake has learned to invest in a few backup LED lanterns for nights exactly like this.
he sighs to himself as he pushes himself up, already heading for the hall closet. and that’s when an intrusive thought makes its way to his head.
he wonders if you’re okay.
you’ve only been here a few weeks. you wouldn’t know about the power issues. wouldn’t know how long they last. what if you’re sitting alone in the dark right now, rain beating against the windows, the apartment suddenly too quiet? what if you happened to hate the dark? what if you happened to hate storms? the idea twists something in his chest.
he should check in on you. that’s reasonable. neighborly. normal.
except—what if you’re already asleep? what if he knocks and wakes you up just because he couldn’t stop thinking about you? and what if this is a lot less about neighborly concern and more about wanting an excuse to just see you again?
jake stands there, in his own hallway, one lantern in his hand and an extra one tucked away on the bottom shelf of the closet, staring back at him, his heart doing something quite unhelpful to his chest.
and next thing he knows, jake finds himself in front of your door.
he stares at your door, hesitating for just a second. the hallway is dim, lit only by the window at the end of it and the bright red EXIT sign next to it. he looks down at your welcome mat, with the slightly crooked letters that always makes him smile.
he raises his hand, knocking once, then twice. it sounds louder than it should, but then he hears a few footsteps, a soft shuffle.
then the door swings open, and there you are.
“oh,” you’re blinking at him, standing there in a long hoodie and socks, definitely not expecting company. he glances behind you for a second to see your apartment lit by a few candles. “jake?”
“hey,” he manages. for a moment, neither of you move, and jake is thrown back to just a few days ago, when he found himself in his same exact situation, standing so close to you at his doorway. “uh—sorry. i didn’t mean to bother you. the power went out and i…i just wanted to check on you.” he then lifts the extra lantern in his hand, like proof. “you okay?”
you glance past him down the hallway, then back at him. “yeah. i mean, it was kind of scary for a second, but i lit some candles.” a small smile. “you don’t have to worry about me.”
of course he does.
“jiuen?” you ask quietly, eyes flicking to his door across the hall.
“she’s asleep,” he replies. “in bed by eight, remember? didn’t even flinch.”
you nod, relieved. there’s a pause as the rain taps harder against the windows behind you. the candlelights flicker.
“do you…want to come in for a bit?” you ask after a moment. “it’s kind of creepy standing out here.”
jake’s heart skips. “yeah,” he says too quickly, then softens it. “yeah. okay.”
you step aside to let him in, the warm candlelight wrapping around him as he crosses your doorway.
jake hesitates for a moment before toeing his shoes off. he then takes in his surroundings—the way you’ve managed to make the place yours in just the few weeks you’ve been here. a woven basket of throw blankets sits beside the tv stand, a corner of one draped lazily over the side like it was returned in a hurry. a couple of books rest on the coffee table next to a mug with a silly cartoon on it. there’s a tall green plant that looks like it’s actually being watered that’s sitting near your window, and a stack of half-unpacked boxes sit near the hallway, labels scribbled in marker—bathroom, bedroom???, misc—and it makes him smile to himself.
he follows you into your living room, where you’re already moving the laundry basket that was sitting on the couch, clothes half-folded, a stray sock hanging over the edge. “sorry,” you murmur, setting it aside. “i was in the middle of folding when everything went out.”
“it’s fine,” jake says, moving to sit on the couch, trying not to take up too much space even though his knees brush yours when you settle beside him. you tuck one leg under yourself, turning towards him, the soft candlelight painting the entire room and your face in a warm gold that almost makes his heart ache at how soft the entire image is. ”um…so,” your voice is gentle, as if aware but avoiding the tension, “how have you been?”
jake almost laughs. almost laughs, because he’s been anything but okay.
because he doesn’t know how to tell you that ever since friday, his world has been shifted and devastatingly tilted in a way that is just slightly in only your direction. that everything, every small detail, keeps circling back to you in ways he didn’t expect and can’t seem to stop. that on saturday morning, while he and jiuen shared pancakes, he kept wondering if you’d felt it too—that moment where you lips had almost met his—and wondered if you wanted it as much as he did. that on sunday, he thought about knocking on your door just to ask if you wanted to come to the park with them, like that wouldn’t mean something more. how jiuen came home monday morning with a new stick figure drawing—not just ME + DADDY anymore, but ME + DADDY + Y/N. and how yesterday night, he laid there awake, staring at the ceiling, realizing something real and terrifying. how he doesn’t want things to go back to how they once were.
“good,” he lies straight through his teeth, a barely there smile tugging at his mouth because he doesn’t know how else to answer. “i’ve been okay, i guess. you know, work. jiuen. busy.”
“yeah?” your brows knit just slightly, concern flickering in your eyes in a way that makes him feel sick. “you’re taking care of yourself?”
and he nods immediately, like he needs you to believe him.
“and jiuen? she’s been okay?” you ask next, and the look on your face says you genuinely are wondering, and not just asking to be polite.
“yeah. yeah, she’s good.” a small smile sneaks in. “she misses you, though. keeps asking about you.”
you laugh softly, glancing away for a second. “tell her i miss her too.” you pause, as if a thought crosses your mind. then quieter, more sincere, “i really meant it when i said she’s lucky, jake. she really is.”
he just smiles back, not really sure what else to say when the moment settles between you and the air suddenly feels heavier. you then shift slightly, sitting to sit up straighter now, as if giving yourself the mental courage to say what you’re thinking next.
“can i…can i ask you something?” you say carefully.
he looks at you. nods.
“about jiuen,” you continue, almost hesitating. “about…her mom?”
jake lets out a short breath, like he knew this question was always going to find its way here, no matter how much he avoided it and no matter how prepared he was to fully answer it.
“yeah. she—um,” he pauses, eyes dropping to the material of your couch suddenly. “we were young, just…having fun. not thinking too far ahead. and then when it happened, it was a lot. everything changed all at once.”
he swallows.
“she wanted to keep the baby. and i respected that, of course. i still do. but when jiuen came along…it all got real really fast. and i mean, it did for everyone, you know? but i think for her…it was just too much.” his tries to keep his voice steady, but something tight sits underneath it. “so she left. i haven’t heard from her since…and now here we are.”
you don’t say anything right away. you just look at him.
“that’s…a lot,” you eventually say gently. “i’m really sorry, jake.”
he then looks up to meet your eyes, and he shakes his head almost immediately. “don’t be. i mean—yeah, it hurt back then. and it still does sometimes, but not in the same way. and i got jiuen out of it.” a faint smile pulls at his mouth. “and she’s everything. she makes all of it worth it.”
you can hear it in the way he says her name. not anything rehearsed, not anything forced. just true.
“and honestly,” he adds quietly, “it was probably for the best. we weren’t good together. not the kind of people who should’ve been reckless or trying to build a life like that.”
you don’t push, don’t interrupt. you just watch, eyes not leaving his once as if giving him the space to keep going if he needs it—like he needed this safe space to confront his own thoughts that he’s been pushing away for so, so long.
“i think…i think it hurts in a way that—” he says, voice dropping, “—that makes me wonder if i’m doing enough, you know? enough for her, enough for myself.”
you shake your head immediately, as if that’ll physically reject the thought from his own head.
“you are, jake,” you add, soft but sure. “and i know i haven’t been around long, but i see it. she looks at you like you’ve given her everything and more.”
something shifts in his chest at that. and then jake looks at you, really looks at you, like he’s weighing something in his head and tired of holding it in.
“yeah,” he says quietly. “almost.” the words hang there between you, heavy with intent, and your breath catches. just a little, but he still catches it. his eyes don’t leave yours. “but not…everything.”
and that’s when everything breaks.
you inhale sharply, like the truth you’ve been avoiding just brushed against something raw and tender.
“jake…” you murmur, turning away, like if you keep looking at him you won’t be able to stop yourself. “we can’t—”
“y/n,” he cuts in, already learning forward without even realizing he’s doing it, voice low and urgent, “you can’t tell me you didn’t feel it too. friday. what happened between us, we can’t just pretend it didn’t.”
you squeeze your eyes shut, exhaling hard. “i know,” you whisper, breath unsteady. “i know, and it’s not that i don’t feel it. i—i did. i do. it’s just—we can’t—”
“why?” jake asks immediately, closer now, knees brushing yours, searching your face like the answer is written there and he just has to read it right. “why not? because we’re neighbors? because of jiuen?” he can’t help the way his voice cracks a little. “because that clearly didn’t stop us from what almost happened.”
you finally look back at him, eyes wide and honest, mouth parted open and too close to his.
“jake,” you say quietly, almost like you’re begging him to understand and maybe begging yourself too, “it’s because of how much it matters.”
he stops.
“you don’t get it,” you continue, voice trembling now. “if this was just a stupid crush or some harmless flirting, it wouldn’t scare me like this. but it’s not. it’s you. it’s her. it’s—” you gesture weakly between the two of you. “…it’s this.”
“you think i’m not scared?” he says, blinking hard, voice barely above a whisper. “you think i don’t lie awake at night thinking about everything this means? how much it changes everything?”
he leans in even closer, not touching you, but still close enough you can feel the heat radiating off his chest, the faint tremor in his breath against your skin. the light of the lantern flickers across his face, catching the way his jaw clenches, the way his throat swallows hard.
“you make it feel like something’s missing when you’re not there,” he admits, quietly now, almost like he’s afraid the words still break on their own. “like something’s wrong when i don’t see you. you somehow make my own home feel empty without you in it, y/n.”
your eyes shine up at him, your breaths becoming more shallow, more uneven. jake’s gaze drops down to your lips, then back to your eyes. and then, without thinking, his hand lifts slowly, as if he’s giving you every chance to stop him, and settles lightly on the bare of your thigh, his warm touch brushing the sensitive skin just below where your hoodie cuts off.
you let out a small exhale, the sound barely audible. your hand finds his chest, not pushing, but just resting there, feeling the way his heart is pounding just beneath your palm. “jake—”
his other hand lifts, fingertips grazing the line of your jaw before cupping your cheek. his thumb brushes the apple of it, like he’s memorizing the way you look, the way you feel. the way your eyes flutter shut slowly, as if you’re trying to fight against your own restraint. the hand on your thigh starts moving higher, thumb stroking slower circles that make you press your thighs together instinctively. a low, broken sound escapes him when he notices before he breaks all his restraint and leans in, mouth hovering just over the corner of your jaw.
your head tips back against the couch, hands now fisting his shirt as his mouth moves, barely a kiss. the lightest brush of his lips against the side of your throat. then another. and another. each one soft, open-mouthed, each one lingering a second longer than the last. his hand slides higher, fingers curling gently around the inside of your thigh, making your hips shift restlessly. your hoodie rides up just enough that his fingertips brush your bare hip underneath it—and he stills for half a second as he realizes, with a choked sound, that you’re not wearing any shorts underneath the hoodie.
“fuck,” he breathes against your pulse, his teeth grazing the skin there, just slightly, and you let out a small sound before you could stop it.
“jake, please—”
“please what?” he murmurs, lips dragging up to your jaw, then moving to hover over your mouth again. “please stop?” another ghost of a kiss along the corner of your lips. “or please don’t?”
you’re trembling now, twisting the material of his shirt even harder, legs shaking, breaths coming in short, desperate pants.
“you’re…you’re emotional right now,” you barely manage, voice cracking. “you’re confused and not—” another kiss to your neck. “fuck—not thinking straight.”
jake pulls back just enough to look at you—eyes dark, pupils blown, chest heaving, but entirely real.
“no,” his voice comes out rough, needy, and raw and he doesn’t even care. “no, it’s not about that, nothing about us is about that. this is about you and me, and the way you look at me like you want this too. and you know that.” his hand moves higher now, deliberate, slow, until he reaches right where your hip meets your leg and he squeezes hard, making you gasp. “so tell me to stop. right now. and i will.”
and everything stretches thin, the moment frozen in time as you stare at him with your hands still bunched at the chest of his shirt—at the flush on his cheeks, at his parted lips, at the way you can feel his hand shaking with how badly he wants to keep moving, and the way he’s still giving you the out if you want it.
“please,” he murmurs, borderline desperate, eyes dark and pleading. “just—”
you let out one last, shaky breath. then your fingers tighten in his shirt, pulling him forward, and you crash into him.
and everything happens immediately, desperately. his mouth claiming yours, hot and hungry from the wait, tongue sliding against yours with a groan that vibrates through your whole body. you gasp into him, fingers threading through his hair, pulling him closer as the dam holding everything, all the tension, all the quiet glances, all the lingering touches, finally broke.
hands go everywhere, one of his fisting in your hair to angle you better against his mouth, the other fully sliding up to grip your ass, easily lifting you until you’re straddling his lap. you moan almost immediately, feeling the hard length of him pressing up against you through his sweatpants, the friction making you rock down instinctively. his head falls back against the couch for a split second—his eyes shut tight and his jaw hangs open in a silent moan before he surges back up to capture your mouth again.
“fuck, y/n,” he pants against your lips, hands sliding up your back, palms hot and rough on your back. “feel so goddamn good. wanted this—” your lips find his throat. another groan. “—so bad.”
you kiss him harder, moving your hips down harder, faster, as his hand roams greedily—up your sides, cupping your breast, thumb teasing over the sensitive bud until you let out a whimper. you arch into his touch, pushing down harder, the slick heat between your legs soaking through your underwear as all the tension breaks between you two.
jake thinks his head is spinning. or the room, or both. he groans again, deeper, more desperate as he bites lightly at your bottom lip, “god, so responsive,” he murmurs against you, every word punctuated by another kiss, another grind. one hand slides down to grip your ass, squeezing hard and pulling you tighter against him as he guided your movements now, his own arousal throbbing heavy against your core. the other stays tangled in your hair, tugging just enough to tilt your head back so he could have access to your neck, leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses that leave a wet trail, his teeth grazing your skin, marking you with gentle bites that make you moan louder.
“jake—oh my god,” you break the kiss just long enough to take a breath, but it comes out more like a broken gasp before he chases your mouth again, his own low moans vibrating against your lips. the room is nothing but the slick sounds of your mouths meeting again and again, the faint creak of the couch beneath your shifting weight.
he nips your bottom lip again, sucking it between his teeth, slow and deliberate before releasing it with a pop before going right back in, tongue thrusting deeper, slower this time, like he’s savoring every inch of you, like he can never get enough.
he doesn’t stop. he can’t stop. not when you’re straddling his lap like this, soft skin bracketing his hips, your own heat soaking through and straight onto the material of his sweatpants. not when every desperate roll of your hips drags your swollen core over the thick ridge of him, making him throb harder and feel like he’s going to lose his mind from the friction alone.
jake’s voice fills the air as he groans against the throat, voice wrecked and hoarse, lips brushing the sensitive skin there between words, whispering how good you feel, how long he’s wanted this, telling you to keep going, just like that, don’t stop. his hips buck up, chasing the pleasure, grinding harder, the roughness of his sweatpants scraping deliciously against you. “fuck, you’re dripping all over me.”
his name spills from your lips like you’re in a trance, the sound coming over in broken whimpers over and over, like a prayer you can’t stop reciting. your fingers dig into his shoulders, anchoring yourself as your hips circle faster, desperately trying to chase the building pressure. your hoodie now sits bunched up above your waist, exposing the soft curve of your hips, where jake’s fingers hold you so hard you think it might bruise, but you don’t even care. jake starts to trail his mouth from your lips to jaw, then down the column of your neck, sucking hard enough to leave blooming marks until you’re gasping his name louder than you mean to. his hands clamp down harder on your hips, guiding you, controlling the pace, pulling you down harder and harder until it almost becomes too much.
you’re both utterly lost in it—frantic, greedy, boundaries dissolving until there’s no longer a place where you end and he begins. every stolen glance, every trembling breath, every moment from the last few weeks narrows to this single point, the way your skin feels under his touch, the sweet taste of him on your tongue, the broken sounds neither of you can swallow down any longer. nothing else processes to jake—not how much time has passed, not how the rain finally slowed down outside, not how jiuen sleeps easily just across the hall, and definitely not how he feels like a trembling teenager on the edge of ruin, so close to pathetically spilling in his sweatpants from nothing more than the friction of you grinding against him. and yet he doesn’t care. not even a little.
at least, not until he pulls back just enough to hear a faint buzz overhead. a small one at first, and then—the lights flicker on.
everything stutters back on in a full, unforgiving snap. the hum of a generator kicks back in, every lamp in the room coming back to life in a single moment. the warm light of your candles and jake’s lantern drowns out almost immediately, replaced by the harsh brightness pouring over everything—your flushed skin, his parted lips, the way your thighs are still shaking against his.
jake blinks, dazed, pupils struggling to adjust and chest heaving. his hands stay still on your bare waist, fingers spread wide, thumbs resting in the soft curve of your waist. and you’re still, very much, straddling him, still pressed flush against the hard line of him, your hoodie scrunched up, your panties exposed and soaked through.
you look absolutely wrecked.
your hair is everywhere from his fingers, lips swollen and glistening, cheeks a deep red. your breaths come in shallow, uneven waves, and your wide, glassy eyes meet his for one beat.
jake thinks, in that split second, that he’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
reality rushes in quickly.
“oh god,” you whisper, voice small and cracked, as if the lights stripped away every layer of the moment you two just shared. you scramble off his lap in a frantic rush, legs unsteady, tugging your hoodie down with trembling fingers like it can hide what just happened. “okay—well. thank you for the light. and the…neighborly check in.”
the words tumble out all too fast, too polite, too hollow.
jake just sits there, stunned, like someone pulled the plug on him. his chest rises and falls and he feels something ache. one hand is still lifted, palms up, fingers curled slightly as if he’s still trying to remember the feel of you. but now the air where you were feels too cold and too wrong. he stares at the empty space in his lap, at the slightly damp spot you left on his sweatpants, at the way his body is still vibrating, still aching for you.
“y/n—”
you force a shaky smile, the kind that doesn’t quite reach your eyes, stepping back toward the door. your fingers close around the handle too tightly, knuckles white. “check in complete, right?” the laugh you let out comes out thin, fragile. “goodnight, jake.”
he just stares for a second, before he finally exhales, the sound landing somewhere between frustration and something softer, something more broken. slowly, he stands, legs unsteady, adjusting himself with a grimace that does absolutely nothing to hide anything. he walks to you carefully, like he’s fighting the urge to close the distance again and buy more time.
he stops just inside the doorway, close enough that you can still feel him, close enough that the light catches the faint clench in his jaw.
“yeah,” jake says, barely above a whisper. he looks at you, taking in the way your shoulders are hunched now, the way your eyes won’t quite meet his, the way he’s watching you build walls brick by brick right in front of him. “goodnight, y/n.”
and the thing about getting kicked out of someone’s apartment at nearly eleven at night is that there’s nowhere for the feelings to go.
which is how jake finds himself in his own kitchen five minutes later, barefoot on the cold tile, staring into the open fridge like he’ll find a solution in there. the light hums. the shelves are half-empty. the milk is definitely expired. none of this is helpful.
which is how, ten minutes after, jay is now sitting on jake’s couch with a mug of something warm in his hands that he doesn’t remember accepting, while jake sits beside him—knees bouncing, jaw tight, staring at absolutely nothing.
“wait—wait,” jay leans forward, elbows on his knees, squinting like he’s trying to make sense of everything. “so. you almost kiss your neighbor. then you do kiss your neighbor. and then—” he gestures with both hands, “—she kicks you out?”
jake groans, tipping his head back against the couch. “yes. didn’t say anything else. just opened the door and thanked me for the neighborly check in, whatever that even means.”
jay stares at him for a second, like he’s trying to replay the whole thing without knowing the full details and yet trying to figure out where exactly it went off the rails.
“okay,” he says slowly. “so you guys talked.”
jake drags a hand down his face. “yeah.”
“and then…you guys didn’t talk—”
jake winces. “yup. very big jump from talking to…not talking.”
“and then the lights came on and everything…felt too real?”
“pretty much.”
jay leans back against the couch, mirroring jake now. “so…she just freaked out basically.”
jake shifts, one knee bouncing faster now. “i don’t know, jay. maybe. i think we both did.” he exhales through his nose. “it just—everything happened all at once. and i think it all got real, real fast.”
“yeah, well.” jay hums. “that tends to happen when you kiss someone you actually care about.”
jake opens his mouth to argue. stops. closes it again. he pushes up to his feet, pacing two steps before sitting right back down like he can’t get comfortable in his own body.
“this is so fucked,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “why did i even go over there? why did i think that was a good idea? should’ve just left her alone, god.”
jay squints, tilting his head to the side. “i’m getting wildly mixed signals here, man. i thought you wanted something to happen.”
jake exhales, long and tired. “it’s just—this isn’t just some girl. she’s not just someone i met at a bar and can pretend doesn’t exist if things get weird.” he shakes his head at himself. “she lives across the hall. she’s in my kid’s life. she’s in my life.”
his voice is more hushed now as he gestures down the hallway, where jiuen’s door is closed and quiet.
“maybe she was right. because if this goes wrong, it doesn’t just go wrong for me,” he says softer now, “it goes wrong for jiuen. and i can’t—i can’t be reckless about that.”
jay doesn’t say anything right away, just leaning back into the couch and crossing his arms loosely over his chest, looking up like he’s looking for the right way to phrase this without sounding like a jerk.
“okay,” he says eventually, “so you’re just scared of the possibility of this going wrong.”
jake just looks at him. “because it could. of course i’m scared.”
“yeah. i can tell.” jay turns towards him. “but you’re talking about it like you already decided it will.”
jake frowns. “i didn’t say that.”
“you didn’t have to,” jay says matter of factly. “you’re acting like your only two options are: everything blows up, or you don’t try at all.”
jake shifts, restless in his seat. “i want to try. i want this. i want—” jake stops, jaw tightening. “i want her.” he swallows hard. “i just don’t have the luxury of screwing this up, man.”
the expression in jay’s eyes softens just a little. “i know. you’ve got jiuen, i get that. that’s real.” he puts his mug down on the coffee table, looks back at jake. “but jake, you don’t get to shut the door just because you’re scared of what happens if you open it.”
jake goes still.
“you think jiuen doesn’t notice stuff?” jay continues. “she’s smart. she’s watching how you do this. how you let yourself care, how you let yourself—” he hesitates, then says it anyways, “—be happy.”
something in jake’s chest cracks. he looks away, eyes drifting down the dark hallway where jiuen’s door is. where the soft shine of her nightlight bleeds under the door crack like a reminder of her presence.
jake’s spent years doing this. measuring every want against what she needs. every late night, every skipped invitation, every almost. he’s taught himself how to fold his life smaller, quieter, safer. how to make room for her and take up less space himself.
and now here you are.
and you’re just natural. bright, warm, laughing in his living room. sitting at his table. holding his daughter like you’ve always been here. and it feels like something he didn’t know he was missing until it was right there in front of him.
and that’s exactly what scares him.
“no,” jake says quietly, shaking his head. “y/n was right from the start. i shouldn’t have said anything, done anything. i shouldn't have—” he pauses. exhales sharply. “i shouldn’t have let it go there.”
jay opens his mouth, but jake keeps going, everything finally spilling now that he’s started.
“i can’t risk this falling apart, jay," he says. “i can’t. because it wouldn’t just be some bad breakup and awkward run-ins in the package room.” his voice drops, almost to a whisper. “it’s jiuen asking why y/n doesn’t come over anymore. it’s her asking what she did wrong. it’s her losing someone she didn’t even know she wasn’t allowed to get attached to yet.”
jay exhales slowly. “you don’t know that’ll happen, jake.”
“i know it could,” jake lets out a short, humorless laugh. “and that’s enough.” he leans back into the couch, dragging a hand down his face. “i already messed up once,” he mutters. “i don’t get to mess up again.”
jay straightens, tone firmer now, but still low. “that’s not fair. and you know it.”
jake just looks at him.
“this,” jay says carefully, slowly, “is not the same as before.”
and deep down, jake does know it. knows that this is different, that you’re different.
knows that even through a short span of time, he can’t ignore the way everything shifts when you’re around. the way everything feels like this is it. like you’ve found the spaces he built for himself and his daughter and stepped into them without any warning.
and it all feels too close, too comfortable, too much like there could be more than the home he built within these walls between him and jiuen and breakfast pancakes and uneven pigtails and dinners that came from a phone screen propped up on the counter.
and jake knows, deep down, that’s what scares him. not that he wants you, but that part of him that already knows where you fit. and that’s exactly the problem. because knowing where you fit means knowing exactly what it would cost to lose you.
jake doesn’t sleep much after jay leaves.
he lies in bed, arms folded behind his head and staring up at the ceiling, listening to the soft, intermittent drip of raindrops making slow taps against his windowpane, replaying everything he shouldn’t be replaying. the way you carried jiuen into bed, the way your eyes shine whenever you smile at him, the way your skin felt against his, the way your fingers twisted into his hair with you in his lap, and the way you taste—sweet, dangerous, and still refusing to fade from his memory.
by the morning, jake decides to play it safe. the routine helps, it always has.
6:12AM, coffee, pancakes, one cookie—no matter how jiuen looks at him. jake tells himself that it he keeps moving, if he keeps the day ordinary enough, maybe everything will fall back into place. maybe the feelings will fall back into place. that maybe you’ll slide back into the category he put you in before—neighbor. friend. safe.
and it all almost works. almost.
because, again, the universe works in funny ways. in cruel ways, jake thinks. because right when he thought his day was over, that he managed to get through the entire day without running into you—it just happens.
he’s halfway down the hallway, jiuen’s hand soft and warm in his, her backpack slung over his shoulder because she insisted on carrying it herself and then immediately got tired one block away from school. and they’re only a few feet away from the door when it happens. when your door opens.
jake looks up before he can stop himself.
you walk out into the hallway, keys in hand, hair pulled back like you’re on your way somewhere. you freeze the same way he does, caught mid-step, like the world decided to press pause on this very moment.
for a moment, everything else disappears. the hum of the overhead lights, the distant ding of the elevator, jiuen swinging his hand—it all fades into the background.
jiuen lights up instantly. “y/n!”
you blink once, before your face softens into a smile as you crouch down, arms already opening without hesitation as she gives you a hug. “hi, princess.”
jake feels it in his chest. that small and sharp hit he’s pretending not to notice.
you stand back up and turn towards him. “hey, um—”
he looks away first. at the wall. at the floor. anywhere that conveniently isn’t you. his head already feels too full, his heart moving too fast, and he hates that you do this to him. hates that even without trying, no matter how carefully he stacks his safe mornings and routines, none of it holds when you’re standing right there. as long as you exist in his life.
when he looks back, you’re smiling—it’s small, soft, familiar. like nothing changed, like everything is still there, waiting for him.
jake straightens up instead.
“hey,” he says carefully, measured. “uh—do you have a second? can i talk to you?”
you still at his words, caught off guard, then nod. “yeah. yeah, sure.”
he turns, unlocking his door, guiding jiuen gently inside with a hand on her back. “go wait for me inside, okay? y/n and i need to talk for a minute.”
jiuen pouts immediately, already halfway through the doorway. “fine. but we have to hang out with y/n soon.”
you laugh softly, the sound a harsh contrast from the tension in the narrow hallway, lifting a hand in a small wave as the door closes, “soon, okay?”
when the door clicks shut behind her, jake turns back to you. his eyes are a little too wide, his breaths already a little too shallow. everything is telling him not to do this. to let it go. to let himself have this—just this once.
“listen,” he starts, then stops. runs a hand through his hair. tries again. “about the other night.”
your shoulders shift. your eyes snap to his, sharp and hopeful all at once, as if trying to read what he’s about to say before it comes out. “yeah—actually, i wanted to talk to you about that too. i can’t stop—”
jake cuts in before he loses his nerve.
“i think,” he says, staring at your door across the hall, at the scuffed spot by your feet, at anything that isn’t your face, “i think it was a mistake.”
the word lands.
you stop.
your mouth hangs slightly parted as jake watches you still, the smile on your face fading slowly. he pretends not to see it. pretends not to feel the way something in his chest sinks with it.
“a…mistake?” you repeat, voice smaller now.
jake swallows hard. “yeah. you were right. i shouldn’t have let it go there. i shouldn’t have crossed that line.” his voice tightens. “i just…i wasn’t thinking.”
you don’t say anything for a moment, just searching his face like you’re looking for the part of him that doesn’t mean it.
“this—” he exhales, frustrated, gesturing slightly, “—i don’t even know what this is.”
everything in him is screaming at him to stop. to take it back. to say anything else. that he’s already hurt you enough, he doesn’t need to make it worse.
“it was just…in the moment,” his voice cracks at the end. “it felt bigger than it was and didn’t actually mean anything.”
you hands stay at your side, and jake has to look away when he notices them trembling.
“so that’s all it was to you?” you ask eventually. “just…timing?”
jake almost flinches.
“that’s not what i meant.”
“but that’s what you said.”
jake opens his mouth. stops. rubs a hand over the back of his neck, eyes dropping to the floor like it might save him from the way you’re looking at him now—eyes shining but not with brightness this time, just hurt.
“i’m just—i’m trying to do the right thing, y/n.”
you let out a small, breathy laugh that doesn’t sound amused at all. “for who?”
he doesn’t answer right away.
“for everyone,” he says quietly. "for jiuen."
your expression softens, but it doesn’t erase the sting in your voice.
“right,” you murmur, nodding like you accept it. “for her. not because it’s easier to walk away.”
jake looks up.
“don’t tell me this is about you being scared,” you continue, voice steady even if your eyes aren’t. “maybe i was too. that’s why i pulled back, that’s why i hesitated.” you pause for a second. "but i can’t turn what happened into nothing now, jake."
everything feels too narrow. too close, too tight, too confusing. jake’s head buzzes, every thought and feeling tripping over the next, trying to gauge how he even let this happen in the first place. how everything flipped, how he’s now the one backing away when you’re right there standing still in front of him.
“y/n—i can’t—we have to, okay?” he hesitates, finally looking back at you, trying to swallow down the tightness in his throat. “i don’t get to…i can’t want things that might break everything else.”
“i get that,” you say, stepping closer to him. “but you don’t get to decide that for me, jake. i’m telling you right now—i was wrong. i don’t want to walk away from this, i want to try. whatever this is.”
and for a second, jake sees it. he sees it all in a rush—the dinners, the couch on movie nights, the walks to school, the way jiuen says your name. how easily his life blended into yours so naturally, how you slid into the quiet, stable routine of his life and made it feel full instead of small, repetitive. and he feels it, too. how much he wants to keep you there. and yet, even though every part of him fights them, he forces the words out.
“i’m deciding for me, y/n,” he lets out in a shaky breath. “we should just—let’s just go back to before. neighbors, normal.”
the word sounds wrong the second he hears it. jake almost wants to laugh. because he doesn’t think anything about you has ever felt normal. not from the first day you stood in the hallway with a box in your arms and shifted his life just a little to the left.
“normal,” you echo quietly. you take a step back.
jake hesitates, then nods. like if he keeps moving, he won’t have to think about what he’s just done.
there’s a long pause.
then you smile. and it’s nothing like the ones you usually give him.
“right,” you say. “i get it.”
and jake hates how relived he feels for half a second. hates how how easy it was for you to say it. hates how wrong it feels that he’s the one who made you say it.
you step down the hall.
“i guess i’ll see you around, jake.”
jake doesn’t say anything, just nods again, because it’s the only thing he seems capable of. and when you disappear into the elevator, jake stays there in the hallway, heartbeat pounding in his ears as the quiet finally catches up him and it sinks in a little too late that what he just protected wasn’t his life, or jiuen’s for that matter.
it was his fear.
the next week is exactly what jake asked for. normal. routine. quiet. but the thing about quiet is that it echoes. everything still passes in the same small, careful way. grocery bags and laundry cycles. cartoons in the morning, bedtime stories read a little too slow because jiuen keeps asking questions about the pictures instead of the words. normal. and yet, jake keeps checking the hallway out of habit, like his body hasn’t quite caught up to the decision his mouth made.
monday morning smells like pancake mix while jiuen sits on the counter as jake flips her mini ones over the stove.
“can y/n come for dinner tonight?” her legs swing innocently, unaware of how hard the simple question hits him.
jake doesn’t look up. “not tonight, princess.”
“tomorrow?”
“she’s busy, ji.”
jiuen hums, not pushing. “okay.”
tuesday, they run into you on the way to school.
“y/n!” jiuen doesn’t even wait for you to turn before her shoes are already squeaking against the floor as she runs into your figure, arms tight around your legs.
you laugh softly, dropping down to her level without thinking, “good morning, princess.”
jake watches the way you smooth her hair back, the way your thumb brushes a crumb off her cheek. when you stand, your eyes don’t fully meet his, “hi, jake.”
“morning,” he answers, too quickly, already stepping back and pointing down the hallway before he mutters something about getting jiuen to school on time.
wednesday is rain tapping softly on the windows and jiuen’s coloring books spread across the coffee table, pages crumbled and curled slightly at the edge from where she spilled water earlier and jake tried to fix it with a napkin.
“daddy, is y/n mad at us?” jiuen asks, like it’s a normal question as she draws a third stick figure onto her paper.
jake freezes. “what?”
jiuen shrugs, picking up a red crayon and scribbling a flower that’s too big to be realistic and halfway floating into the sky. “she doesn’t invite herself over anymore. and you don’t look at her like you used to.”
jake stops. because what does his five-year-old know about looking at someone? about how his eyes used to follow you without him even realizing it? enough for her to notice it?
“she’s not mad, ji,” he says, because it feels like the right thing to say, even if he’s not sure it’s true. “sometimes people just get busy.”
jiuen nods, clearly unconvinced. she adds a sun in the corner of the page and it comes out crooked. “i liked it better when she was here more.”
jake doesn’t answer. because so did he.
thursday night comes with leftover pasta and a show he’s already seen twice, but keeps on anyways because it’s jiuen’s favorite and she laughs at the same parts every time. friday is another elevator ride where he stands on one side and hopes, like an idiot, that the doors will open to you on the other side. saturday morning smells like dish soap and lemon cleaner and five loads of laundry.
and somewhere, down the hall, you’re doing your own version of this.
jake thinks about it without meaning to. you in your apartment, lights turned low, sitting cross-legged on your couch with your own version of your favorite show playing in the background. maybe you made that garlic-and-butter dish you promised you’d share with him one day, and now he may never get to try it. maybe there’s a laundry basket next to you on the couch, clothes half-folded, one sock still missing its pair. maybe you’ve already moved on. or maybe you haven’t.
maybe you think about the way his hand felt on you. the way he said your name like it meant something to him. the way he told you that you felt like home—and then took it back like it hadn’t already settled, soft and certain, somewhere deep inside you.
jake doesn’t know any of this, of course. because his saturday night comes with the soft sound of jiuen’s breathing as he tucks her in. saturday night comes with him lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about all the things he wants to take back. all the things he wishes he did instead.
saturday night comes with a knock at his door.
he sits up immediately, heart already jumping into this throat like, deep down, he knows who it is. he tells himself it’s probably a neighbor. maintenance. someone who got his mail on accident and is returning it. anything that isn’t the thought already forming in his chest.
he walks to the door anyways, and when he opens it—
it’s you.
you’re already standing too close, like you weren’t entirely sure where to put yourself either. your eyes are wide and glassy and looking up at him with a new expression he hasn’t seen before. jake can’t help but rake his eyes over your figure. the way your hair is done nicely, your makeup more intentional, the way your dress fits you tightly enough to convince him that he really needs to teach you about family-friendly-building-etiquette.
he notices everything. your cheeks are flushed deeper than usual. your eyes blink a little slower, your breaths a little softer, a little looser around the edges. the way you sway slightly in your spot.
“y/n?” he says in a low voice as he watches you carefully. “are you…okay?”
you shake your head immediately, too fast. “no—i mean, yes. i mean—” you huff out a quiet, breathy laugh. then as if you’re reminding yourself it’s way past eight pm, your voice drops. “i only had a little wine. i swear. just a few sips. i’m not drunk.”
you stop. swallow. your eyes drop to the floor between you before lifting back to his.
“i tried not to come here.”
jake doesn’t move. he watches the way you swallow, the way your fingers absentmindedly play with the hem of your dress.
“i—i went out tonight,” you continue, eyes steady even though your voice definitely isn’t. “i tried to forget everything, like you wanted. because—because it hurt so bad. what you said, that i meant nothing—”
jake squeezes his eyes shut, as if that could block out your words from his head. he starts to shake his head, but you keep going.
“—i tried to block it out, everything. the way i felt with you, the way you felt. the way you made me feel after only a few weeks but enough to know i want more.”
“y/n—”
“so i went on a date,” you say. and the words land heavy. heavy enough that he lets out an exhale without meaning to.
jake’s jaw tightens before he can stop it. something sharp twists low in his stomach, hot and ugly and very, very real. he hates the picture in his head, hates how easily he imagines you across from someone else, smiling the way you used to smile at him, giving pieces of yourself to a space he thought already belonged to him.
“…and i hated it,” you add quietly. “because all i could think about was you, jake.”
you keep talking, the words tumbling fast now, like you can’t stop now that you’ve started. “then i came back home and i told myself that whatever this is was just…tension or loneliness, or whatever. that i could forget everything. and i—” you stop, breath hitching, eyes now shining wet in the light. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, jake. i know you said we can’t, but—”
and when jake hears your apology, when he sees the way your eyes shine, all his restraint snaps immediately.
he cuts you off mid-ramble, not thinking, just moving. one hand cups your cheek, gentle at first, thumb brushing the damp corner of your eye, before the other slides to your waist and pulls you inside in one sure motion. he backs you up against the door instantly, his mouth finding yours before the door even clicks into place, everything tasting like pent-up frustration, the slight taste of the wine on your tongue, and the confession you just spilled.
you gasp against him, hands flying to his shoulders, fingers digging in to hold yourself up. his body presses flush against yours, hips pinning yours to the door. both hands grip your waist now, thumbs pressing into the soft dip above your hips, holding you exactly where he wants you.
“stop apologizing,” he rasps when he finally pulls back just enough to speak, forehead pressed to yours, both of you breathing hard and ragged. “don’t you dare apologize for this.”
he kisses you again—this time softer, slower, like he’s trying to memorize the taste of you. one hand moves to hold your face, thumb stroking your cheek again, the other still tight on your waist. “i’m sorry,” he murmurs against your lips, voice thick with everything. regret and need and pure desire. “’m so fucking sorry, y/n. i shouldn’t have said what i did. all i think about is you.” his hand on your face slides down your side, slow and deliberate, fingers tracing your outline before settling on your hip, gripping hard enough to make you arch in his hold. “about finally having you.”
you let out a sound at his touch, and it breaks him completely. he crashes back into you, mouth back on yours deeper this time, slower, savoring every second now that he’s finally letting himself have it. “want you so bad,” he breathes against your lips, voice wrecked and low. your hands find their way into his hair, and you tug gently enough for him to groan into your mouth, him tilting your chin up with gentle fingers so he can angle the kiss even deeper.
“i’m sorry, baby,” he whispers between kisses, each one softer and hungrier. “i’m all yours.” his mouth trails down your neck. you moan—quiet but broken enough—and he pauses, head lifting enough to quickly glance down the hall where jiuen’s room is.
“she’s asleep,” he murmurs, eyes dark. “we have to be quiet. think you can do that for me?”
you nod frantically, lips swollen and breathless, and that’s all he needs. he lifts you easily, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct. he carries you down the hall with careful, deliberate steps, trying his best not to make any sound as he kicks his bedroom door shut behind him.
the second the door closes, he sets you on the bed like you’re something fragile, his hands lingering at your hips for a heartbeat longer than necessary, thumbs stroking slow, soothing circles over the material of your dress, the warmth of his hands leaving a spark in its trail. his fingers find the side zipper of your dress, and slowly peel the material off completely with deliberate slowness, eyes tracing every new inch of skin revealed like he’s committing it into his brain—the soft rise of your stomach, the delicate dip between your ribs, the way your chest rises and falls faster under his gaze.
“beautiful,” jake exhales a low sound, almost a groan. “so fucking beautiful, baby.” he leans down, pressing hot, messy kisses along your collarbone, teeth grazing just enough to make your arch. one hand cups the back of your neck, thumb stroking the skin there as if grounding you, while the other slips right above the thin material of your underwear, fingers spreading wide over the curve of your ass. he squeezes once, firm and possessive, then soothes the spot with a gentle rub.
your underwear is off in one smooth motion, his hands dragging the fabric down against your thighs, tossing them aside without looking. then he’s back between your thighs, spreading them wide with his palms, your skin cool underneath the heat of his hands as he settles on his knees at the edge of the bed so he can really look at you. his pupils blow wide and dark, but there’s something soft in the way he exhales your name like it’s a prayer.
“god, look at you,” jake breathes, voice wrecked and vibrating against your skin as he leans closer. you involuntarily shift your hips at the sensation of his breath against your thigh, and he lets out a small chuckle before moving back up, as if teasing you. his mouth finds yours again, softer this time, lips parting yours with a tenderness that made your stomach flip, his weight pressed right up against your heat. the kiss deepens quickly, his tongue tracing the outline of your lips before slipping inside, exploring with lazy strokes that sends warmth pooling low in your gut. you sigh into him, hands roaming up his arms, and he lets out an exhale without meaning to. “you’re perfect,” he murmurs against your mouth, his hand tracing the bare skin of your hip lightly.
suddenly impatient, your hands fumble at his waistband, fingers clumsy with need, hooking into the elastic of his sweatpants, already feeling the hard outline of his own arousal straining against it. you tug down just enough to free him, not wasting any time to wrap your hand around the base, the sensation releasing a deep sound from him. jake squeezes his eyes shut as his hips jerk forward into your touch, a bead of precum already slicking your thumb.
“fuck—” he breathed, head dropping to your shoulder, but then his hand catches your wrist, stopping you with a firm squeeze. “not yet, baby. wanna take care of you first.” he moves your hand away and pins it to your side against the bed as he starts to make his way down, his mouth trailing kisses along your jaw, your neck, your chest, leaving light nips that sting just enough to make you gasp. he settles back between your legs, broad shoulders pushing your thighs apart, the heat of his breath fanning right over your core, groaning softly as his eyes fix on the way you’re already dripping for him.
“look at you, so wet for me already,” he whispers, voice thick with awe, thumb brushing lightly over your folds, collecting the slick there and circling your clit with agonizing slowness. “such a good girl, getting all worked up just from kissing me.” he drags two fingers through your folds—slow, teasing, the slick sound obscene in the quiet—the pad of his fingers collecting your wetness, gliding with ease. he watches the way your hips twitch, your breath hitching in short pants. then he pushes them inside, deep and fast, curling just right against that spongy spot deep inside you.
“fuck—jake—”
your head falls back against the pillow as you whimper desperately, already clenching around him instinctively. and before you could even fully process the sensation, his mouth quickly replaces his fingers, tongue flat and broad, licking up a stripe up your center that has you arching off the bed, fingers twisting onto the sheets at your sides. “oh my god—” you gasp, eyes squeezing shut as the feeling washes over you all at once. the taste of you on his tongue draws a hum from his throat, the vibration buzzing against your core as he sucks gently, then harder and quicker, his hands forcing your thighs open when they try to close around his head.
“jake—” you gasp, voice breaking, but he just murmurs into you, “shh, baby. let me hear your pretty sounds, just quieter for me, yeah? can’t wake her up.” his fingers then join his mouth again, one slipping inside, then two—curling deep and slow, the wet slide filling the room with obscene sounds. his eyes watch you the whole time, eyes dark and half lidded, praising you between each lick—“fuck, so tight” “gonna feel so good around my cock”—his fingers pump faster now, curling harder, filling up the quiet room quickly before he suddenly plunges a third, stretching you full with a careful twist. “that’s it—open up for me.” jake moves like a man possessed, eyes fixed on where his fingers are moving at an impossible pace now, disappearing in and out of you easily with your arousal spreading everywhere. everything burns so sweetly, the fullness making your thighs tremble, and jake feels your walls flutter around him. “doing so well for me, baby. wanna feel you cum around my fingers first, yeah?”
the pressure builds quickly, jake moving without a care in the world, his tongue circling your clit with precise flicks, the pressure building hot and tight in your belly, his fingers pumping in the same rhythm until he feels you shatter—back arching, a muffled cry escaping you as one of your hands fly to clamp gently against your own mouth. he feels you squeeze around his fingers in waves, walls clenching around his fingers in pulsing grips as he works your through it, tongue gentling but not stopping, lapping up every last drop you release, fingers easing out slower and glistening now until you were limp and oversensitive. “there you go, so perfect—so good for me, baby—”
he sits up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes dark and hungry as he watches you sprawled out in front of him, the aftershocks making your hips twitch, your skin flushed and glistening with sweat. a knowing smirk sits on his face as he shed his sweatpants fully this time, his cock springing free, tip already flushed and leaking. he strokes himself slowly, hand slick from your arousal, eyes locked on yours as he settled between your legs again, one hand bracing beside your head.
“you okay?” he instantly softens his demeanor, bringing his free hand up to your cheek, thumb brushing softly as his eyes search your face. you just nod, pulling him down by the hair for a kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue as he groans into your mouth, his hand now moving down to position himself at your entrance. he stops there for a second, just rubbing the head through your folds, coating himself in your slick like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you, nudging your clit before pressing just the tip in, then pulling back. your hips lift instinctively, chasing him, but he stays still for a moment, eyes dark yet amused, breath coming in shallow pants against your mouth. “patience, baby,” he murmurs, but his voice cracks at the end, like he was torturing himself too.
“please, please jake—” he hears you mumble softly with a whine and jake just chuckles, but his eyes stay locked on where you connect, watching as he pushes in inch by inch, the stretch burning sweet, both of you gasping quietly in unison. “fuck,” he groans, head falling forward as he sinks in deeper and deeper, the heat of him filling you completely, walls instantly fluttering around him. you moan softly, nails digging into his shoulders, the sharp sting of pain making him inhale sharply.
his eyes fly shut when he finally bottoms out, hips flush against yours and stills—breaths syncing, his forehead on yours, sweat beading at his temple. “so fucking good,” he breathes, voice breaking. “you feel so good.” he starts moving then, slow thrusts at first, the rough drag of him against your walls sending sparks up your entire spine. the pace builds naturally, hips snapping harder, skin slapping softly, the bed starting to creak beneath you.
jake watches the way you bite your lip, cheeks flushed, eyes staying shut at the sensation like you’re struggling to hold yourself back, and he feels himself twitch inside you from the sight alone. he tilts his head, a wicked smile curving at his lips as his hand slides to one of your wrists, pinning it gently beside your head.
“why so quiet, baby?” he murmurs against your ear, voice teasing as his grip on your wrist stays firm, but careful, thumb stroking the inside. “gonna call me daddy in front of my kid all normal, but now you’re shy?”
your eyes snap up to his and widen in surprise at the boldness in his tone as he watches your reaction, your cheeks burning hotter and mouth parting in a silent moan. you squirm under him, too fucked out to even find the words when his thrusts turn harder, sharper, hips snapping with more force, his tip hitting that perfect spot deep inside you over and over again, almost like a punishment.
“jake—”
jake grunts, thrusts faltering for a second. “not jake,” he murmurs, thrusting a little more forcefully at that, “say it. let me hear you.”
“daddy,” you gasp, the word tumbling out shy and needy and he lets out a louder groan, rewarding you with a deeper thrust, his hips now moving in a filthy rhythm, as if out of his own control.
“fuck, yeah—that’s my girl. say it again.”
and you do, the word dripping more confidently this time from your tongue despite the pink on your face as he rises up slightly, still buried deep, knees dipping into the bed to steady himself. his hand stays wrapped around your wrist firmly, the other one now moving to your throat when your moans get louder, fingers wrapping gently, thumb pressing just enough to feel your pulse racing, keeping you in place as he pounds deeper.
“look at me,” he demands softly but everything intensifies quickly, his hips slamming now, skin slapping wet and loud, the bed creaking louder under the brutal force. his hand on your throat tightens just a fraction, possessive but always checking your eyes. “gonna make you feel so good, baby—gonna ruin you for anyone else.”
jake feels himself slipping. just a little, control fraying as the pleasure coils tighter, louder than he should allow in the quiet apartment—knows the low groans and ragged breaths and creaks of the bed are carrying further than they should, but the thought dissolves the second it forms. his mind is a beautiful and wrecked, jumbled haze now, narrowed to the wet, desperate sounds of your whimpers against his ear, the slick velvet grip of your walls clenching around his cock with every thrust, the sharp sting of your nails raking down the muscles of his back—digging in hard enough to leave marks he’ll wear proudly tomorrow and never once regret.
he knows he’s slipping. knows he’s losing himself, maybe a lot more than just a little—because his body now settles fully over yours again, skin sliding together with every roll of his hips. his mouth finds the crook of your neck, lips brushing hot and messy against the sensitive skin there, words spilling out a in low, broken babble he can’t hold back.
“gonna fill you up, baby,” he whispers, voice wrecked and trembling against your pulse, each syllable punctuated by a deep, grinding thrust. “gonna make jiuen a big sister—gonna make you a momma, all swollen and round and mine. you want that? want daddy’s baby?”
the words tumble out raw and reverent, half plea, half promise, his breath hot and uneven against your throat as he presses one last open-mouthed kiss there, teeth grazing just enough to make you let out a whimper, before the rhythm of his hips turns frantic again, chasing the edge with you.
“oh my god—jake, gonna cum, gonna—”
jake watches as your eyes squeeze shut as his words finally push you over, feeling the way your walls flutter harder around him, slick heat suddenly flooding between you as your body arches off the bed as much as his hold allows, thighs shaking, a fresh wave of wetness coating him and dripping down to the mattress. he follows seconds later, slamming deep inside you with a choked moan—spilling hot inside you in thick, pulsing waves, the warmth immediately spreading deep in your core, filling you until it leaks out, sticky and warm around him.
when he finally pulls out, both of you hiss at the sudden emptiness, the wet sound of him leaving you sharp in the air, a string of your combined slick connecting you for a moment before breaking. your body lies spent and boneless, trying to catch your breath. but before you can, you feel jake’s hands on you again and he’s flipping you onto your stomach in one fluid, strong motion, hands rough but careful as they grip your hips, pulling you onto your knees.
“not done,” he pants, and he doesn’t wait for a response before he slams back in all at once, the new angle hitting deeper than before, the stretch making you cry into the fabric of the bed sheets, the fullness overwhelming with his cock dragging new spots that make stars burst behind your eyelids. his hand trails down on your lower back, pressing you into the mattress to hold you steady, arching your back while the other spanks your ass lightly at first, then another one—harder this time, the sharp sting blooming red before soothing it with a slow rub, the contrast making you clench around him, the wet sounds even louder and filthier now.
“c’mon, baby. take daddy’s cock like a good girl,” he mumbles, thrusting relentlessly now—skin slapping loud against skin, his balls hitting your clit with every snap, the headboard of the bed tapping rhythmically against the wall, the wooden floors creaking in protest beneath. he moves to lean over you, chest to your back, his breath hot and ragged against your ear as he feels himself twitch violently inside you. “fuck—’m gonna cum, baby. tell me you want it, please—”
“—yes, please, want it so bad daddy—” and then you cum harder this time, walls clamping down around him as your orgasm washes over you in blinding waves. jake follows right after with one last final thrust, spilling deep inside you for a second time tonight, your name and broken praises tumbled from his throat in a rush as he feels his cock swell and twitch against your tight walls—”yeah, take it all” “my perfect momma, so fucking perfect”—hips grinding slow and deep to keep every drop inside, until he finally collapses over you, both of you panting, bodies tangled and slick with sweat, the room heavy with the scent of sex, his heartbeat pounding wildly against your back.
when jake eventually rolls off of you, he pulls you with him without hesitation, your body wrapped into his arms, head buried into the crook of his neck, cheek pressed to the warm of his chest where his pulse still races. his hands are gentle now, soft strokes through your hair, fingertips outlining lazy patterns along your spine. he presses a kiss to your temple, then your cheek, then the corner of your mouth and it lingers, the kind of kiss that feels like a promise.
the shift is almost a harsh, stark contrast from just a few minutes ago. the same hands that gripped your hips hard enough to bruise now cradle you like something priceless, the same voice that growled filthy commands now murmuring soft, soothing nonsense into your hair. the same guy you met down the hall with eyes that didn't quite meet yours then and nerves in his voice.
“are you okay?” his voice is soft, concern lacing over every word, every feature on his face, as his thumb brushes your cheek and his eyes search yours—pupils still blown, still dark but filled with something tender and protective. your lashes flutter open, just barely, but enough to glance up at him and give him a small, sleepy smile as you nod slowly. exhaustion takes over your body as you curl into him like it’s instinct now, like your body already knows where it belongs, his nose nudging into your hair, his heartbeat steady against your ear, slowing you down with it.
jake exhales quietly, like the moment he's in is fragile. his thumb traces slow circles at the small of your back, and somewhere in that simple motion it hits him. it hits him how wrong he was to think he could ever keep you at a distance, how impossible it feels to imagine his nights without this, without you. how every careful, measured routine he's spent years building suddenly makes sense only because you're standing in it, changing it, softening it.
“good,” he whispers, pressing another kiss to your forehead.
and you’re already drifting when you hear it, soft and hopeful against your skin.
“stay with me tonight, yeah?”
and you do. you stay that night. and the night after. until it stops being a decision and starts being a habit, one that happens naturally.
and somewhere in between all of that, jake realizes how you've become threaded through each and every one of his routines, soft and steady and unmistakably his. how he wakes up at 6:12AM to you now, your hair in his mouth because you always steal the corner of his pillow in your sleep. how he makes two coffees now instead of one. how you carefully pack jiuen's apple slices into her lunch box and sneak an extra cookie in there when you think jake isn't looking and he lets it happen anyways.
a few months down the line—somewhere between jake learning that you never finish your dessert and you realizing that he rubs the back of his neck every time he gets overwhelmed—you finally teach him your garlic and butter recipe.
t’s a tuesday and it’s nothing special, just one of those in-between days where jiuen has a spelling testing tomorrow and jake forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer, which means you’re in charge of dinner by default.
you show up with your keys in hand, hair twisted into a messy knot from your long day. you kick your shoes off by the door without thinking and they land next to jake’s, tipping one over. and the kitchen eventually fills with the kind of smell that settles into the walls. butter and garlic and something else that’s warm and soft that doesn’t feel like it comes from a recipe.
jiuen hums to herself as she sits at the table, swinging her legs, erasing the same spot over and over again because she likes the squeaky sound the eraser makes. you’re in the kitchen, next to jake and rambling about the most recent thing your coworker did at work to piss you off when you lean over and dip a spoon into the pan he's stirring. you taste it, squint a little, then tilt your head.
“hmm,” you smack your lips. “needs salt.”
jake has already stopped.
he’s just standing there, wooden spoon frozen in his hand, watching the way you continue to move in his kitchen like it’s yours too, now. the way your hair falls out of the messy knot at your neck, soft pieces catching the light. the way you’re wearing one of his sweatshirts—too big in the shoulders, sleeve bunched up so they don’t cover your hands—like you changed into it the second you came home without even thinking about whose it was.
jake feels it then. the quiet, steady shift in his chest, like something finally settling where it was always supposed to go.
you notice and stop what you’re doing, the sink running behind you where the vegetables you were washing sit abandoned now. you glance up at him, a curious smile already tugging at your mouth. “…salt, jake.”
“salt,” he repeats, but his eyes don't move from yours, like the word is foreign to him. like he forgot what the two of you were even doing in this room. he doesn’t move.
your eyes peer with amusement, your cheeks now a degree warmer. you move to close the distance, reaching past him to grab the salt from the cabinet. when you press it into his hand, your fingers linger for a half a second too long.
“there,” you murmur. “salt, in case you forgot what that is.”
jake looks at the salt in his hand. then at you. then, without really planning to, because jake is still jake and doesn’t really think sometimes—
“i love you.”
and the world doesn’t stop. the sink keeps running behind you. something sizzles on the stove. jiuen’s quick footsteps creak somewhere down the hall. the salt still sits in jake’s hand. so the world doesn’t stop, not exactly. but you do.
you turn back to him slowly, like you want to make sure you heard him right. there’s already a smile pulling at your mouth, impossible to hold back.
“yeah?” you ask, soft and quiet, almost teasing.
jake nods, like he’s confirming something for himself even though he's pretty sure he's known all along.
“yeah.”
you just stare at him for a moment. only for a moment, before you close the distance and your hands find their way around his neck and into his hair, and you kiss him. right there in the middle of the kitchen, with the sink still dripping and the smell of burnt garlic in the air because jake didn’t listen and left the stove on for too long earlier. and it’s just a simple, soft press of your mouth against his. warm and easy and familiar. yet jake still fumbles and drops the salt on the counter with a clatter he absolutely does not care about as his hands settle on your hips, pulling you in just enough.
he kisses you back slow, fighting back the smile against you, his fingers pressing in gently to hold you in place. like he’s got nowhere else to be. like he plans on staying right here for a long time.
”—DADDY WHERE DID YOU PUT MY BACKPACK?”
jake stops. he lets out a sound that lands somewhere between a laugh and a groan and drops his forehead against your shoulder. you’re already giggling, your hands still in his hair, your breath warm against his cheek. you pull back just enough to look at him, eyes bright before you give him one more quick, soft kiss.
“i love you,” you say. jake grins.
then you turn and call out, “coming, princess! check mine and daddy's room, ji.”
jake laughs under his breath, low and fond, and squeezes your hips once more before letting you go. he watches you disappear down the hall like it’s the most normal tuesday in the world.
so yeah. they say having kids will change your life. but they don’t tell you many things about having them.
they don’t teach you how to do braided pigtails without watching three youtube videos and still messing up. they don’t explain how to stay calm when you realize your three-year-old can be allergic to strawberries but somehow stay immune to falling off the couch. they don’t tell you how much money to leave as the tooth fairy, or how to sneak a bill under the pillow of a light sleeper, for that matter.
they don’t warn you that one day, your hallway will start to smell like citrus shampoo and butter and garlic. that there will be an extra pair of shoes by the door that aren’t yours or your daughter’s. that your fridge will slowly fill with things you didn’t buy—oat milk you’ll never drink, a bottle of hot sauce you pretend you can handle, a half-eaten container of ice cream that’s now a must have on every friday’s movie nights.
they don’t tell you that home can change shape without you realizing.
it happens in the small ways first.
in the way jiuen starts calling your apartment “the other house.” in the way that jake learns, somewhere between aisle seven and the checkout lane, that different pasta shapes actually matter to you—not for any logical reason, but just because you like how farfalle looks like little butterflies on plates and that makes jiuen smile. in the way movie nights turn into mornings, and mornings turn into you standing in the kitchen in one of his shirts, arguing about whether pancakes count as a balanced breakfast if there’s fruit involved.
it happens in the quiet.
in the way he learns the sound of your keys in the hallway. in the way you learn which floorboard outside jiuen’s room creaks and how to step around it on bare feet at two am. in the way you’ve gotten used to the one cushion that sinks a little too much on the couch and yet find it more comfortable that way—your body naturally curling into the dip, jake’s arm stretched along the back, fingers idly tracing soft patterns on your shoulder on purpose this time while jiuen snoozes away between you.
it happens in the soft moments.
in the way jake lets himself lean into you when he’s tired, head dropping to your shoulder after a long day, face buried into the crook of your neck, inhaling the faint scent of your shampoo and the warmth of you like it’s the only thing keeping him stable. in the way you naturally turn toward him in your sleep, your body seeking his even in your dreams, head against his chest, one leg sliding between his, hands fisting loosely in his shirt while he holds you close, palm splayed wide over the small of your back, fingers making lazy circles until your breathing evens out against his collarbone.
and it happens in the intimate moments.
in the way jake knows exactly what makes you feel good—the precise angle that makes your back arch off the mattress, how the slow, deep grind has you gasping his name into his shoulder so jiuen doesn’t hear, exactly how much pressure you like when his thumb circles your clit, in the way he knows the hitch in your breath when he sucks a bruise into the skin beneath your ear, knows how to whisper good girl against your pulse when you’re nearly close to breaking, how to pin your wrists above your head just firm enough that you melt under him, trusting him completely.
in the way you let him fill you completely—each and every time, and he’ll still check, voice low and rough but still nonetheless soft—”you okay baby?” “gonna fill you up, yeah?” “my perfect pretty momma”—even when he’s buried deep inside you, hips rolling slow and deliberate, sweat slicking the space between your bodies, the sheets tangled around your ankles.
in the way you reach for him in the dark after, fingers threading through his, legs still trembling as he pulls you against his chest, lips brushing your temple, murmuring soft nothings until you drift off again, safe and full and his.
and maybe that’s the part they don’t really tell you.
that home isn’t the walls, or the lease, or the schedule you've built for yourself over the years. sometimes, it’s a five-year-old asleep in the middle of the bed, a half-finished bowl of ice cream melting slowly on the nightstand, and you—on the other side of her, already drifting off, fingers in her hair, looking like you chose this. like you chose her. and like you chose him.
and jake thinks, while watching his future fall asleep in front of him, that maybe this is the thing he’s been looking for all along. not just a life. not just a routine. but something that looks a lot like you.
something that looks a lot like home.
꩜｡⊹ ࣪ ˖ & as always,,,,tytytyty for reading! mwahmwahmwah!
GUYS IM LOCKING TF IN WHY IS HE SO HOT ADDIE WAIT F ME I WILL BE WRITING A LONG ASS REBLOG ABOUT THIS FIC I CANT SHUT UP ABOUT IT I STH U PUT CRACK ON DADDY JAKE
ParadoXXX
Ship: Toxic BestFriend!Sunghoon x ToxicBestFriend!Reader
Description: You and Sunghoon are the most toxic best friends imaginable. The possessiveness, the constant arguments, the whole package. But why were you both so jealous when you weren’t even dating?
Warnings: HardDom!Sunghoon, Brat!Reader, BratTamer!Hoon, Dirty Talk, Sadism/Masochism, BDSM, Hate Sex, Double Fingering (Hehehe), Orgasm Denial, Edging, Punishment, Spanking, Slapping, Degradation/Humiliation, Overstimulation, Choking, Minor Cucking? You'll see (Not what you think), Praising, Pussy Slapping, Masturbation, Love Making, Slut Shaming (Sunghoon receiving), Oral Sex, Unprotected Sex, Extremely Toxic Friendship/Relationship!!!! Yandere themes from both characters, extremely unlikeable (unless you're into that sort of thing) Reader!!, Best Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, Possessiveness, Manipulation, Obsession, Weed
Word Count: 23.1k
A/N: This was the original idea of Deal With It/And Find Out, but had made a lot of changes with the characters to make them more palatable and to test out the waters. These characters lean far more in depth with the toxic dynamic I originally had in mind. It was inspired by the video game The Coffin of Andy and LeyLey. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it! Alternate BTS Jungkook version can be found as Mind Games by @littlemisskookie
There's an old Greek myth that explains why people are drawn to each other, always trying to find the one, their perfect fit.
Long ago, people were not in the forms they know today. Rather, they were attached back to back, never even facing each other, but could feel the other with every move they made. They could be two men, two women, a man and a woman, or a myriad of other combinations. They were always two, and at the same time one. They had four arms, four legs, two heads. An amalgamation of flesh and limbs, moving as one, a partner connected to them in every sense of the word. They could never leave each other's sides, and they would always know each other's souls. They were powerful, beautiful beings, who had to be punished for their hubris, as stories of humanity often go. The gods separated them in half, dividing the limbs from eight to four, the heads from two to one.
Forever, humans were destined to search for the soul who was once tethered to their own, their missing piece.
A human without their soulmate wasn't truly human yet at all, not in the same, completed sense they were before. It's what drives us to search for them without ever being told to, that has us brush paths with other minds and other beings until we find the familiar touch we ached for all along, without ever even realizing it.
Most people were lucky to meet their soulmate by the time they were in their 30s. Others found theirs by the time they were middle aged. Some never found theirs at all.
You were luckier than most, having found the one when you were all but five.
You could barely even recall the memory. Not what you said, not what he said, it was all a blur. All you remembered was the moment your eyes met his, and how every atom in your body was drawn to him, knowing that this was the person you had spent every previous life searching for. And now he had practically fallen into your lap.
He had known it, too. He knew no matter what you did, no matter what came between you, he was yours.
Your parents weren't around much when you were growing up, and when they saw you attached to the hip with the neighbor boy, they figured he had it covered. "Sunghoon will take care of you," they had said, not wanting to deal with whatever trouble you had caused back when you were still seeking their affection. As if it were actually worth something. "You're his problem."
Perhaps you took it a bit too much to heart.
When you'd get picked on during recess he was the one who stood up to your bullies. (Well, he tried.) Sometimes they'd retaliate, their aggression being redirected from you to your poor friend. (He'd still have to fight, because you got in a lot less trouble when you used your hands rather than whatever was sharpies nearby, which was your usual move.) It was usually you who started it in the first place, too. If Sunghoon didn't get there in time to step between you, however, it often ended up worse, with him tagging along as you were dragged to the principal's office for whatever nefarious scheme you had cooked up. You expected him to come with you each time it happened, you didn't even have to ask. You always got everything you wanted, especially from him. He'd sit with you in every detention you received even if he didn't do anything wrong. He'd always apologize on your behalf to whoever you pissed off that day with your abrasiveness and foul mouth. When he got his first part time job, much of his tiny paychecks were spent on taking you out to eat and buying you gifts when he happened to piss you off— which was a lot.
A part of Sunghoon acknowledged you were a burden— something you would accuse him of thinking over and over again but he'd never admit. (At least, not out loud.) Great emphasis had been put on the fact that he was expected to stay by your side through anything. He was supposed to be your protector, your mentor, your best friend since birth. Given that he was the one born a few weeks earlier, he was put in charge of your well-being. It's not like your folks really wanted to parent anyway, too busy booking cruises and leaving the responsibility on Sunghoon’s shoulders. His parents gave less of a shit about it than yours did. They were to preoccupied with image, a large part of it involving your futures. They'd coo and awe at the idea of the two of you growing up and getting married, so much so that you yourself proclaimed it as fate when you two were all but five.
Sunghoon’s always been expected to spend his entire life with you.
You were constantly getting in trouble though, refusing to make serious connections with anyone else because you had him. You always had him. Any text you sent him and, no matter how busy, he was at your place within the hour. You were his problem to fix, over and over again, no matter what prior engagements he had planned to spend away from you. It's not like you ever wanted him to be away from you, though. He really was your only friend, or at least the only one you actually liked. Eventually he was able to convince you to at least pretend to be friends with others, for appearances' sake. He thought a bit of feminine influence could do you some good, and to an extent you did. You weren't exactly fond of the new "friends" you had to make, however. You pretty much openly disdained everyone except for Sunghoon.
Though sometimes you openly hated him too.
Especially when his attention was directed anywhere other than you. You'd scoff and have an attitude whenever he went out with fellow classmates at university, and throw a major bitch fit if it happened to be a girl. Any chick Sunghoon so much as mentioned would have you seeing red.
What could he possibly need her for any way? Was she just another one of the sluts he kept on the side that he thought you didn't know about? After all, how could you not hear about it when your "friends" have been telling you rumors about your best friend since high school? What did those cunts have that you weren't providing for him? Were they just another tool for him, the way your friends were for you? It's not like he could connect with any of them, not the way he does with you.
You were born with an innate corruption that never seemed to go away. From a spoiled toddler, trouble maker kid, rebellious teenager, and now bitchy adult, you never quite found yourself able to relate to the people around you. They were all so fucking boring and stupid, anything they had to offer simply coming off as dull to you. You didn't need any of these dimwits, their fake smiles and false concern. Sunghoon was all you needed.
You knew Sunghoon saw the darkness in you. The way he'd give you a glare before speaking to whatever teacher was reprimanding you. The way he told you "Don't." at times when you barely opened your mouth, knowing exactly what you were thinking and what you were about to say, and that the results would be calamitous at best. The exasperation in his voice when he had to diffuse whatever situation you caused. The annoyance in his tone when you'd spam him with calls or texts when he wasn't answering. Whenever he called you a psycho bitch when you were yelling at him about wanting to fuck whatever girl happened to approach the two of you that day. He wasn't blind to it— he bore witness to everything. He had to watch and study your every move for years, because he knew if he kept his eyes off of you for even a second, he'd face the consequences one way or another.
Sometimes you wondered why he stayed. Was it just because he was expected to by your parents? Surely he would've ditched you as soon as the two of you became adults. Did he love you, despite everything you constantly put him through? He always seemed so put out though when you'd interrogate him on that type of answer, asking if he loved his "new girlfriend" (latest fuck) more than you, if she was prettier than you. The answer was always no. But then again, Park Sunghoon was always a big fat liar, so how could you ever trust him?
You came to the conclusion that whatever sinister wickedness you possessed, he did too. Maybe he wasn't as bad as you, but he was also far better at hiding it. Some twisted link the two of you shared kept you unable to let go of each other.
That didn't stop you from worrying over that exact thing, though, every minute of every day.
No matter how many times Sunghoon assured you he'd never leave you, you never seemed to fully believe him. It's been that way well over twenty years now, and Sunghoon is beginning to suspect it'll be a permanent fixture of his life.
Sunghoon wondered himself sometimes why he stayed with you. You were a total conniving bitch, constantly manipulating him into doing what you want and throwing tantrums when you weren't his absolute top priority. God forbid he openly date another girl. He knew you weren't completely stupid— he was messy at times. He'd slip up and something would throw a wrench in his plans despite him usually thinking three steps ahead. Better than the impulsive streak you bore. Still, he made an effort to hide any of his secret relationships from you. Even when the girls begged and insisted on making things official, Sunghoon had to tell them otherwise. Over and over again they'd ask him to pick them over his best friend, and every time it guaranteed a fast exit for him. His answer was always the same and unwavering. He was unable to commit to any woman, knowing your reaction to any girl becoming an even temporary part of his life would be disastrous. Was sex really worth facing your wrath?
A small, meek part of him was scared you'd actually leave him.
The fear may be irrational, but it's one he's always been anxious of. He used to be terrified about you getting expelled and being sent to another school away from him, out of his sight. He didn't even want you to spend detentions alone, afraid you'd make things worse for yourself without him there. God, the amount of shit he had probably unknowingly saved you from. What if one day you piss of the wrong person and are taken away from him forever? What if you went to jail because of some dumb shit you pulled? He wouldn't even be able to stay inside with you, penitentiaries often being divided by sex.
You were always his responsibility, and though it has been a burden on his life for as long as he could remember, he couldn't stand the thought of you being anyone else's. You were his. His problem. Made for him. He had always known it in his bones.
He'd have to push down the deeper recesses of that thought, however, reminding himself the two of you literally grew up together your entire lives. You were like a sister to him— or as close as he'd ever get to one. Sunghoon was constantly reminded of the fact by family, friends, and peers. "They're not like that, they're practically related," people would say when others would question how close the two of you were. "They're basically brother and sister." Something in his stomach churned whenever he heard that, but he knew why it was said. He practically raised you. Hell, he's still teaching you how to behave. He couldn't possibly allow himself to see you that way. He'd stick his dick in whatever he could to make sure of it.
No matter how much you'd try to tempt him.
You'd make teasing remarks and joke about the concept of you two jumping in bed together, much to his (mock) disgust.
"I hope you're not planning on going out in that," Sunghoon warned, flipping channels through your TV as you pranced about shorts that tested his patience.
"Why? Don't think they look good on me?" you said playfully.
"No," he deadpanned, not reacting to your (cute) angry pout. "They're indecent."
"Would they look better on the floor, you think?" you teased.
Sunghoon’s ears burned at that, but he kept his eyes glued to the TV, not wanting to look at your smug face should you interpret his expression for flustered. "Quit embarrassing yourself and go put on actual clothes."
It was your turn to become unnerved this time, your face heating up in both agitation and embarrassment as you scoffed at Sunghoon’s words. "Fine!" you huffed, trying to ignore the all too common twist in your chest at the rejection. Why should you feel so defeated? It's not like you had any hope of a different response... right? Sunghoon’s always acting disgusted when you make jokes like that. He wasn't your boyfriend, and clearly he never would be. He saw you as his best friend, basically his sister. Never anything more.
But he was so much more to you.
He was your birthright, your possession. Yours. Your Hoonie, no matter how often he reminds you to stop calling you by that stupid childhood nickname. Yours. And yours alone.
No matter what whore he ended up taking to bed, he'd always end up kicking them out and going to you in the morning. No matter what psychotic argument you started, how much you'd push his buttons, and how much you'd push the limit, he stayed.
He may yell back. He may put you in your place the way no one else would be able to. He may quell your bratty attitude and bring you back down to Earth even in your bitchiest attitudes.
No matter how much you pushed it though, he stayed.
Though you were so, so scared that one day you were going to take it to far and drive him away for good.
To a certain degree you were self aware of your own behavior. You were exhausting to put up with, and there was a reason beyond your own stubbornness that you only had Sunghoon. You couldn't help it, though. Sometimes the resentment and fire would just build up in you and explode with no warning at all.
Today was one of those days.
You yanked Sunghoon’s headphones off his head, startling and angering him as his game was interrupted. He yelped and glared at you, mouth open to scold you and ask what the fuck you thought you were doing. That is, until he saw what was in your hand, and his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.
You wore a sneer of absolute disgust as you held up the pair of panties between two fingers, dangling it as far as you could away from you and into his space. The rage permeated off of you in an intimidating aura, sending a chill down Sunghoon’s spine as you glowered down at him in his gaming chair.
"Found this buried in your couch cushions," you growled in an accusatory tone, tossing them in the trash can by his desk.
Sunghoon rose from his chair, leaving his game unattended to. "It's not—"
"What, were you fucking another one of your whores right before I came in? Is that way you didn't have time to clean your disgusting couch?" You wiped your hand across your shirt, as though trying to get off any germs that had transferred from the fabric. "Can't believe you let me sit on that thing after you defiled it. Fucking gross."
Sunghoon rolled his eyes, knowing already where this was going. It was a fight that has been rehashed to the death any time you find out a woman has so much as stepped foot in his apartment. "I don't get what the big deal is."
"The big deal is I had to sit on a place where your nasty ass fucked some slut!" You exclaimed, eyes narrowing. "Fucking gross, Park. Can't keep your dick in your pants? You just have to nail half the city for, what, your STD collection?"
"I use protection, stop throwing such a bitch fit," Sunghoon snapped back, irritated with you already. "So I fucked a girl on my couch—"
"Ha! So you admit it!" You pointed a finger in his face, eyes blazing at his confession. "And to think you were about to pull some bullshit lie up your ass. Oh, don't give me that look Hoonie, I know exactly what you were about to say."
Sunghoon slapped a palm over his face, letting it drag. He wasn't going to win this. He never did. "And what was that, since you know everything?"
You clasped your hands together, cheeks burning as you felt yourself fume and stew. You couldn't get the picture out of your head. Sunghoon, banging some faceless whore on the couch where the two of you watched the entirety of Breaking Bad and half of Netflix. Now when you looked at it you'd only be able to envision him on top of another girl. You know you shouldn't be naive— he's probably used a different girl on every surface of his goddamn apartment. Still, coming face to face with physical proof of his disloyalty set you off like nothing else. With dramatic vitriol, you mimicked your friend's most likely mindless words. "Oh, it's not what you think! Those aren't mine. Those are just a friend's. I'm sure it's an accident! She was no one!"
The girls were apparently always "just no one" to him. They didn't matter. You matter, that's what he always assured you.
Then why did you feel like nothing when you found a piece of fabric wedged between the cushions?
Sunghoon crossed his arms, unamused by your theatrics. "She was no one. Why should you even care anyway?"
"Because I do!" You felt the toxicity leach out of you through every pore, this illogical fury reaching a boiling point. "And you just... don't! You never do, huh? You just don't give a fuck about me, do you? You know how upset it makes me, but you go out and do it anyways. I mean, fuck how I feel, right? Clearly you don't give a shit."
Sunghoon sighed, taking a step towards you and reaching out. "You know that's not true."
"It is, though. That's why you hid it from me, isn't it?"
"I forgot all about it!" Sunghoon said, exasperated, throwing his hands up. "If I didn't give a shit about you anyways I'd leave it out where you can see. I didn't do it just to hurt—" He stopped himself, running his hands over his face. "Why do you have to take it like some personal attack every fucking time? Why do you have to be such a bitch for no good reason?"
That part made your chest sting, a mixture of both emptiness and pain filling up the hollow cavity where your heart should be. You stay quiet for a moment, letting his words hang in the air. You couldn't help it or choke it down, your eyes beginning to sting as tears appeared along your water line.
Why couldn't he fucking get it? Why didn't he understand he was yours? You made it so clear to him that you're his in every way. What did he still need other girls for?
Why weren't you enough for him?
Sunghoon, blood now boiling, examined your sorrowful expression. As much as he wanted to stay angry at you for coming in screaming about his sex life you had no part in (as he often had to remind himself), he couldn't help but soften. He's seen you cry a thousand times over the years, yet it never gets easier; he couldn't help but melt at the sight of you. The scowl he once had morphed into one of worry, and he reached for you out of instinct. You tried to slap his hands away, but he ignored your protests and sniffles and wrapped you in a bear hug, letting you bury your face into his chest as you started to cry.
"I'm sorry. Please don't be upset with me," he immediately backtracked, trying to soothe you as he tangled his fingers in your hair, pressing his lips to your forehead. Regret quickly replaced any feelings of exhaustion or anger towards your antagonizing. He couldn't stand seeing you upset like this. The screaming and tantrums he could handle, but something about your expression just now made him want beg on his knees for your forgiveness. Why did he always have to upset you? Why was he always hurting you somehow, without even meaning to?
You hated it. You hated how weak he made you. You hated him sometimes for making you so miserable for no reason at all.
You let your tears fall onto his shirt as you sobbed, though he didn't seem to mind. He soothingly pet your head in the way he knew you loved, and held you a little tighter. You loved the moments you could spend in his arms, from sharing a bed during shared family vacations or making up after a fight. It was one of the few times you could let yourself believe in the security you so desperately craved from him.
"I'm just a fuck up, aren't I?" Sunghoon softly said, voice calm as he stroked your hair. "I made you cry and everything. I'm really the worst."
You let out a small giggle at that, hiding your face in his shirt so he wouldn't see. "You're not the worst," you whispered, a small admittance.
"I'm not?"
You shook your head a little, blinking away the tears. "Everyone else's the worst."
Vibrations emitted from his chest as he laughed. "You're right. Everyone else is the worst..." He squeezed you a little tighter for a second. "That's why it's just you and me."
You grasped onto the fabric you were crying into, curling your fists at his assurance. "It is?"
He kissed your forehead, pressing his lips against you as he inhaled the lilac-scent of your shampoo. "Of course. Always."
You let your cheeks dry as you take in his words. This is always how it ended. Sunghoon would give you some sweet words to dissuade your anger, and you'd forgive him like always until he did it again, and the cycle would repeat.
God, you were such a toxic piece of shit. You should let go of him. Let him fuck who he wants without having to worry about upsetting you, a girl who he wasn't even interested in remotely. He'd never see you the same way, and here you were punishing him for what? His disloyalty? Why should he owe you anything after everything you've put him through.
Maybe you were just addicted to punishing yourself, like someone in a situationship. But yours wasn't even that.
Your head swam with thoughts of self doubt and hatred. Quietly, you asked, "Do you ever hate me, Sunghoon?"
He seemed to freeze in your embrace, the question unexpected. Usually it's something you accused him of in one of your fits, not ask during the come down. "Of course not. What makes you think that?"
You sniffled. "Sometimes I just think you'd be better off without me."
Sunghoon hadn't given it much thought before, mainly because he'd rather do anything than imagine his life without you in it. As many flaws as he could list, he could name a plethora of things he liked about you. Your drive and wit that could charm any talk show host, if you actually cared to impress anyone but him. Even that aspect, your unwillingness to people-please anyone else and do what you wanted. You weren't a doormat the way he was, always choosing to fight rather than cower. You were always able to do much more damage than he could, whether it was against bullies or mean coworkers or abhorrent professors. If anything, he felt like often he held you back. Sure, from trouble, but who would you be if you didn't have someone you were always tied down to? Who would you be without him?
The thought made him feel sick, and he wrapped his arms around you a bit more securely to really feel you with him. You weren't going anywhere, you were right here in his arms.
Then why did he sometimes feel so distant from you? Like right now? He was always able to tell what you were thinking. Except the times you retreated into yourself, in your shell where even he couldn't reach you at times. It always made him anxious about whatever he'd say next.
"I don't like to think about it, honestly," Sunghoon said honestly. Was it something you thought about? Did you ever think about leaving him? Were you thinking about it now? "I don't want to imagine us not being together."
"Even though I give you so much grief?" you questioned. "Even though you have other girls?"
Sunghoon laughed. Your jealousy and possessiveness over him was still showing. Good. This he could work with. "You don't have to worry about that. They aren't important."
"What if one becomes important?"
It's an unexpected question that, again, Sunghoon hadn't considered.
"None of them would be as important as you," he assured. "No one ever could."
Part of that made you feel better, but it wasn't quite what you wanted to hear. You didn't want anyone holding even a modicum of importance to Sunghoon besides you. You didn't want him to be fucking any girls or giving anyone else the attention you deserved. Sure, you were the most, but you weren't guaranteed to forever be the only.
You finally look up at him, those sweet, charming, doe brown eyes meeting you with softness and patience. Far more than you actually deserved.
You were so immeshed and intertwined with Sunghoon that you didn't know what parts of you were all him and what aspects of him were all you. Your souls had perhaps mixed beyond separation, instead making two indistinguishable entities forever bound to one another. To you there was no law more true than he was yours, and you were his. It was truer than physics.
But maybe he didn't deserve to be tied to a wretched little creature like you. You were jealous and possessive of him, and he made it clear though every rejection of your advances that he wasn't as much yours as you would hope.
What was the point of envying something you can never truly have?
"Do you ever want space from me?" You said it in such a hushed tone Sunghoon barely caught it.
"No." He furrowed his brows as he took in your words. Did you want space from him? Was that it? Sunghoon’s mind whirred with your questions. Had he pushed it too far? "Do you... want me to give you space?"
Your fists curled again, nails digging into your palms. Sunghoon gave you too much space for your personal liking. Space that he was using to fuck other women and spend time away from you. What more could need? What more did you have left to give?
The moral quandaries of the situation flooded your head, and you were unable to decide what to answer. You were a selfish bitch, through and through. He should be yours and no one else's, and you've believed that since the day you met him. He was yours, yours, and yours.
But clearly he wasn't, and clearly he didn't want to be. He didn't want to be yours the way you wanted to be his, and the reminder caused your heart to weigh just a little bit more every day.
How long could you keep him like this? On the brink of insanity as he tries to please your impossible whims of ownership over him? What would be the last straw on the camel's back to drive him away from you and to someone he could actually choose?
Would space be good for him?
"I don't know," you admitted quietly.
That sent Sunghoon’s mind spiraling. His two instincts were to 1.) push you away and ask frantically why you didn't automatically say no the way he did or 2.) hug you so tight you'd never be able to escape his clutches. He'd keep you in his apartment forever if he had to, chain you to his desk and never let you leave, like a legitimate psycho.
His breathing quickened and his heart rate spiked, and instead of either option he froze again, blood running cold. He didn't even know what to do or respond. Should he scream the way you do him until you changed your mind to what he wants? Should he do whatever it took to make you stay? Where were you getting these ideas from? Did someone plant them in that stupid little brain of yours? You hardly had any friends, and what few you did was mainly for appearances and boredom, though you often complained to Sunghoon about what bores and nags they were in your eyes. Sunghoon has always been the only person in this world you liked, let alone loved.
Did you meet a guy? No, that couldn't be it. All of your "friends" were girls, and you found most guys intolerable and annoying with the exception of him.
But what if you found another exception?
"Sunghoon?" You nervously said, perturbed by his unusual quietness.
Sunghoon decided to play it cool. Faking a laugh, he teased, "Jeez, what's gotten into you today? These aren't your normal questions. What happened to my girl?"
He ruffled your hair until you whined and squirmed in an attempt to leave his arms. He didn't let you.
"Sunghoooon!" You whined, nails slightly scratching at his forearms in retaliation. You wrapped your hands around each, the thick muscle pulsing beneath your palms as he kept you glued against him.
"C'mon, ask me a real question the way you normally do. Prove you're my best friend or I'll believe you're an imposter." He nuzzled his nose in your neck, causing you to wiggle out of ticklishness this time. You giggled at his affection, lightly slapping at his arms in protest as he blew air against your neck. "Prove it."
You bit your lip to suppress a smile, unable to stay mad at him for too long. "Was she prettier than me?" you pouted, your tone more playful than angry now.
His nose touched yours softly as he stared at you, relieved to have a question he's finally knows how to answer. "Nah," he smiled, fingers twirling around a strand of your hair as he tried to keep you in his orbit. "No one is. You know that."
You grinned at his compliment, the line well rehearsed and well used, but comforting all the same.
Still, you thought about how many times you've had this argument, and how many more you'll have in the future. It'd always go like this, with you as the possessive and jealous best friend who couldn't stand the idea of anyone else in his life. How long would it be before he figures out you're just not worth the trouble?
—
Sunghoon kicked it back in his friend's garage as the two shared a joint, letting the smoke fill their lungs and siphon out of the garage door and into the open air. Sitting in front of his friend's janky heater, he wondered to himself about his predicament. This was one of the few opportunities he could spend out of your sight, as you were in class. God, the way he had to bribe you with boba and sleepovers for over a month just to convince you to stop causing so much chaos away from him... It's a miracle you weren't kicked out of this school before you pissed off one of your professors by disagreeing with their lectures and insulting their intelligence. Hell, the only way Sunghoon was able to salvage your place at previous schools was by emphasizing your immaculate scores. They were contradicted your reckless behavior, sure, but schools wanted to keep their testing scores up. You were never stupid by any capacity, you just used any bit of genius you possessed to manipulate and get away with whatever degeneracy you had planned. Usually some nefarious scheme of revenge against some girl who so much as looked at Sunghoon the wrong way. He got very used to the women approaching him suddenly finding snakes in their backpacks or surrounded by rumors sullying their good name. Your craftiness, no doubt. Clearly you had too much freetime. At least with classes, though, Sunghoon was able to take some breaks— though you'd disapprove of how he'd use some on girls that coincidentally happened to vaguely resemble you. At least vaguely enough for there to be plausible deniability.
Sunghoon passed the weed to his friend, a chill dude with good weed but a boring personality. Maybe Hoon did have a bit of that same darkness you possessed, finding everyone else to be a waste of time unless they can be of use to him. He could definitely use the joint right now... and perhaps a little advice.
"Mind if I pick your brain on something?" Sunghoon asked. His friend gave him the side eye, unused to the man's sudden interest in his thoughts.
"Lady troubles, huh?" A puff of smoke escaped his friend's parted lips. "Is it that chick you just fucked a while ago? What's her name... Sarah?"
"Nah man, not her." Truth was Sunghoon’s pretty much forgotten her name already, as he usually does. He's pretty sure she's rang already once or twice, but he wasn't finding himself in any hurry to return her calls. He's mainly been worried about you these past couple of weeks. God, maybe he was the sleazy piece of shit you thought him to be. No wonder you were so disgusted with him. "It's just... someone."
Ever since the most recent fight you have been off. Less texts spamming him constantly with memes or annoyance for not replying immediately. When he took you out for boba you actually paid for yourself— which you never do. You also turned down his invitation to watch Godzilla movies at his place, even after he insisted he cleaned every inch of that goddamn couch three times. Something was up, and every passing moment made Sunghoon unusually antsy. Now he was the one bombarding you with calls checking up on you, your unusual reserved attitude putting him in a frenzied state. Didn't he fix it? You were never upset for this long. Ok, maybe you were sometimes, but you'd never just... leave him alone. You'd be waiting at his apartment, sitting on the couch you now know he's violated, and starting up right where you left off with the argument last time. You should be cussing and shouting, not MIA from the screen you were usually glued to.
"Riiiiight..." the friend said with a drag, nodding as he passed the joint back. "So tell me about it."
"It's my... friend." It felt odd calling you just that, without the word best in front of it. It felt so much more insignificant compared to what you actually meant to him, the small word doing nothing to compare. But if he went out of the gate with best his friend would definitely know it was about you. Still, it’s not like you could be anything more, no matter how badly Sunghoon wanted to cross that line. He couldn’t, though. He knew the minute you acted serious about it, didn’t brush it off as a joke— the moment he had you he wouldn’t be able to let go. He couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen, he couldn’t pretend everything was normal. You most certainly wouldn’t be ready for it. The situation at hand was proving it. "She's acting strange lately. Like... I dunno, distant. We got in a fight earlier but usually by now everything's normal again."
"Did you do something particularly heinous?" the friend inquired.
To her, definitely, Sunghoon thinks, taking a hit. "Not anything new."
"Maybe she just wants space," the friend suggested.
"I don't want to give her space," Sunghoon blurted out without meaning to.
That is responded to with a grin. His friend's eyebrows rose at Sunghoon’s reaction. "Oh? Why not?"
She's mine. She should be with me. She's mine. "I dunno... just doesn't seem like the right call I guess."
"Hm." His friend took back the joint and pulled in a long inhale, thinking. "So you wanna make her talk to you, huh?"
Did he? There was always the risk it'd just become another screaming match with you. You didn't seem to have any interest in opening up right now, so closed off to Sunghoon for what seems like the first time.
What was it? Was it because he had been spending a bit less time with you now? What with his admittedly growing social life due to inevitable popularity, (Which you hated, though it was unavoidable with his good looks and charisma. You couldn't truly blame any of Sunghoon’s bimbos for being unable to resist.) and stress filled classes, he certainly wasn't spending as much time with you as he did when you two were kids. Were you just giving him a taste of his own medicine? Or had you finally decided to get a life of your own that didn't involve him? He hoped neither.
Did you not need him any more?
The mere thought made it feel as thought his insides were being flipped inside out.
"I tried talking to her, but she sort of just shut me out." Sunghoon reached for the joint for a much needed hit. "I don't think I can handle this for much longer. I feel like I'm gonna go just... nuts soon. I'm this close to not holding back."
From what, even he wasn't sure.
"Then don't," his friend shrugged. "Make her talk to you, if it's that important. See if she likes you enough to listen to you. Someplace that catches her off her guard." He paused to think for a moment. "Or get her drunk. Girls love spilling their guts when they're drunk. My sister's always telling me TMI after a glass of wine."
That wasn't half a bad idea. It was typical for you to blabber on nonsense when you were drunk with Sunghoon. Whether it was discussing the idea of eloping or wrestling with him for long enough that he had to take a cold shower after, you were much less inhibited when you were under the influence.
"That's an idea," Sunghoon murmured to himself.
"You're usually great with women," his friend consoled. "You clearly just gotta man up with this one, dude. Remind her what she's missing." He took another pause. "It's probably a good thing she's mad. They're only mad if they care. It's when they stop caring you have to get worried."
Well, at least you're always mad at him. That was a comforting thought.
As for getting you to console to him and stay by his side, there was one idea that came to mind.
You absolutely hated parties. You didn't want to talk to anyone about their dumb problems or deal with the alcohol wafting off people's breaths. With girls occupying the bathrooms with their wailing and guys constantly bombarding you to try a line of coke off a paper plate, you found the events unappealing to say the least. You used to stay by Sunghoon’s side during freshman year and drink in the corner with him, talking shit about whoever was passed out in the living room or gyrating on who in public. Sunghoon’s gotten a lot more popular lately, though, much to your chagrin. He was practically the main event, being greeted by practically everyone whenever he went to one of these events. Every guy would shove a beer in his hand and dab him up like he was part of one of their dumbass frats. You practically had to beat off other girls with a stick and death glare when they approached him, their high pitched flirty voices and batting lashes making you want to gag. Seeing him be the king of a world you could and would never fit into left you stewing and steaming like the world's angriest pot of soup.
Sunghoon didn't give you much of a choice this time, though.
After maybe two weeks of resisting the temptation of returning to Sunghoon’s side and giving in to your most selfish desires, he ended up cornering you. He barged into your apartment with plans he had set up without your prior input— a page he had taken from your book, no doubt. He insisted on the two for you going to some Yo Gabba Gabba bullshit frat party despite your protests. You hated parties. You hated feeling loneliness in a crowded room. You hated the idiots that surrounded you and the way they'd squabble and flock around Sunghoon, desperate for his approval. Little did they know he thought the same as you— that they were mouth-breathers who were a waste of his time.
At least, that's normally what he seemed to think. Now that he was dragging you along for whatever godforsaken reason, despite your known hatred for public socialization, you were getting worried. Had he gotten sick of you avoiding him? The emotional distance you've been trying so hard to put between you two? Was this some sick punishment of his that he knew would be your personal hell? To watch him flirt with other girls before your very eyes and be too cool to be attainable? How cruel. How you. Perhaps he was learning. For once, and you couldn't believe it, it didn't seem like things were going your way.
When you complained it was too chilly a night for you guys to be going out, he simply tugged off his hoodie and wrapped it around you, problem solved. When you insisted you would agree to watching his Godzilla movies instead he suggested to do it tomorrow instead. When you complained you didn't have anything cute to wear Sunghoon yanked out the going-out top you convinced him to buy for you just last month. Any excuse you could come up with he was able to retort with ease, as though he had already prepared the answers.
This was going to fucking suck.
You pouted as you thought of all the pretty faces that would come up to him tonight, completely ignoring you at his side and making it obvious they'd like to win a night with him. You comforted yourself with the thought that at least they don't know he snores, which could be a fun surprise. Then you upset yourself again with the thought of him tangled in the bed with another girl in the first place.
Sunghoon was set on torturing you tonight for all your misdeeds, clearly.
You grumbled as you made your way to the car, already feeling a little warm from the lemon drops Sunghoon prepared back at his place. Of course he'd pregame you with your favorite to make the night a little more bearable. You felt it necessary to pregame any social interaction. The liquor coat managed to keep your temperature somewhat tolerable for the cold night air, or at least long enough for when you guys got to the party.
It seemed however that 2.5 lemon drop martinis weren't enough to get rid of your foul attitude, considering the fact you were bitching the entire time about how much you didn't want to go. Sunghoon recalled the saying about the horse and the water, but figured he'd make the most of it. At worst, he could always drown the horse, but what a waste of a bitchy horse.
"Oh my God, fucking Jake from 402 is going?" You scowled at your phone, seeing whatever worst-classmate-of-the-month posted on his instastory, glaring at the screen like the blue light itself was offending you. "He's such a bitch. He fucking cried at my reaction to his presentation, I don't want to deal with him. It's so awkward dealing with people after you make them cry."
Sunghoon thought about all the times he's made you cry over the years. Out of frustration of him fucking other girls, the one time you got your fingers caught in a drawer he was slamming shut, that other time he may or may not have purposefully lied to the guy you were talking to that you were saving yourself for Jesus, causing said almost-crush to ghost you. (It didn't really matter anyways. Sunghoon knew the guy wouldn't last five minutes in you. He was just doing you a favor and saving you from bad sex, if anything.) It wasn't awkward all of those times. Well, until recent developments.
"It'll be fine. I'll stick by you the entire night, he won't even have the guts to confront you the way you deserve," Sunghoon oh-so-helpfully assured.
Your glare redirected to him, a scoff accompanying it in appropriate fashion. "Yeah fucking right. You're going to be out of my sight within five minutes of walking through the door. It'll be some loser with a Bass Pro hat giving you a joint or a beer or what-fucking-ever, and suddenly it's so long, bestie!"
Sunghoon rolled his eyes at your rant, trying to mentally disengage now that he saw the house in the distance, the neon lights from the LED strips inside calling to him like a beacon. He was just five minutes from taking you inside a place you’d do anything to leave, even if it meant getting a conversation over with him. All he had to do was take you to some unoccupied whatever-the-fuck, and ask you what was wrong. Maybe manipulate you a little by saying he wouldn’t drive you home until you told him. You’d be too lazy to even think of looking into other options. "I'm not going to leave you."
"You say that, but we both know your word means nothing the second some broad with fat tits walks by threatening to motorboat you." You stirred at the thought, envisioning it all too clearly, your imagination finding the liquor in your system massively beneficial for the anger bubbling up inside you. "I mean, seriously, why'd you even bring me here? You could've gone by yourself."
"I wanted you to come with me."
"To what? Go sit on a couch next to some guy who can't take a hint, all while you fuck some chick in a bathroom that hasn't been cleaned in 5 months? No thanks."
"I told you, I'm not going to leave you."
"Yeah right. Suck my dick, Park. I could be home reading Onyx Storm right now."
"We both know you're not going to start reading that any time soon. It's been sitting on your nightstand for almost a year."
"Tonight could've been the night!" You protested. "But no, you just insisted on dragging me along to some stupid party to go watch you get hit on by some hot girl in an Urban Outfitters corset two sizes too small."
"That's not why I brought you here," Sunghoon sighed, hoping that the increasing volume of the party music would soon drown out your incessant arguing. "I thought it'd be a good place for us to catch up, have fun. Maybe talk. A change of scenery could do us some good."
"If you actually wanted to hang out with me, sure! We could've! I said I was fine with watching Godzilla tonight. But nooooo, you couldn't be bored looking at ugly little me, you just had to go find something that would give those precious pupils of yours a break." You snarled, shuffling further into the passenger seat, hoping your skin would glue itself to the leather so you didn't have to leave this car. "So, so sorry for not giving your retinas a day off. I know you must have cataracts by now just from looking at me."
Sunghoon put the car in park, finally turning towards you with a hard stare that would've made anyone's knees buckle. His face was suddenly centimeters away from yours, his rage radiating off of him stronger than UV rays in July.
"Oh my fucking God. What, do I have to fuck you in the car for you to feel pretty?"
Your eyes widened, and your mouth hung open, closing and opening over and over again as if you were a singing fish. You didn't know what to say. Usually you were the one making those sorts of comments — and at least it'd be somewhat disguised as a joke.
"I-I—" You stammered, feeling yourself get flustered. "Shut up!"
Sunghoon laughed at your shocked expression. Typically he wouldn't even humor your jokes of flirtation towards him, instead brushing them off and ignoring them, chalking the comments up to poor attempts to get under his skin. He was living for your reaction, however, how clearly you wore your expressions on your sleeve. He could practically see every wheel turning in that evil head of yours, trying to make sense of him, of his mask slipping just a little bit. For once, he had the upper hand, and he was enjoying it so, so much.
"How long do you think it'll last, huh? A few weeks? A year?" He leaned in closer, letting his breath fan against your skin. "How long do you think it'll be until you need it again?"
You jumped out of the car as though he electrocuted you, heart hammering so fast you swore you were having palpitations. "L-Like you'd— like that'd—" you glared at Sunghoon as he laughed at your mess of a self. You huffed, realizing he was just fucking with you. "Shut up!"
He let out another cackle at your expense. "Getting to you, huh? But you always say this sort of thing."
"You don't," you pointed out. "You just ignore me and call the comments stupid. You don't even react."
"I've always been good at hiding my reaction," Sunghoon reminded you. Painfully. "You never have."
You scowled at him, rolling your eyes. "You're so fucking full of yourself, Park."
"Yeah? You wanna be, too, I bet."
That sent an electric current straight to your core. You tried to compose yourself and hide the effect he's having on you, taking in a deep breath like you were trying to convince both parties of your confidence. "You're not getting to me, Park."
"Yeah, but you only call me Park when you're pissed at me," he smiled. "So I must be getting under your skin."
"As if—"
You were cut off by a loud buzzing from Sunghoon’s pocket, barely heard over the party music in the distance, the house several yards away. Of course Mr. Popular had someone trying to contact him every moment of the week. No wonder he was no longer having time for you—you were having to share his precious time with all of these other losers. He pulled it out of his pocket, and your eyes spied a suspiciously all too feminine name for your liking.
Sunghoon’s gaze met yours, twinkling with mischief as he practically dared you to seethe and pout over it as you normally do. You wanted to prove him wrong so bad, though. Whatever games he's suddenly playing, he will not win.
"You know what, Sunghoon, do what you want," you rolled your eyes and crossed your arms. "I don't even care anymore."
His smile disappeared at that last part, a frown gracing his features now. Something about that set him off inside, though he tried to regain his composure to hide his reaction to your words. Still, he was pissed off.
You don't care? Really? Since when? You always cared! You cared so fucking much all the time, especially when it came to Sunghoon! You cared too much about everything!
We'll see how much you don't care.
He picked up the buzzing device, ignoring your scowl of disapproval. He could practically feel your eyes jump out of your skull from his peripheral vision as you spotted the name Sasha on his phone. He's not entirely sure why he does it, just some instinct to put you in your place. To see if you do care, and if so, how much?
"You're actually answering that now?" you hissed, seething. Of course he's got some side hoe calling him when he's alone with you, but the gall of him to actually pick up? And in front of you, after all that... whatever that was? What game was he playing at?
Truth be told, Sunghoon wasn't so sure either. He was, however, willing to make a gamble on that jealous streak of yours.
He patted your head patronizingly, cooing at your anger. "It would be rude of me not to answer."
"Ignore the bitch," you snarled, grumbling under your breath, resisting the urge to grab his phone and chuck it far, far away. Last time you did that it cost you an entire week's worth of tips at your waitressing job. One you inevitably got fired from after you poured coffee on the old man who grabbed your ass as you walked by. For some reason they didn't believe it was an accident.
Instead of listening to you the way he normally did, he answered the call. "Hey, Sasha." There's a purr in his tone you never heard him use with your name. It made your stomach twist into a Gordian knot.
"I'm leaving." You turned away to stomp towards the lame ass party.
Sunghoon didn't let you run off, however, grabbing your wrist and tugging you closer to him, muting the call for a second. "Stay."
His word left no word for argument, and with the certainty in his tone, you could do nothing more but return to your place next to him and within earshot of the receiver. He chuckled as you stayed in place, pissed off but obedient. He could get used to this.
"I know you want to listen in anyways. Nosy." The amount of times he had caught you going through his phone (you knew all of his passwords, even the ones he forgot) and the amount of times it's started a fight was immeasurable.
Sunghoon smirked down at you, staring as he listened to Sasha excitedly ask how he's been and what he’s been up to. He twirled a strand of your hair, pleased with the scowl you bore. "Yeah, sorry it's been a while," he said, focusing on your lock being woven between his fingers, admiring how shiny it was even in the dark. "I've missed you."
You refrained from saying anything, knowing Sunghoon was all too eager to see you have a meltdown over one stupid phone call, just to prove a point. It'd be very much like you, though. You've done so over far less. Still, you stayed in place, for some reason wanting to be good for Sunghoon. You tried to ignore the dumb cunt's voice, her shrill giggles piercing your ears. You did your best to look unaffected, pulling the best poker face you could muster.
"Have you missed me?" Sunghoon asked, eyes still locked with yours. His smirk deepened. "Or just the feeling?"
You couldn't help but let out a grimace of anger and disgust contort your features, your ears burning as you listened to your best friend's sleazy talk to this random whore. Her bout of giggling and scolding Sunghoon for being so teasing did nothing to endear her to you.
Sunghoon relished in your expression, loving getting to see how jealous you were getting in real time, unable to do anything about it. He never broke eye contact with you, continuing to play with your hair as he nodded slowly to Sasha's response. "I've been thinking about it a lot lately..." Sunghoon said, smug as he watched you seethe right in front of him. He could feel how hot your ears were when he brushed your hair behind them, the normally affectionate gesture now being laced with something you had never known.
"Thinking of you under me, how good you'd feel..." His eyes flickered down from your eyes to your lips for just a split second before returning up. "How you're the prettiest girl I've ever known."
You turned around to march off again but Sunghoon stopped you, pulling you in so your back was pressed against his chest, his bicep wrapping around your front to keep you in place. You were now closer to the phone, able to better hear her annoying squeals of excitement. You reached up into his arm, fingers digging into the firm muscle as you tried to get him to let go, but he didn't. He instead leaned his head down closer, and you felt his breath tickle your ear, his deep voice sending shivers down your spine.
"Bet you've been thinking about it too, huh?"
You squirmed more in his grasp, pawing at the thick arm that kept you in place as you listened to her fervently agree. For some reason you were still feeling hot all over, even when Sunghoon was talking to another girl. An odd twist of lust and jealousy churned in your gut, the direct eye contact with you making you feel a strange, unexplored level of intimacy with him. You didn't know what to make of it, of Sunghoon’s sudden games. It was as though your time apart from him had truly affected him deeply, and now he was making up for the lost time in the most diabolical way possible. He was punishing you for depriving him of your presence, so it seemed.
Sunghoon was always so touchy with you. Hugs, pecks on the cheek, kisses on the forehead, playing with your hair, sitting/laying in each other's laps— it was all common. You should've known he'd be a whore from the get go with his love language clearly being physical touch. He was usually so gentle with you though, but now it was more domineering, more calculated. For once, you were under his control.
You didn't think he had it in him. It was usually you who bossed him around.
You also didn't know why you were going along with it. You had half the mind to scream into his phone and call whatever harlot on the other side to fuck off. Still, he wanted you to be good for him. Being good was new for you, but perhaps Sunghoon was the one to bring it out of you.
That, or you happened to bring out the darkness in him that was capable.
He let go of his hold on you with his arm, though his fingers slightly trailed up the column of your neck, forcing you to tilt your head back as he tipped your chin up. You looked straight up at him towering over you, his hooded eyes and wicked grin doing nothing to set your mind at ease.
In a whisper so quiet it's barely there, one you're unsure Sasha would even be able to hear, Sunghoon breathed, "I want you so bad..."
You hated to hear him purr it into the phone, into her undeserving ears. Fuck, what you'd give for him to say that, just you and him alone. You swiped for the phone, but Sunghoon read you too fast, swatting your hand away. You opened your mouth to yell, but it's quickly covered by the palm of his hand. He turned you around to press against the car, any noises muffled by his large hand that easily covered half of your face. You glared at him, earning a cheesy ass grin of satisfaction; Sunghoon was realizing he actually liked making you mad.
Meeting your stare, he continued. "You really have no idea... All the things I've wanted to do to you..." He licked his lips slowly. "Make you cum over and over again on my—"
Before Sunghoon could finish spewing filth, you bit, hard, glaring at Sunghoon all while his smug expression shifted to a painful scowl and he yanked his hand back with a hiss. "I gotta go," he hastily snarled into the phone, hanging up on Sasha and shoving the phone in his pocket.
You didn't even have time to properly gloat before he was in your face, placing his bitten hand out on the car behind you. "You fucking bit me!"
You probably haven't bitten him since the 3rd grade. Or 11th.
You stuck out your tongue at him, not regretting your actions, running high on adrenaline and the slight buzz of the martinis. "Serves you right, asshole. That was so fucked up and... and..."
"And what?"
And why was I actually getting turned on during it?
"And you better delete her number before the end of the night! I will check," you huffed, shoving him back and crossing your arms. You could only hope he attributed the blood rushing to your cheeks to the rage and alcohol, rather than anything something more insidious.
He examined you, taking you in, your fast breaths and flushed face. Maybe it was because of the cold? Maybe you were just angry at him for being abrasive and gross in front of you—for making you listen to him like that.
But he couldn't shake off the feeling that you liked it a lot more than you led on.
"Just when I thought you could stop acting like a brat for two minutes," he tsked, stepping back and turning away to run a hand down his face. Somehow he seemed actually disappointed, but most importantly caught off guard. "Whatever, lets just head inside."
Grabbing your wrist and dragging you along before you can dig a further grave, Sunghoon took you to the den of debauchery.
—
You would think that the fact Sunghoon was dragging you through the front door, wrist in hand, scowl on his face, was enough to signal that he was a bit occupied at the moment. Alas, your generation has skipped the course in social cues, and the two of you found yourselves surrounded by the last people you ever wanted to see.
Correction, Sunghoon was surrounded. So surrounded, in fact, by the very people you predicted, that his hold on you slipped away, too many people between the two of you. Every guy is calling him "the man!" and "duuuude!" wanting to catch up and grab a beer, light a joint, fuck a bitch, whatever. The girls on the other hand were all touchy, grabbing onto his biceps, tugging on his clothes with surface-level compliments, caressing his hair, all like it would convince him they were the special one compared to the four other girls doing the same thing.
Goddamn, some of the girls' voices were so high pitched you were surprised the neighborhood dogs weren't howling. You were currently suppressing the urge to phone in a noise complaint for the very party you were at, but last time you did that Sunghoon forced you to sit through a 6-hour documentary on how caviar was made, and you'd rather not be haunted by the image of fish eggs again.
You had to hand it to him though, he proved you wrong. While you predicted he would be swarmed and whisked away in five minutes, he managed to accomplish the feat in five seconds. That was a new record.
You pondered for a moment on a pragmatic way of ditching, but find yourself lacking in suggestions. You were too buzzed to steal his keys and drive away yourself, and you definitely didn't trust any of the bozos here to get you home without a blowjob for the road. You also didn't have time to steal Sunghoon’s wallet to pay for an Uber using his credit card.
Faintly, you heard him say, "Wait! I need to talk to my—"
Didn't matter. Sunghoon’s magnetic field was too strong for even him to dissuade, something that you learned long ago. You knew there was no point in awkwardly standing around the growing crowd of sycophants, waiting for them to thin out and set him free. Too many times you'd see them disperse, with Sunghoon nowhere to be found, only for you to later walk in on him with a group of guys clapping him on the back, cigars in hand, or worse, stepping outside a closet, fixing the buckle on his belt.
Instead you sashay towards the kitchen, knowing the remedy to increase your buzz and keep the bad vibes going. One shot of Grey Goose later and you're good to go, primed and ready for wherever the shitty party full of trust fund college kids may lead. Had you known you were going to be taken hostage here in the first place, you would've at least texted a gal pal of yours to come with. Not that you liked any of them that much, but at least you wouldn't be painfully alone, ready for the vultures.
Unfortunately, the gods of the universe seem to have it out for you, as you make eye contact with none other than Jake Sim in the living room. He's got a classic red solo cup in his hand and a jarring look of recognition, and boy, is that look pissed. Instead of the mysterious liquid giving him the courage to go out and actually get laid, the loser seems encouraged to instead confront you for that comment you made about how his forensics diagram was worse than a 3rd grader's drawing depicting their trauma.
Immediately he sprung from the couch, marching his way over to you, and while you could admit karma should slap you in the face, you thought Jake’s too beneath you to be deserving of that privilege.
You moved deeper into the crowd, hoping you were able to slip between the bodies faster than he can keep up. Through the maze of gyrating miscreants, your drunk ass managed to bump into someone actually useful.
"Woah! Hey, slow down," the guy laughed, steadying you back on your feet after you bulldozed into him. "Are you alright?"
"'M fine," you mumbled, spinning your head around to see if Jake was still tailing you. You grabbed onto the guy's shirt, spinning him around so you were now switching sides, his body blocking the view from where Jake would probably come from. "Just avoiding someone."
"Some creep who won't leave you alone?" The man chuckled, pulling you closer to his frame to hide you better.
"Something like that." Opportunities like this didn't usually fall into your lap, and you were grateful for the barrier at the moment.
"I get it. I can help a pretty girl like you blend in, then."
You looked up at his face and begin to scrutinize the details. He's objectively handsome. Not Sunghoon handsome, but sure, he'd do. If Jake spotted you with him he might feel too awkward to separate you two and ruin the vibe. Hell, if you're lucky and he does, the stranger might be willing to tell him off without any questions. Maybe even punch him in the face, which would make an interesting TikTok. He called you pretty, too, which was a great indicator. Guys seemed to constantly fantasize about committing violence for a pretty girl. Or to, but you'd take your chances for at least a few minutes until you had to shake him off too.
You slipped on one of your sly smiles, the coy one that made guys think you were actually flattered by their attention. The one that screamed you're making me feel special and made them think they had a chance. "My hero," you grinned, pulling him closer, his chest right against yours.
"What's your name?" He asked, hands settling on your waist, his lips on your ear so he could speak at a much more sultry tone than the heavy bass would typically allow you to register.
You told him, batting your lashes, your voice a sweet caress in comparison to the noise and your true nature. "What's yours?"
"Jungwon." You'll probably forget it later. "Want to dance with me?"
You nodded, and he spun you around, hands now on your hips as he moved you in tune with the music. He was at least on beat, which was a plus. You just hoped he wouldn't be the type who came in his pants from a bit of grinding. That was always annoying.
Your eyes scanned about the room for Jake, your body moving in natural rhythm with Jungwon’s as you gyrated along with the others, blending in just as planned.
Jungwon whispered something in your ear that you barely heard, but you giggled anyways. Guys liked when you laugh at whatever stupid shit they think you want to listen to; it boosted their egos and makes their cock hard, like they'll get the chance to use your bra strap as a guitar string or something. Whatever, though. You could still let yourself get lost in the music, the booze in your system making you feel much looser and easy going than you'd usually be with strangers like this. You suspected the man behind you would suggest after twenty-or-so minutes of dry humping on the dance floor to go upstairs and see what other moves you have.
What you did not expect, however, was to spot Sunghoon’s face.
His head was whipping about as he spun, eyes searching the room and stopping when he spotted you.
The look on his face was one he usually pulled when you've fucked up majorly. His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched, and suddenly you were very aware that the party you just arrived at was over for you.
He must've managed to shake off his posse, because now he's making a beeline towards you, parting the crowd like the Red Sea and snatching your wrist to wrench you away from Jungwon’s embrace.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Sunghoon scowled, his grip on your wrist tight as he pulled you in.
"Yo, man, fuck off!" Jungwon grabbed your arm, yanking on you, and suddenly you felt like tug-of-rope on field day. "You're the creep that's been following her around?"
"Let go of her. We're leaving." Sunghoon tried to tug you back, but Jungwon didn't let go.
"What are you, some stalker? Her ex?"
"What?" Sunghoon guffawed at the man's accusations, his face one of shock and disgust. "No, you idiot. She's mine. Why don't you go hump someone else, yeah?"
Jungwon looked at you, your bored, blank expression showing no sign of fright or worry. He slowly let go of your arm, taking note of how you don't move away from Sunghoon or make any effort to reach back for him. He already fulfilled his hero role tonight, you had no further use for him. That, and you really, really weren't in the mood to suck his dick to the terrible playlist currently mauling your eardrums.
He seemed as though he were both more understanding and more confused the longer he assessed the situation.
"Sorry, man. Didn't know she had a boyfriend."
Sunghoon scoffed, pulling you closer to him and glaring back at Jungwon, obviously still peeved. He didn't say another word to him, instead dragging you along and straight through the front door of the party he demanded you attend.
"We haven't even been here for, like, half an hour!"
"Oh, like you care," he spat, rolling his eyes. "What the fuck was that? Since when do you just let guys hump you like a dog in heat?"
"I was trying to avoid Jake. I told you he was here but you didn't give a fuck. I had to improvise." You shrugged, struggling to keep up with his long legs as he yanked you across the front yard. "Hey, slow down!"
He stopped, spinning around to glower at you directly, his sudden halt causing you to face plant into his chest. You grimaced, pushing yourself off, stumbling back. "You could've come to me. Not some stranger giving you fuck-me-eyes."
You deadpanned, finding his audacity to be impertinent at best. "Last I checked, you were the one who left me, remember?"
"I wasn't trying to! I literally had to tell everyone to fuck off because I didn't even get the chance to talk to you."
"Why the fuck would you need to bring me to a party to talk to me when you have me on speed dial?"
Sunghoon flicked your forehead, causing you to yelp in pain and rub the sore spot.
"What the hell was that for?" you whined, still too buzzed to knock him upside the head in retaliation the way you would've. You're never given an answer, however, as Sunghoon proceeded to drag you back to the car, away from the chaos that frat Alpha-Beta-Omega had to offer.
You stumbled over your steps, the alcohol making you as coordinated as a freshly born fawn, and Sunghoon had to half carry you back to his vehicle. He thought about what a terrible, unsuccessful night it's already been, and how much stupider your decisions were when you were under the influence of alcohol. Clearly drinking loosened you up too much, and he had half a mind to go back inside and punch Jungwon in the face for how he was feeling you up. How you let him.
"What a stupid fucking idea," he muttered to himself, deciding to never, ever take anyone's advice ever again.
—
The two of you arrive back at your place, but in no better a mood. You certainly weren't, now significantly more sobered up after the events that took place. You didn't even have a decent buzz to lull you to sleep, instead left with the dull nothingness that was not being under the influence.
Sunghoon snapped on the lights, his movements quick and aggressive, showing his clear agitation. You didn't give a shit. Throwing a tantrum over nothing was supposed to be your thing, and he didn't come off nearly as endearing as you when you did it.
You weren't going to let Sunghoon think for even a moment that his attitude would sway you. You were just as mad at him as he was at you, and had a much better reason to be on top of that.
"I'm surprised the campus slut really even gives a shit about what I do," you drawled. "So I grind on one guy at a party. You meanwhile have probably fingered a dozen girls in each—"
Sunghoon chortled, nostrils flaring with anger already. "Please, you exaggerate so much—"
"I saw how all of them were all over you. Oh, Sunghoon, pleaseeeee fuck me. I need you so bad!" You didn't notice Sunghoon’s red ears as you said that, ranting on, practically in your own world. "You just loooooved it didn't you? Liked their attention, right? I mean, what do you even need me for at this point?"
"Oh please, all I did was say hi to them. Meanwhile I have to watch you practically fuck a guy in some dingy ass frat—"
"That you brought us to!"
"Yeah, to talk to you! Because you've been fucking weird and avoiding me after I fucked some girl, when you could've just said you wanted it to be you," he fumed. Heat crawled up your neck at his words, the bluntness of his accusation throwing you for a loop. Was he buzzed from the party? Had he been drinking for the few minutes you were apart? Just openly speaking about this like it's nothing, when to you this was everything? "That's why you act like such a bitch, right? And hate all of them? Because you’re jealous?"
You did your best not to crack under the assertion, puffing up your chest with faux bravado that you prayed he couldn't see past."Look at you fucking projecting, Park. I saw how you looked at Jungwon; you looked like you wanted to kill him. Yet I'm the jealous one? At least I don't pretend to be fucking nice, like some pathetic people pleaser!"
"You're the one who I always have to please the most. I'm always doing what you say, all the time. Practically everything I do, I do for you! And you can't even acknowledge how much I cater to you. What could he possibly offer you when I give you everything?!" Sunghoon carded his hands through his hair, wanting to rip it out at the roots. Fuck. He sounded like you right now.
"Everything?" You scoffed, rolling your eyes. "Please. You're out fucking random girls— what does that give me? Huh? Panties shoved between your couch cushions as a reminder of a part of you that clearly isn't for me."
Why did you even care that part wasn't for you? Why were you so bothered by it?
"It was an accident!" He fumed, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. "And I've never practically dry humped someone in front of you."
"Get over yourself! What was that earlier, huh? The phone call? Forcing me to listen in on you talking about how much you want that bitch and what you want to do to her? Just another one of your sick, twisted mind games, isn't it? You fucking freak."
Sunghoon gave you a dark stare, suddenly breathing harder than you remembered. He moved forward very slowly, each movement calculated, like a predator slowly sneaking up on it's prey.
"You know what I think?" He leaned in closer, but you stood your ground, not even flinching as he invaded your space. "I think you're more upset over the fact that you liked it."
You winced at the accusation this time, the blow Sunghoon delivered hitting much too hard. Usually by now you've won, and he's apologizing and offering food to make it better. No, this time he's matching your pace, and you're the one who has to keep up with him. You tried to think fast to defend yourself, but all you could muster was turning away from him to hide the way your face burned. "Fuck you, Park."
Now his wicked grin returned, noting the fact you hadn't denied it. You're much more vulnerable than you anticipated, and not at all ready for Sunghoon ambush. He sat down on your sofa, becoming much more comfortable as he was crawled further underneath your skin.
"Yeah, you want to, huh? You'd think so after all the times you've practically begged for it."
You whipped around so fast, your eyes practically bulging out of your sockets. "Begged for it? I would never beg you for shit."
"Yeah? Even when you prance around in front of me in those fuck me shorts and send a death threat to any woman I sleep with?" His grin grew cocky as he spread his legs, his lap inviting. You averted your gaze, knowing he was practically daring you to look. "You've been fucking desperate for it, huh, baby?"
If your head could explode right now, it probably would. The mere sight of cocky Park Sunghoon spreading his legs before you had you wanting to fall to your knees. How had everything suddenly reached such a boiling point between you two? How had arguing become... whatever this is?
"And what about you, huh?" You stomped back towards him, not backing down. "You just, what, see me with one guy and suddenly you're practically carrying me out of there? For what reason when you were already surrounded by half a dozen girls who would've sucked you off then and there. I could've just stayed with Jungwon. I'm sure we would've found a way to occupy our time with you being busy."
Sunghoon scowled. He hated hearing Jungwon’s name come from your mouth. "I get mad, what, one time, compared to the dozens of meltdowns you have?"
Unable to give a good retort to that at the moment, you found yourself marching away from Sunghoon again and towards your room. He was right. You've been a bitch to him over far too little and he let you get away with it time and time again. You were at a standstill. However, there way no way in hell you'd admit to any wrongdoing.
"Bullshit, Park," you muttered as you heard him get up from the sofa to follow you.
"What, so you get to basically grind against a guy in front of my face, but I can't even have girls over at my place? You're such a fucking hypocrite!" He spat, leaping from the couch and barging after you. His hand caught onto your shoulder to spin you around to face him properly, forcing you to meet his gaze.
"Hypocrite? It was just fucking dancing! They’re two entirely different things. I'm practically a saint compared to you." You slapped away his hand, not wanting to feel the way it scorched into your skin. "Go find some whore to cream on your shit and leave me alone, like you always do."
"Oh, so now you want me to hook up with other girls?" Sunghoon snorted, noting the fire in your eyes when he said it. "Damned if I do, damned if I don't, huh? I didn't even want any of them, I was trying to get to you. But you left! I was searching everywhere for you, only to see you—"
"Oh my god, since when have you cared? Why are you acting like... like... What is up with you today, huh?" Your mind felt like it was scrambled, trying to find some plausible explanation for Sunghoon’s behavior as of late. "What... what is this? Some weird, twisted way of getting back at me or something? Showing me how it feels for you?"
The look in his eyes was indiscernible, as though he himself was trying to process it. "I'm not— I'm never trying to hurt you—“
"Then why do you even give other girls the time of day when you know it makes me upset, huh? Why do you still do it? And the moment I give a guy a second of my attention you're hauling me out. You say I'm the hypocrite, but look at you! Every fucking time we go out I have to see some bitch ogling you, begging to fuck you, and I have to sit with the fact that there's always a real possibility that you'll let her, you sleazy, fucking manwhore!"
The heat in your face should've been your first warning that your control was slipping. Your eyes welled with tears, and you tried to choke it down, hating the lump forming in your throat, making your words crack. You're so stupid! He just didn't get it. He'd never get it. How could you even begin to explain your delusions, your paranoia, your possessiveness, your jealousy? He'd be glad to be rid of you if you did. You'd drive him away further than you already have. You've been loyal to him for years, and meanwhile he was out fucking anything that could walk. Never even considering you, even though he was promised to you.
But clearly he didn't think of himself as yours, so why were you making such an effort to still be his?
"Fuck you, Sunghoon!" You shoved him back, chest heaving as you attempted to choke the tears down. The sooner he let you retreat to the safety of your bedroom, the better. "I don't need you."
You knew those words were the biggest lie to ever leave your mouth as soon as you said it. Both of you locked up, holding your breath as the sentence hung between you two. You wanted to take it back immediately, your stomach twisting as you blurted out the words. You didn't mean them. They weren't true. You just desperately wanted to not need him.
Sunghoon’s expression was unreadable, the heat from the anger radiating off of him now cooling to something much darker, more sinister.
It set you on edge, not knowing how Sunghoon was going to react. You always knew how he was going to react. You knew him like the back of your hand. There were no secrets between you two.
And yet...
Something about him right now made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
You took a step back wanting to put distance between you two, but that seemed to be the wrong move. You jumped when your back unexpectedly hit the wall of your bedroom, cornered. You lifted off of it, straightening your back, not wanting to show any intimidation. His eyes snapped up to meet yours, unbridled rage and coldness now filling usually soft, warm irises. He stepped forward, crowding your space as you shivered before him, refusing to so much as breathe. His hands went to the wall behind you, arms on either side to cage you in and prevent escape.
His head hung down, letting his fringe hide his eyes for a moment as he stared down at your trembling body. A small smile quirked at his lips, and he let out an ominous, low chuckle at last. It wasn't one of humor, it was one that let you know he was absolutely livid.
Fuck. You fucked up.
You had never seen Sunghoon this angry before.
"God, you're such a fucking bitch," he finally said, hissing the words under his breath.
You didn't respond, feeling too meek in front of him suddenly. He wasn't telling you anything you hadn't heard before.
"That's all you ever do, after all I do for you. Just bitch at me like you're trying to get a rise out of me," Sunghoon huffed, lifting his head and glaring back at you. The look in his eyes made you feel as though you had been dunked in ice water. "Well guess what sweetheart? It fucking worked."
You gasped as his hand met your neck, pushing you backward until your back hit the wall again. His fingers slid up and gripped your jaw, tilting your face up towards his. You're given no choice but to hold eye contact with his furious expression, his rage palpable. You gulped, a movement he no doubt felt under his palm. He could sense how nervous you were, your heartbeat quickening beneath the pads of his fingertips. You looked so helpless, almost scared. It was so cute.
But not cute enough to dissuade his anger.
Sunghoon bared his teeth, a look of disgust taking over his features as he looked down at your pathetic, pliant form. "You finally managed to piss me off."
You trembled in his hold as you questioned what he meant. Was this it? Was this the moment he was going to leave you forever? Or was he going to crush your windpipe right here, as revenge for all of your insufferable behavior? Frankly you'd prefer the second. You didn't know if you could live in a world without him. You said you didn't need him? Fine. He could take your word up on that. You blinked up at him, waiting for him to say whatever damning words he was preparing in his head. To tell you off and discard you like he used to refuse to do.
It never came though, his head instead dipping down to kiss you.
Your eyes widened, unable to react or process what was happening, the mere fact his lips were on yours. Sunghoon seemed lost in it, however, closing his eyes and groaning into your mouth as he kissed you harder, the back of your head pressing against the wall as he furiously took you. His hand tightened on your jaw, fingers pressing into your cheeks and forcing you to let out a gasp that parted your lips. He took advantage of the opportunity, skillfully slipping his tongue in and licking into your mouth. The ease at which he was able to dominate your tongue against his made your knees weak, your eyes closing as you tried to memorize the feeling of his mouth. His grip on your chin stayed tight, angling you just right for him to devour you completely, nowhere to escape from him. His body pressed against yours, leaving you no space between him and the wall. You were trapped to take his every desire.
When his mouth finally parted from yours, you're left gasping for breath, soft pants of air let out as your mind whirred with questions. He stared at you, his eyes still narrowed and glowering, but now with a hint of something you weren't at all used to seeing from him. At least, not towards you.
His eyes wandered over your expression for a moment, searching your face for some form of displeasure. You're already left flushed and panting from just a kiss, though, and all he could think about was everything he wanted to do you, and what expression you might make if you let him. He kissed you again, and this time you're ready for it, leaning in too and eagerly meeting his lips and trying to match his pace. His hand slid down from your jaw to once more be placed on your throat, giving it a small squeeze, and the whimper that escaped your mouth was fucking delicious.
Sunghoon smirked as you whined against him, pulling back to whisper against your lips. "Pretty girl likes that, huh? Like my hand against your throat?" His fingers flexed slightly. "Or do you just like kissing me that much?"
Your face burned at his question, never hearing him talk to you in such a manner. Pretty girl. Those two words rung in your ears on repeat. The fact he knew you liked it made your cheeks burn even hotter.
He chuckled as you blinked up at him blankly. "C'mon, you were so chatty just a second ago. Say something." He grinned at your flustered expression, hand sliding back up to cup your cheeks and part your lips in an unflattering pout. His expression turned stony as he stared down at you. "I said speak."
You weren't used to this Sunghoon— the one who gave commands instead of taking them. Furthermore, you were finding yourself liking it a lot more than you'd care to admit. "Yes," you let out in a barely-there whisper.
"Yes what?" He raised a brow, clearly having no intent on letting you go that easily. He eased his hold on your face, letting his fingers softly brush back down to the base of your throat, leaving them as a reminder.
"Yes, I—" you shakily gulped, knowing he could feel every bit of it. "I like it. I—" You leaned forward, pressing your neck back into his palm, the warmth of his skin against yours feeling akin to a choker. "I like it all."
"All, huh?" He snickered under his breath, pulling back his hand much to your disappointment. He brushed the hair out of your face, combing through the strands in a way you'd usually find comforting. Now you felt more vulnerable. Seen. "Think you could handle it all?"
Your heart leapt out of your chest, and you blinked repeatedly trying to gauge his words. "Handle what?"
His fingers curled into the hair at the back of your head and brought you closer to him, lips barely brushing against yours as he stared into your eyes. "Me fucking you."
Your mouth gaped open once again, though no words came out. You couldn't believe this was real. If it was a dream may you never wake up.
"C'mon, be a big girl and use your words," he scolded. "Do you want it?"
"I—" You licked your lips, your mouth suddenly going dry. "I want it."
"Yeah?" He breathed out, voice going quieter with yours. "Want me?"
You're momentarily distracted by him licking his lips too, and your mind jumps back to what a good kisser he is. You'd probably do anything at this point just to get him to kiss you like that again.
"Yes," you finally admitted, your word quiet and small, like a precious secret.
You wanted Sunghoon. You wanted him to be yours alone in every sense of the word. You wanted to be the one in his bed and experience the prowess he earned. You tried not to think of the practice he had, and your lack of experience in comparison.
Does he truly want you like that? After all these years?
Or were you just another girl that was nearby and convenient, like the so called whores you always admonished?
He let go of you for a moment to yank you towards the bed, and you let out a sharp shriek of surprise as you bounced against the springs in your mattress. Sunghoon’s dark eyes never left you, crawling on top and brushing the tip of his nose against yours.
"Not Jungwon?" he questioned. Jungwon. You hadn't even been able to really think about him since Sunghoon dragged you away. Not that you cared that much about him.
But Sunghoon seemed to.
You couldn't help it, the words crawling out of your mouth automatically. Some part of you still wanted to win over him in some facet. Maybe that's why you'd always rehash arguments. They were rematches for you two. "Why, are you actually jealous, Hoonie?"
Sunghoon’s face soured at the use of the old pet name. One you'd used to use with affection, now mainly used with spite. That, and the fact you didn't immediately say no about Jungwon. Were you still thinking of him? Were you wishing he was the one in Sunghoon’s place right now?
"First," Sunghoon grabbed your wrists and pinned them above your head. You loved the caged in feeling Sunghoon’s been providing today— both protective and intimidating. Before you could only imagine this view. "You know better than to provoke me like that, don't you, brat?"
You did, but something about seeing him get so riled up over it made you want to both run and get caught.
"Second," his hand came up the side of your face, his thumb sliding up to your lips, wordlessly demanding you suck. "Jungwon will never fuck you the way I'm about to. I promise you that."
He'll never even get the chance, is what he wanted to add.
"Yeah?" Your words were muffled around his thumb. He slid it out, again giving you that oh so comforting weight on your neck. You bit your lip, almost amused by how hot and bothered he seems to be. "And what makes you so sure?"
"Fucking tease." Sunghoon was practically seeing red with your quips, his grip on your neck slightly tightening in warning. "Tread lightly, baby. You might get more than you bargained for."
You frowned slightly, tilting your head as you look up at him. "Pity. I always figured you were more of a taker."
"Oh?" This time he increased the pressure on your throat. You wished he would free you so you could grab onto him and anchor him tighter against you. "Take? You want me to just take what I want? The way you do? Want me to take everything I've been fucking wanting for years? Even if you can't handle it? Want me to take out my frustration on you for every time you've bitched and bossed me around?"
You thighs squirmed beneath him as he ranted on, squeezing against each other as arousal pooled in your stomach. Your nails dug into the skin, a smile spreading across your face as you saw him get visibly worked up. "Oh? Can't?"
"Fuck..." he growled, narrowing his eyes. "Watch."
You're in absolute heaven as he dove back down to connect his lips with yours, making your head spin from both the euphoria and lack of blood flow to your brain. His tongue danced against your own, fighting against you to force you to submit to him. The combination of both choking and making out seemed like something straight out of a twitter link, and yet your best friend was doing it to you in real time. You never thought you'd see the day.
The hand holding your wrists let go, weaving beneath your head to grip onto your hair, pulling your head back to angle your face the way he wanted. Your hands flew to his forearm, feeling the way it flexed beneath your fingers.
Your grip tightened as you try to keep up with his kisses, taking small gasps of air when you got the chance. Sunghoon couldn't seem to get enough of you, though, fully okay with taking away all your air so long as it meant he got to keep kissing you.
His hands started riding up your shirt, clawing to get your clothes off. None of the times he's peeped at you when you were changing or saw you getting out of a shower prepared him for this. The idea of seeing you naked in front of him in this context sent his heart rate rocketing, going far beyond the dirty dreams he had of you. And he planned to fulfill every single one, just for you, since you were his favorite.
You're barely able to contain your squeak when his hand slid up to cup your bra, tugging it down enough to free a nipple for him to pinch and play with. You arched, aching for his touch, feeling his long, nimble fingers rub the sensitive bud and pull beneath the fabric of your top.
Impatient as he was, though, he ceased kissing you to tug your shirt over your head, yanking it up and tugging both cups of your bra beneath your breasts to get a better look, admiring how they looked still partially pushed up by undergarment.
The sight of you panting, nipples hard and aching for him to tease them more, was almost enough to make him burst on the spot.
He brought one hand back to your other breast, touch as light as a feather as he slowly circled your areola, admiring how you shuddered beneath him.
"You're so sensitive," he observed, refusing to give you any more just yet. "Is this what you wanted?"
You bit your lip, feeling like he was driving you crazy with how slow he was going. "Wanted you to actually do something," you hissed, trying to get him to touch you more, frustrated beyond belief with how soft he was being now. "You're boring me."
His nostrils flared at that, the jab clearly succeeding.
"Boring?" he repeated, eyes narrowing at your brattiness.
You didn't have time to react before he slapped your tit harshly, making you howl as he gave them both a tight grip, his palms now squeezing and kneading at your breasts without pretense.
"You can't even be good for five seconds, huh?" He hissed out the words, harshly tugging at your nipples and letting them go, seeing how your breasts bounced back before he slapped the other for good measure. "Just have to be a brat like always."
You tried to grab onto his wrists for some control, but it angered him more, grabbing your hands and shoving them into the mattress as he dipped his head down to sink his teeth into one of the fleshy mounds.
Your back bent like a bow, hands trying to push against his with no avail as he bit you. Your cry was pathetic, shrill, surprised, everything Sunghoon dreamed of.
He finally took his mouth off you, your skin shiny with spit where his bite mark was. You could make out the individual indents of his teeth printed on you. He squeezed your wrists one more time in warning, keeping them firmly pressed. "Stay."
He let go of you, and shockingly enough, you were obedient. You anxiously waited for what he would do next, hands beside your head.
Sunghoon took his time undressing you, savoring the anticipation that built up from the very moment he took off your top. He reached beneath your back and unclipped your bra, taking it off and throwing it carelessly to the side. It was when he started tugging your pants off that your breath hitched, realization for what was truly about to happen finally dawning on you. His fingers hooked into the waistband of your panties, the final article to be taken off. You felt so exposed in front of him, but his hungry eyes and ravenous expression told you that he was far beyond pleased with what he saw.
Yeah, you definitely weren't like a sister to him.
"Fuck, I knew it," Sunghoon breathed out as he slowly slid your underwear down your legs, admiring the string of wetness that stretched between the fabric and your pussy until it snapped in half. "Knew you'd be pretty here too."
You blushed at his compliment, immediately trying to close your legs when you felt Sunghoon’s fingers begin to explore your body, running up and down your inner thighs. The two of you hadn't yet begun, and somehow Sunghoon was already going above and beyond your wildest fantasies by reaching into the twisted underbelly of your desire.
"Ah-ah, spread your legs. There we go. Don't hide yourself from me." His digits travelled up and down your folds, feeling how wet you already were. All he's done was kiss you a bit, and you're this worked up? You always worried about being the one to ruin him for good, but the opposite might just be true. "Fuck... meant it when I said you were the prettiest I've ever seen."
Your mind spun back to the phone call with Sasha, how he talked about how bad he wanted her and all the things he would do to her...
All the things he was going to do to you right now.
Sunghoon grinned down at you mischievously as you twitched beneath his touch. "Yeah, baby. Fuck you're so beautiful. Always thought so. Prettier than all those other girls. Fuck, they couldn't even fucking compare."
"Sunghoon..."
"Oh would you look at that. She does know my name," he crooned sweetly, bringing his other hand to your folds, clit trapped beneath two fingers as he slid them teasingly up and down your sex, pinning your hips down as you started to move against him. "What happened to Hoonie and Park, huh?"
"Fine then, Park," you gritted out, annoyed with how cocky he was becoming already.
"So much attitude." Sunghoon tsked, pinching your clit one more time before slapping your cunt, watching your hips jump in response. "Why don't you make yourself cum, then. Since you don't need me."
He slipped his hand away from you, enjoying the whine that followed.
Fuck, that wasn't want you wanted. You were already beginning to miss Sunghoon’s touch, and you hadn't even gotten to feel him inside of you yet.
You felt another smack against you at your hesitation, your best friend clearly not pleased with your disobedience.
"I'm waiting," he reminded, voice laced with irritation.
You shakily brought one of the hands by your head down to your pussy, cupping your heat and slowly rubbing your fingers up and down. Your other hand came up to toy with your nipple, pinching and rolling the bud to replicate the earlier feeling. You've done this a million times already, often imagining something quite similar to this. Still, seeing Sunghoon hovering above you in real life went far beyond your daydreams, and the wet sounds of your fingers sliding between your folds did little to conceal how turned on you were by the sight.
"Fuck, that's it. You're so wet. You must like me a lot, huh?" Sunghoon’s smug smile stretched across his face, enjoying watching how your face burned and your fingers pressed harder against yourself with his teasing.
"You're delusional," you spat out, thighs twitching when you trap your clit between two knuckles, same as he did, applying the perfect amount of pressure.
"Am I?" His eyes weren't leaving your fingers, watching how you quickened your pace, pressing harder against your own hand. Desperate. Just how he wanted you. "Go ahead and put a finger inside."
You did so, your walls easily accommodating the small digit as you curled it inside of yourself, pressing your mound deep against your palm as you repeated the motion inside. You spread your legs a bit wider, feeling yourself become stimulated on both in and out, but it wasn't enough.
Sunghoon knew it, too.
"Another." His voice came off strained now, an edge to it that made it sound like he was the one becoming frustrated.
You obeyed, feeling a little bit fuller, but not enough. You dragged your hand further out before pumping back inside, trying to reach deeper.
He smirked, watching your hips circle as you tried to fuck your own hand, your eyes practically pleading with everything you refused to admit.
He trailed a finger along the inside of your thigh, fingernail barely grazing against you as he encouraged you to continue. "Do you need help?" His coo was patronizing, his smile growing bigger as he watched you glare back at him in defiance.
"N-No," you denied, curling your fingers deep again.
"Mm, I think you do. Those tiny little fingers can't reach where you need, huh?" He put his hand on top of yours, not going inside, just feeling how yours moved beneath his with every curl and drag of your digits. "Bet I can get in deeper than you ever could. I could hit the spots that drive you crazier than you already are."
He hand slid lower, fingertips grazing just above where your own sunk into your entrance.
"I don't think you're doing it right," he sighed, shaking his head out of pity. "How do you not even know how to touch yourself properly?"
"I... I do!" Your brain was starting to become fuzzy with his words, hips jolting up a little as though to protest with you.
He shook his head again, like he didn't believe you. "You need help. You're never going to finish at this rate."
You bit your lip, pumping your fingers harder, pressing further against your palm. He was right. It wasn't enough.
"Just ask for help, baby, c'mon. I can show you how to do it, but you have to ask nicely."
The last thing you typically ever wanted to do was prove Sunghoon right.
Then why were you nodding your head in agreement, with tears pricking your eyes in frustration?
Quietly, as though you were ashamed to say it, "Help me. Please."
You wanted to smack the triumphant smile off his face the moment you saw it, but found no room to protest when his fingers slowly slid in alongside yours, stretching you out as he curled them inside, making you bend to his will. Your body seemed all too eager to accept any part of him after all these years. You felt him control the pace of how you fucked yourself, his digits pressed snugly against yours as he pumped them in and out, hitting deeper just like he promised.
You moaned as he hit your g-spot, the combination of both of your fingers inside of you making your head spin. You must've been wearing the most wanton expression, your eyes slightly crossed, your cheeks warming as you felt pleasure take over, mouth parting as a moan left your lips.
That's it. That's the look Sunghoon’s been dreaming of seeing.
"See? Doesn't that feel so much better?" The obscenely wet gush of your pussy around both of your digits seemed to answer for you. "Doesn't it feel so good when someone finally hits it right?"
You couldn't even properly speak, mouth hanging open as you absentmindedly nodded for him yet again.
"Hm? Don't want to talk?" He thrust a bit firmer now, his aim deliberate and precise against the spot that had your thighs trembling. "I can feel how much deeper I get in this little pussy in comparison to you. Doesn't it feel so good?"
"H-Hoon—"
"Not my name." He thrusted his digits harder as punishment, forcing your own fingers in deeper as well.
You were starting to get close, he could tell. The pleasured look on your face was getting harder to mask.
"Could've had this any time, you know. I would've given it to you." He leaned in, lips curled into a smile and barely brushing against yours as he whispered, "All you had to do was ask."
"I—" You gasped against him, your palm now firmly glued to your clit, pathetically humping against it as he pressed his hand harder on top of yours. "I couldn't!"
"So stubborn," he hummed, pulling his fingers out and tugging at your wrist as well to leave you completely empty.
You were about to whine, but any argument you had died on your tongue the moment his hand returned.
He didn't give you a second to think about it, the two fingers going back inside you and repeatedly hitting your g-spot hard and firm. You didn't think he was going to be able to figure out your body so quickly, and you were already falling apart at his every touch. His other hand came up to pinch at your folds, squeezing your clit between them until the thumb on the hand pounded you reached up to press light circles. All you could do was moan and gasp as he alternated between keeping your clit trapped between two fingers and rubbing between your folds or pounding into you deep and reaching parts you yourself had trouble stimulating. Just as you got used to one, he switched to the other, never letting you get too used to one either sensation too long.
"Bet you've never felt this good," he hissed under his breath, giddy at seeing you fall apart from his hands. "You've got such a cute, dumb look on your face right now."
You couldn't bite back a retort, practically choking on the words you wanted to say.
As much as Sunghoon typically got annoyed by your constant need to have the last word, he couldn't help but anticipate every response you were having to him now.
"Hm? Don't tell me you're too fucked out to speak already," he mused, watching you whine and squirm as he once again pulled his fingers out of you. "You usually have so much to say."
Able to recollect your thoughts while riding the edge he had you on, all you could feel was frustration and arousal. You'd think it'd be your baseline at this point. "Fuck you, you fucking asshole!"
"So much attitude, huh?" He grinned at your vulgarity, cupping your face to crash your lips against his.
You chased after him automatically, groaning into the kiss despite the ache left in your stomach as your orgasm washed away. He licked against your tongue, swallowing your moan and snaking it around yours as he did so. He pulled back slightly, nibbling against your bottom and licking over it in apology. With impatience he slipped his way back between your parted lips, intent on stealing every sigh you had to offer. He hummed, the vibration against your lips sending a tingle down your spine.
You broke away for a second, breathless. "What're you going to do about it?"
If Sunghoon didn't know you better, he would've scoffed at your sheer audacity. He knew you like the back of his hand, however, and you weren't someone who was going to break easily, no matter how badly you wanted to. "It's about time we fix that."
"Do your worst."
The challenge hung in the air for just a moment before Sunghoon accepted.
"I intend to."
He slapped your ass hard, tossing you back down onto the bed, watching you bounce slightly against the springs. You gasped in surprise, and his hand slapped against your mouth, the movement sharp enough to leave a sting but not hard enough to not leave a mark.
Sunghoon grabbed your jaw and straightened your head to look back at him, letting your mind whir. He leaned in close to your face, studying your expression.
"I intend to do a lot of things tonight."
You licked your lips, now tingling, trying to pull yourself together to stay present, trying to show at least some semblance of self restraint.
Sunghoon on the other hand was unsure of whether you really wanted to take it this far. Were you ready to face the consequences the way he was?
He bit his lip, clearly mulling over something in his mind. You, on the other hand, grew impatient, wondering what was taking him so long. You glared at him expectantly, confused by the unease in his eyes.
"What?" You practically bit out the words, unsure if there was something wrong. Did he suddenly see something he didn't like? It didn't seem like it with how he was all over you earlier. That, and he was clearly very hard.
"Are you... are you sure you want this?"
The question stunned you, throwing you for a loop.
"Excuse me?"
"It's just—" He licked his lips, trying to find the right words. "I don't want you to feel pressured just because I want—"
You couldn't help but roll your eyes at that. This was not the time for second thoughts, and you most definitely wanted this. Needed it, in fact, or you'd die on the spot.
"Shut up and get your dick out, Park." You rose a brow, testing him. "Unless you're scared you can't meet expectations."
Ah. There it is. He almost forgot for a second who he was dealing with. He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, hands finally going down to his waistband to reveal your prize. "Fine. Careful what you ask for, brat."
Your eyes widened when he yanked down his underwear as well, and your thighs automatically pressed together.
You should've known. You should've known the universe had it out against you by giving Sunghoon a dick too big, too pretty for words. It was much more than you deserved, and quite possibly much more than you could take.
It wasn't just the length that concerned you, but rather the intimidating girth. Your cunt immediately clenched in anticipation as you eyed up his cock, thinking about how much he was going to stretch you out when he finally managed to fit all of himself inside you.
"That's—" Your mouth opened and closed repeatedly, trying to form words, and you licked your suddenly dry lips. "How am I—"
Sunghoon gripped your jaw, forcing your gaze to lift from his cock to his face, his eyes leaving no room for argument. "You've been begging for this dick for years, and now you're finally gonna take it."
It wasn't until you slowly nodded in agreement that he smiled, pumping his dick in his hand to get it even harder for you. He grabbed your thighs, tugging you closer to the edge of the bed until your ass dangled over it, Sunghoon’s cock now sliding along your folds, lubricating himself.
He ran the tip up and down your sex, eyes flying up to your face to study your expression when he nudged against your clit. He searched for any doubt in your eye, any semblance of anything besides lust.
"Are you ready?" His words were quiet, just one last check in before he sunk home, and neither of you could go back.
You stared up at him, eyes searching his as well now. You didn't say a word, just grabbed his dick, feeling the weight of him in your palm, and aligning him with your entrance.
That's so like you. You never second guess anything once you put your mind to it.
Sunghoon slowly slid inside, bullying himself into you and forcing your walls to accommodate him. You held your breath, the stretch around him making you feel impossibly full already. Neither of you looked away from the other, eyes locked on one another's, unable to look away. Both of you were greedy, wanting to read every micro-expression of the other's as you joined. It wasn't until his balls were pressed snug against your ass that you felt the cockhead kiss your cervix, a perfect fit, like a the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place.
The other half.
Sunghoon must've felt it too, muttering a quick curse under his breath as he stilled inside of you, savoring the feeling. "Fuck, you feel perfect around me. Perfect little cocksleeve."
You gasped when he pulled his hips back before plunging into you, letting the feeling of how full you were overwhelm you.
"Slutty pussy— fuck, you feel so good," he panted, another staccato thrust burying into you. "Take it so well."
You squeezed your eyes shut, turning to the side, heat rushing through your cheeks as you felt him reach deeper and deeper inside of you, just to see when you ended. Sunghoon didn't like that. He tsked, grabbing your jaw and turning your face towards him.
"Look at me."
Part of you wanted to continue being bratty, squeeze your eyes shut harder and shake your head in earnest. And yet, you were opening your eyes, looking back at your best friend, knowing he was studying every lewd look on your face. Your half lidded eyes, your parted lips, the flush in your cheeks. Your other half knew what you looked like turned on, what you looked like getting fucked, what you looked like underneath him. This was something neither of you could ever undo.
"Good girl," Sunghoon grinned, patting your jaw roughly in condescension, like you were some pet who liked it like that. Which you were, obviously. "You're gonna look at me when I fuck you baby."
He rolled his hips, letting you feel what he felt like when he stayed buried deep inside you, nudging against that spot that seemed only he could find.
"Want you to know exactly who's fucking you." His hand never left your jaw, forcing you to lock eyes with him as you took in what it really meant to be fucked by him.
You wanted to cover your face all over again. The pathetic look in your eye was practically begging for mercy already.
"If you so much think of complaining I'll pull out right now and let you finish yourself off," Sunghoon threatened. Your thighs clenched at the threat, the possibility being the worst thing you could think of in this moment.
"No!" Your bratty pout was so endearing to him. "Please don't stop. Please, Hoonie."
The nickname sounded so sweet in this context. Still, he wanted to hear you moan his name properly.
"Shouldn't even let you cum, you're such a fucking bitch to me," Sunghoon groaned, pounding harder into you as he felt himself getting close. "You don't—fuck—deserve it, do you?"
"No," you whined, hoping to appease him enough for him to give you grace. "Please, please let me cum Sunghoon."
"Mm, I'll think about it." You couldn't slap the evil grin off of Sunghoon’s face even if you wanted to. His eyes lit up with glee at the frustration you felt, his hips slamming harder against yours, as though trying to dig in deeper.
You mewled, squirming beneath him like a pathetic pet. A needy moan left your lips, much whinier than you intended.
“Fuuuck you’re doing so good for me,” Sunghoon groaned, slapping your breast again as a reward. “You gonna behave?”
Your desperate nod of affirmation only added to your embarrassment at his words. Your gut twisted into knots as he plowed into you, his pace unrelenting, and your orgasm approaching too fast.
You pressed a hand against the hard plane of his abdomen, trying to soften the blows. You gnawed on your bottom lip, the hand weakly pushing against him doing nothing to ease the pace. "It's— fuck, Sunghoon— it's too much!"
"Nah," he grunted, sneering at you, slapping your hand again and gripping onto your hips tighter to force you to meet his thrusts even harder.. "You're gonna take what I give you and shut up for once."
You shook your head at the overwhelming feeling taking over you, tears pricking your eyes as you pushed both hands this time against his abdomen.
Sunghoon grabbed onto both wrists now, pulling against them in time with him, using your resistance as another tool to fuck yourself on his cock. You could see the bulge in your lower stomach move along with him, seeing exactly how deep in your guts he was getting. Your pussy pulsated around him, your release near.
Sunghoon knew exactly what that meant.
He shoved your hands back down to the mattress, leaning closer over you, snaking his tongue back in your mouth and reaching one hand down to have his thumb stimulate your clit, earning a delicious cry for him to swallow.
He was in absolute heaven right now.
"You're about to cum for me, aren't you?" He huffed in your ear, smile evident in his voice. "Can feel you clenching around me. Gonna cream on my shit like a proper bitch, aren't you? Gonna make it all nice and messy on me."
"F-Fuck, s-shut up!" You wailed out the words, tipping your head back in ecstasy as he continued pounding into you.
"Yeah? Want me to shut up, baby? Hate it that much?" He hissed, rubbing harder circles against your clit, the sensation too much, just the way you like it. "Why are you close, then, huh?"
You clearly weren't doing a good job of hiding it, with your stammering, uneven breathing, flushed face, and hooded eyes. You were twisting in his arms, refusing to stay still at all, as though not ready for what was to come.
"Sunghoon... please..."
Fuck, you sounded so cute right now. Damn him for always having a weak spot for you. He was really looking forward to edging you all night.
"Cum for me," he cooed in your ear, his voice a soft caress, a drastic juxtaposition to the harsh thrusts that were currently ruining you. "Let me finally feel how this slutty pussy creams all over me. Nasty little slut."
You bit your lip, feeling your pussy pulse harder against him as the heat floods through you and all over him, just as ordered.
Good pet.
He moaned, hands gripping onto your hips hard as he ignored your squeals of oversensitivity, your orgasm renewing him with much vigor. You were completely pressed against the mattress, so much so that you could slight feel the springs underneath. Sunghoon pounded into you faster, his head coming down to nip and such at your neck, leaving possessive marks in it's wake.
"Mine," he growled against your skin, "My fucking slut. Say it."
"I-I'm... I... fuck..." you whined, unable to properly think with how fast he was drilling into you, your sex still trembling from the orgasm that still lingered.
"Say it," he nipped your neck, his teeth a warning. "You're mine."
"I'm yours!" Your voice was a breathy gasp, a cute whine Sunghoon wanted to eat. "I'm.... I'm yours... Your slut... Y-Yours!"
The groan that left Sunghoon was purely animalistic, his press against you more insistent, his hips moving against you as though to blend with you entirely.
"Yes... Fuck yes, that's it... Such a needy little whore, fuck." He kissed your lips, his hands tightening around your hips, his thrusts growing sloppy. "Tightest... fucking best pussy ever. Mmmm, take it just like that, baby. Just like you're supposed to."
One particular thrust knocked the wind out of you, sending your brain spinning as you gasped out.
"Fuck!" You felt your orgasm building back up. "You're going— fuck, you're going so fucking hard!"
"Yeah? You like this?" He snarled, kissing your lips as he ground his hips harder into yours. "Like having your best friend fuck you like a slut?"
"Mmmf, m-more—!"
"Fucking—!" Sunghoon groaned, shaking his head slightly before his hips automatically caved to your request, pounding into you with all your could take, and you knew there'd be bruises in the morning.
"Course a slut like you would want more," he rasped, shaking his head again as though he were a fool to believe otherwise. "Always wanted more, haven't you?"
You bit your lip, the coil in your belly tightening to an absurd degree.
"Want me to give you all my attention, that it? Want me to handle my brat?" He said the words with a slight smile, like he already knew the answer. "Want me to fuck this cunt open until the attitude's all gone?"
You nodded desperately, trying to resist the urge to roll your eyes back. "Yes!"
"Fuck, that's it." He rasped the words in your ear before pressing a small kiss against the shell. "Remember I'm the only one who can do it properly. I'm the only one who can fuck you like this. You're mine."
Your orgasm snapped through you, your legs tightening around Sunghoon’s hips and pulling him into you, like you didn't want him to leave. You locked around him, forcing him to feel every tremor of your pussy around his shaft, and how your orgasm looked up close and person, how it felt around him. Not that he'd want to be anywhere else. There was no place he'd rather be.
"Mm, fuck, so fucking hot. You're finally fucking learning," he cooed, his voice patronizing and delicious all at once. He was just as bratty as you at times. He started thrusting again, helping you ride it out and pushing himself closer to the edge.
"T-That's it, just fuck me like you hate me," you snarled out, nails scratching down his skin as the last few remnants of your orgasm twitched through your limbs.
Sunghoon slowed down, furrowing his brows, panting as he stared down at you.
"I don't hate you baby," he rasped out, shaking head. "I love you."
Suddenly, all you heard was white noise.
You twisted your eyes shut, shaking your head. Before you know it, everything's impossibly more overwhelming. And not in the same way it was before. "Wh—That's— That's not—"
Sunghoon started slowing his pounding down to a much slower pace, now more so grinding against you in a steady, deep rhythm. His pelvis stayed glued against yours, pressing against your clit as he buried as deep as he could against you. "I don't want to just fuck you," he whispered, leaning in close to brush the tip of his nose against yours, large eyes peering into yours. "I want to make love to you."
It felt like your heart was about to burst at the seams, and you were left with more emotions than you knew what to do with.
"I…you don't…"
"I do," he said surely, his voice low and confident as he felt you clench around him.
You weren’t sure you could handle this level of things. The concept of Sunghoon actually making love to you was enough to make your brain explode. Rough, hard sex was already it’s own thing you’d have to deal with. This was something else entirely.
"Just hurry up!"
"No." He shook his head, rolling his hips in an infuriatingly slow pace again. "Wanna take my time with you."
"Fuck, how're you still such a dick head?"
"You know what?" He pressed his palm against your cheek, rolling his thumb over it as he kissed you softly. "You give me all this backtalk, but I think you're gonna come for me again anyways."
You quivered around him as he reached particularly deep inside of you, hitting a sensitive spot.
"Wanna know why?"
He rolled his hips slowly, eyes never leaving your face as you squirmed again.
"Because you like me, too," he whispered, pushing in with another devastating thrust that had you going weak. "You like me so much you don't even know how to act anymore."
You trembled beneath him, the slow, rhythmic pace of his cock against your sweet spot and the deep grind of his pelvis against your clit slowly but surely pushing you to that edge again. What was even worse about it was how Sunghoon made you to look in his eyes, forcing you to stare up at how his brows knitted together when he himself started to get close, how he bit his lip as he stared down at you, like he was holding himself back until you came undone yet again.
"Fuck, that's it. Gonna take it however I want like a good girl, won't you?"
Sunghoon rebuilt your orgasm piece by piece, and took his time in doing so, quieting you when you whined and kissing you deeply enough that you could barely think about complaining anymore.
Your nails dug into his back, bright red lines following in their wake, a signal you were close. Sunghoon’s thrusts got sloppier, uneven, his own orgasm now threatening to take over.
He cradled your face in his hands, his pelvis tight against your clit with every grind, your bodies practically melded together.
"Come with me," he breathily begged, lips ghosting over yours with his plea. "Want you to do it with me. Want us to cum together, please baby."
That was your undoing.
You moaned into his mouth as you finally came again, and Sunghoon groaned as he pulled out and came on your stomach, his cock bobbing in the air as it twitched and let out spurts of cum onto your heaving abdomen.
Sunghoon collapsed on top of you, hugging you tightly as you both tried to regain your breath. You gasped at the feeling of his warmth against your skin, chest heaving against his.
He looked up at you, and his eyes so unexpectedly soft you couldn't help but melt for a moment. As though he hadn't just made you cum within an inch of your life.
“You’re—“ You struggled to catch your breath. “—fucking insane.”
Slowly, he lifted a bit higher, hesitantly leaning in as though he wanted to kiss you again. You reciprocated, leaning in as well, his lips soft as he slowly pressed against you, unhurried and unbothered. Just enjoying the taste of you on his lips. "Fuck, why do you fuck with my head like this?" He groaned softly, his voice a low whisper. "I told you I love you."
He cupped your breast, dipping his head now to capture your nipple in between his lips, sucking tenderly at the bud while making eye contact with yours. His eyes were almost pleading, such a jarring juxtaposition in comparison to his earlier demeanor. "You're such a fucking brat with me."
You let out a small huff of amusement, fingers tangling into his hair, a glimpse of your usual Hoonie back. "I have to make things difficult for you."
Your hands tightened into a fist in his hair, and he whined against your bud, giving a harsh suck in relation. "Why?" He asked, thick brows furrowed.
You couldn't help the small smirk that graced your lips. "Because we both know you like it."
He couldn't help the small smirk that graced his. What you said was the truth.
He rose up from your breast to kiss you on the lips again, this one sweet and deep, like he wanted to burn the feeling of your mouth against his into his memory. "Be with me," he panted when he broke the kiss. "More than just sex. Much more. I want to be the one who puts up with your bratty attitude. Only me. Let me."
"You already do," you whispered.
"More than before," he said, nudging his nose against yours. "Let me be your boyfriend. Please."
The corner of your mouth twitched.
Maybe you had a begging kink. Maybe you were also insane. But somehow you found yourself switching Sunghoon’s title from best friend to boyfriend with a simple, "Well, since you asked so nicely..."
—
The morning after you were sore all over, thick arms holding you pressed against one very naked chest. Sunghoon snored softly in your ear, and you were thankful he railed you so hard you were knocked out cold in the end. Sunghoon seemed to be in a similar state, still dreaming and clueless as you shimmied your way out of his grip and the bed. You hastily threw on his shirt and a pair of fresh panties, buzzing about the room with a nervousness you weren't used to.
The sight of Sunghoon shirtless in your bed, still dozing off, was enough to have your heart palpitating all over again.
Your mind flashed back to the night before, everything that happened. You gazed at your neck in the mirror, the marks left behind on your skin that proved it was all real.
Sunghoon was officially yours.
You weren't just his best friend anymore; now you were his girlfriend.
You couldn't help but swallow at the thought. What did that mean, exactly?
What would a good girlfriend do?
Maybe cook breakfast? Sunghoon was usually the one who cooked while you slept in during sleepovers, but clearly you had underestimated that one line in Anaconda about NyQuil. You meandered your way to the kitchen, deciding that you could at least cook scrambled eggs. You were so focused on the task, frying the freshly mixed batch in the pan, that you hardly noticed Sunghoon’s presence until those same arms wrapped around your middle.
"'Morning," he grumbled directly in your ear, his voice deep and raspy from his slumber. "I didn't know you knew how to cook."
You scoffed despite yourself. "I'm just not as good as you, ok? You know a lot more dishes than I do."
"I could always teach you." His lips brushed softly against your neck, and goosebumps littered your arms at the action.
"I prefer when you just do it for me."
His hands gripped on to your hips, and you were reminded once again of how different he could be when he really wanted to. "You're so spoiled."
You half expected him to punish you for it, bend you over the counter and take you there, but he doesn't. Instead his eyes lowered to your lips, and he looks back up as though for permission.
You leaned in a little, hesitant, holding your breath as you gave him an opening.
He slowly leaned in, one hand coming up to cup at your jaw, letting his lips press against yours. He slotted them in place, the kiss soft and firm, moving his lips again to deepen the kiss further. You felt the butterflies in your stomach as you leaned in further, letting your pace instinctually match his, the languid, unspoken rhythm taking over like you had all the time in the world. It felt natural, no sense of awkwardness or mess.
Sunghoon’s fingers twitched against your face, pulling you in closer, tilting his head so he can kiss you again and again, like hadn't been doing it properly before. You knew you could spend hours just feeling the sweet caress of his mouth against yours.
It wasn't until he pulled away and said, "Oh fuck, the eggs," that you realized oh fuck, the eggs.
"Shit shit shit!" You threw away your shitty burned eggs in the trash, your perfect kiss ruined by your failure of cuisine. "Fuck, I suck at this!"
"Hey hey, it's ok," Sunghoon took your face in his hands, turning you to face him "It's alright. I can make the eggs. I know you prefer fried anyways."
You bit your lip, staring up at your adoring, caring best— no, boyfriend.
You chuckled softly, feeling a bit silly all of the sudden. "I think I'm already sucking at this whole girlfriend thing."
"Are you kidding? You knocked my ass out and now you're making me breakfast? This is more than I ever expected," he assured you.
"Well, now you're the one making breakfast, because I'm one bad slip from setting my place on fire," you sighed.
"Nah, you're not that bad. I was just distracting you." He pecked you again on the lips, like he just couldn't help himself. "And you're right. I'm the better cook."
"I think I specifically said you knew more dishes," you recalled.
Sunghoon shrugged. "Same thing. And besides, I like cooking for my girlfriend."
You felt your cheeks heat up at the very word, Sunghoon no doubt noticing. You glared at him when he smiled back; of course he noticed. "You know us officially dating doesn't magically solve all of our problems, right?"
"I never thought it would," Sunghoon said.
"We'll probably still fight. A lot."
"Don't most old married couples? We're just used to each other already, like them."
You rolled your eyes a bit at that. "And you're ok with that?"
"There's no one I'd rather end arguments with than you," he grinned, pinching your cheeks just to annoy you. "Because you're the one always starting them."
You scrunched your nose, turning your head to nip at his fingers, pulling him in a bit closer to kiss him, because now you finally can. "Want me to start something else?"
Sunghoon’s eyes seemed to light up at that, turning off the stove and lifting you onto the cool marble countertop. "So you are still serving me breakfast," he quipped teasingly, tugging your panties off and spreading your legs.
"You're such a good girlfriend," Sunghoon mumbled quietly to himself before descending between your thighs.
You buried your hand in his hair, looking down and wondering how the fuck both of you were so stupid as to not do this before.
genre: hogwarts au, brother's best friend trope, fluff
synopsis: you tried to ignore how ni-ki made your stomach flip. you really did. all you wanted was a normal term at hogwarts. instead, you’re dealing with a love-potion-struck ni-ki, whose clinginess and love struck antics are giving your poor heart(and patience) a workout. your brother thinks it’s hilarious. you think you might combust. and ni-ki? he just wants to snuggle forever.
warnings: lots of kissing, they makeout, hickeys, skin-ship, cringey nicknames, some angst, clingy! lovestruck!ni-ki
note: for the anon who wanted a ni-ki hogwarts au, so sorry for the delay!!😭 halfway into writing this i realised my nonchalant bro ni-ki would NEVER act like this but proceeded anyway since it's fiction so enjoyy reading!!
word count: 7.7k
if you liked this please comment or reblog to give me your feedback! <3
you told yourself this term would be different.
no more stolen glances across the great hall, no more lingering in the library just to catch a glimpse of his messy hair as he flipped through spellbooks. ni-ki was your brother’s best friend—always had been, always would be. that fact was as unchangeable as the house colours on your robes. and yet, every time he slung an arm around your brother’s shoulders, laughing too loud in that carefree way of his, your pulse betrayed you.
it wasn’t fair.
he was everywhere. lounging in the common room like he owned it, tossing a snitch between his hands while your brother groaned about quidditch drills. leaning over your shoulder in potions, his breath warm against your ear as he whispered, "you’re adding too much lacewing, y/n." his fingers brushing yours when he passed you a vial, the contact brief but enough to send sparks up your arm. you hated how your body reacted—how your stomach twisted, how your cheeks burned when he smirked at you like he knew exactly what he was doing.
you were good at pretending. you had to be. when he flicked your quill during study sessions, you rolled your eyes instead of smiling. when he called your name across the courtyard, you waved half-heartedly instead of sprinting to him. when he winked at you—always winking, always teasing—you looked away before he could see the way your breath hitched.
but then there were the moments you couldn’t control. the way your gaze lingered when he stretched after quidditch practise, his shirt riding up just enough to reveal a sliver of skin. the way your heart stuttered when he ruffled your hair, his laugh ringing in your ears. the way you memorised the curve of his smile, the way his eyes crinkled when he was genuinely happy.
you were pathetic.
this term, you swore, would be different. you’d focus on your studies, on your friends, on anything but him. you’d stop daydreaming about what it would feel like if he looked at you the way he looked at the quidditch pitch—like it was the only thing that mattered. you’d stop wondering if he ever thought about you when you weren’t there.
because ni-ki wasn’t yours. he never would be.
and yet, when he slid into the seat beside you at breakfast, his knee pressing against yours under the table, your resolve crumbled all over again.
damn it.
. . .
you should’ve known better than to think this term would be easy.
the common room was its usual mess of noise and warmth—crackling fire, hushed gossip, the occasional shriek of laughter as someone recounted their latest mishap in potions. you were tucked into your favourite corner of the couch, a well-worn copy of advanced arithmancy open in your lap, though you hadn’t turned a page in at least twenty minutes. your friends were bickering good-naturedly beside you, debating whether transfiguration or charms was the more practical subject, but you weren’t really listening. your mind kept drifting, as it always did, to the one person you were desperately trying not to think about.
then the door burst open.
a group of seventh-years stumbled in, grinning like they’d just pulled off some grand scheme, and dumped a tray of shimmering, unnaturally bright sweets onto the low table in the centre of the room. the candies pulsed faintly, shifting colours like liquid trapped in sugar shells, looking clearly enchantwd. a few curious hands reached out, but the seventh-years just smirked and said, "dare you to try one," before sauntering off, leaving behind a ripple of nervous excitement.
you barely had time to roll your eyes before the common room door swung open again, and there he was.
ni-ki.
your breath caught.
he was still in his quidditch gear, his hair damp and tousled from the showers, his cheeks flushed from the chill of the evening air. your brother trailed behind him, complaining loudly about some foul during practise, but ni-ki wasn’t listening. he was laughing, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his whole face alight with that effortless joy that made your chest ache.
then his gaze flicked to the tray of sweets.
"what’s this?" he asked, already reaching for one, his fingers closing around a candy that glowed a dangerous shade of pink.
something in your gut twisted.
"ni-ki, don’t—" you started, scrambling to your feet, but it was too late. he popped it into his mouth without a second thought, chewing once before his entire expression shifted.
his eyes, sharp and playful, always so alive suddenly went soft and unfocused. then they locked onto you, wide and wondering, like he was seeing you for the first time.
"you’re beautiful," he breathed, voice low and awed, as if the words had been pulled out of him against his will.
the common room went quiet. your friends stopped mid-sentence. your brother blinked, confused. and you? you couldn’t move.
ni-ki didn’t hesitate. he crossed the room in three long strides, and before you could even think to step back, his arms were around you, pulling you into a hug so tight it stole your breath. his cheek pressed against the curve of your neck, his exhale warm against your skin. his hands were tentative at first, fingers brushing your waist like he wasn’t sure he was allowed—then, as if something in him snapped, they fisted in the fabric of your sweater, dragging you even closer.
you froze.
his heartbeat thudded against yours, rapid and unsteady. his scent—fresh grass and something faintly sweet, like strawberries—flooded your senses. you could feel every shift of his body, every unsteady breath he took, and it was too much. your hands hovered awkwardly in the air, unsure where to land, but your traitorous heart was pounding so hard you were sure he could feel it.
"ni-ki," you managed, voice embarrassingly shaky. "what are you—"
he didn’t let you finish. he just nuzzled closer, his nose brushing your jaw, and murmured, "you smell nice."
your brother choked on his drink. someone giggled. your face burned.
this was bad. this was so bad.
because even as your brain screamed at you to push him away, to laugh it off like it was nothing, your body betrayed you. your fingers curled into his quidditch jersey, clinging just a little too tightly. your breath hitched when his thumb brushed your hip, absentminded but deliberate. a tiny, reckless part inside of you never wanted him to let go.
the candy was obviously cursed. it had to be. there was no other explanation for the way ni-ki was holding you like you were something precious, like he’d been waiting years to do this.
but then his lips brushed your ear, his voice so soft only you could hear it.
"i’ve wanted to do this for so long," he whispered, and your stomach dropped.
because what if it wasn’t just the candy?
what if, underneath the enchantment, some part of him meant it?
your brother’s voice cut through the haze. "alright, what the hell did you give him?"
laughter erupted around you, but you barely heard it. ni-ki’s arms tightened around you, his breath warm against your skin, and you realised with terrifying clarity—
this was only the beginning.
the next few minutes passed in a blur. your friends were howling with laughter, your brother was torn between amusement and concern, and ni-ki—ni-ki wouldn’t let go. not when you tried to gently pry his fingers from your sweater, not when your brother clapped him on the shoulder and said, "mate, you’ve got to snap out of it." he just held on tighter, his face buried in your hair, murmuring things that made your cheeks burn.
"your hair’s so soft."
"you’re perfect."
"i love the way you laugh."
each word sent a fresh wave of panic through you. because this wasn’t just some silly, fleeting crush anymore. this was ni-ki—your brother’s best friend, the boy you’d spent years pretending not to adore—holding you like you were the only thing that mattered, saying things you’d only ever dreamed of hearing.
and you had no idea what to do.
"we should get him to madam pomfrey," your brother said finally, though he was grinning like this was the best thing he’d seen all year.
ni-ki made a noise of protest, his arms tightening around you. "no," he mumbled against your shoulder. "stay with y/n."
your heart skipped.
your brother sighed. "alright, fine. but you’re coming with me, lover boy."
ni-ki whined—actually whined—but your brother was relentless, peeling him off you with a strength born of years of dealing with his antics. ni-ki’s hands lingered, his fingers brushing yours as he was dragged away, his eyes never leaving your face.
"i’ll find you later," he promised, voice still thick with whatever enchantment had taken hold of him.
your stomach flipped.
as the common room door swung shut behind them, the room erupted into chaos—laughter, theories about what kind of spell had been on those candies, bets on how long it would take for ni-ki to recover. but you just stood there, your skin still tingling where he’d touched you, your heart racing like you’d just run a mile.
when madam pomfrey had examined him the night before, her lips had pursed in that particular way that meant trouble.
"this isn't your standard amortentia variant," she'd muttered, her wand tracing glowing patterns over ni-ki's dazed expression. "it's one of those experimental brews the seventh years keep inventing. it'll have to run its course naturally."
you'd nearly choked when she'd added, "could be a day, could be a week," just as ni-ki blissfully unaware of your internal crisis, chose that moment to nuzzle his face against your hand like an overgrown puppy, his lips brushing your knuckles in a way that sent electric jolts up your arm.
"my moonbeam," he sighed dreamily, completely ignoring madam pomfrey's exasperated eye-roll. "your skin is so soft. are you made of clouds? you must be made of clouds."
your brother, the absolute traitor, was filming the entire thing on his enchanted camera.
but nothing, not even the humiliation of the hospital wing visit could have prepared you for the absolute nightmare that was the next morning.
the morning light filtering through your dormitory curtains was soft and golden, promising a slow, lazy day. you were still half-buried in your blankets, caught in that hazy space between sleep and waking, when the first sign of trouble came.
a faint creak of the door. the rustle of fabric. you assumed it was just one of your roommates returning from an early shower, until—
thud.
a muffled "oof" that you'd recognise anywhere.
your eyes flew open just in time to see ni-ki picking himself up from where he'd tripped over someone's abandoned shoes, his hair sticking up in every direction, still wearing yesterday's rumpled clothes. when he saw you looking, his entire face lit up like you'd cast the sun itself.
"good morning, sunshine!" he chirped, already climbing onto your bed before you could process what was happening.
the mattress dipped under his weight as he settled at the foot of your bed, beaming at you like this was completely normal.
"i waited outside for two hours. did you know the stairs turn into a slide if you're a boy? so rude. i had to bribe a first-year to tell me the password instead."
you sat frozen, your sleep-addled brain struggling to catch up. behind you, one of your roommates choked on her toothpaste. another pulled her blanket over her head with a groan.
"ni-ki," you hissed, acutely aware of your messy hair and the fact your pyjama top had slipped slightly off one shoulder, "you can't just—"
"but i missed you," he interrupted, as if this explained everything. his fingers found yours, lacing them together with a reverence that made your pulse stutter. "the second you left last night, my heart started aching. is that normal?"
he brought your hand to his chest, pressing your palm flat against the steady beat beneath his shirt. "it feels normal when it's you."
you were going to find those seventh-years and strangle them with their own shoelaces.
his thumb traced the arch of your eyebrow, then drifted down to the curve of your cheek. you stopped breathing. the early morning light gilded his features in soft gold, catching on the tiny scar above his lip from that quidditch accident last year. you'd never been this close before, close enough to count his faint freckles, to see the flecks of amber in his dark eyes.
before you could react, he was leaning in, pressing a feather-light kiss to your temple. then another just below your ear. then another along your jawline—each one lingering just a second too long, his breath warm against your skin.
"ni-ki—" you gasped, but he just hummed and continued his lazy path of destruction, his lips brushing the sensitive spot behind your ear that made your toes curl.
"you're so soft here," he murmured against your skin, his free hand coming up to cradle your face, thumb stroking your cheekbone as his mouth continued its devastating exploration. "and here." another kiss, this time to the corner of your jaw. "and here." his lips grazed the pulse point beneath your ear, and you swore your heart stopped.
when you tried to squirm away, his arm slid around your waist, pulling you back against him with embarrassing ease.
"where do you think you're going, snugglebug?" he teased, nuzzling into your neck. "i just got comfortable."
you were going to die. actually die. right here in your pyjamas with ni-ki's stupidly perfect lips tracing nonsense patterns across your skin.
"this isn't—you can't just—" you stammered, but your traitorous body was already melting into his touch, your hands fisting in the sheets to keep from reaching for him.
ni-ki pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, his own dark with something you couldn't name.
"can't just what?" he challenged softly, his thumb brushing your bottom lip. "can't tell you how pretty you look in the morning? can't kiss every single mole on your face?" to demonstrate, he pressed his lips to the tiny one near your eyebrow. then the one by your nose. "can't adore you the way i've always wanted to?"
your breath caught. that couldn't be—he didn't mean—
before you could overthink it, his mouth found yours in a kiss so sweet it made your chest ache. just a brush of lips, barely there, but it shattered you completely. when he pulled away, his smile was brighter than the sunrise streaming through your windows.
"pancakes?" he asked, as if he hadn't just rewritten your entire universe with one kiss.
you could only nod, dazed.
as ni-ki helped you up (his hands lingering at your waist, his lips stealing one last kiss from your cheek), you caught your dormmates' wide-eyed stares in the mirror. one mouthed "holy shit" while another gave you a thumbs up.
you were so, so screwed.
. . .
breakfast in the great hall was nothing short of a public execution.
the moment you sat down, ni-ki was there, sliding onto the bench so close his thigh pressed flush against yours, his arm immediately curling around your shoulders like a possessive, overly affectionate scarf. when you reached for the pumpkin juice, his hand shot out, intercepting yours with a delighted gasp.
"let me," he insisted, pouring it for you with the kind of exaggerated care usually reserved for handling ancient, fragile artifacts.
he even made sure to wipe the rim of the glass with his napkin before handing it to you, his eyes sparkling. "you shouldn’t have to lift a finger, my precious little pumpkin."
you choked on air.
across the table, your brother was already losing it, his spoon clattering into his porridge as he doubled over with laughter. tears were actually streaming down his face.
"oh, this is too good," he wheezed, slapping the table. "this is the best day of my life."
you kicked him under the table hard enough to make him yelp. "stop encouraging him."
"encourage him?" your brother gasped, wiping his eyes. "merlin’s beard, i’m taking notes!" to your absolute horror, he pulled out an actual notebook and scribbled something down. "'my precious little pumpkin'—that’s gold."
ni-ki, blissfully unaware of your suffering, was now meticulously cutting your toast into heart shapes with the precision of a master chef.
"you need proper nutrition," he informed you, deadly serious, as if this were a matter of life and death. "how else will you stay as perfect as you are?"
you buried your face in your hands, willing the ground to swallow you whole.
it only got worse. when you tried to take a bite of your eggs, ni-ki intercepted your fork, holding it up to your lips himself.
"say 'ah,'" he coaxed, grinning when you glared at him. "come on, sweetheart. you’ll waste away if you don’t eat properly."
"i can feed myself," you hissed through gritted teeth.
"but where’s the fun in that?" he pouted, leaning in until his nose brushed your cheek. "let me take care of you. just for today."
you caved, because apparently your willpower had abandoned you the second ni-ki decided to turn your life into a romantic comedy. as you reluctantly took the bite, his entire face lit up like you’d just handed him the moon.
"good?" he asked, thumb brushing the corner of your lip to catch a crumb that wasn’t even there.
you were going to combust.
your brother, the absolute traitor, was now narrating the entire ordeal to jake like it was a quidditch commentary. "and ni-ki goes in for the kill—oh! he’s wiping her mouth! ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing history!"
you threw a piece of toast at his head.
ni-ki, meanwhile, had moved on to rearranging the fruit on your plate into what appeared to be a smiley face. "you didn’t eat enough blueberries yesterday," he informed you, as if he’d been keeping track. "they’re good for your brain. and your eyes. and—"
"my soul?" you deadpanned.
"exactly," he said, completely serious, popping one into your mouth before you could protest.
by the time breakfast was over, half the great hall was watching your personal nightmare unfold with varying degrees of amusement and envy. ni-ki, still glued to your side, was now insisting on carrying your bag for you, despite your protests.
"you’re ridiculous," you muttered as he slung it over his shoulder, his free hand immediately finding yours again.
"ridiculous for you," he corrected, pressing a kiss to your knuckles.
your brother fake-gagged behind you.
you were going to murder them both.
classes were somehow worse. in charms, ni-ki kept whispering ridiculous compliments every time the professor turned his back.
"your eyelashes are like tiny works of art," he sighed, resting his chin on your shoulder. "do they sparkle in the sunlight or is that just magic?"
when you shushed him, he pouted so dramatically that even the professor noticed. "mr. nishimura, is there something you'd like to share with the class?"
"just that y/n is the most brilliant witch in hogwarts," ni-ki announced proudly, as if this was a perfectly normal answer. "and possibly the universe."
the class erupted into giggles. your face burned so hot you were surprised your hair didn't catch fire.
by lunchtime, you'd developed a new survival strategy: complete and utter surrender. when ni-ki insisted on carrying all your books (stacked precariously in his arms because he refused to use a charm that might "strain their delicate pages"), you stopped protesting. when he fed you bites of his treacle tart ("you need the sugar, my little sugarplum"), you accepted it with minimal grumbling. when he held your hand everywhere you went, his thumb tracing absent circles on your skin, you stopped trying to pull away.
it was easier this way.
(and if part of you secretly thrilled at the warmth of his hand in yours, well, no one needed to know that.)
the common room was warm, the warmth making your eyelids heavy and your thoughts slow. the fire crackled softly in the background, casting flickering shadows across the scattered books and half-finished homework. you were trying to focus on your essay, really trying, but it was hard when ni-ki kept shifting beside you, his arm draped over the back of the couch, his fingers occasionally playing with the ends of your hair.
every time you moved, his hand would tighten just a little, like he was afraid you might disappear if he didn’t hold on. when you reached for your pen, he intercepted your hand, lacing his fingers through yours with a quiet hum.
"your hands are cold," he murmured, bringing them to his lips to blow warm air across your skin. the gesture was so tender it made your chest ache.
across the room, your brother and his friends were playing some loud card game, but you could feel their eyes darting over to you every few seconds, their grins barely hidden. you shot them a glare, but it only made them laugh harder.
"are you comfortable?" ni-ki asked suddenly, his free hand brushing a stray hair behind your ear. his touch lingered, his thumb tracing the curve of your cheekbone like he was memorising it. "you seem tense."
you swallowed. "i’m fine."
he frowned, his dark lashes casting shadows on his cheeks as he studied your face. then, without warning, he pulled you sideways until your back was pressed against his chest, his arms wrapping around your waist like he was afraid you’d slip away.
"better?" his breath was warm against your ear, his voice low and sleepy.
"ni-ki—"
"shh," he interrupted, nuzzling into the space between your shoulder and neck. "just relax. i’ve got you."
one hand traced slow circles on your stomach, the other playing with your hair, his fingers moving in a rhythm that made it impossible to think straight.
it was too much. the warmth of him, the way he smelled like fresh laundry and something sweet, the steady beat of his heart against your back—it was all so dangerously comforting. against your better judgement, you felt yourself sinking into him, the tension leaving your shoulders one breath at a time.
until he spoke again.
"you smell amazing," he murmured, his lips brushing the sensitive skin behind your ear. "like vanilla and... something else. just you."
his arms tightened slightly. "i could stay like this forever."
a choked noise escaped your throat. the entire common room seemed to be watching now, their conversations forgotten in favour of your humiliation. even the portraits on the walls were leaning in, their painted eyes wide with amusement.
"ni-ki, people are staring," you hissed, trying to squirm away.
he made a soft, wounded sound, his grip tightening. "let them stare," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. then, quieter, just for you: "you’re perfect. why wouldn’t they want to look at you?"
your face burned. "that’s not—"
"i mean it," he continued, undeterred. his chin rested on your shoulder, his voice dreamy.
"the way your eyes get all squinty when you’re trying not to laugh. how you bite your lip when you’re thinking." his fingers found yours again, lifting them to press a kiss to each knuckle. "the little noises you make when—"
"okay!" you lurched forward, nearly falling off the couch in your haste to escape. "i think i left my—my astronomy book in the library!"
ni-ki’s face fell. "i’ll come with—"
"no!" you stood too fast, your vision swimming. "i mean—you should stay. here. with my brother." you shot your brother a desperate look, but the traitor just grinned and raised his drink in salute.
for a long moment, ni-ki just stared at you, his eyes suspiciously shiny. then his lower lip actually trembled.
"you don’t want me to come," he said quietly, and it wasn’t a question.
the entire room went silent. even the fire seemed to pause.
you opened your mouth. closed it. the words "it’s not that" died on your tongue when his expression crumpled, like you’d just kicked a puppy.
your brother sighed dramatically. "just take him with you," he groaned, rubbing his temples. "before he starts crying and ruins my winning streak."
ni-ki’s face lit up like someone had flipped a switch. he was on his feet in an instant, gathering your books and pens with single-minded determination.
"i’ll carry your stuff," he announced, already stacking your papers neatly. "and your sweater. and that water bottle you forgot yesterday. and—"
you buried your face in your hands as the room erupted into laughter. somewhere to your left, someone whispered, "ten bucks says he proposes by friday."
as ni-ki proudly handed you your neatly stacked belongings, beaming like he’d just won the lottery, you came to a terrible realisation:
you were so, so screwed.
the afternoon sun was warm on your skin as you sat on the weathered wooden bench near the greenhouses, your textbook propped open in your lap for the quiz you had in next period—or at least, it had been, before ni-ki decided your lap made for a much better seat. the spell still hadn’t worn off.
once again he was all up in your personal space, sprawled across you now, his long limbs tangled with yours, his arms curled tightly around your waist like he was afraid you might vanish if he loosened his grip even slightly. his head was nestled against your shoulder, his soft hair brushing your jaw, and you could feel the steady rhythm of his breathing against your collarbone, warm and familiar.
his fingers traced absent, lazy circles on your arm, his touch feather-light but enough to send tiny sparks skittering across your skin. you tried to focus on the page in front of you, really tried, but it was impossible when ni-ki kept nuzzling closer every time you shifted, his lips brushing the curve of your neck in a way that made your pulse stutter. it was ridiculous. embarrassing, even. and yet—despite yourself—you felt your body softening into his, your free hand coming up to card through his hair almost without thinking.
just then, the crunch of footsteps on gravel made you glance up. your brother stood a few feet away, eyebrows nearly in his hairline, a slow grin spreading across his face.
“wow,” he said, crossing his arms, “you two might as well get a room already.”
ni-ki lifted his head just enough to flash him a cheeky smile, his arms tightening around you. “we tried,” he said, voice dripping with faux innocence, “but she said she had class.”
your brother barked out a laugh so loud it startled a nearby group of first-years, who scurried away like frightened mice. you, on the other hand, felt your entire face ignite.
“ni-ki,” you hissed, smacking his shoulder, “stop being a weirdo.”
but he only chuckled, low and warm, the sound vibrating against your chest. before you could scold him further, he pressed a kiss to your temple, his lips lingering just a second too long. “you’re too warm to resist,” he murmured, his breath tickling your ear.
you wanted to protest. wanted to shove him off and tell him to quit messing around, to stop saying things that made your heart do stupid, traitorous flips in your chest. but the words died in your throat when he tilted his head up to look at you, his dark eyes soft and crinkled at the corners, his smile so fond it made your ribs ache.
your brother whistled. “yep, i’m definitely telling mom about this.”
“don’t you dare,” you snapped, but your voice lacked any real heat—especially when ni-ki shifted in your lap, his nose brushing yours, his fingers threading through yours like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“let him,” ni-ki said, grinning. “i’ve got nothing to hide.”
you groaned, dropping your forehead against his shoulder. this was a disaster. you were a disaster. and yet—when ni-ki’s laughter rumbled against you, when his thumb brushed over your knuckles in that stupidly gentle way of his—you couldn’t bring yourself to care.
that same evening you decided to sneak off to the library to finally get some studying done, but ni-ki had caught you in two minutes with a pouty look on his face. so, here you were now—at the library which had always been your sanctuary, a quiet place where you could escape everything—until now. the flickering candlelight made the words in your potions textbook blur together, but you hadn't registered anything in front of you in at least fifteen minutes. not with ni-ki pressed against your back like a second shadow, his chin hooked over your shoulder as he lazily flipped through your notes with one hand while the other traced mindless patterns on your thigh.
"you're skipping the good parts," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep, his breath warm against your neck. his finger landed on a passage about amortentia variants. "this is where it gets interesting."
you swallowed hard, forcing your voice steady. "we're supposed to be researching counters, not reading about how love potions work."
ni-ki hummed, nuzzling closer until his lips brushed the sensitive spot behind your ear. "maybe i like knowing how it works," he whispered. "maybe i want to understand why i can't stop thinking about you."
the book nearly slipped from your hands. "that's—that's just the potion talking."
"is it?" he shifted suddenly, turning you to face him with surprising gentleness. the candlelight caught in his dark eyes, making them glow. "then why did i watch you all last term? why did i always find excuses to sit by you in the great hall? why—"
"shh!" you glanced frantically at the librarian, who was glaring from her desk. "you're going to get us kicked out."
ni-ki only grinned, unrepentant, leaning in until his forehead rested against yours. "worth it," he breathed. his fingers tangled with yours, squeezing gently. "you're so pretty when you're flustered."
"you're impossible," you muttered, but the protest was weak—especially when he brought your joined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to each knuckle with exaggerated care.
"only for you." his thumb brushed over your racing pulse. "your heart's going crazy. is that the potion too?"
you couldn't answer. not when he was looking at you like that—like you were the only thing that mattered. not when his free hand came up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear, his touch lingering at your jawline.
the moment stretched, fragile and breathless, until ni-ki suddenly yawned, the spell breaking as he slumped against you with a quiet groan.
"m'sleepy," he mumbled, his words slurring as he nuzzled into your neck. "your hoodie smells nice. like... like vanilla and that lavender soap you use."
you stiffened. "how do you know what soap i use?"
he didn’t answer, already half-asleep against you, his arms slipping around your waist like living seatbelts. you tried to return to your research, really tried, but how could you focus when every other page was punctuated by ni-ki's soft murmurs of "love you" and "so warm" against your skin? when his fingers would tighten unconsciously whenever you shifted, as if afraid you'd disappear?
frustrated, you turned another page with more force than necessary, your eyes scanning for anything about countering experimental love potions. that's when you saw it—a faded footnote nearly obscured by water damage:
"when the subject already harbours affection for the potion's target, the effects intensify tenfold, blurring the lines between enchantment and genuine feeling. in such cases, the potion acts not as creator, but as catalyst—removing inhibitions and amplifying existing emotions that the brewer may have otherwise concealed."
the words hit you like a bludger to the chest. your hands trembled as memories surfaced—ni-ki always volunteering to be your partner in potions, his laughter a little too bright when you brushed against him. the way he'd show up in the library "by coincidence" whenever you studied alone. how his teasing had always carried an edge of something warmer, something deeper you'd been too afraid to name.
"y/n?" ni-ki's voice was thick with sleep, but his gaze was startlingly clear as he lifted his head. "you okay? your heart's going crazy again."
"i found something," you whispered.
he leaned in, his nose brushing yours as he peered at the book. too close. always too close. you could count his eyelashes from here, see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes.
"huh," he said after a moment, surprisingly lucid. "so you're telling me i didn't stand a chance?"
"what?"
ni-ki smiled, slow and devastating. "even without the potion," he murmured, his breath mingling with yours, "i was already gone for you. this just... made it harder to hide."
his thumb brushed your lower lip, feather-light. "do you hate that?"
you couldn't breathe. couldn't think. the library, the book, the world outside this moment—none of it mattered. not when ni-ki was looking at you like you were his entire universe. not when his confession hung between you, raw and terrifying and beautiful.
the librarian's sharp cough shattered the moment. "if you two can't keep quiet," she snapped, "i'll have to ask you to leave."
ni-ki didn't even glance her way. his eyes stayed locked on yours, his fingers still tracing nonsense patterns on your wrist. "well?" he whispered, so quiet only you could hear. "do you want me to stop?"
that was the problem. you didn't. not really. not when every touch set your skin on fire, not when his sleepy "i love you"s had started to sound like home.
your silence was answer enough. ni-ki's grin could have powered the castle lamps as he tucked you back against his side, pressing one last kiss to your temple before nuzzling into your hair. "knew it," he murmured triumphantly.
and as you sat there, surrounded by dusty books and the steady rhythm of ni-ki's breathing, you realised with terrifying clarity that you had no idea how you would deal with this once he gets back to his normal self.
because somewhere between his whispered confessions and the way his hands always found yours, your heart had stopped questioning whether his feelings were real—and started wondering when yours had become so painfully obvious.
the next morning, you stirred awake to the unfamiliar weight of someone pressed flush against your back, their arms locked securely around your waist like living chains. for one disoriented second, your sleep-fogged brain couldn't process why your bed felt smaller, warmer—until ni-ki nuzzled into the nape of your neck with a sleepy sigh, his lips brushing your skin in a way that sent immediate sparks down your spine.
you stiffened, memories flooding back - last night's study session in the library that had stretched too late, your reluctant agreement to let him walk you to your dorm, and then...oh. then his pleading eyes in the dim torchlight, his fingers playing with yours as he'd whispered, "just five minutes? i'll be good." and like the weak-willed fool you were, you'd caved, cracking the door just enough for him to slip in before anyone noticed.
except apparently "five minutes" had turned into him sneaking under your covers when you'd fallen asleep, his body curled around yours like a second shadow. even now, his knee was wedged between yours, his chest rising and falling against your back in a steady rhythm that suggested he'd been awake for a while, just...holding you.
"morning," ni-ki murmured, his voice gravelly with sleep as he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive spot behind your ear. you shivered, feeling his lips curve into a smirk against your skin.
you tried to turn, to protest this ridiculousness, but his arms only tightened, pulling you back flush against him with surprising strength.
"don't move," he whined, his breath hot against your neck as he scattered kisses along your shoulder.
his hand slid up from your waist to cradle your jaw, thumb brushing over your cheekbone in a gesture so tender it made your chest ache. "so perfect."
"ni-ki," you started, but the protest died in your throat when his teeth grazed the junction of your neck and shoulder, biting down just enough to make you gasp. he soothed the sting with his tongue, then did it again slightly lower, his free hand slipping under your sleep shirt to splay across your stomach possessively.
"mine," he murmured against your skin between kisses that were quickly turning into something more.
his lips travelled up the column of your throat, sucking deliberately until you knew without looking he was leaving marks—dark, unmistakable hickeys that would be impossible to hide later. when you squirmed, he pinned you gently but firmly, his thigh sliding more firmly between yours as he continued his devastating path along your collarbone.
"ni-ki, stop—" you gasped, but it came out breathless, unconvincing even to your own ears.
he lifted his head just enough to meet your eyes, his own dark with something that made your stomach flip. "make me," he challenged, voice low and rough. when you didn't respond, too busy trying to remember how to breathe, he grinned that stupid, heart-stopping grin before ducking back down to worry another bruise into your skin, this time high enough that no collar would hide it.
"you're terrible," you managed, but your hands had somehow found their way into his hair, fingers twisting in the soft strands as his mouth worked magic on your throat.
ni-ki hummed, the vibration against your skin making you shiver.
"your terrible," he corrected, punctuating each word with a kiss. he shifted suddenly, rolling you onto your back so he could loom over you, his hands framing your face as he took in the damage—the blooming purple marks scattered across your neck, the flush creeping down your chest.
his expression turned unbearably smug, "pretty."
before you could respond, he was kissing you properly, slow and deep and devastating, his fingers tangling in your hair to tilt your head just how he wanted it. when he finally pulled away, both of you breathless, he pressed his forehead to yours with a quiet sigh.
"how are you even real," he murmured, the ridiculous nickname paired with the way his thumb traced your swollen lips making your stomach swoop. "my perfect, perfect y/n."
you should've pushed him away. should've reminded him this wasn't real, that it was just the potion. but as the morning light painted gold across his features, as his hands moved over you with a reverence that stole your breath, you couldn't bring yourself to care.
. . .
you didn’t hear it from ni-ki.
it was your brother who told you, somewhere between transfiguration and charms, like it was nothing. like it didn’t matter. he was shoving books into his bag, not even looking at you when he said it.
“potion wore off last night,” he muttered, as casually as if he were commenting on the weather.
your hands froze around the strap of your bag.
“ni-ki didn’t say anything?” you asked, your voice too light, too careful. your heart was suddenly pounding so hard you were sure he could hear it.
your brother just shrugged, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “he seemed kind of… weird about it.”
and that was it. no grand moment, no dramatic shift. no lingering looks or whispered explanations. just—over. like none of it had ever happened. like you hadn’t spent a week tangled up in him, learning the shape of his laughter against your skin, the way his hands always found yours like they belonged there. like he hadn’t looked at you like you were the only thing that mattered.
so you did the only thing you could. you pretended.
the next two days you acted like nothing had changed. like you hadn’t once been his entire world. when you passed him in the corridor, you nodded politely, your face carefully blank. when he held the door open for you, you gave him a stiff smile and nothing more. in charms class, you sat two desks away, your eyes fixed stubbornly on your parchment, even when you felt his gaze lingering on the side of your face. and when his shoulder brushed yours by accident in the crowded hallway, you barely let yourself flinch, barely let yourself remember how those same hands had traced every inch of you like you were something precious.
it was fine. it had to be fine. this was just how things were supposed to be—back to normal, back to before. it was safer this way. less humiliating.
(because what if he remembered everything? what if he remembered the way you’d melted into his touch, what if he knew—)
you swallowed the thought down like acid.
it was just the potion, after all.
except—
except sometimes, when you weren’t paying attention, you’d catch him staring. his expression unreadable, his fingers flexing at his sides like he was stopping himself from reaching out. and once, just once, when you turned a corner too quickly and nearly collided with him, his hands came up instinctively to steady you—just for a second—before he remembered himself and let go like you’d burned him.
you told yourself you imagined the way his breath hitched.
you told yourself a lot of things.
but then the same evening after class you were heading towards the common room, nearly at the fat lady's portrait when you felt it—the familiar prickle at the back of your neck that always meant ni-ki was nearby. you quickened your pace instinctively, but before you could turn the corner, arms wrapped around you from behind in a hold so warm and familiar it made your breath stutter. his chest pressed flush against your back, his chin coming to rest on your shoulder as he exhaled shakily against your neck.
"why have you been ignoring me?"
his voice was softer than you'd ever heard it, barely above a whisper, but it resonated through you like thunder. your hands hovered uncertainly over his arms where they were locked around your waist, torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer.
"i haven't," you lied, but it sounded weak even to your own ears.
ni-ki hummed, the vibration travelling through your back and settling somewhere deep in your chest.
"you have," he murmured, his lips brushing the shell of your ear in a way that made your knees weak. "you stopped talking to me. stopped looking at me like..." his voice cracked slightly, "like i matter to you."
you swallowed hard, staring resolutely at the wall ahead. "i just figured... things went back to normal. this is how we were before."
his arms tightened almost imperceptibly around you. "i thought you were embarrassed," he admitted quietly, his breath warm against your neck.
"when the potion wore off, i didn’t know how to face you. i thought—i thought you hated how i acted. how clingy i was. how much i—" he cut himself off, exhaling sharply. "but then you started avoiding me, and i couldn’t just sit there and do nothing."
your heart pounded so violently you were certain he could feel it. "ni-ki..."
"you do know that i like you, right?" his voice dropped lower, more vulnerable than you'd ever heard it.
"you know how love potions work. when someone's already..." he hesitated, his grip on you shifting slightly, "when someone's already in love, it makes everything stronger. more intense. everything i did, everything i said to you—i meant all of it."
slowly, so slowly, you turned in his arms. he let you, his hands sliding to your waist to steady you as you faced him properly for the first time in days. his eyes were darker than you remembered, full of something raw and open that made your breath catch.
"so you actually liked me before the potion?" you whispered, your voice barely audible even in the quiet hallway.
ni-ki sighed, one hand coming up to brush a loose strand of hair from your face with trembling fingers.
"i've liked you since third year when you hexed that sunghoon kid for stepping on my broom," he admitted, his thumb tracing the curve of your cheekbone. "i just... never thought you'd look at me that way."
your hands found purchase in the front of his robes, clutching the fabric like it was the only thing keeping you upright. "so all that time... the cuddling, the stupid nicknames, the way you'd kiss my forehead when you thought i was asleep—"
"things i've wanted to do for years," he interrupted softly, his other hand coming up to cradle your face. his touch was feather-light, reverent, like he was afraid you'd disappear if he pressed too hard. "the potion just... gave me the courage to actually do them."
you could feel his pulse racing where his wrist brushed against your neck, could see the nervous hope shining in his eyes despite the confident set of his jaw. it was this—this vulnerability from someone usually so self-assured—that finally broke you.
ni-ki's breath hitched when you leaned into his touch, his eyes darting between yours.
"can i kiss you now?" he asked, his voice rough with barely restrained want. "properly? without any potions or excuses?"
your answer was to rise up on your toes and close the distance between you.
his lips were softer than you imagined, moving against yours with a tenderness that made your chest ache. one of his hands slid into your hair while the other pulled you flush against him, eliminating what little space remained between you. you could feel the way his breath stuttered when your fingers tangled in his hair, could taste the quiet sigh he let out when you kissed him back with equal fervour.
it was slow and sweet and so devastatingly perfect that you forgot to breathe. ni-ki kissed you like he was memorising you, like he'd been waiting his whole life for this moment and wanted to savour every second. when you finally pulled back, foreheads resting together, his cheeks were flushed and his lips were kiss-swollen and he was looking at you like you'd hung the moon.
"no more pretending?" you whispered, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw.
ni-ki grinned, bright and unrestrained, before capturing your lips again in a kiss that left no room for doubt. "never again," he murmured against your mouth, his arms tightening around you.
genre: college au, eventual simp x simp dynamic, smut, slow burn
synopsis: getting partnered with jake, the tall awkward nerd from on of your computer science classes, should've been simple—work on the project, get your grade, move on. except now you're completely obsessed with him and he's totally clueless about it. between tutoring sessions you definitely don't need and "coincidental" dorm hall run-ins, you're pulling out all the stops. too bad jake's more interested in his textbooks than your very obvious flirting.
you've never been rejected before, so this should be fine.
…right?
warnings (MDNI 18+ only!!) : smut (oral sex(f. and m. receiving), fingering, unprotected sex, creampie, size difference, big dick!jake, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, pussy drunk!jake, dry humping, heavy makeout, whiny!jake), cursing, mild alcohol use, emotional manipulation, jealousy, themes of insecurity, angst, lots computer science related terms(i kind of geeked out here), reader's kind of delulu and a jerk
note: i'm back to my writing style for lighthearted fics for this one hehe. i lovelovelove nerdy shy men tropes sooo much. i did try to keep it a little realistic though. i hope you like this! enjoyyy
word count: 21.8k
taglist | more works!
you were alone in the computer science lab at nearly midnight, which wasn't unusual. assignments had a way of turning the building into a second home. but tonight felt wrong. everything felt too much. the lights buzzed too loud, drilling into your skull with that persistent electrical hum. your eyes burned from staring at your screen for four hours straight, vision going fuzzy at the edges. somewhere around hour three, you'd stopped actually processing code and started just staring through it.
your cold coffee sat forgotten beside your laptop, abandoned but still somehow necessary because the alternative was admitting defeat and going back to your dorm where your roommate and her boyfriend were probably still taking up the entire common space. you'd rather deal with this. the overstimulation. the way every tiny sound felt amplified in the empty lab. the aggressive brightness of your laptop screen. the uncomfortable pressure building behind your eyes that meant you were about to either cry or throw your laptop across the room. probably both.
your code wasn't working. hadn't been working for two days, and you'd tried everything. every forum suggestion, every stack overflow solution, every pathetic office hours visit where you'd explained your problem three times and still left confused. the cursor blinked at you on line two thousand and forty seven, mocking. the compiler kept throwing errors you didn't understand, and you'd rewritten that function six times already. your hands shook slightly from too much caffeine and not enough food. that tight, hot feeling crept up your throat. the one that signalled imminent breakdown.
you pressed your palms against your eyes until you saw spots, trying to reset something in your overwhelmed nervous system. didn't work. nothing worked tonight.
the silence in the lab was the worst part, it was so quiet that it made you hyper-aware of your own breathing, your heartbeat, the small wet sound your tongue made against the roof of your mouth when you swallowed. you hated it.
then suddenly, the power cut out. total darkness that swallowed everything in an instant, your laptop screen going black, even the emergency exit signs disappearing. your heart kicked into overdrive, adrenaline flooding so fast you felt dizzy. you reached out instinctively for your laptop, fingers scrabbling across the desk, needing to confirm it was still there, that everything you'd been working on wasn't just gone.
suddenly you heard footsteps. someone else was in the lab. you hadn't known anyone else was here. the realisation sent fear spiking through your chest because you'd been so certain you were alone. now there was someone moving closer, footsteps uneven and hurried like they couldn't see any better than you. you opened your mouth to say something, but before you could form words there was sudden pressure against your shoulder, hard and unexpected, and then there was the splash of cold liquid, spreading across your lap and chest.
your coffee. the cup tipped and spilt, liquid soaking through your jeans, spreading sticky and uncomfortable across your thighs. panic hit first, pure and primal, because for a split second all you could think was laptop, everything's gone, hours of work, my entire project. your hands flew out in the darkness, patting frantically at the desk, trying to assess the damage. your chest was so tight you couldn't get a full breath.
then came the anger. fast and hot and overwhelming, rising from somewhere deep in your stomach. you wanted to scream. wanted to grab whoever crashed into you and shake them. wanted to cry from sheer frustration because this was exactly what you didn't need tonight, not when you were already hanging on by a thread.
"oh my god, oh my god, i'm so sorry, i didn't see you, i didn't think anyone else was here, i'm so sorry." the voice came rapid-fire from somewhere to your left. male, young, pitched higher than normal with genuine distress.
he kept apologising, words tumbling over each other, and there was something in his tone that didn't sound rehearsed. he sounded actually afraid, like he'd just committed some unforgivable sin.
"i didn't mean to, i couldn't see, the power just went out and i was trying to get to the door and i'm so sorry, did it get on your laptop? please tell me it didn't get on your laptop."
you took a breath, trying to force words past the tightness in your throat, trying to formulate some response that matched the fury still coursing through your veins. your mouth opened, something sharp and cutting right on the edge of your tongue.
the emergency lighting kicked in. not much, just pale green strips along the baseboards casting everything in eerie, insufficient glow. enough to see by. enough to make out shapes, faces.
the guy who'd run into you stood about two feet away, and the first thing you noticed was his hands. hovering in the air between you, trembling visibly even in the dim light, fingers spread like he wanted to help but didn't dare touch anything. he was tall and lean, dark hair stuck up in odd directions like he'd been running his hands through it repeatedly. glasses had slipped down his nose, and behind them his eyes were wide. genuinely panicked in a way that didn't feel performed at all.
"your laptop," he said, voice still shaking with that same desperate concern. "what model is it? did the coffee get on it? the keyboard is the main concern, if liquid got into the keyboard we need to shut it down immediately and flip it over to drain, we need to know if you had everything backed up."
he was already moving closer, trembling hands reaching toward your desk, and you realised with a start that he hadn't even looked at you properly yet. his entire focus was on your laptop. on the problem he'd created. on fixing it.
"it's fine," you managed, voice coming out rougher than intended. you looked down at your computer. sitting safely to the right of where your coffee had been, completely dry and unharmed. "it didn't get on it."
the relief that washed over his face was so profound you almost felt embarrassed witnessing it. his shoulders sagged. his hands finally dropped to his sides. he let out a long, shaky breath like he'd been holding it since the collision.
"okay. okay, that's good, that's really good." then, almost as an afterthought, his eyes finally moved to actually look at you. taking in your coffee-soaked lap, your tense posture, your expression which you were sure wasn't friendly. "are you okay? did you get burned? that coffee looked hot, if it was hot we should get you to a sink, run cold water on it."
"it was cold," you said. true, but didn't make the situation better. your jeans were soaked through, fabric clinging uncomfortably to your skin, coffee starting to seep into your chair. you were sticky and irritated and still running on too much adrenaline. but he looked so genuinely distressed that some of your anger started deflating despite yourself.
"cold coffee is still a problem," he said, already pulling his backpack off his shoulder, unzipping it with fumbling fingers. "the sugar content means it'll get sticky when it dries, and it can stain, especially on lighter fabrics. i have napkins, i think, or maybe paper towels, i definitely have something."
he was rummaging through his bag now, pulling out crumpled papers, a graphing calculator, several pens, tangled earbuds, talking the entire time in that same rapid, anxious way.
"i'm really sorry, i should have been more careful, i knew the power was out, i should have used my phone flashlight, i just thought i knew the layout well enough to navigate in the dark but obviously i was wrong."
you watched him. something uncomfortable shifted in your chest. you'd been prepared to snap at him, to unleash all your accumulated frustration on whoever had been careless enough to run into you. but he wasn't making excuses. wasn't trying to minimise what he'd done or deflect blame or make some joke to lighten the mood. he was just genuinely, almost painfully concerned about the problem he'd created. the way he kept apologising, kept trying to fix things, made it very hard to stay angry.
"here," he said triumphantly, producing a small pack of tissues from the bottom of his bag. he held them out, then seemed to realise how inadequate they were and let out a frustrated sound. "these aren't going to be enough. we should go to the bathroom, get some actual paper towels. or maybe the kitchen area on the second floor, they have those industrial dispensers that are way more absorbent."
he paused, finally seeming to register that you hadn't moved, that you were just sitting there watching him. his ears went red, visible even in the dim green emergency lighting. "sorry, i'm sorry, i'm doing it again. my sister always tells me i go into problem-solving mode when i'm anxious and it makes people feel like i'm not actually listening to them. are you okay? like, actually okay, not just physically okay?"
the question caught you off guard. nobody had asked you that in days. maybe weeks. everyone just assumed you were fine because you were handling things, meeting deadlines, showing up to class. but this stranger who'd just spilt coffee all over you was looking at you with genuine concern, waiting for a real answer. something in your chest felt suddenly too tight.
"i'm fine," you said, softer than intended. you took the tissues from him, dabbing uselessly at your jeans. he was right. they weren't nearly enough. but the gesture felt important somehow. "it's been a long night."
"assignments?" he asked. when you nodded he made a sympathetic noise. "yeah, same. i've been here since six. had a project deadline at midnight but then the power went out fifteen minutes before and now i don't know if my submission went through because the wifi died with the electricity." he pushed his glasses up his nose. nervous gesture you got the impression he did frequently.
"i'm jake, by the way. jake sim. i feel like i should probably introduce myself since i just, like, assaulted you with your own beverage."
despite everything, ruined jeans and exhaustion and broken code, you felt the corner of your mouth twitch. not quite a smile, but close. "assaulted me with my own beverage?"
"well, yeah," he said, looking vaguely embarrassed. "i mean, i weaponised your coffee against you. that's technically assault, right? or maybe battery? i always get those mixed up. my roommate's a poli-sci major, he'd know."
he was rambling now, words spilling out in that same anxious rush, and there was something almost endearing about how completely lacking in artifice it was. he wasn't trying to be charming. wasn't trying to be funny. just genuinely nervous and dealing with it by talking too much.
you told him your name. he repeated it carefully, like he was committing it to memory. "i really am sorry," he said again, quieter this time. "what were you working on? before i interrupted?"
"data structures project," you said. just thinking about it made your shoulders tense again. "it's due tomorrow and there's a bug i can't figure out and i've been staring at it for hours."
his eyes lit up behind his glasses, spark of interest that transformed his whole face. "what kind of bug? runtime error? logic error? is it a pointer issue? those are always the worst, especially with linked lists."
he was already moving closer to your laptop, stopping himself at the last second like he'd realised he was being presumptuous. "sorry, i mean, i could take a look if you want? i'm pretty good with data structures. it's kind of my thing. i'm a TA for comp 201 actually, so i see a lot of common bugs. but also totally no pressure, i know i just dumped coffee on you so you probably don't want my help."
you should have said no. didn't know this guy, didn't owe him anything. you'd been managing just fine on your own. except you hadn't been managing fine. you'd been on the verge of a breakdown in an empty lab at midnight. now here was this nervous, rambling stranger offering help without expecting anything in return, looking at you like your problem was genuinely important to him.
it was disorienting. how quickly your anger had evaporated, replaced by something you couldn't quite name. you found yourself noticing details you shouldn't care about. the way he kept pushing his glasses up. the way his hands had finally stopped shaking now that he had something concrete to focus on.
"okay," you heard yourself say. his whole face brightened in a way that made something flutter uncomfortably in your stomach. "yeah, if you don't mind looking at it."
"i don't mind at all," he said quickly, already pulling up a chair. he left careful distance between you though, hyper-aware of not invading your space again. "show me what you've got."
you turned your laptop toward him. he leaned in, eyes scanning the lines with immediate focus. his expression shifted into something concentrated, intense. this was probably what he looked like when he wasn't tripping over people in the dark and panicking about it. he started asking questions about your implementation, your logic, what you'd already tried. his voice had lost that nervous edge. this was clearly where he was comfortable. in the clean logic of code, in problems that had solutions.
you answered his questions. watched as he nodded, occasionally pushing his glasses up, finger tracing lines of code on the screen without quite touching it. the emergency lighting cast strange shadows across his face, highlighting his cheekbones, the strong line of his jaw, the way his brow furrowed in concentration.
you were noticing things you shouldn't notice. but you told yourself it wasn't because you found him attractive. you were just paying attention because he was helping. because he'd disrupted your solitary misery and replaced it with something else. something that felt almost like companionship.
"there," he said suddenly, pointing to a line in the middle of your function. "you're incrementing the counter before you check the condition, but you need to check the condition first. it's causing an off-by-one error. see? you're accessing index n when your array only goes up to n minus one."
you stared at the line he was indicating. slowly, horribly, you realised he was right. such a simple mistake, the kind of thing you should have caught hours ago. but you'd been too tired, too frustrated, too deep in your own head to see it. "oh my god," you said quietly. "that's it. that's the whole problem."
"easy fix," jake said, smiling now. a real smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "just move that line down two spaces and add the conditional check first. you want me to...?" he gestured at your keyboard, asking permission. you nodded, watched as he made the adjustment with quick, confident keystrokes. "there. try running it now."
you hit compile, holding your breath. for the first time in two days the program ran without errors. the output printed exactly the way it was supposed to. clean and correct and perfect. relief flooded through you so intensely you felt dizzy with it, all the tension you'd been carrying suddenly releasing at once. "thank you," you said, voice more emotional than intended. "seriously, thank you, i've been losing my mind over this."
"it happens to everyone," jake said gently. "sometimes you just need fresh eyes. i've definitely been there." he leaned back in his chair, that nervous energy returning now that the immediate problem was solved. "your code is really clean, by the way. like, really well-structured. that bug was literally the only issue, everything else is solid."
the compliment settled warm in your chest. you realised with a start that you felt calm. actually calm, for the first time all night. your heart rate had slowed. your hands were steady. the overwhelming pressure behind your eyes had eased.
the lab was still too quiet, the emergency lighting still eerie and insufficient, your jeans still soaked with cold coffee. but somehow none of it felt as unbearable as it had fifteen minutes ago. and that was because of him. because jake had crashed into you in the dark and apologised too much and fixed your code and made you feel less alone in this empty building at midnight.
jake was gathering his things, shoving papers and pens back into his backpack with the same energy he'd had while searching for tissues. "i should probably try to find someone about the power situation," he said. "and you should probably change before that coffee stains permanently. there's a campus store in the student centre that's open twenty-four hours, they have overpriced sweatpants but at least they're dry."
"yeah," you said, surprised to find you didn't want him to leave yet. "yeah, i probably should."
he stood up, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, and hesitated. "hey, um. if you ever need help with code stuff again, or if you just want to work in the lab at the same time, i'm here most nights. usually not spilling beverages on people, but, you know. tonight was special." he smiled awkwardly. you found yourself smiling back, a real smile this time.
"i might take you up on that," you said. meant it.
jake's expression brightened again. that same transformation you'd noticed earlier. he nodded. "cool. yeah, that would be cool. okay. i'm gonna go now before i accidentally break something else." he gave you a small wave, started toward the door, then turned back. "your code really is good, by the way. i wasn't just saying that."
then he was gone, disappearing into the dark hallway beyond the lab. you were alone again. but that realisation, that awareness that a stranger's clumsy kindness had affected you so much, sat uncomfortable and warm in your chest as you saved your work and finally, finally, packed up to leave.
you walked into your lecture the next morning running on four hours of sleep and caffeine-induced alertness that felt vaguely hallucinogenic. your jeans from last night were balled up in your laundry basket, probably stained beyond saving, and you'd thrown on the first clean thing you could find.
you slid into your usual spot next to yunjin, who was already comparing notes with beomgyu across the aisle. they were your people. your safe zone. the ones you'd suffered through intro courses with, pulled all-nighters with, shared desperate pre-exam breakdowns with.
"you look like death," yunjin said cheerfully, not looking up from her phone.
"thanks. love you too."
"late night?" beomgyu leaned over, stealing one of yunjin's chips. "you missed the group chat meltdown about the algorithms homework."
you hummed noncommittally, pulling out your laptop. your code from last night was still open, that perfect, error-free output staring back at you. you'd submitted it at 12:47 am, seventeen minutes after jake had fixed it. seventeen minutes after he'd disappeared down that dark hallway.
you hadn't told yunjin and beomgyu about any of it. the power outage, the coffee, jake. especially jake. it felt somehow private, like explaining it would cheapen it or make it feel less significant than it had been in the moment.
professor kim walked in, and the room settled into that particular brand of restless attention that morning lectures always had. "alright, alright," she said, pulling up a slide that made half the room groan in unison. "i know you're all thrilled to hear this, but it's time to discuss your semester-long project."
chairs scraped against floors as people twisted around to look at their friends. voices overlapped, people already calling out names, forming pairs out of habit and convenience. you felt yunjin's hand on your arm at the same time beomgyu leaned over.
"partners?" yunjin said.
"obviously we're doing a group," beomgyu added. "the three of us, right?"
you nodded, half-listening, your attention already drifting across the lecture hall. you weren't sure what you were looking for until you found it. him. jake was sitting near the back with a small group of guys you vaguely recognised from other cs classes. he was hunched slightly over his notebook, pen moving across the page, taking notes while everyone else was busy forming alliances. his hair was even messier today, sticking up on one side like he'd rolled out of bed. his glasses kept sliding down his nose and he kept pushing them back up with his index finger, that same nervous gesture from last night.
he looked small somehow, despite being tall. like he was trying to take up less space. one of his friends said something and laughed, nudging jake's shoulder, but jake just smiled politely without really engaging. his attention stayed on his notebook.
you watched him for a moment longer than necessary. watched the way his shoulders curved inward, the way he held his pen, the concentrated furrow of his brow. something in your chest did an uncomfortable little flip.
"so we're agreed then?" yunjin was saying. "i'll handle the frontend, beomgyu can do the database stuff, and you can—"
you stood up. the decision happened before you'd fully processed it, your body moving on instinct or impulse or something you didn't want to examine too closely. your chair scraped loud enough that a few people glanced over.
"actually," you said, already stepping past beomgyu into the aisle. "i'm gonna partner with someone else."
"what?" yunjin's voice pitched up in genuine confusion. "who?"
but you were already walking. moving up the steps toward the back of the lecture hall, weaving between people who were still negotiating partnerships and arguing about skill distributions. you were aware of people watching. of yunjin and beomgyu's matching expressions of confusion. of the way conversations paused as you passed.
jake's friends noticed you first. one of them, a guy with bleached hair, nudged jake's arm and nodded in your direction. another one went quiet mid-sentence, eyes tracking your approach with unconcealed curiosity. jake looked up last, following their gazes, and when his eyes met yours he froze. actually froze, pen suspended over his notebook, lips slightly parted like he'd been about to say something and forgotten how.
you stopped at the edge of their row. suddenly hyperaware of how many people were definitely watching this interaction. "hey," you said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near awkward. "you have a partner yet?"
jake blinked. once, twice. his friends were staring at him now, then at you, then back at him like they were watching a tennis match. "i—what?"
"for the project," you clarified, gesturing vaguely at professor kim who was still explaining requirements at the front of the room. "do you have a partner?"
"i—" jake's hand came up to push his glasses up his nose even though they hadn't moved. his ears were already turning red. "no? i mean, no, i don't, but—" he glanced at his friends, then back at you, looking genuinely lost. "are you—do you mean—"
"i'm asking if you want to partner up," you said, more directly this time. your heart was doing something weird and arrhythmic in your chest. "for the semester project."
the guy with bleached hair made a noise that might have been a strangled laugh. another one of jake's friends just gaped openly. jake himself looked like you'd just spoken to him in a language he only half understood. "you want to—with me?"
"yeah."
"but—" he gestured helplessly toward where yunjin and beomgyu were sitting, both of them now watching with unconcealed shock. "don't you usually work with your friends? i thought—"
"i'm asking you," you said, cutting him off before he could talk himself out of it or before you could overthink what you were doing. "if you already have other plans it's fine, i just thought—" you paused, scrambling for justification that didn't sound insane. "you're good at this stuff. you're a TA. you knew exactly what was wrong with my code last night in like, five seconds. it makes sense. strategically."
strategically. god, you sounded unhinged.
jake stared at you. his friends stared at you. half the lecture hall was probably staring at you at this point. "i—" jake swallowed visibly. "yeah. yes. i mean, if you want to, then—yeah. okay."
"yeah?"
"yeah." he nodded, more firmly this time, though he still looked vaguely shell-shocked. "we can—yeah. that would be—yeah."
his friends exchanged glances that were absolutely loaded with unspoken communication. the bleached hair guy, jungwon you think, was grinning now, looking between you and jake like he'd just witnessed something phenomenal. "well," he said, voice thick with amusement, "this is interesting."
you ignored him. "cool. we should probably meet up sometime this week to go over the requirements?"
"yeah, definitely," jake said quickly, already pulling out his phone with hands that trembled slightly. "i can—do you want my number? or i can get yours, or—we could use email if that's easier—"
"number's fine." you rattled it off, watching him type it into his contacts with endearing focus, tongue poking slightly between his teeth. when he looked up his expression was softer, less panicked. almost shy.
"okay," he said. "i'll text you?"
"sounds good."
you turned to head back down to your seat, acutely aware of the weight of multiple stares following your retreat. yunjin grabbed your arm the second you sat down, eyes wide with questions, but professor kim chose that moment to actually start the lecture and yunjin had to settle for furious whisper-hissing "what the hell was that?" while you studiously ignored her.
you pulled up your laptop, pretending to focus on the slides about project requirements and grading rubrics. but your attention kept drifting. you could feel it, that awareness of jake sitting several rows behind you. you wondered if he was taking notes. if his friends were grilling him. if his ears were still red.
you told yourself this was practical. logical. jake was skilled, focused, clearly knew his stuff. working with him made sense from a grades perspective, from an efficiency perspective. it was a smart choice. strategic, like you'd said.
but the justification felt thin even as you repeated it to yourself. because practical partnerships didn't make your pulse spike like this. strategic choices didn't leave you feeling weirdly breathless, or hyperaware of your phone in your pocket, waiting for a text that might come in an hour or a day. smart decisions didn't come with this flutter of satisfaction sitting warm and dangerous in your chest, the kind that felt unearned and a little reckless.
you'd just chosen jake over your actual friends for a semester-long project. you'd walked across the entire lecture hall in front of everyone to ask him specifically. you'd done it without planning it, without fully understanding why, acting on instinct alone.
your phone buzzed. you grabbed it maybe too quickly, ignoring yunjin's pointed look.
unknown number: hi, it's jake. from the lab? and also from just now. obviously. you know who i am. anyway this is my number.
unknown number: we can meet whenever works for you btw. i'm pretty flexible.
unknown number: sorry i'm rambling over text now apparently. i'll stop.
despite everything, despite the weirdness of the entire situation, you felt yourself smile. properly smile, which made yunjin lean over and whisper, "oh my god, you're blushing," which you absolutely were not.
you saved his number. typed out a response. deleted it. typed it again.
you: library tomorrow at 6?
his reply came almost instantly.
jake: perfect. i'll see you there.
yeah. perfect. that's exactly what this was.
you'd gotten there ten minutes early, which was ridiculous and you knew it, but you'd told yourself it was just to secure a good table. not because you were nervous. definitely not because you'd changed your shirt three times.
jake showed up at 6:02, slightly out of breath like he'd been rushing, backpack slung over one shoulder and hair even messier than usual.
"sorry, sorry," he said, sliding into the chair across from you. "my last class ran over and then i couldn't find my charger and—" he stopped himself, ears going pink. "sorry. you don't need the full explanation. i'm here now."
"you're fine," you said, surprised by how much you meant it. "i just got here too."
it was a lie, but whatever.
he pulled out his laptop, a slightly battered thing covered in tech company stickers, and immediately opened what looked like a meticulously organised project folder.
"so i was thinking we could start by breaking down the requirements," he said, already pulling up the assignment sheet. "if we divide it into modules we can work on different parts simultaneously and then integrate everything at the end. i made a rough outline last night, but obviously we can change whatever you want."
you blinked at him. "you made an outline? already?"
"i—yeah?" he looked uncertain suddenly, like he'd done something wrong. "was that—should i not have? i just thought it would be helpful to have a starting point, but if you wanted to plan it together—"
"no, that's—" you leaned closer to look at his screen, close enough that you could smell whatever soap or shampoo he used. something clean and faintly citrusy. "that's really good actually. you're like, super organised."
"oh." he pushed his glasses up, not quite meeting your eyes. "thanks. i just like having things structured, it makes the actual coding part less chaotic."
you shifted your chair around the table, closing the distance between you under the pretence of seeing his screen better. your knees almost touched under the table. jake didn't seem to notice, already walking you through his outline with the kind of focused enthusiasm that made his whole face more animated. he talked with his hands a little, you realised. small gestures that punctuated his explanations.
it was kind of endearing. he was kind of endearing, in this unpolished, genuine way that made you want to keep watching him talk even though you should probably be paying attention to the actual content of what he was saying.
"—so if we use that framework it'll save us a ton of time on the backend. does that make sense?" he glanced at you, expectant.
"yeah, totally," you said, even though you'd caught maybe half of it. "you're really good at this."
"at what?"
"explaining things. breaking stuff down." you let your voice soften deliberately, the kind of tone you'd use on someone you were interested in. testing. "you must be a really good TA."
jake's expression brightened with genuine pleasure, completely innocent. "oh, thanks! i really like teaching actually. it's really satisfying when something clicks for someone, you know?" he turned back to his laptop. "okay so for the first module, i was thinking we could—"
you felt something deflate slightly in your chest. he'd just. moved on. thanked you politely and redirected straight back to work like you'd commented on the weather.
you tried again twenty minutes later, when he'd finished explaining the database architecture. "seriously, how is your brain even wired like this?" you said, letting your hand rest on the table between you, close enough to his that moving a few inches would mean touching. "like, this would've taken me hours to figure out and you just see it."
"i mean, i've been coding since i was like twelve," jake said, smiling in that self-deprecating way that made your stomach flip. "my dad's a software engineer so i kind of grew up around it. you'd be just as good if you'd had the same exposure."
he grabbed his water bottle, took a sip, completely oblivious to the way you were looking at him. "anyway, should we start on the initial setup? i can handle the repository if you want to draft the pseudocode for the first function?"
"sure," you said, trying not to sound as frustrated as you felt.
it continued like that. you'd find little ways to compliment him, to touch his arm when he said something funny, to lean into his space. and every single time jake would light up with friendly appreciation and then just. keep going. keep working. keep being nice in this utterly platonic way that was starting to drive you slightly insane.
when you suggested taking a break and offered to buy him coffee, he'd said "oh that's so sweet, but i'm good, i don't want to lose momentum." when you'd asked about his hobbies, trying to find some common ground beyond code, he'd given you a genuine answer about gaming and soccer and then immediately asked about your hobbies with the same earnest interest he gave to literally everything.
he wasn't being cold. wasn't being dismissive. he was just. friendly. sincerely friendly in a way that suggested he thought you were also just being friendly and nothing more. the idea that you might be flirting with him clearly hadn't even crossed his mind.
it shouldn't have bothered you. it was one study session. you barely knew him. but there was something about the way he was so completely unaffected that made you want to push harder, try more obviously, make him see you the way you were apparently seeing him.
which was insane. you were being insane.
"okay i think that's a good stopping point," jake said eventually, glancing at his phone. "we got through way more than i expected, honestly. you're really fast at this."
"we work well together," you said, maybe too much emphasis on the together part.
"yeah," he agreed easily, already packing up his stuff. "this is gonna be way less painful than i thought. usually group projects are a nightmare but i think we're pretty compatible."
compatible. he said it like he was talking about software versions.
you packed up your own stuff, trying to shake off whatever weird frustrated feeling had settled in your chest. this was good. you had a competent partner who was easy to work with. that's what mattered. not whether he noticed when you laughed at his jokes or sat closer than strictly necessary.
the library had gotten dark outside while you'd been working, the early winter darkness that feeking too heavy for eight pm. you pushed through the doors together, the cold air immediately biting at your face.
"which way are you headed?" jake asked, adjusting his backpack.
you pointed toward the east side of campus. "miller hall."
jake stopped walking. just fully stopped and stared at you. "wait, seriously?"
"yeah?"
"i'm in miller," he said, and his face did this thing, this open, delighted thing like you'd just told him something genuinely exciting. "i'm on the fourth floor. what floor are you?"
"third," you said, trying to keep your voice normal even though your brain was already racing ahead. same building. same building. you lived in the same building and you hadn't known. "that's—what are the odds?"
"i know, right?" jake fell into step beside you, and he seemed more relaxed now, less formal than he'd been in the library. "i can't believe we haven't run into each other before. though i guess i'm not around that much, i'm usually either in class or the lab or—" he laughed. "okay i'm making myself sound really boring."
"no you're not," you said, maybe too quickly. "i'm the same way. especially during midterms."
"the worst," he agreed. "hey, at least now if we need to meet up for the project it's super convenient. we can literally just knock on each other's doors."
he said it so casually. so normally, like it was just a nice logistical benefit and nothing more. meanwhile your mind was already cataloguing possibilities. you could time your meals to match his schedule. figure out when he usually left for class. find reasons to be in the common areas when he might pass through. it would look natural, coincidental. just friendly neighbors running into each other.
you were already strategising.
the realisation made something uncomfortable twist in your stomach. this was. this was too much maybe. you were thinking about him too much, cataloguing details about him like you were studying for an exam. getting frustrated when he didn't respond to your flirting even though you had no actual reason to expect him to. you'd had one late-night interaction and now one study session and somehow you were already rearranging your mental map of campus to accommodate his presence in it.
"you good?" jake asked, and you realised you'd gone quiet.
"yeah, just tired."
"same." he smiled at you, easy and warm. "thanks for picking me as your partner, by the way. i know you could've worked with your friends and i'm—i'm really glad you asked me instead. i think this is gonna be fun."
fun. he was looking forward to the project because he thought it would be fun. because he liked coding and teaching and he probably thought you were a cool person to work with. he was just. happy to have company. happy to make a new friend.
meanwhile you were over here planning imaginary coincidental run-ins and getting weirdly possessive over someone who didn't even know you liked him.
god, you were pathetic.
"yeah," you managed. "me too."
you reached miller hall, and jake held the door open for you, still talking about some technique he wanted to try for the project. you half-listened, watching the way his hair flopped over his forehead, the animated way he gestured when he got excited about something.
the elevator ride to your floor felt too short. jake got off with you, said he'd just walk up the extra flight of stairs for the exercise. "text me if you think of anything for the project," he said, already heading toward the stairwell. "or honestly just text me whenever. i'm always on my phone."
then he was gone, and you were standing alone in the hallway outside your door, feeling weirdly deflated and wired at the same time.
your phone buzzed before you'd even gotten your key out.
jake: forgot to say this but your idea for the UI was really smart. i think it's gonna make the whole thing way more intuitive.
jake: ok NOW i'm done bothering you. have a good night!
you stared at the messages, that dangerous warm feeling spreading through your chest again. he'd texted you immediately to compliment your idea. with absolutely no prompting.
you were smiling at your phone like an idiot.
yeah. you were definitely pathetic.
"i'm just saying, he's clearly not interested," yunjin said, stabbing her salad with more force than necessary. "like, you've tried everything."
you were sitting in the dining hall, picking at your food while yunjin and beomgyu conducted what was essentially an intervention about your jake situation. an intervention you hadn't asked for and definitely didn't want.
"maybe he's just shy," you said, defensive.
beomgyu snorted. "shy guys still notice when someone's flirting with them. they just get weird about it. this guy sounds like he genuinely has no idea."
"which means he's not into you," yunjin added, gentler now. "and that's fine, you know? you can just be project partners. you don't have to keep torturing yourself."
except the thing was, you weren't entirely convinced jake wasn't interested. or maybe you just didn't want to accept it yet. because he texted you unprompted sometimes, sent you memes he thought you'd find funny, always smiled when he saw you in the hallway. that had to mean something, right?
"i'm not torturing myself," you muttered.
"you've mentioned him like fifteen times in the past hour," beomgyu pointed out.
"have not."
"you literally just told us about how he holds his pen. his pen."
okay. maybe you were torturing yourself a little.
you left the dining hall feeling irritated and restless, your friends' words circling in your head. he's not interested. he has no idea. you're torturing yourself. maybe they were right. probably they were right. you should just focus on the project, get a good grade, and move on like a normal person.
you were cutting through the student centre, not really paying attention to where you were going, when you passed the community bulletin board. the usual chaos of flyers and posters, study abroad programs, club meetings, someone selling a barely-used microwave. your eyes skimmed over it automatically, not really looking.
then you saw his name.
TUTORING AVAILABLE - COMP 101, 201, 301
patient, experienced, flexible schedule
contact: jake sim
there was a row of little tear-off tabs at the bottom with his phone number. several were already missing. the flyer itself was simple, almost plain. you stared at it. people flowed around you, conversations and footsteps and the ambient noise of the student centre, but you just stood there staring at jake's handwritten flyer.
you didn't need tutoring. your grades were fine. good, even. you and jake were in the same advanced class, for god's sake. he'd probably seen your test scores when he was TAing. this would be…obvious. wouldn't it? taking a tab would be transparent and desperate and—
your hand moved before you'd fully decided. the paper tore with a soft sound that felt too loud. you stared at the little strip in your palm, jake's number printed in his neat handwriting even though you already had it saved in your phone.
what were you doing?
you shoved the tab in your pocket and walked away quickly, like someone might have witnessed you doing something incriminating. your heart was beating too fast. this was insane. this was transparent. he was going to see right through it.
but.
but it was also legitimate, wasn't it? people got tutoring all the time, even when their grades were fine. wanting to understand the material better, wanting a different perspective, wanting to be extra prepared. those were all valid reasons. normal reasons. and yeah, maybe you had ulterior motives, but the cover story was solid enough that you could maintain plausible deniability. to him. to yourself.
you made it back to your dorm before you pulled out your phone.
you: hey! i saw your tutoring flyer in the student centre. do you still have availability?
you hit send before you could overthink it. then immediately started overthinking it anyway. he was going to ask why. he was going to point out that you clearly didn't need help. he was going to—
your phone buzzed.
jake<3: oh hey! yeah i have some slots open. but wait, aren't you doing pretty well in class? i've seen your test scores when i'm grading and you're like, consistently in the top range
jake<3: not that you CAN'T get tutoring obviously! everyone can benefit from extra help
jake<3: i just want to make sure you actually need it and aren't just being nice or something
god, he was even considerate about this. checking in to make sure you weren't wasting your time or money on something you didn't need. being thoughtful and genuine while you were over here manipulating the situation to manufacture more time with him.
you felt a twinge of something uncomfortable. guilt maybe. but you pushed it down.
you: i mean yeah my grades are okay, but i feel like i'm just memorising patterns without really UNDERSTANDING the concepts you know? like i can solve the problems but i couldn't explain WHY
you: i just want to make sure i actually get it. especially since the material keeps building on itself
it wasn't entirely a lie. you did sometimes feel like you were pattern-matching your way through assignments. and deeper understanding was always good. these were reasonable concerns. the fact that they weren't your primary motivation didn't make them untrue.
jake<3: oh yeah that makes total sense actually. i see that a lot with students. they can execute but the underlying logic isn't solid
jake<3: okay yeah we can definitely work on that! my rate is $20/hour but honestly for you i'd be happy to just do it for free? since we're already working together on the project anyway
you: no way i'm paying you. you're already helping me so much with the project
jake<3: the project is a two person thing, you're helping me just as much
jake<3: but okay we can argue about payment later. when works for you?
you felt that warm, dangerous flutter again. he'd offered to tutor you for free. just casually, like it was no big deal. like spending extra time with you was something he actively wanted to do, even without compensation.
you: i'm pretty flexible. whenever you have time
jake<3: thursdays at 7? we could do the library again or somewhere on our floor if you want somewhere quieter
jake<3: also i promise i'll actually TEACH and not just fix your code for you like last time lol
you smiled at your phone. somewhere on your floor. which meant his room or yours. which meant private, just the two of you, no other students around.
you: thursdays work for me!
jake<3: cool! we can switch off. i'll bring snacks
jake<3: this'll be fun :)
he'd sent a smiley face. an actual emoticon. it shouldn't have made your heart skip but it did.
you locked your phone and sat on your bed, that satisfaction settling warm in your chest. you'd done it. you'd created a legitimate, recurring excuse to see jake outside of project work. an hour a week, minimum, where you'd have his complete attention. where you could sit close to him in the privacy of a dorm room, help him help you, let those boundaries get just a little bit blurrier.
it was harmless. he was offering tutoring anyway, you were just taking him up on it. and yeah, maybe your motivations weren't entirely pure, but you weren't lying to him. not really. you did want to understand the material better. the fact that you also wanted to be around him more was just. additional context. secondary reasoning.
you were being smart about this, honestly. creating opportunities without being pushy. letting things develop naturally within structures that already existed.
you ignored the small, quiet voice in the back of your mind that whispered this was too much. that you were engineering situations and manufacturing proximity and maybe that wasn't as harmless as you wanted to believe. that jake was offering to help you in good faith while you had an agenda he knew nothing about.
you were good at ignoring that voice.
your phone buzzed again.
jake<3: btw i've been thinking about the database structure and i had an idea
and just like that you were smiling again, typing back, that uncomfortable feeling dissolving into something easier and warmer and more immediately gratifying.
it was fine. everything was fine. this was just tutoring. just spending time with someone you enjoyed being around. there was nothing wrong with that.
nothing wrong with it at all.
you'd been doing the tutoring sessions for three weeks when your roommate officially moved out. well, not officially officially. her stuff was still there, her side of the room still technically occupied. but she'd been spending every night at her boyfriend's off-campus apartment for the past month, and one day she just stopped pretending she was coming back.
"i'm still paying rent," she'd said, shoving clothes into a duffel bag. "so like, it's still my room. i'll probably crash here sometimes. but you basically have the place to yourself."
you'd nodded sympathetically while internally celebrating. your own space. privacy. no need to coordinate schedules or deal with her boyfriend's annoying habits. it was perfect.
it took you less than a day to realise it was perfect for other reasons too.
the next tutoring session was supposed to be in the library. thursday at seven, like always. but you'd been sitting in your empty apartment that afternoon, looking at your space with new eyes, and the idea had planted itself so naturally you'd almost convinced yourself it was practical.
you: hey, would you maybe want to do tutoring at my place tonight instead? my roommate moved in with her boyfriend so it's way quieter than the library
you: totally fine if you prefer the library though!
the response took longer than usual. long enough that you started second-guessing yourself. maybe this was too much. too obvious. crossing some line from study partner into something else.
jake<3: oh
jake<3: um
jake<3: yeah that's fine. if you're sure?
jake<3: i don't want to like. intrude or anything
jake<3: but yeah quieter is definitely better for focusing
you: you're not intruding i literally invited you haha
you: i'm in 3B. just come by at 7
jake<3: okay! see you then
you spent the next two hours in a cleaning frenzy you absolutely did not want to examine too closely. you weren't trying to impress him. you just wanted the place to look nice and presentable. the fact that you changed your clothes twice and lit a candle that made the whole apartment smell like vanilla and sandalwood was just. coincidence.
the knock came at exactly seven. jake was annoyingly punctual.
you opened the door to find him standing in the hallway looking uncertain, backpack slung over one shoulder, holding a bag of chips. "hi," he said. "i brought snacks. i didn't know what you liked so i just got the variety pack."
"you didn't have to do that."
"i know, but—" he shifted his weight. "i don't know, it felt weird showing up empty-handed."
you stepped back to let him in, watching as he moved into your space with obvious hesitation. he didn't walk in so much as carefully entered, like he was worried about disturbing something. his eyes went immediately to your walls, taking in the art prints you'd hung, the string lights, the bookshelf crammed with novels and textbooks. then to your desk setup, the small kitchen area, the couch that your roommate had left behind.
"wow," he said quietly. "this is. really nice."
"it's just a dorm apartment."
"no, i know, but—" he gestured vaguely at everything. "it's decorated. like, actually decorated. my place looks like a prison cell compared to this." he was still standing near the door, like he hadn't fully committed to being here. "is that an original print?"
you glanced at the framed artwork he was pointing at. "yeah. local artist. i got it at a campus market thing."
"it's really cool." he finally took a few more steps inside, setting his backpack down carefully on the floor like he was afraid it might scuff something. his attention caught on your kitchen counter, where you'd left out the fancy coffee you'd bought yesterday. the expensive cheese and crackers. the fruit you'd pre-cut and arranged in a bowl because apparently you were that person now.
jake went quiet for a second. then he laughed, but it sounded a little uncomfortable. "okay i have to ask. are you like, rich?"
you felt your face heat. "what? no."
"because this—" he gestured at your apartment again, at the candle burning on your coffee table, the throw blanket artfully draped over your couch, the general aesthetic coherence of the space. "this seems like. i don't know. very put together for a college student."
"i just like my space to feel nice," you said, defensive. "there's nothing wrong with that."
"no, definitely not! i didn't mean—" he ran a hand through his hair, flustered. "i just meant. my room has like, a bed and a desk and some clothes on the floor. this looks like an apartment from a magazine. in a good way," he added quickly. "it's impressive. i'm just. you know. mildly intimidated."
"don't be intimidated," you said, softer now. trying for casual. "seriously, make yourself comfortable. do you want something to drink? i have coffee, tea, juice, those fancy sparkling waters—"
"you have fancy sparkling water?"
"they were on sale."
they were absolutely not on sale. you'd bought them specifically because you remembered jake mentioning he liked trying different flavours. but he didn't need to know that.
"um, sure. i'll try one." he was still standing awkwardly in the middle of your living room, like he couldn't figure out where he was allowed to exist.
you grabbed two cans from the fridge, handing him one and gesturing toward the couch. "we can work there if you want. or the desk. whatever's comfortable."
"couch is good," he said, finally sitting down and immediately looking slightly less tense. he opened the sparkling water, took a sip, and made a surprised noise. "oh this is actually really good."
"told you." you sat next to him, closer than you would have in the library. not touching, but close enough that you could feel the warmth of him next to you. close enough that when he leaned forward to pull his laptop out of his backpack, you caught that familiar scent of soap and citrus.
he pulled up the lesson he'd prepared, something about optimisation algorithms, and fell into his teaching rhythm. you'd noticed this about jake before. when he was explaining code, he became more confident. less apologetic. his hands moved as he talked, tracing invisible diagrams in the air, and his whole face became more animated.
you were trying to focus. really, you were. but you kept getting distracted by the fact that he was here, in your space, sitting on your couch. his knee bumped yours at one point and he apologised even though it was barely contact. you told him it was fine. his handwriting was neat when he sketched out examples in your notebook. he had a small scar on his left hand you'd never noticed before.
"are you following?" he asked, glancing over at you.
"yeah," you said, snapping back to attention. "sorry. just thinking."
"it's kind of a dense topic," he said, apologetic again. "we can take a break if you need."
"no, keep going. you're good at this."
something in his expression softened. "thanks. i—i actually really like doing this. the tutoring, i mean. it's nice having someone to talk through concepts with who actually cares about understanding them properly." he paused, looking around your apartment again like he was seeing it with fresh eyes. "and this is. yeah. this is better than the library for sure."
"yeah?"
"the library's always so loud, even in the quiet sections. and people keep interrupting to ask if they can take chairs from our table." he settled back into your couch slightly, his shoulders loosening. "this is way better. i can actually think here."
you felt that dangerous satisfaction bloom in your chest. this is better. i can actually think here. he was comfortable. in your space. comfortable enough to relax, to take up room, to exist without that careful hesitation he'd had when he first arrived.
"we should do all our sessions here," you said, trying to sound casual. "if you're cool with it."
jake glanced at you, then around the apartment again. for a second you thought he might question it. might recognise this for what it was. but then he just smiled, easy and genuine. "yeah, i'd like that. this is really nice."
"cool," you said. your heart was doing that annoying fluttery thing again.
you went back to the lesson, jake's voice steady and patient as he walked you through increasingly complex problems. his knee stayed pressed against yours. he'd stopped apologising for taking up space. he reached for the fancy crackers you'd set out without asking if it was okay first, just casual and comfortable like he belonged here.
and god help you, you liked seeing him like this. liked having him in your space, surrounded by your things, relaxed and focused and entirely unaware of how much thought you'd put into creating this exact scenario.
he was more comfortable here than he should be. settling into your life with an ease that should have alarmed you but instead just made you want to pull him deeper.
you were playing a game he didn't know existed. creating intimacy in careful increments. manufacturing closeness that felt organic to him but was entirely designed by you.
"okay your turn," jake said, pushing your laptop toward you. "try implementing that function we just talked through."
you pulled the computer into your lap, fingers moving over the keys, hyper-aware of jake watching. of his presence next to you, patient and encouraging. of how easy it would be to let this become routine. thursday nights on your couch, just the two of you, the rest of the world locked outside.
professor kim handed back midterms on a wednesday, and the energy in the lecture hall was exactly what you'd expect. nervous shuffling, people immediately comparing scores, that girl in the front row who always cried regardless of her grade already tearing up.
you flipped your exam over and saw the 100 staring back at you. perfect score. you felt a flush of satisfaction that had nothing to do with the grade itself and everything to do with the fact that jake would see it.
"holy shit," yunjin whispered, leaning over to look. "you got a perfect score?"
"apparently."
"that's insane. i got an 87 and i thought i did well." she shook her head, impressed and maybe slightly annoyed. "what did jake think? he must be so proud, that's basically a direct result of his tutoring."
speaking of jake, he was two rows behind you, and you could hear his friends' voices carrying.
"dude, you got a 98," one of them said. "that's insane."
"i missed this one question," jake said, and he sounded genuinely disappointed. "i can't believe i mixed up the time complexity."
you turned around without really thinking about it, catching his eye. he was already looking at you, and his face did this thing, this hopeful uncertain thing. "how'd you do?"
you held up your exam. his eyes widened.
"you got a hundred?" he said it loud enough that a few people glanced over. then he was standing up, moving past his friends, coming down to your row with his exam still in his hand. "holy shit, that's—that's amazing. you—" he stopped himself, looking almost embarrassed by his own enthusiasm. "sorry, i'm like. weirdly excited about this."
"don't apologise," you said, smiling despite yourself. "you sound more excited than i am."
"because i—" he gestured at your exam, then at you. "you understood it. like really understood it. i could tell during our sessions that things were clicking but seeing it actually translate to a perfect score is just—" he ran his hand through his hair, grinning in a way that made your stomach flip. "i'm really proud of you."
the words hit you weird. i'm proud of you. said with such genuine warmth, such unironic sincerity. like your success was somehow his success too. like he was personally invested in your performance because he'd helped you get there.
except you hadn't really needed the help. you'd manufactured the entire situation. you'd been doing fine before the tutoring started and you'd probably have gotten a perfect score regardless. jake's proud smile was based on a false premise. he thought he'd helped you achieve something when really you'd just. used him. used his time and his patience and his genuine desire to help people, all so you could sit close to him once a week.
something uncomfortable twisted in your chest. you shoved it down.
"i couldn't have done it without you," you said, because that's what you were supposed to say. what he expected to hear. even if it made you feel slightly sick.
"i know, i know. it's a good grade. i just hate making careless mistakes." he smiled at you again, softer this time. "but seriously, i'm really happy for you. you worked really hard for this."
"we should celebrate," you said, before you could second-guess it. "both of us. good scores, successful tutoring, whatever. come over tonight? i'll make dinner, we can watch a movie. my treat, as a thank you."
jake hesitated, just for a second. "you don't have to thank me."
"i want to," you said firmly with a smile. "you've been helping me for weeks and not accepting any payment. the least i can do is feed you."
"when you put it that way." he was smiling again, that easy smile that made your heart do stupid things. "yeah, okay. what time?"
"seven?"
"perfect."
...
you went slightly overboard with dinner. not crazy overboard, just. more effort than was strictly necessary for a casual thank-you meal. homemade pasta, the good parmesan, a salad that actually had more than three ingredients. you'd also bought wine, which felt very adult and sophisticated until you remembered you were literally just having your study partner over.
jake showed up at seven on the dot, holding a bag of cookies from the expensive bakery near campus. "i know you said your treat, but i can't show up empty-handed," he explained, handing them over. "it's like, physically impossible for me."
"you're ridiculous."
"i've been told." he stepped inside, immediately more comfortable than he'd been that first time. he knew where to put his shoes now, where to set his bag. he went straight for the couch like he belonged there.
dinner was easy. conversation flowed naturally, jumping from classes to campus gossip to a debate about whether the dining hall pizza was underrated or genuinely terrible. jake argued passionately for underrated, gesturing with his fork, getting sauce on his chin that he didn't notice until you pointed it out. he laughed, embarrassed, wiping it away.
"wine?" you offered, after you'd cleared the plates.
"oh, um. sure?" he looked uncertain. "i'm not really a big drinker."
"me neither. but we're celebrating, right?"
"right." he accepted the glass you poured, taking a small sip and making a face. "god, why do people like this? it tastes like someone made juice go bad on purpose."
you laughed despite yourself. "it's an acquired taste."
"that's what people say about things that are objectively bad." but he took another sip anyway, settling back into the couch as you pulled up netflix.
you ended up on some action movie neither of you had seen, the kind with improbable stunts and a plot that didn't require much attention. which was good, because you weren't really watching it. you were too aware of jake next to you, closer than he needed to be, his shoulder occasionally brushing yours. he'd finished his wine faster than you expected and seemed looser now, more animated. he kept making commentary on the movie, pointing out plot holes and questionable physics, his hands moving as he talked.
"—and there's no way that building would still be structurally sound after that explosion," he was saying, gesturing at the screen. "like, basic engineering, you know?"
"you're thinking too hard about it."
"i can't help it. my brain won't turn off." he glanced at you, something warm in his expression. "this is nice though. just hanging out. we're always studying or talking about the project, it's cool to just…exist. without an agenda."
without an agenda. the words hit harder than they should have. because you did have an agenda. you'd had one this entire time. this whole evening was carefully constructed, from the homemade dinner to the wine to the deliberately casual intimacy of it all.
"yeah," you managed. "it's nice."
the movie continued. jake shifted closer, his thigh pressing against yours. you didn't move away. his arm ended up along the back of the couch, not quite around your shoulders but close enough that you could feel the warmth of it. neither of you acknowledged it, but neither of you adjusted either.
"can i ask you something?" jake said during a particularly slow part of the movie.
"sure."
"why did you pick me? for the project, i mean." he was looking at you now instead of the screen, his expression curious and open. "you could've worked with your friends. people you already knew. but you walked all the way across the lecture hall to ask me."
your heart kicked up. "i told you. you're good at this stuff."
"yeah, but." he paused, like he was trying to figure out how to phrase something. "it felt like. i don't know. like you went out of your way. and i've been trying to figure out if i'm reading too much into it or if there was something else."
the air felt suddenly thinner. "something else like what?"
"i don't know." he laughed, self-conscious. "i'm probably being weird. forget i said anything."
"jake."
"i just—" he met your eyes, and there was something vulnerable in his expression that made your breath catch. "i really like spending time with you. like, more than i probably should for someone who's just a project partner and tutoring student. and sometimes i think maybe you. i don't know, feel the same? but i'm also really bad at reading these things so i'm probably completely wrong."
oh. oh.
"you're not wrong," you said quietly.
his eyes widened slightly. "i'm not?"
instead of answering, you leaned in. gave him enough time to pull back, to stop this, but he didn't. he met you halfway, his lips soft and uncertain against yours. for a second neither of you moved, the kiss chaste and almost careful. then something shifted. his hand came up to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone, and you pressed closer, your fingers curling into his shirt.
jake made a soft sound against your mouth, surprise or maybe pleasure, and kissed you back with more confidence. his other hand found your waist, tentative at first then firmer, pulling you closer. you ended up in his lap somehow, his hands spanning your back, your fingers threading through his hair. he tasted like wine and something sweet from the cookies he'd brought.
"is this okay?" he whispered against your lips, breathing hard.
"yes," you said, and kissed him again before he could second-guess it.
his hands moved under your shirt, warm against your skin, and you felt him shiver when you rolled your hips experimentally. "god," he breathed, sounding almost pained. "we should—are we really—"
"do you want to stop?"
"no. god, no. i just—" he looked up at you, pupils blown, lips kiss-swollen. "i didn't think this would happen. i'm not. i don't usually."
"it's okay," you said softly, meaning it. "we don't have to do anything you don't want."
jake didn’t stop you. instead, he seemed to melt into the contact, his hands trembling as they slid further up your back, skin hot through the thin fabric of your shirt. when you moved to guide him off the couch and onto the rug, he followed with a sort of dazed compliance, his glasses slightly askew on his face.
you knelt between his legs, and the shift in atmosphere was immediate. the movie was still playing—some distant sound of tires screeching—but all you could hear was the ragged, uneven hitch of jake’s breath. when you reached for the button of his jeans, his hand flew to your wrist, not to stop you, but just to steady himself. his knuckles were white.
"are you sure?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "i—i'm not... i don't want to mess this up. our project, the tutoring... i don't want to make things weird for you."
"jake," you said, looking up at him through your lashes. "shut up and let me."
he let out a shaky, half-strangled laugh, his head hitting the base of the couch as he let go of your wrist. "okay. okay, yeah. shutting up."
as you eased his jeans down, you realised the lanky, awkward way he carried himself in the halls was a massive deception. he was built with a surprising, heavy sturdiness that the oversized hoodies always hid. his legs were long, his thighs thick with the kind of muscle that suggested he actually did play soccer as more than just a hobby. and when you finally freed him, you couldn't help the small, sharp intake of breath that escaped you.
"jake," you breathed, your eyes widening. "holy..."
he groaned, the sound vibrating deep in his chest, and covered his eyes with his forearm. "don't. don't look at me like that. i know. i'm sorry, is it... is it too much? i can—"
"it's perfect," you cut him off, reaching out to touch him. his skin was searing, and the moment your fingers closed around him, his entire body jolted like he’d been hit with a live wire.
when you leaned forward to take him into your mouth, jake’s reaction was explosive. he arched off the floor, his fingers tangling desperately in your hair, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps. he was so sensitive, so completely overwhelmed by the sensation that it felt like he was losing his grip on reality.
"oh god," he choked out, his voice high and strained. "wait, wait—that's—you’re so... the pressure, i can't—"
you didn't slow down. you liked the way he lost his composure, the way the articulate, logical TA was reduced to incoherent stutters. you used your hands to keep him steady, your tongue swirling around the head of him, and jake’s hips began to move in a frantic, uncoordinated rhythm. he was trying to keep some semblance of control, trying to stay "polite," but the sheer intensity of it was breaking him.
"i'm gonna... i'm actually gonna..." he gasped, his hands tightening in your hair, pulling you closer until he was practically burying himself in you. "please, don't stop. don't stop, just like that—right there—"
he hit his limit with a loud, guttural shout that was muffled only by the back of his hand as he bit down on his own knuckles to stay quiet. his body went rigid, muscles in his arms and chest standing out in sharp relief as he came, the force of it leaving him limp and shuddering against the couch.
it took him a long time to come back down. for several minutes, the only sound in the room was his heavy, labouring breath and the flickering light of the tv. you pulled back, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, feeling a fierce, glowing sense of triumph. he looked completely wrecked—hair a disaster, glasses hanging off one ear, chest heaving.
you felt powerful. you’d spent weeks engineering this, calculating every move, and seeing him like this—totally undone by you—was better than any perfect exam score.
"you okay?" you asked, leaning your chin on his knee.
jake let out a long, shaky exhale, finally moving his arm to look at you. his eyes were hazy, his face flushed a deep, beautiful red. "i... think my brain just short-circuited," he whispered, a small, dazed smile tugging at his lips.
"in a good way?"
"in the best way." he reached out, his fingers trembling as he tucked a lock of hair behind your ear. "thank you. seriously. i don't—i don't even know what to say."
you smiled, leaning into his touch. the apartment was warm, the air still smelling of vanilla. "you don't have to say anything. you should just stay."
the words were soft, natural. it felt like the obvious next step. but the second they left your mouth, you felt the shift.
it was subtle at first—the way jake’s fingers went still against your skin. then his pupils, which had been blown wide with pleasure, suddenly constricted. he blinked, the haziness clearing as his internal "problem-solving mode" kicked back in with a vengeance.
"stay?" he repeated, his voice sounding suddenly small.
"yeah. it's late, and it's cold out. just stay over. we can... i don't know, wake up and have coffee. maybe look at the project again."
jake’s eyes darted toward his hands, then to his backpack, then to the door. the relaxation in his shoulders vanished, replaced by a rigid, frantic tension. he looked like he’d just realised he was standing in the middle of a minefield.
"i—" he started, scrambling to pull his jeans up. he was moving so fast he almost tripped over his own feet. "i can't. i mean, i should... i have that grading to finish. for kim. and i—i didn't bring my toothbrush. or my meds. and my roommate, he—he'll wonder where i am. he gets worried."
"jake, it’s fine, you can borrow—"
"no!" he said, a bit too loudly. he was fumbling with his belt, his fingers shaking so badly he could barely loop it through. he wouldn't look at you. his face wasn't flushed with pleasure anymore; it was pale, his expression twisted into something that looked dangerously like panic. "no, i really should go. i’m sorry. i just... i realised the time. i have to go."
you stood up, feeling a cold, hollow pit open in your stomach. "did i do something wrong? was it... was it too much?"
"no! no, it was... it was amazing," he said, finally getting his shoes on, not even bothering to tie the laces. he grabbed his backpack, clutching it to his chest like a shield. "it was too amazing. that's the... that's the problem. i'm—i'm not good at this. i think i need to... i need to think. logically. about the implications."
"the implications?" you asked, your voice rising with a sharp, hurt edge. "it was just a night, jake. it doesn't have to be a 'logical problem' to solve."
"i know, i know. i'm sorry. i’m just... i'm a mess." he backed toward the door, his hand fumbling for the handle behind his back. "i'll text you? about the project? we still have that deadline on tuesday."
"jake—"
"goodnight! thank you for dinner. the pasta was really... the texture was perfect. okay. bye."
he practically fell out of the door, the sound of his hurried footsteps echoing down the hallway as he sprinted toward the stairs.
the click of the door closing felt final. you stood in the centre of your perfectly decorated, candle-lit apartment, surrounded by the remnants of the dinner you’d spent hours on. the half-empty wine glasses, the bag of expensive cookies, the rumpled rug.
you felt a hot, stinging prickle behind your eyes. you’d done everything right. you’d been strategic, patient, and kind. you’d gotten him to open up, to trust you, to want you. and yet, watching him run away like you were a bug in his code—something to be deleted or fixed—hurt more than any midterm failure ever could.
you sat back down on the couch, the silence of the room suddenly feeling just as oppressive as it had back in the computer lab. you picked up your phone, looking at his last text. this'll be fun :)
you threw the phone onto the cushions and buried your face in your hands, the smell of his citrus shampoo still clinging to your skin, mocking you.
jake didn't text.
you stared at your phone for the entire next day, watching the screen like you could will a message into existence. the "i'll text you" he'd thrown over his shoulder before fleeing felt increasingly like a polite lie. by saturday afternoon you broke first.
you: hey, you okay?
the message sat there. delivered, but no response.
you tried again sunday morning, going for casual.
you: still on for project work this week?
still no response.
by monday you'd moved past confusion into something that felt uncomfortably like panic. this wasn't how things worked. people didn't just. stop responding to you. they didn't ignore you or avoid you or remove you from their orbit like you were some problem to be managed. you were used to being wanted, pursued, the one who had to let people down gently. this reversed dynamic was unfamiliar and honestly humiliating.
you saw him in the dining hall on tuesday. he was with his friends, laughing at something one of them said, looking completely normal. like nothing had happened. like he hadn't been on your couch four days ago falling apart under your touch.
you started walking toward their table before you could think better of it, but jake's eyes flicked up, met yours for a fraction of a second, and then he was standing, gathering his tray, saying something to his friends. they all got up and left. just. left. walked out the side exit while you stood there holding your lunch like an idiot.
yunjin grabbed your arm. "okay, what the hell was that?"
"nothing," you said, but your voice came out wrong.
"that was not nothing. did something happen with you and jake?"
"no. i don't know. it's complicated."
it wasn't complicated. it was actually pretty simple. you'd pushed too hard and now he wanted nothing to do with you.
wednesday he wasn't in his usual spot in lecture. you spent the entire class scanning the room, finally spotting him in the very back corner, a place he'd never sat before. he kept his eyes on his laptop the entire time, didn't look up once. when class ended he was the first one out the door.
thursday was supposed to be tutoring. seven pm, his room or yours, the standing appointment you'd had for weeks now. you waited in your apartment, laptop open to the half-finished project, telling yourself he'd show up. he was responsible and dedicated. he wouldn't just bail without saying anything.
seven came and went. then seven-thirty. by eight you accepted he wasn't coming.
you: are we still working together on the project? i need to know so i can plan accordingly.
again, no response.
friday morning you were walking to class when you saw him ahead of you on the path. for once he hadn't spotted you first. you sped up, closing the distance, and watched in real time as he seemed to sense your presence. his shoulders tensed. then he took a sharp left turn down a path that definitely wasn't toward any of his classes. he was actively avoiding you. taking different routes. altering his entire routine just to not run into you.
something hot and humiliated burned in your chest.
by next week, you'd had enough. you knew his schedule. knew he had algorithms right before lunch on mondays, in the engineering building, third floor. you positioned yourself outside the classroom before class ended, ignoring the curious looks from other students filing out. you spotted jake immediately when the doors opened. he saw you at the same moment and actually stopped walking, causing someone behind him to bump into his back.
"we need to talk," you said.
"i have—i need to get to—"
"jake." your voice came out sharper than intended. "five minutes. please."
something in his expression shifted. resignation maybe. he nodded once, following you to an empty study room down the hall. you closed the door. the small space suddenly felt suffocating.
"you've been ignoring me," you said.
"i know."
"for a week. you didn't text, you didn't show up to tutoring, you're literally avoiding me on campus."
"i know," he said again, quieter. he wasn't looking at you, his eyes fixed somewhere around your shoulder. "i'm sorry. that wasn't— i should have communicated better."
"so communicate now. what's going on?"
jake was quiet for a long moment. when he finally spoke, his voice was careful. measured. "what happened last week. that crossed a line for me."
"we both wanted it."
"did we?" he looked at you now, and there was something in his expression that made your stomach drop. "because i've been thinking about it a lot. about how we got there. and i feel like. i don't know. like maybe i missed something."
"what do you mean?"
"the tutoring," he said. "you didn't actually need it, did you? your grades were already good. and the project. you had friends you could have worked with. people you actually knew. but you picked me." he paused. "why did you pick me?"
the question hung in the air between you. you could lie. deflect. but something about the way he was looking at you, patient and a little sad, made it feel pointless.
"i liked you," you said finally. "i wanted to spend time with you."
"okay." he nodded slowly. "so the tutoring was. what. an excuse? a way to manufacture time together?"
"it wasn't like that."
"wasn't it though?" there was no anger in his voice. just. tiredness. "because from my perspective, i thought i was helping someone who needed help. i thought we were becoming friends. and then suddenly we're… doing that. and i'm trying to figure out when the shift happened and i can't. because maybe there was no shift. maybe that's what you wanted the whole time and i just didn't see it."
"i did want to be your friend," you said, defensive now. "i wasn't. it's not like i was using you."
"weren't you?"
the words hit harder than they should have. because he wasn't wrong. you had used him. used his kindness, his eagerness to help, his complete inability to see through your motivations. you'd engineered situations and manufactured proximity and told yourself it was harmless.
"i like you," jake said, and somehow that made it worse. "i really do. but i feel. god, i don't even know how to explain it. exposed? like you saw something in me that made me an easy target and you just. went for it. and i didn't even realise what was happening until it had already happened."
"that's not—"
"and the thing is," he continued, talking over you gently, "you're so far out of my league. like, objectively. you're smart and pretty and confident and you have your shit together. and i'm just. me. i'm awkward and i ramble and i spend friday nights debugging code for fun. so the fact that you were interested never made sense. i kept waiting for it to click, for me to understand why, and now i think i do. it wasn't about me. it was about. i don't know. the chase? the conquest? i was a project to you."
"no," you said, but your voice came out weak. "jake, that's not true. you weren't a project."
"then what was i?"
you didn't have an answer. or you did, but it was complicated and messy and saying it out loud would mean admitting things you didn't want to admit.
jake sighed. "i'm not trying to be cruel. i'm really not. but being around you right now makes me feel uncomfortable. like i can't trust my own judgement because i didn't see any of this coming. and that's. that's my issue to work through. but i need space to do it."
"what about the class project?"
"we can do it over email. divide up the work, combine it at the end. we don't have to see each other."
"and tutoring?"
"i think we should stop. you don't actually need it anyway."
each sentence felt like a door closing. practical, reasonable, and completely final.
"i'm sorry," you said, and meant it. "i didn't mean to. i wasn't trying to hurt you."
"i know," jake said, and he sounded sincere. "i don't think you set out to do anything malicious. i just think you didn't really consider how it would feel from my side. and now we're here."
"so that's it? we just stop talking?"
"for now, yeah. maybe later we can be normal around each other. but right now i need. distance."
he moved toward the door, his hand on the handle. you wanted to say something, anything that would fix this. some argument that would make him see you differently. but looking at his face, at the quiet certainty there, you knew there was nothing you could say. he'd made up his mind. he'd set a boundary. and you had no choice but to respect it.
"i really am sorry," you said again.
"i know," jake said. "me too."
then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him with that same horrible finality. you stood there in the empty study room, staring at the space where he'd been.
you couldn't even argue with his reasoning. everything he'd said was true. you had manufactured situations. you had used his kindness and his obliviousness to get what you wanted. you'd told yourself it was harmless, that your feelings were real even if your methods were questionable.
but intent didn't matter when the impact was someone feeling manipulated and exposed.
you left the study room feeling hollowed out. the campus looked the same. people laughed and talked and went about their days. somewhere out there jake was probably headed to lunch with his friends, relieved to have finally said what he needed to say.
and you were just. alone. with the sharp realisation that you'd ruined something before it even had a chance to be real.
the party was exactly the kind of loud, chaotic mess you needed. bass thrumming through the floors, bodies packed into every available space, the air thick with sweat and cheap alcohol and too many competing perfumes. yunjin had dragged you here, insisting you needed to "get out of your head" after moping around for two weeks straight.
so here you were. red cup in hand, smile fixed in place, laughing at jokes you weren't really hearing. performing normalcy while your brain kept circling the same thoughts on loop. jake's face in that study room. the careful way he'd said i need space. the hollow feeling that had taken up permanent residence in your chest.
"you good?" beomgyu asked, leaning close to be heard over the music.
"yeah, great," you said automatically, taking another drink.
you were on your third. or fourth. you'd stopped counting. the alcohol sat warm in your stomach but hadn't managed to quiet your thoughts yet. maybe if you drank enough you'd stop replaying every conversation with jake, analysing every moment for signs you'd missed, evidence of how thoroughly you'd fucked everything up.
"i'm gonna get another drink," you said to no one in particular, pushing through the crowd toward the kitchen.
that's when you saw him.
jake. standing near the makeshift bar someone had set up on the counter, red cup in hand, talking to a girl you didn't recognise. and he was laughing. actually laughing, head thrown back, completely at ease in a way that made something hot and ugly twist in your chest.
because he never looked like that with you. even before everything went wrong, even during those tutoring sessions in your apartment when you'd thought you were building something real, he'd always been slightly careful and polite, like he was containing himself. but now he was loose and animated, gesturing with his free hand while the girl laughed at whatever he was saying, her hand resting on his arm.
her hand was on his arm.
you watched as she leaned closer, saying something that made jake grin. that specific grin, the one where his eyes crinkled at the corners and you could see his perfect teeth on display. you'd thought that smile was special. something you'd earned. but apparently he was just like this, with everyone who wasn't you.
the jealousy hit so hard it felt physical. burning through your chest, turning your vision sharp and focused. you were moving before you'd decided to, weaving through people, your jaw clenched so tight it hurt.
jake saw you coming. his smile faltered, something uncertain crossing his face. "hey—"
"who's this?" you said, gesturing at the girl. your voice came out sharper than you'd intended, heavy with something you couldn't quite name.
the girl looked between you and jake, confused. "i'm mina. jungwon's sister remember? we just met like ten minutes ago."
"oh right." you focused on jake, ignoring her entirely. "you look like you're having fun."
"i—yeah?" jake's eyebrows drew together. "it's a party?"
"funny how you can make time for parties but couldn't respond to any of my texts about the assignment."
"i told you we could do it over email—"
"is that what you're doing right now? project work?" you knew you sounded irrational, accusatory, but you couldn't stop. the words kept spilling out, poisoned by alcohol and jealousy and two weeks of feeling like you'd been the only one affected by any of this.
"or are you just. moving on? found someone new to—"
"okay, i'm gonna go," mina said, backing away with her hands up. "this seems like. a thing. nice meeting you, jake."
she disappeared into the crowd. jake stared at you, his expression shifting from confused to something harder. "what the hell was that?"
"you tell me. you've been ignoring me for two weeks and now you're here flirting with random girls?"
"flirting?" jake's voice pitched up slightly. "flirting? i was literally just talking to her. she asked where the bathroom was and then we started chatting about the music. that's—that's not flirting, that's called being polite."
"she had her hand on your arm."
"so?" jake looked genuinely baffled now. "people touch arms when they talk. that doesn't mean anything. and even if it did—" he stopped himself, jaw tightening. "i don't owe you an explanation. you don't get to. we're not together. we're not anything."
the words hit exactly where they were meant to. "right. because you decided we're not."
"no, because you decided we weren't, like a month ago when you started playing games instead of just being honest." his voice was rising now, frustration bleeding through. "and now you're mad because i'm talking to someone else? you don't get to do that. you don't get to manipulate me into something and then act possessive when i try to move on."
"i'm not—" you started, but stopped. because he was right. you were being possessive and irrational. reading intent into a harmless conversation because you wanted there to be something there. wanted confirmation that jake was thinking about you as much as you were thinking about him.
but he wasn't. he was just living his life. talking to people at parties. laughing easily with strangers. completely unaffected while you spiralled.
"i wasn't flirting with her," jake said, quieter now. tired. "i was just being friendly. that's what normal people do. they don't engineer entire relationships or manufacture situations. they just exist around each other."
"i know," you said, your voice coming out smaller than you wanted. "i'm sorry. i shouldn't have. that was out of line."
jake nodded once, already turning away. "yeah. it was."
you watched him disappear back into the crowd, leaving you standing alone by the kitchen counter. your hands were shaking. you downed the rest of your drink in one go, the burn doing nothing to quiet the noise in your head.
you'd just proven everything he'd said about you. possessive. manipulative. unable to let go. you'd projected your own feelings onto a completely innocent interaction and made a scene because you couldn't handle seeing him okay when you were so thoroughly not okay.
you'd been so certain. so sure he was flirting, that the girl meant something, that you'd caught him in some kind of lie. but you'd been wrong. completely, embarrassingly wrong. because you didn't actually know what jake was thinking. you never had. you'd just assumed, projected, filled in the gaps with your own narrative.
and now he was probably telling his friends what a psycho you were. probably regretting he'd ever let you into his life in the first place.
you grabbed another drink.
…
the party had devolved into that late-night haze where everything blurred together. people you didn't recognise, conversations you weren't part of, music that had gotten somehow both quieter and more invasive. you'd lost track of yunjin and beomgyu somewhere around drink number six. or seven. the room tilted slightly when you moved too fast.
you were trying to find your jacket, ready to call it a night, when you spotted him. jake. sitting alone on a couch in the corner, looking absolutely exhausted. his head kept drooping forward like he was fighting to stay conscious, then jerking back up. his eyes were half-closed, his usual careful posture completely abandoned.
you should walk past him. nothing good could come from another interaction tonight. you'd already embarrassed yourself once. but your feet carried you closer anyway, some magnetic pull you couldn't quite resist even knowing it was a bad idea.
you were almost past him when his hand shot out, fingers wrapping around your wrist. "don't," he said, not looking at you. his voice was rough, slurred slightly. "don't leave."
you stopped. "jake—"
"been trying," he mumbled, his grip loosening but not releasing. "trying so hard. but you make it impossible."
"what are you talking about?"
he finally looked up at you, and his eyes were unfocused, glassy with alcohol. "you. i'm talking about you. can't stop thinking about you. it's driving me insane."
your heart lurched. "you're drunk."
"i know but so are you," he said, like that explained everything. "that's the only reason i'm saying this. because sober me knows better. sober me has self-control and boundaries and all that shit." he pulled gently on your wrist, making you stumble slightly closer. "but drunk me is tired. so tired of pretending i don't want you."
"you said you needed space."
"i do need space. because when i'm around you i can't think straight. i can't trust myself." his words were coming out uneven, tripping over each other. "you think i was avoiding you because i was mad? i was avoiding you because if i saw you i'd—" he made a frustrated noise. "i'd do something stupid. like this. this is stupid."
you sat down next to him, his hand still wrapped around your wrist. "jake—"
"you're so pretty," he said, almost accusatory. "and you smell good. and you're smart, like actually smart, not just good at school. and when you laugh it's. it does things to me. and i hate it. i hate that you have this much power over me when i don't even know if you actually like me or if i'm just… convenient."
"i do like you," you said quietly. "i've liked you the whole time."
"but do you?" he turned to face you more fully, his eyes searching yours even though he seemed to be having trouble focusing. "or do you like the idea of me? the nerdy guy you can manipulate? your little project?"
"that's not—" you stopped. "it wasn't like that. it's not like that."
"then what is it like?" he was still holding your wrist, his thumb pressing against your pulse point. "because i've been trying to figure it out for weeks and i can't. i can't understand why you'd want me. what you get out of this. and maybe i'm just stupid but i need you to tell me. plainly. what do you want from me?"
"you," you said, the word coming out more honest than you'd intended. "just. you."
jake laughed, bitter and tired. "that doesn't make sense."
"i know."
"i'm not interesting. i'm not cool or funny or—"
"you are though," you interrupted. "you are all of those things. you just don't see it."
he went quiet for a long moment. then, so quietly you almost missed it: "i've been trying so hard not to want you back. because i knew—i know it's not good for me. but i can't stop. and i'm so tired of trying."
his hand slid from your wrist to your hand, fingers threading through yours. the touch was so much gentler than you expected, almost reverent. "i deleted your texts without reading them," he admitted. "because if i read them i'd respond. and if i responded i'd end up right back where i started. wanting you. letting you in. getting hurt."
"i don't want to hurt you."
"i know. that's what makes it worse." he leaned his head back against the couch, eyes closing. "you don't mean to. you just. do."
you didn't know what to say to that. didn't know how to fix the damage you'd done or convince him that your feelings were real when your actions had been so calculated. so you just sat there, holding his hand, feeling the warmth of him next to you.
"i missed you," jake said, so quiet you barely heard it over the music. "i fucking missed you and i hated myself for it."
"i missed you too."
"yeah?" he opened his eyes, looking at you with something raw and unguarded. "you missed manipulating me?"
"that's not fair."
"isn't it though?" but there was no heat in his words. just exhaustion. "god, i'm so tired. tired of being angry. tired of trying to stay away from you. tired of pretending i don't want you so badly it hurts."
the confession hung in the air between you. jake was looking at you like he was waiting for something, permission or rejection or maybe just confirmation that you'd heard him.
you leaned in. gave him time to pull away, to remember all the reasons this was a bad idea. but he didn't. he met you halfway, his lips crashing against yours with none of the careful hesitation from before. this was messy and desperate, his hand coming up to cup the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair. he kissed you like he'd been holding back for too long, like all that careful control had finally snapped.
you shifted closer, practically climbing into his lap, and he made a sound against your mouth that went straight through you. his hands were everywhere, spanning your waist, sliding up your back, gripping like he was afraid you'd disappear if he loosened his hold even slightly.
"been thinking about this," he mumbled against your lips, barely pulling back enough to speak. "every night. hated myself for it but couldn't stop."
"me too," you admitted, kissing along his jaw. "i couldn't sleep. kept replaying everything."
"i lied about the texts i didn't respond to," he said, tilting his head to give you better access. "i read them. all of them before deleting. at like three am. read them over and over."
"why didn't you answer?"
"because i wanted to say things i shouldn't say. like how much i missed you. how i kept going to the lab hoping you'd be there. how seeing you at the party tonight fucking destroyed me even though i pretended i was fine." his hands tightened on your waist. "how i've been so fucking miserable without you."
you kissed him again, harder this time, swallowing his words. he responded immediately, pulling you fully into his lap now, and you could feel how much he wanted this, wanted you. it was overwhelming. intoxicating. the desperation in every touch, every small sound he made.
"we should," he said between kisses, "we should probably stop."
"do you want to stop?"
"no. god no." he pulled back just enough to look at you, his pupils blown, lips swollen. "but i'm drunk and you're drunk and tomorrow we're gonna regret—"
"i won't," you said firmly. "i won't regret this."
something shifted in his expression. softened. he touched your face with a gentleness that made your chest ache, thumb brushing across your cheekbone. "you're gonna break my heart," he said, not quite a question.
"i'm not."
"you will." but he kissed you anyway, softer this time. slower. like he was memorising the feel of you. "and i'm gonna let you. because i'm weak and pathetic and i want you so much i don't even care anymore."
"you're not weak."
"i am though." he rested his forehead against yours, eyes closing. "i'm so weak for you. it's embarrassing."
you could feel his exhaustion creeping in, the way his body was getting heavier against yours, his movements slowing. "come on," you said softly, standing and pulling him up with you. "let's get you somewhere you can actually sleep."
"don't wanna sleep," he protested, but let you guide him anyway. "wanna stay with you."
"you will. i'm not going anywhere."
you found an empty bedroom on the second floor, the door unlocked and the bed mercifully unoccupied. jake collapsed onto it immediately, pulling you down with him. he was asleep within minutes, his arms wrapped around you, face buried in your neck. his breathing evened out, deep and steady.
you should probably feel guilty. taking advantage of his drunken honesty, letting him confess things he'd normally keep locked away. but you were too tired, too overwhelmed by everything he'd said. i want you so badly it hurts. i've been so fucking miserable without you. you're gonna break my heart and i'm gonna let you.
you didn't have answers. didn't have promises you could make. didn't know how to fix the fundamental imbalance between you, the manipulation and hurt that had gotten you here.
but for now, in this quiet room with jake's warmth pressed against you, you could pretend tomorrow didn't exist. could pretend this was simple. just two people who wanted each other, tangled together in the dark, nothing more complicated than that.
you fell asleep still wearing your shoes, jake's arms tight around you, his heartbeat steady against your chest.
you woke to pale morning light filtering through unfamiliar curtains and the warm weight of jake still wrapped around you. for a disorienting moment you couldn't place where you were. then it came back in pieces. the party. the confrontation. jake's drunken confessions. falling asleep tangled together.
jake stirred against you, his breath catching as he woke. you felt the exact moment awareness returned, the way his body went tense. slowly, carefully, he pulled back just enough to look at you. his hair was a disaster, sticking up in every direction. his glasses sat crooked on the nightstand. his eyes were cautious but clear.
"hi," he said quietly.
"hi."
he didn't let go of you. didn't immediately scramble away or apologise or retreat into panic like last time. he just looked at you, searching your face for something.
"i said a lot of things last night," he finally said.
"yeah."
"i meant them." his voice was serious, steady despite the embarrassment colouring his cheeks. "i know i was drunk, and i probably shouldn't have said half of it, but. i meant it. all of it."
your heart kicked up. "jake—"
"i like you," he said, cutting you off gently. "i've liked you since that first night in the lab when you were stressed about your code and i got to actually help you with something. and it's been killing me trying to stay away from you because every time i see you i just. want you. so much that it scares me."
"why does it scare you?"
"because i don't know how to want someone this much and still protect myself." he shifted slightly, propping himself up on one elbow so he could see you better. "last time i didn't protect myself at all. i just. gave in. and then i panicked because it felt too big, too fast, and i didn't know how to handle it."
"and now?"
"now i'm still terrified," he admitted. "but i'm more scared of not trying. of walking away and spending the rest of college wondering what could have happened if i'd just. been brave enough to give you a real chance."
you felt something tight in your chest start to loosen. "i want that. a real chance. i want to do this right."
"yeah?"
"yeah." you reached up, brushing his messy hair back from his forehead. "i'm sorry. for all of it. the manipulation, the games, not being honest about what i wanted. you deserved better than that."
"i know," jake said simply. then, softer: "but i also know you were scared too. just in a different way."
he leaned down, kissing you with a gentleness that made your chest ache. different from last night's desperate intensity. this was slow, careful, almost questioning. you kissed him back, trying to pour everything you couldn't quite say into it. apology and promise and want all tangled together.
when he pulled back his eyes were dark, pupils blown. "i want to try again," he said. "properly this time. but i need you to be honest with me. about what you want. about what this is."
"i want you," you said. "not as a project or a conquest or whatever i convinced myself it was before. just you jake."
something in his expression softened. "okay," he said. "okay. we can work with that."
he kissed you again, deeper this time, and you felt his weight settle more fully over you. "i want to make it up to you," he murmured against your lips. "for running away before. for making you feel like you did something wrong when i was just scared."
"you don't have to—"
"i want to." he was already kissing down your neck, hands sliding under your shirt. "let me. please."
there was something in his voice, almost pleading, that made you nod. he smiled against your skin, helping you out of your clothes with more confidence than he'd had before. when you were bare beneath him he just. looked. taking his time, hands mapping your body like he was memorising every detail.
"you're so pretty," he said, almost reverent. "i thought about this. about you. so many times."
then he was moving lower, pressing kisses down your stomach, your hip bones, the inside of your thighs. when his breath ghosted over where you needed him most you couldn't help the small sound that escaped.
"tell me if anything's too much," he said, glancing up at you. then he lowered his mouth to you and your brain short-circuited.
he started slowly, almost tentatively, like he was learning you. his tongue moved in careful strokes, testing what made you gasp, what made your hips shift toward him. when he found the rhythm that had your fingers tightening in his hair, he made a low, satisfied sound against you that you felt everywhere.
"jake," you breathed, and he looked up at you through his lashes, pupils blown wide, lips glistening with your arousal.
"tell me," he said, voice rough. "tell me what feels good."
"that—" your words cut off as he did it again, tongue flicking over your clit with that same perfect pressure. "right there. just like that."
he was a quick learner. always had been. he catalogued every reaction, every sound you made, adjusting and refining. except this wasn't detached or analytical. this was hungry. desperate. he sucked your clit into his mouth and you moaned, loud and unrestrained, your thighs trembling on either side of his head.
"fuck, jake—"
"god, you taste so good," he mumbled against your pussy, barely pulling back enough to speak. his chin was wet, his glasses fogged slightly. "been thinking about this. wanted to do this right last time."
he was getting lost in it now, the careful control slipping into something messier, greedier. he alternated between focused attention on your clit and broad, indulgent strokes through your folds, like he couldn't decide between making you fall apart and simply savouring you. his tongue pushed inside you and you keened, your back arching off the bed.
"oh my god," you gasped. "jake, your mouth—"
he moaned against you, the vibration making your thighs clench around his head. he didn't seem to mind, just gripped your hips harder, pulled you closer, like he wanted to suffocate in your pussy. when his fingers joined his mouth, sliding through your wetness before pressing inside, you nearly sobbed.
"so wet," he murmured, almost to himself.
he crooked his fingers, finding that spot inside you that made you cry out, and worked it mercilessly while his tongue circled your clit. the dual sensation was overwhelming, pleasure building so fast you couldn't catch your breath. your fingers tightened in his hair, probably painful, but he just groaned and doubled his efforts.
"jake, i'm—fuck, i'm gonna—"
"i know," he said against you, his voice wrecked. "i can feel it. let go for me."
his fingers thrust deeper, faster, his mouth sucking hard on your clit, and you shattered. your orgasm hit like a shockwave, your whole body going taut as pleasure whited out your vision. you were dimly aware of the sounds you were making—high, desperate whimpers and moans—but you couldn't stop them.
jake moaned against you, the sound vibrating through your core, and he didn't let up. he worked you through it with devastating patience, his tongue lapping up everything you gave him like he was starving for it.
"jake," you gasped, trying to push at his head. "too much—"
but he just whined—actually whined—and gripped your thighs tighter, keeping them spread. "please," he mumbled against your pussy, his words muffled and desperate. "please, just one more. need to feel you come again. please."
"i can't—" but your protest died as he sealed his lips around your clit again, sucking gently, his fingers still working inside you. the overstimulation was almost painful but it was already shifting into something else, something that had you gasping and arching into his mouth instead of away from it.
he was making sounds now—desperate, needy whimpers and moans that vibrated against you. he was rutting against the mattress, you realised dimly, seeking friction while he lost himself in eating you out. his hair was a mess from your fingers, and he looked absolutely wrecked.
"so good," he whined between licks. "taste so good. could do this forever. please let me—need to make you come again—"
he was babbling now, drunk on you, his movements getting messier and more desperate. his tongue worked your clit in frantic circles while his fingers curled inside you, and the pleasure was building again impossibly fast. you were so sensitive that every touch felt electric, overwhelming.
"that's it," he gasped, feeling you start to tighten around his fingers. "yeah, give it to me. please, please—"
your second orgasm hit even harder than the first, ripping through you with an intensity that had you crying out his name, your thighs clamping around his head. jake moaned like he was the one coming, his hips jerking against the mattress as he worked you through it, tongue lapping up everything, fingers gentling but not stopping until you were actually sobbing from oversensitivity.
only then did he pull back, and when he finally lifted his head he looked completely gone. his face was flushed and wet, his eyes glazed and unfocused, his lips swollen and red. he looked drunk on you, his eyes unfocused and dark.
"fuck," he breathed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "you're so hot when you come. the sounds you make—"
you pulled him up into a kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue, feeling the way he groaned into your mouth. his cock was rock hard against your thigh, leaking and desperate.
"your turn," you said, reaching down to wrap your hand around him.
he hissed at the contact, his hips jerking forward. "you don't have to—"
"i want to." you stroked him slowly, base to tip, feeling how hot and heavy he was in your palm. precum leaked from the slit and you used it to ease the glide. "you're so hard, jake. does eating my pussy turn you on that much?"
"fuck—" his voice broke. "yes. god, yes. you have no idea."
"tell me." you tightened your grip slightly and he whimpered. actually whimpered. "tell me what you were thinking about."
"i was thinking—" he gasped when your thumb swept over the sensitive head. "thinking about how good you taste. how you were shaking. how i could feel you clenching and i wanted—wanted to be inside you—"
"yeah?" you stroked him faster, loving the way his abs tensed, the way his thighs trembled. "you want to fuck me, jake?"
"so bad," he choked out.
you guided him between your legs, not quite inside yet, just letting the head of his cock slide through your wetness. he made a strangled sound, his whole body shuddering.
"we should—do you have—" he was trying to think through the haze of arousal, being responsible even now. "condom?"
"pill," you said. "i'm on the pill. and i'm clean. tested recently."
"me too. clean, i mean." his cock twitched against you, smearing precum through your folds. "can i—fuck, can i feel you bare?"
"yes," you breathed. "want to feel all of you."
he positioned himself at your entrance, the thick head pressing against you, and even that felt like too much. he pushed in slowly, so slowly, and the stretch was intense. you were wet enough that he slid in smoothly at first, but the sheer size of him was overwhelming.
"oh fuck," you gasped, your hands flying to his shoulders. "jake, you're so—you're so big—"
"i know, i'm sorry—" he froze, only halfway in. "am i hurting you?"
"no, don't stop," you urged, your legs wrapping around his hips to pull him deeper. "just—go slow. need to adjust."
he sank in another inch and you both moaned. he was splitting you open, stretching you so full you could barely breathe. when he finally bottomed out, buried completely inside you, he dropped his forehead to yours.
"oh my god," he choked out. "you're so tight. so fucking tight and wet and—i can't—"
"don't move yet," you managed, clenching around him involuntarily. he was so deep you could feel him everywhere, pressing against spots that made your toes curl. "just let me—fuck—"
"you feel incredible," he said, his voice shaking. "i've never—nothing compares to this."
you tightened around him experimentally and he swore, his hips jerking forward. "sorry, sorry," he gasped. "i'm trying to hold still but when you do that i want to—"
"want to what?" you rolled your hips slightly and he groaned, deep and guttural.
"want to move," he admitted, his control clearly fraying. "want to fuck you."
"then do it," you said.
something in him snapped. he pulled almost all the way out and thrust back in hard, the force of it punching a cry from your lips. he did it again, and again, finding a rhythm that was deep and relentless. the bed creaked beneath you, the headboard hitting the wall with each thrust.
"yes," you gasped, your nails digging into his shoulders. "just like that—don't stop—"
"god," he panted, his voice wrecked. "you feel so good."
you looked down between your bodies and moaned at the sight—his thick cock disappearing into you, glistening with your wetness, stretching you obscenely. "jake, oh my god—"
"feel how deep i am?" he thrust particularly hard and you keened.
"yes—fuck yes—"
he wasn't being careful anymore, wasn't being gentle. he fucked into you with abandon, each thrust hitting that spot inside you that made sparks shoot up your spine. the sounds were obscene—skin slapping against skin, the wet slide of his cock, his grunts mixing with your moans.
"wanted this," he said against your neck, his breath hot. "wanted you. for so long."
"tell me more," you demanded, loving this unfiltered version of him.
"thought about this constantly," he admitted, his thrusts getting harder. "thought about having you like this. making you feel good. hearing you say my name."
"jake—" you were getting close again, that familiar tension building low in your belly.
"touch yourself," he said. "want to feel you come on my cock. need it. please."
you slid your hand between your bodies, finding your clit, already swollen and sensitive. the added stimulation made you clench around him and he swore, his rhythm faltering.
"that's it," he encouraged, his eyes fixed on where your fingers worked. "fuck, that's so hot. you're so hot. make yourself cum. let me feel it."
you worked your clit in tight circles, the pressure building faster with each thrust of his cock. he was so deep, hitting all the right spots, the slide of him inside you absolutely perfect. you were making sounds you'd never made before—high, desperate whines and gasps.
"close," you managed. "so close—"
"come for me," he urged, his voice strained. "squeeze my cock. want to feel your pussy milk me. come on, baby, let me feel it—"
the orgasm hit you like lightning, sudden and intense. you cried out his name, your whole body convulsing, your pussy clamping down on him rhythmically. waves of pleasure crashed over you, so intense you forgot how to breathe.
"oh fuck," jake choked out, his hips stuttering. "you're—i can feel you—i'm gonna—"
he tried to last, you could see it in the tension of his jaw, the way his arms were shaking. but your pussy was still fluttering around him, still clenching in aftershocks, and it was too much. he buried himself deep with a broken moan, his cock pulsing inside you as he came. you felt the warmth of it, felt him fill you up, and the intimacy of it made something in your chest crack open.
"fuck," he gasped, collapsing on top of you. "oh my god. that was—i've never—"
you wrapped your arms around him, both of you breathing hard, hearts racing in sync. he was still inside you, softening slowly, and you could feel his release leaking out around his cock.
"that was amazing," you said when you could finally speak. "you were amazing."
he lifted his head to look at you, his expression soft and vulnerable. "i think i might be falling for you," he said quietly. "is that okay? am i allowed to say that?"
your throat felt tight with emotion. "yeah. that's okay."
"good." he kissed you gently, sweetly. "because i don't think i could stop even if you told me to."
he pulled out carefully and you both hissed at the sensitivity. immediately he was gathering you into his arms, pulling you against his chest like he couldn't stand not touching you. you fit there perfectly, your head tucked under his chin.
"we should probably talk about this," you said after a while. "about us."
"we will," jake promised, his fingers tracing patterns on your spine. "but can we just stay like this for a bit first?"
"yeah." you pressed closer, breathing in the scent of him. "we can stay like this."
and you did. stayed tangled together as the morning light grew stronger, as the sounds of people leaving the party filtered up through the floor. his cum was still leaking out of you, making a mess on your thighs, but neither of you moved to clean up. you just held each other in this new, tentative peace.
jake changed almost overnight once you started dating. it was like giving him permission to want you openly had flipped some switch in his brain. suddenly he was everywhere.
he'd show up at your door before your 9 am lecture with coffee, your exact order memorised, his hair still messy from sleep because he'd woken up early just to see you. he'd kiss you goodbye and then text you five minutes later with some random thought he forgot to mention. did you know that octopuses have three hearts? just learnt that. thought you should know.
in class he'd sit next to you instead of in his usual back corner spot, his knee always pressed against yours under the desk. sometimes his hand would find its way to your thigh, just resting there, his thumb tracing absent patterns while he tried to focus on the lecture. you'd catch him staring at you instead of his laptop, and when you'd raise an eyebrow he'd just smile, unashamed.
"you're distracting," he'd whisper.
"i'm literally just sitting here."
"i know. it's very distracting."
study sessions became impossible. you'd be explaining a concept and he'd lean over to kiss your shoulder, your neck, the corner of your mouth. "jake, i'm trying to help you."
"i know, keep going," he'd say, already doing it again.
"you're not even listening."
"i am. you were talking about. um." he'd grin sheepishly. "okay i wasn't listening. but you're just so pretty when you're focused."
your friends noticed immediately. yunjin had taken one look at jake's arm slung around your shoulders at lunch, the way he was playing with your hair while talking to beomgyu, and pulled you aside.
"okay so he's like. obsessed with you," she said. "it's actually kind of cute. in a golden retriever kind of way."
"he's not obsessed."
"babe, he just offered to carry your bag even though your apartment is literally three minutes away. and he's been smiling at you for the past ten minutes like you hung the moon. it's obsessed behaviour."
but she said it fondly, and later you caught her telling beomgyu that she'd never seen you this relaxed before. "she's not performing," yunjin had said. "she's just. being."
and she was right. with jake you didn't have to strategise or calculate or perform anything. he wanted you. obviously, openly, without games or subtext. when you showed up to his place in sweats and no makeup, he'd light up like you'd dressed up specifically for him. when you stole his hoodies, he'd just buy more so you could steal those too.
"i like seeing you in my clothes," he'd admitted once, pulling you close. "makes me feel like. i don't know. like you're mine."
"possessive," you'd teased.
"is that bad?"
"no," you'd said, kissing him. "i like it."
jake's friends had their own reactions. you'd been nervous meeting them properly, remembering that disastrous first encounter at the party. but they'd welcomed you easily, even if they did give jake endless shit.
"dude, you're so whipped," his roommate said, watching jake immediately get up to refill your drink without being asked.
"and?" jake had said, completely unbothered.
"and nothing, it's just funny. remember when you said you'd never be that guy who drops everything for someone? and now you're literally—"
"finish that sentence and i'm not helping you with discrete math anymore."
but he was smiling when he said it, and later his roommate told you that jake talked about you constantly. "it's honestly annoying how happy he is."
the thing was, you were happy too. unexpectedly, overwhelmingly happy. jake made you sharper somehow, more focused. when you studied together you actually retained information because he made learning feel collaborative instead of competitive. he celebrated your successes like they were his own, staying up with you before big presentations, bringing you stress-relief snacks, sending you encouraging texts.
and you did the same for him. learnt his patterns, his tells when he was overwhelmed. you'd show up at the lab with dinner when you knew he'd been working for hours. you'd run your fingers through his hair when he was stressed, and he'd melt into your touch, all that tension draining away.
"you make everything easier," he'd told you once, late at night when you were both too tired to filter. "like the world's less heavy when you're around."
"that's the cheesiest thing you've ever said."
"i know. i mean it though."
weeks blurred together in the best way. stolen kisses between classes. jake's hand always finding yours. the way he'd kiss you goodbye at your door and then text you goodnight five minutes later even though he lived one floor up. movie nights that turned into makeout sessions on your couch, jake's glasses getting in the way until you carefully removed them, setting them aside so you could kiss him properly.
he got clingy when he was tired, wrapping around you like a koala, mumbling into your neck. "don't leave."
"i'm just going to get water."
"too far. stay."
"jake, i'll be gone thirty seconds."
"thirty seconds too long."
you'd laugh, running your fingers through his hair until he fell asleep, and feel something warm and settled in your chest. this was what it was supposed to feel like.
the beach had been jake's idea. "there's supposed to be a meteor shower tonight," he'd said, eyes lighting up behind his glasses. "and i know this spot that's perfect for stargazing. barely any light pollution. we could bring blankets, make a whole thing of it?"
so here you were, sitting on a blanket in the sand while the ocean crashed softly in the background. the sky was impossibly clear, stars scattered across it like someone had spilt diamonds. jake lay with his head in your lap, one of your hands playing with his hair while he pointed up at the sky.
"okay, so see those seven stars there?" he traced a pattern with his finger. "that's the big dipper, which is part of ursa major. but if you follow those two stars at the edge, they point directly to polaris. the north star."
you hummed, only half listening to the actual words. you were too busy watching him. the way his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, how animated his expressions were when he talked about something he loved. the moonlight caught on his features, highlighting the sharp line of his jaw, the soft curve of his lips.
"and that one—" he was still going, completely absorbed. "that's cassiopeia. she was a queen in greek mythology who bragged about being more beautiful than the sea nymphs, so poseidon punished her by placing her in the sky upside down. you can see how the constellation kind of looks like a W? that's her throne."
"jake," you said softly.
"oh, and if you look over there, that really bright one? that's actually venus, not a star. common misconception. planets don't twinkle like stars do because—"
you leaned down and kissed him, cutting off his rambling mid-sentence. he made a surprised sound but responded immediately, his hand coming up to cup the back of your neck. when you pulled back he followed your lips automatically, trying to chase another kiss.
"you were saying?" you teased.
"i—" he blinked up at you, slightly dazed. "what was i saying?"
"something about venus."
"right. venus. because of the. um." he lost his train of thought as you leaned down again, kissing him slower this time. "you're distracting me from the meteor shower."
"am i?"
"yeah. very effectively." but he was smiling, pulling you down for another kiss.
you shifted, moving to straddle his lap properly. jake's hands immediately found your waist, sliding under your shirt to rest against bare skin.
the kissing turned heated quickly. jake made these small, needy sounds that drove you crazy, his hands roaming over your back, your sides, anywhere he could reach. when you rolled your hips experimentally he gasped into your mouth, his grip tightening.
"fuck," he whispered. "you're gonna kill me."
you kissed down his jaw, his neck, feeling his pulse racing under your lips. his hands had moved to your hips now, guiding your movements, and you could feel how affected he was. "still thinking about the stars?" you teased.
"what stars?" he pulled you down for another bruising kiss, one hand tangling in your hair. "can't think about anything except you."
you ground down harder and jake made a sound that was almost a whine, his head falling back against the blanket. "please," he gasped. "please, i need—"
suddenly, the loud, insistent beeping of his watch interrupted the moment.
you both froze.
jake's face went bright red as he fumbled with his wrist. "oh my god. oh my god. it's my fitness watch. it thinks i'm exercising because my heart rate—" another beep. "make it stop."
you couldn't help it. you burst out laughing, burying your face in his shoulder while his watch continued its concerned beeping about his elevated heart rate. "it's not funny," jake groaned, still trying to silence the watch. "this is so embarrassing."
"it's a little funny."
"my watch just cockblocked me. there's nothing funny about that."
you kissed his jaw, still giggling. "i think it's cute. your heart rate got that high just from kissing me?"
"you were not just kissing me, you were—" he made a frustrated noise. "yes. okay. yes. you have that effect on me. are you happy?"
"very." you settled against his chest, feeling his heartbeat still racing under your ear. the watch had finally stopped beeping. "for what it's worth, my heart's doing the same thing."
"yeah?" he wrapped his arms around you, holding you close.
"yeah."
you lay there together, the ocean providing a steady soundtrack, the stars scattered above you. jake pressed a kiss to the top of your head. "i love you," he said softly. "in case that wasn't obvious from the way my watch literally staged an intervention."
you lifted your head to look at him. his eyes were soft, open, vulnerable in the moonlight. "i love you too," you said, meaning it completely.
he smiled, that full, genuine smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. then he kissed you again, sweet and unhurried, his hands gentle on your face.
"we should probably head back soon," you murmured eventually. "it's getting late."
"five more minutes," jake said, pulling you closer. "just. let me hold you for five more minutes."
you settled back against him, his arms wrapped securely around you, both of you looking up at the vast sky. you'd come here to watch a meteor shower but you'd been too distracted by each other to notice if any had passed.
somehow, you didn't mind at all.
"hey," jake said softly. "thank you."
"for what?"
"for giving me another chance. for being patient with me while i figured my shit out. for. this. all of it." his arms tightened around you. "i know i was difficult at first."
"you weren't difficult. you were protecting yourself. i get it now."
"still. you could have given up on me. but you didn't."
"of course i didn't," you said, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "you're worth it. you've always been worth it."
jake made a soft, overwhelmed sound, burying his face in your hair. "i'm gonna marry you someday," he mumbled. "just so you know."
"jake—"
"not now. obviously not now. but someday. when we've graduated and figured our lives out and i can actually afford a ring. i'm gonna marry you."
you felt your chest go tight with emotion. "okay," you whispered. "someday."
"yeah. someday."
you stayed like that until the cold started seeping in, until you were both shivering despite being pressed together. finally, reluctantly, you packed up the blanket and headed back to campus. jake held your hand the entire walk, occasionally pulling you close to kiss you at random intervals.
"what was that for?" you asked after the third surprise kiss.
"just because," he said, smiling. "because i can. because i love you. do i need more reasons?"
"no," you said, kissing him back. "no more reasons needed."
if you liked this please comment or reblog to give me your feedback! <3
❝ y/n, please stop calling my clone the freakatron 3000. ❞
PAIRING ▸ jake sim x fem!reader
GENRES ▸ psychological horror, crack, sci-fi, angst, some fluff
WARNINGS ▸ profanity, implied sex but nothing explicit, murder, questionable ethics, jake cutely spirals into madness as he breaks every lab safety protocol ever, jayke's tom and jerry dynamic, depersonalization, everyone's a few shades darker than morally grey, jay on some doofenshmirtz ass villainry, ft. interns kim sunoo & jang wonyoung
SUMMARY ▸ world-renowned inventor jake sim creates the prometheus prototype, a machine that allows one to create copies of themselves. with his insatiable thirst for science overpowering all restraint, jake must hide his creation from his best friend (who's also—horrifyingly enough—his boss), jay park; his high-strung intern, kim sunoo; but not you, his enigmatic coworker he's had his eye on for years. jake is now somewhere between the flesh, the machine, and the divine, stuck in an endless cycle of succumbing to the rot by his own hands. he won't lose his mind trying to become something bigger than he is. he won't.
alternatively, once greatness abandons mortality, a new god is born.
WORD COUNT ▸ 23,400 words
PLAYLIST ▸ puddles by not for radio • pretty when you cry by lana del rey • i bet on losing dogs by mitski • to by yerin baek • calm myself by sunmi
AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ this was inspired by mickey 17 (incredible movie btw) hope u enjoy reading!!
IMPORTANT please read!
i'm doing an event for this fic to donate to sudani women in refugee camps and women in congo! please check out the full details here
SO, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED IN THE MIDST OF HIS GENIUS, JAKE SIM HAD A MINOR PREDICAMENT.
Normally, these hiccups rarely phased him. He wasn’t one to brag about it—in fact, he despised those who peacocked about—but Jake was what people would consider a child prodigy. From the moment he was introduced to numbers, Jake could scramble those integers into something more complex, something real, and he saw patterns that none of his peers could identify.
They called him a gift from God, but Jake wasn’t devout in the slightest; his God was nuclear, existing in the quantum vacuum between the nucleus and its electrons. His God didn't speak to him through a burning bush but through equations. Mathematics became his scripture.
In a sense, his future was set from a young age. A stroke of luck led him to becoming close friends with Jay Park, the heir to Park Industries; his high school passion projects got him invitations to speak at conferences; and he managed to end up on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list four years in a row. Sure, it was largely due to his connection to Jay that boosted his name in the tech industry, but Jake never took his opportunities for granted. He worked to the bone to make a name for himself and to put his inventions out there.
Jake knew he could take the world far with creations birthed from his own two hands.
He, after all, was the star intern of Park Industries. Almost everyone working for the company knew of his story, how he interviewed for their summer program during his junior year of high school and hadn’t stopped working since. After assisting Dr. Oscar Diaz with his research on the use of CRISPR-Cas9 to repair human tissue, Jake was praised so highly for his help that he was offered a part-time position throughout his undergraduate degree. MIT hardly mattered now that Jake had a leg-up in the industry (although he still managed to make the President’s List consecutively with a 3.9 GPA and graduated summa cum laude).
Years later, after Jay took over his father’s position at the company (at a shockingly young age, reporters noted), Jake was granted his own lab at the age of 25.
Some called it nepotism because of the strings Jake had to pull with Jay to obtain his own space, and some called it the well-deserved fruits of Jake’s labor.
He liked the sound of the latter, but if he was going to be honest, Jake would have to agree with the former; no matter how shiny of a gem his brain was, there was no company executive on the planet that had the same streak of rash judgement that his dear friend did. Even Jay’s father didn’t exactly exude an air of responsibility with the way he retired early to play golf at overpriced country clubs. Several complaints came in about Jay’s unreasonable decisions, which the newly-minted CEO simply replied to with the link of the Forbes article that had Jake’s face plastered on the cover. Take it up with the 30 Under 30 list, was what his message for them seemed to be.
Jake wasn’t complaining, though. If he had to step over some heads to climb the ladder of success, so be it.
There were failures, of course, but his pushes forward were always bigger than any setback he ever encountered. Six years ago, his proposal to create synthetic bio-organs was nearly ripped to shreds, but Jake spent countless nights pushing for his work to be recognized, for someone to see potential in it. And, at the mere age of 26, his bio-organs became revolutionary in the medtech industry. Naturally, his minor predicaments paled in comparison to his glowing accomplishments.
But what bothered him were the whispers. There was no doubt that Jake was smart, but for someone who conveniently landed all the right connections, it was easy to question his genius—whether he truly deserved to stand where he did. He had to pull off something huge.
The bar was set high, and he chucked it somewhere stratospheric.
It took an elevator trip, three ID scans, and one fingerprint scan to get into Jake’s laboratory. The space was basically his second home. He had a kitchenette, a mattress on the floor, a company-issued Keurig, and every single tool at his disposal to craft wonders. What more could he ask for?
The reason why Jake requested a private laboratory was because he was working on something extraordinary. With all of the work he had done in bioengineering, Jake started secretly working on something that would elevate him to God status in the biotech world.
The Prometheus Prototype.
He knew that it was dangerous to play God, but who said he couldn’t try getting close? Icarus flew too close to the sun, but he still flew all the same, didn’t he? Jake could operate at a distance, and then he was sure he would be able to soar over the sun, over its blazing rays.
He had been working on the Prometheus Project for years until he finally got approved for the funding to go ahead with his invention. Of course, Jake had many, many meetings with several ethical review boards (all of whom he lied to) and had many NDAs signed, but he knew what he was getting himself into.
He was creating a machine that could clone humans, after all.
It was inside his mammoth of a laboratory—far past appropriate working hours for him to call his intern, Kim Sunoo, for help—where Jake was experiencing a slight inconvenience.
At first he thought he was delirious from the lack of sleep, but no matter how long Jake gawked for, there was no doubt that the man standing across from him was… himself?
Oh, shit, was Jake’s first thought.
This is bad, was Jake’s second thought.
“You’re so fucked right now,” said the Jake duplicate, who vocalized what happened to also be the real Jake’s third thought.
Earlier in the evening, Jake stayed back in the lab to test the Neural Entanglement component they had just developed. It was the final part for the Prometheus Prototype—not that it was ready for testing, but the machine was finally whole. The Neural Entanglement device was responsible for making a copy of Jake’s consciousness and memories to transfer into the new body.
The process of uploading a copy of his brain scan took several hours, considering he had to remain perfectly still with several electrode sensors attached to him. Plus, Jake hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep in weeks, so could he really be blamed for dozing off during the process?
What he could be blamed for, however, was accidentally triggering the machine to transfer his printed consciousness into a new body. And because the machine only had Jake’s genetic information stored, the assembled body was an identical copy of him.
Good news: it worked.
Bad news: it worked.
Jake wasn’t sure how long he was asleep for, but his doppelganger didn’t seem to be in a hostile or distressed state, much to his relief. Being the first subject from the Prometheus Prototype, things could’ve gone very wrong.
The clone did, however, come out completely naked. Jake had to sacrifice a lab coat so that his duplicate could maintain some decorum.
But, once again—hiccups aside—Jake was a fucking genius. Yeah, they called him the Einstein of the 21st century for a reason, and perhaps this breakthrough would put him up there with the greats.
“Okay,” Jake started shakily, fumbling for his glasses before placing them on the bridge of his nose. He reached for a pen and started scribbling on the first piece of paper within reach. “You can speak coherently, you can move around just fine, you seem to have the same proportions as me, and…”
“And my dick’s still the same size, yes,” the clone finished.
Jake paused, then frowned.
“How’d you know I was thinking about that?”
“I think you should be asking yourself why you were thinking about that,” his duplicate retaliated. Jake added the word smartass to the list of observations he was compiling. “We share the same brain with the same memories up until this moment. I know you better than anyone else does.”
“Fascinating,” Jake breathed out. “Let’s call you Jake-001—Jake One for short.”
“Jake One? That’s kinda boring. Can’t I be, like, Alpha Jake?”
He made a noncommittal sound. “No—too omegaverse for me.”
PROMETHEUS PROJECT / JAKE-001 LOG:
04:12:45 // Basic biological functions stable
04:15:11 // Delayed motor functions
04:36:09 // Brain scans show abnormal activity in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex in the dorsolateral and ventromedial regions
04:42:55 // Impulsive speech and actions with little regard for consequences, likely due to the damage to the prefrontal cortex
04:43:08 // No clue how the amygdala is affected yet
04:43:12 // He’s almost perfect
It was nearing 5 a.m. by the time Jake started to feel anxious about the whole situation. In the next hour, Kim Sunoo would come bursting through the door with two coffees in hand and his ID card between his teeth. An hour after that, Jay would waltz in without a care in the world, complaining about some shareholder meeting he had later in the day.
Jay was the one person who absolutely couldn’t see Jake One right now. His best friend would call for a press conference immediately for Jake to share his breakthrough with the world, for Park Industries to become a heavy-hitter in the field of artificial intelligence. By no means could Jake let anything about the Prometheus Project get out to the public. He didn’t even clue the CEO in on how much progress he made with Sunoo; his work always came first because Jake knew that, at the end of the day, everyone around him was frantically trying to get to the top.
Moreover, if Jake was discovered, this would be a huge ethical problem. He was 100% not supposed to create a clone of himself already, and the fact that he tested on himself before using lab mice was a violation of dozens of ethical standards.
There were three things Jake needed to do: give Sunoo the day off, convince the poor intern that he wasn’t getting fired, and figure out a way to get Jake One out of the high-security building.
He knocked out the first two pretty easily. The easiest way to convince Sunoo not to come in for work without raising suspicion was by assigning him unrelated busy work.
Jake: The Neural Entanglement device is still on standby so you don’t have to come in today
Sunoo: ??? whatttt
Sunoo: but i’m on the subway rn :(
Jake: I need you to run some errands instead. I’ve forwarded a list of things we need to order. Can you get that done?
Jake: Also if you can draft this week’s progress report that would be great
Jake: You can present at the stakeholder meeting next week
Sunoo: yes i can!! :D so excited yay!!!
Kim Sunoo should’ve been grateful that he was incredibly brilliant and had a young innovator like Jake Sim as his boss. If he spoke to anyone else like that, he really would’ve been reprimanded or fired by now.
Now that his nosy intern was out of the way, Jake had to get through a morning briefing while leaving Jake One unsupervised. He was unsure of whether his clone would be able to stay in place, but Jake One did have the same level of intelligence as the original Jake, so he had to be somewhat trustworthy.
And Jake One was technically… him—at a genetic level, even. They must’ve shared the same interests and tastes, too.
“You like ramen, don’t you?”
Jake One’s eyes lit up. “Ramen?”
“There’s a kitchenette through that door over there,” Jake said. “Knock yourself out if you get hungry. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Jake was confident in his ability to bullshit his way through life.
It helped that most people deeply trusted him. He was a rising star among innovators across the world, so why would anyone doubt him in the first place? Thanks to his reputation, it was easy to get by with minimal effort. That was exactly how he got through his morning debrief without getting grilled for not having concrete results to show.
But he knew he had results, and that was what mattered. In fact, the outcome of his results was currently making ramen in his laboratory.
Now, he had to figure out a way to get his double out of the building without raising suspicion. Perhaps he could cover Jake One up and sneak him out, but the problem was security cameras were littered along the hallways of Park Industries. If the situation were to escalate, Jake wouldn’t have an answer for how one person entered his lab and two people left.
On his way to the elevators, he heard two familiar voices down the hallway.
“Jay, please,” you insisted, white-knuckled as you gripped your folder. Jake watched as you basically shoved the file into Jay’s hands. “My nanobots work. I just need the funding to develop them into something bigger.”
Ah, how pathetic. Jake couldn’t stop his heart from stuttering in his chest.
Over the years, Jake never really had the time to be in a relationship like most young adults his age would. Since he was flying out to conferences and symposiums every other week, he didn’t exactly have the time to start anything serious with someone. That was why all of his encounters with women never went past hooking up or a few dates.
He wished things would be different with you, but that wasn’t the case. Jake asked you out once—and he thought the date went rather well and you seemed to be enjoying yourself—but nothing happened after that. It was as if you two never kissed. You were too buried in your work, much like he was, and Jake was too much of an idiot to come clean about how badly he wanted a relationship to work out.
Jake Sim was suave, charming, confident—so the unsophisticated rush of emotions that flooded his chest was not at all representative of his character.
The CEO flipped through the papers as he answered, “It’s great stuff, Y/N, really—but it’s too ambitious. You’ve gotta narrow your scope a bit more.” He passed your work back to you before stepping into the elevator. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got a busy day ahead of me”—(Jake knew he was lying through his teeth; this was around the time when Jay scheduled his afternoon nap)—“and no time to look over this. Have your intern—what’s her name again? Won-something? Wonjung? Wonyoung, that’s right—have her hand it over to Jungwon and I’ll give it a read tonight.”
You opened your mouth to protest, but the elevator doors closed before you could rip into Jay. Jake heard all about your rejected proposals over plenty of late-night beers with his coworkers. You often got emotional over drinks; Jake was the one who had to drag you back to your apartment and listen to you mope. This would be your third or fourth time passing your work to Jay’s personal assistant, Yang Jungwon, only to hear nothing back about it.
From behind you, Jake plucked the folder right out of your hands to look over your abstract. “Nanobots, huh?”
“Oh, hey, Jake.” Even with all of your attention now on him, you still looked and sounded distracted. He was always desperately trying to pull you back down to the ground. “Sorry you had to witness my very embarrassing, very hopeless attempt at getting my funding approved.”
“You’re good. I’ve had people start coming to me about grants.”
“Lucky you.” You hummed with an inquisitive lilt at the end. “It’s rare I get to see you around here, by the way. You’re always locked up in that lab of yours.”
That last comment plucked him right out of the section on proteins. “Thought I’d at least show face. Why? Were you lonely without me?”
A bold move, for sure. Jake laughed it off as a lighthearted joke, except it wasn’t a joke for him. Whatever you followed up with was critical to his mental health. Your words would impact the next few weeks of his restless nights, weighing on his heart like a storm cloud. For a heart-fluttering, fleeting second, he almost thought you would flirt back.
“It’s pretty hard to feel lonely these days,” was your stone-cold response, lodging itself right into a lonely chamber of Jake’s pathetic heart. “I can’t catch a break on Heeseung’s team. I swear, the only reason he dumps all this work on me is so that I don’t have time for my own research.”
“Looks like you’re doing just fine, though.”
“Does it? I’ve been pushing for them to get approved for over a year now. I’m thinking I should just give up.”
“Why would you do that? This is incredible stuff.”
“You think so?”
“How biocompatible are these? Can they pass through the blood-brain barrier?”
“Ideally, yeah, but I haven’t been able to test them yet,” you answered. “Biodegradable polymer—so there shouldn’t be a problem.”
Very interesting. Finding human participants to test your nanobots would be difficult, but wouldn’t the Prometheus Prototype be the perfect solution for that? Not only would Jake be able to prove the usefulness of his invention but it would directly benefit your nanobots. There were definitely several ethics violations that he wasn’t considering at the moment, though.
“Well, I don’t think you should narrow your scope,” he told you. “Nothing’s too ambitious, if you ask me.”
You scoffed. “Maybe that applies to you. I wish it were that easy, but Jay keeps blowing me off. I think my nanobots can be something big. I don’t feel like dumbing them down to get my funding approved.”
“Let me give it to him this time. That guy can be a douchebag.”
Only Jake, who had a long history with his closest friend, could get away with insulting the CEO like that, and that was probably why your expression dimmed. Anything and everything he wanted from Park Industries was well within his grasp while you had to work ten times harder than anyone else to be recognized. Jake knew it wasn’t fair, but he also didn’t know what he could do about it aside from offering his help.
It became clear to him, though, that what he thought to be kind gestures were more of a slap in the face for you.
“I appreciate it, Jake,” you said, eyes flitting away momentarily when the next elevator door opened, “but I need to get my work out there on my own.”
Jake swallowed thickly.
“Makes sense.” He handed your folder back to you and stepped inside with you. “Which floor?”
“Eight.”
Just as he was about to press the button for you, though, a high-pitched alarm sounded from his phone. Jake normally kept all of his alarms the same, but this specific sound was distinct for a reason. The security alert for his laboratory was unmistakable, and since it hardly ever went off, Jake was frozen for several moments before he reacted.
He pulled out his phone, checking the security app that he’d created himself. Perhaps it was an excessive layer of protection, but Jake didn’t trust footage of his laboratory being in the hands of anyone but him.
To his horror, smoke was billowing in front of the lens. It was hard to tell what exactly was going on, but this was, no doubt, a fire. Jake had security measures in place, of course, but a fire in the same proximity as the Prometheus Prototype was making him anxious.
His eyes were fixed to his screen as he punched the button to his floor instead. He was certain he heard you worrying in his ear—something along the lines of “Jake, is everything alright?”—but he couldn’t focus on anything else but getting to his lab.
“Oh, shit,” you breathed out after catching a glimpse of Jake’s screen.
“Y/N,” he ordered, grabbing ahold of your shoulders and looking you in the eye. There was unmistakable worry drawn across your face, but he was firm. “I need you to keep this between us. Don’t tell a soul.”
“Don’t tell? But—but, Jake, if there’s an emergency—”
“Thanks, I knew you’d understand,” he got out quickly before it even clicked that you had, in fact, not understood.
Everything’s perfectly fine, he told himself, although he couldn’t calm his racing heart nor stop his anxious habit of tapping his foot. Jake One’s probably handling it right now. There’s a fire hydrant right by the door. Sprinklers should’ve activated. He’ll be fine. He can take care of it.
Jake sped down hallways and turned corners, tuning out the ringing in his ears and hoping his urgency didn’t alert anyone. He felt bad for leaving you so lost and confused, but you were definitely not supposed to see the clone of himself standing in his laboratory. He had a sinking feeling about the security camera footage, and the only thing on his mind was that he had to get to his laboratory as quickly as possible. He hardly even thought to look back as he scanned his ID through each locked door until he was pushing open the entrance to his workspace.
Instantly, he was hit with billowing clouds of smoke and the rotten smell of human flesh.
The fire burned from the kitchen, only suppressed by the sprinklers that stopped it from consuming the entire space. The flames weren’t anything he couldn’t tackle himself with the equipment in his lab, but there was something disturbing about the sight before him that made his stomach feel like a bottomless pit. The ground wobbled under him.
A pair of legs stuck out from the doorway. The upper half was engulfed in flames, but the body remained motionless aside from involuntary jerks.
Strange. Jake always thought it would be the fumes that did him in, but it was rather the sight of watching someone with his face burn to death. Amidst the crackling and popping, a scream rose over the cacophonous flames that sounded eerily like his own. No, it was his own—Jake One’s voice—ringing in his ears louder than ever.
Jake didn't realize he was shaking until he dropped his ID card. This laboratory was his dying body, a prison of his own flesh.
And it was rotting before him.
He dropped to his knees, digging his palms into the crevices of his ears to block out the skull-splitting screams. He really should’ve been blocking his nose to keep himself from inhaling the fumes because his head was already starting to feel funny, but Jake’s judgement was already clouded by the death rattle that cried over the fire.
All at once, and then no more.
Just when he thought that he, too, would pass out, a spray of cool, white powder swept the base of the flames, side to side until they started to die down. He looked up to see you holding a fire extinguisher, the collar of your shirt hiked up to cover your nose.
The smoky heat must’ve been getting to his vision, too. Jake balled his fists to rub at his eyes, but they felt like they’d been peeled and rubbed raw. Despite that, you were still there.
Ash and powder dusted the kitchen. The residue smelled like ammonia and stung his eyes. Jake wanted to scream and ask what the hell you were doing here, but when he caught sight of Jake One’s burning remains again, his mind was slipping away from him—fast.
Right when he caught your words framing his name, the ground rushed up to meet him.
When Jake came to, he found himself in the makeshift bed he had set up next to the Prometheus Prototype. It was sort of an obsessive worry—wanting to be next to his invention at all times—but Jake had proper reasons for it.
He opened the door to the containment enclosure that housed his machine and started examining its shell. When he looked at himself through his reflection in the smooth metal coating the exterior of his machine, Jake saw that he was sporting a nasty bruise on his jawline. There didn’t seem to be any external or internal damages, but while he tinkered around, a knock came at the glass, scaring him out of his wits.
It was you.
“I didn’t realize you woke up already,” you said, holding out a cup of coffee to Jake as he shut the door behind him, ignoring the throbbing ache in his skull. This was bad, this was bad, this was bad, this was really fucking bad. “How’re you feeling? Can you breathe okay?”
That was when he noticed his lungs ached.
“You can’t be here, Y/N, it’s—”
Before he could get the words out, he was splashed with hot coffee. Thankfully, it wasn’t hot enough to scald him, but Jake winced and wiped the excess that dripped from his chin. What the hell? You just saved him from a fire and now you were trying to make him a burn victim?
He started, “What the—”
“This isn’t the time to order me around. Do you even realize how many lives you’ve put at risk because of your… whatever that was?!”
Okay, given the situation you were in, perhaps he deserved the hot cup of coffee to his face.
Jake swallowed thickly. “So, he’s…” Dead. He didn’t want to say the words himself, but that was the bitter reality he couldn’t quite bite down on.
You gave him an uneasy look. “I brought my nanobots. I don’t know if there’s much they can do at this point, and fourth-degree burns are a bitch to treat, but they’re trying to repair his lungs right now. It’ll take longer to rebuild his tissue, though.”
Patting his face and neck with a napkin, Jake circled around to walk over to the kitchen. There was still ash and soot staining the ground, but you seemed to have done your best to clean up the place. The air was breathable now, thanks to his state-of-the-art air purifiers, but the sight of Jake One’s charred body on the floor sucked all the air out of Jake’s lungs.
“I didn’t want to move him,” you said. “He was barely breathing after I put out the flames.”
You put out the flames, brought your nanobots in an attempt to revive Jake One, and you even cleaned up the place. Somewhere between all of that, you even managed to drag Jake to his bed. All while he had been completely useless and immobile. How long had he been asleep for to miss all of that?
“Thank you,” he said. “Seriously, Y/N, I don’t know what would’ve happened if you weren’t here.”
“Probably wouldn’t have ended well.” Then, hesitantly, you looked toward the body and asked, “That’s not your intern… right?”
“No,” he responded quickly, shaking his head, relieved that it wasn’t beloved-by-all Sunoo that was caught in the lab fire. “No, it’s…” But how the fuck was he supposed to explain that the body was him? Or, well, a duplicate of him. Jake was going to sound like a madman and risk being reported, but he figured an explanation was what he owed you after everything you had done. “What I’m about to tell you is highly classified information. I’m dead serious. You can’t tell a soul—not even Jay.”
Jake was probably the biggest idiot in the world for trusting you so wholeheartedly, but there was no way his Mensa-certified supercomputer of a brain could think of any other way to get out of this. Instead of the usual nervous tapping of his foot, Jake settled for fidgeting with his pen in his pocket, pressing his thumb into the metal nub until it hurt.
He broke everything down for you as gently as he could. He started from the Prometheus Prototype, earning a lot of oohs and ahhs that didn’t exactly feel appropriate for the situation at hand, but the amazed look in your eyes morphed into one of horror when you realized what he was getting at.
“So, you’re telling me that body over there is you?” Your mouth was agape as you looked from Jake to Jake One. “That’s a clone?”
“He has all of my DNA and memories up until last night,” he answered, “but we have separate consciences, I think. I’m still me and he’s… I don’t know.”
Anyone else would be downright horrified by the confession, but you, who shared the same thirst for science as Jake did, simply breathed out, “That’s incredible.”
“I know, right?” Except for, like, Jake One turning into a human blowtorch. “I might have a breakthrough on my hands.”
“But Jake… none of this has been approved of, has it?”
“Uh… it’s sort of been approved.”
“What does that even mean?”
So, yes, Jake might’ve lied a little when he was getting funding for this project… and for, like, all the required paperwork that he submitted—but he still got approved to create something regardless! Sure, it wasn't what he actually proposed, but that was something he could easily smooth over with a quick chat. He also had to keep Sunoo in the dark for some aspects of the Prometheus Prototype, but that was mostly to protect his intern in the event that they faced any repercussions. To Sunoo’s knowledge, the Prometheus Prototype wasn’t going to be in its testing stage for at least another two years.
“On a scale of one to ten, I’d say it’s around a four? In terms of approval.”
You didn’t look impressed in the slightest. “I don’t know if this counts as working with human subjects, but there’s no way the Board’s gonna be happy about this.”
Jake set his lips in a grim line. “I know. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Then why did you? You had to hook yourself up to that thing, didn’t you?” Disbelief clouded your face as you questioned him. Jake couldn’t even understand it himself; it was as if he was addicted to the finish line. “And you’re telling me not even Jay knows?”
His face soured. “Why would I tell Jay?”
“Well, he’s kind of your boss—and your friend.”
“Yeah, but I know Jay. He’s gonna want publicity on this the second he finds out, and I just know he’s gonna try to profit off of it. I don’t want his hands on any of this yet. It’s way too risky. I kept all this under wraps for a reason.”
You raised an interesting point, though. Jay was his friend—his closest one, at that. It was a friendship that started off like any other, but relationships often got muddled in new environments. Perhaps becoming an employee under his childhood friend led Jake to build up a wall between them, but more than that, the greed that wound up consuming Jay was what forced some distance.
They were still close, of course, but there were times when Jake felt like his words had to be carefully chosen. Always guarding something, even if there was nothing to shield.
“It’s getting late,” he said, although he was reluctant to let you go. It wasn’t a war with his heart, though; Jake was afraid that you would run off to report him the second you walked out the door. “You should go home. I’m gonna stay here with Jake One. I’ve gotta run some tests and—”
“Actually,” you cut him off, “there’s something else.”
“Oh? Go on.”
“Let me be part of this,” you blurted out, unyielding in the way you stared Jake down.
You must’ve been out of your mind, proposing such a thing after witnessing his lab nearly exploding and his clone’s scorched body on the ground. He couldn’t weave together a coherent thought as he gawked at you.
He was in a dither over how to respond. "I don't think you understand what you're getting yourself into."
“I know it’s reckless, but I… I need to do something.”
“You do—you do more than enough, Y/N.”
“I wish it was enough for me to hear that from you. It’s just…” Your eyes went unfocused for a brief second before you blinked again. “I love what I do, but I don’t have a place here if I’m not constantly proving myself—and if I don’t have this, I don’t have anything.”
“That’s not true. You have—”
“Nothing,” you finished for him. “If I take off my lab coat, I have nothing. I don't get things handed to me because I’m friends with the CEO, Jake. I have to work ten times harder on Heeseung’s team just to get some recognition, and even then it’s just a shout-out during a meeting.” The light in your eyes dimmed a little. “You don’t understand the lengths I’d go to just to be recognized.”
He understood you. Maybe it wasn’t exactly the same, but the sentiment was still there.
It was a thought Jake hardly ever voiced aloud, even to himself, because he knew how damaging of a mentality it came with.
If he couldn’t be perfect, he truly believed that was as good as not existing at all.
Jake remained quiet as you went on, “You need my nanobots, Jake. If something like this happens again, what’s gonna happen to your clone?”
You had a point there. Your nanobots were far too convenient of an offer for him to pass up, but there were just too many technicalities and dangers that he couldn’t allow you to waltz right into.
Yet, Jake was insatiable in his thirst for science, in such a way that simply couldn't be reasoned with. It tore open his chest worse than any cleaver.
He needed you, and you needed him. It was almost too perfect of a deal.
So when Jake answered in full agreement, it was with all caution thrown to the wind.
Jake enjoyed simple pursuits of knowledge, too, such as reading. When he was a kid, waiting for his library assistant mother to finish up work so they could stop for burritos on the way home, Jake would sit criss-cross in the aisles and read whichever book piqued his interest. By the time he stopped hanging around the library, he’d read almost every book on the shelves. He liked the way words functioned as tools, each one working within some larger apparatus of thought to shape meaning itself.
He read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, of course. As someone with an ambition that rivaled Victor Frankenstein’s, the classic resonated strongly with Jake.
Genius and madness were two sides of the same coin, was what Jake gathered. Genius without restraint, bleeding into obsession, was what led Dr. Frankenstein to believe he could play God.
Jake wouldn't make those same mistakes, not even if hubris clung to him like morning dew on grass. He wouldn't isolate himself from the world the way Victor Frankenstein did. He was tethered to his humanity. After all, now he had you on his team. You could keep him grounded. Keep him from obsessing over every calculation and formula that could perfect his machine.
Ever since he agreed to work with you—a little over a month ago—Jake calculated that it would indeed be possible to recover Jake One with your nanobots. You were working tirelessly to make sure your nanobots were running 24/7 for the clone’s recovery. Jake was honestly awed by how you could juggle that and being on Heeseung’s team.
“Dr. Sim,” Sunoo called out to him, a little wary, “has this closet always been locked?”
Not only did Jake have to keep Jake One’s existence a secret from Sunoo, but he also had to hide the fact that Jake One almost died and was currently laying on the floor of one of his storage closets until his health stabilized.
“Uh, yeah,” Jake said, getting up from where was seated on the floor, counting the spare parts he had leftover. “I lost the key, so I’m getting the lock replaced this weekend. Did you need something?”
“The drills—aren’t they always here?”
“Oh, right, um… guess we can’t use them today. How about you take the rest of the day off, then? Clock out when you feel like it and start your weekend early.”
“Wait, what? But—”
“Don’t all the interns go out for dinner on Fridays or something? You’ll actually be able to make it this time.”
“Well, I guess, but—” Whatever Sunoo was going to say, however, died on his tongue. He looked deep in thought before suddenly saying, “Dr. Sim, can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“There’s this intern named Wonyoung… she’s, like, always here. The other interns say she’s always buried in work, so she can’t even get lunch with them or anything. She hasn’t even been able to show face at socials.” He hesitated, then asked, “Why aren’t I always here?”
Jake raised a brow. “Sounds miserable. You’re telling me you want that kind of schedule?”
“No, it’s just that she—I don’t know… it sounds like she’s actually needed.”
His eyes softened. “You are needed, Sunoo.”
Needed to go home, but Sunoo didn’t need to know that part.
“But I’m telling you to go out so you can get on good terms with the other interns,” Jake went on to say, and seeing how stiff his intern’s shoulders were, decided to let slip the words that he knew would put Sunoo at ease, “and, who knows? Maybe some of them will be your future coworkers. Better to build your connections now.”
Jake thought his response sounded promising enough without giving too much away, but Sunoo’s unease didn’t seem to let up. He mumbled a couple of words of understanding, trying to sound enthusiastic but failing miserably. Even after Sunoo left, Jake was trying to rack his brain to grasp what was so difficult to understand about his words.
But this was for the best. Sunoo had to be kept in the dark for the time being.
“Oh, right,” Sunoo started again, handing Jake a yellow post-it note and offering an awkward laugh. “Uh, I think this is from Dr. L/N. What does she mean, Freakatron?”
The note—very straight to the point—read: I’ll be over tonight for the Freakatron 3000.
Unable to find a way to explain any of that to Sunoo (which he really should've because it just sounded like workplace harassment), Jake could only manage an expression that bordered on concern.
“I really don’t know,” he answered.
He really couldn’t explain it to Sunoo—not now, at least. There were far more pressing matters on his mind, and his intern wasn’t someone that was going to be around for the long run, anyway. Once he was off the clock, Jake would work nonstop until you joined him. He even pulled a few strings to get Heeseung to ease up on letting you off sooner.
Unfortunately, you were still working overtime. It was less overtime, though.
Later that evening, Jake was having a wonderful snack break as he watched you tinker with your nanobots in his lab. He took a bite out of his jelly-filled doughnut (one of their coworkers left a dozen of them in the break room), chewing away mindlessly as he stared at the loose strand of hair that kept falling in your face. For a handful of your questions and comments, he would have to mumble some sort of acknowledgement around the thick dough in his mouth.
“Y/N,” he called once he wasn’t occupied with a mouthful of doughnut, “please stop calling my clone the Freakatron 3000.”
He pulled the thin sheet of yellow paper out of his pocket, flicking it in your direction. You grinned at the message and leaned back on your hands. Of course, Jake’s serious front was doing little to hide the fact that your smile was making him melt like butter.
“My intern found it for me,” he elaborated. “I can tell he’s been getting anxious.”
Your smile didn’t let up, though there was an inflection of concern when you asked, “Anxious? About what?”
“I think it’s about your intern, actually. Apparently you’ve been overworking her, and now Sunoo’s gotten himself all worried because he thinks he’s supposed to be in here twenty-four-seven.”
This managed to pull you from your monitor, dropping the grape-sized nanobots that you were toying around with. “Overworking? Wonyoung chooses to stay back.”
“I guess that’s what Sunoo wants, too, but I can’t get him involved in this.”
You shrugged. “You got me involved.”
“That’s completely different. I need you for this. With Sunoo… I had no choice but to take an intern, and he was the most promising applicant.”
“Jake,” you called suddenly, expertly ignoring his muddled confession. Your eyes were trained on your screen. “Jake, come here.”
When he walked over to you, leaning over to see what was on your monitor, Jake grew incredibly flustered when he realized your eyes were on him instead of what you wanted to show him.
“Oh, sorry, you've got a little something right”—you reached up to swipe away the crumbs of powdered sugar at the corner of his lip—“there.”
“Ah.” Jake’s heart slammed into his ribcage. “Thanks.” It took a few more seconds for Jake to realize that you were already saying something when he asked, “Sorry, repeat that?”
“Right there,” you enunciated, pointing at your display, right where it said “nanobot_repair”: 0.02 in the output. “There’s only two percent left. Jake One should be fully recovered by morning.”
The delight that shot up his spine quickly dissipated. “Shoot. I’m leaving for Hong Kong tonight.”
“Hong Kong? Is this for the same conference Heeseung’s going to?”
“Yes. I’m one of the speakers this year. It’s just for the weekend, but…” Jake pressed his lips into a thin line before patting down his pockets, feeling for his phone. “Let’s get your fingerprint registered in my security system before I leave today.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, someone needs to be here when Jake One’s awake—if you can come in tomorrow, that is.”
“Y-yeah, I can. It’s not a problem at all.”
“Great.”
“But you’re really okay with registering my fingerprint? And me coming here by myself? I mean, you’ve secured this place pretty heavily.”
“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I?” Jake cocked his head to the side. “When I agreed to work with you, I was putting my full trust in you. Plus, someone has to be here when Jake One wakes up. If it can’t be me, I’d rather it be you.”
A smile tugged at your lips, until it reached your eyes. “Thanks for trusting me, Jake.”
He must’ve been mental. He must’ve been absolutely mad.
But Jake’s heart was beating faster than hummingbird wings.
PROMETHEUS PROJECT / JAKE-001 LOG:
19:28:02 // Vitals are stable
19:28:31 // If everything goes well, Jake One should be up by tomorrow
The high glass ribs of the exhibition center disappeared into the bank of clouds that were rolling in from the harbor. Jake watched the Hong Kong skyline glittering from a dining room that overlooked the City of Victoria. He looked down at the cars that zipped by in ribbons, sipping from his flute of champagne while the room of industry experts chatted away around him. Jake only got his two minutes of solitude before he was approached by another group of scientists that bombarded him with questions about his new projects.
He couldn’t be bothered to pretend he was half-interested in what the guy speaking to him had to say, however. It was the same tired inventions that they wanted to hear praise for. The same recycled ideas that didn’t have any significant purpose in the world.
His first year here, Jake was buzzing with so much excitement that he couldn’t see what became evident now.
Everyone in that room wanted something. Money, fame, a chance to get in Jake’s pants—whatever it was, they were all bloodthirsty for it.
Jake couldn’t deny that he didn’t have hidden intentions of his own, but he was certain that his plans were greater by incomprehensible magnitudes. He didn’t need to suck up to big shots like the rest of them. The Prometheus Prototype would be revolutionary, unlike anything anyone’s ever seen before.
“Excuse me. I need to take this,” he interjected during a very meaningless conversation about sustainable architecture, to which everyone turned to him and gave polite smiles. Your caller ID flashed across his screen, and oh, what he’d give to be with you instead of all those boring people.
He picked up and asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Jake,” you started, breathless. He cupped his hand over his other ear to block out all the noise around him. “He’s awake. He’s okay.”
He felt as if a massive boulder had just been lifted off him. Jake felt tears prick his eyes.
It worked.
It worked. Your invention worked—and that meant the Prometheus Prototype could be tested properly.
When Jake returned to his office after an awfully tiresome weekend, he was so scatterbrained that he jumped upon seeing you and Jake One in his laboratory. His flight landed at 4:00 a.m. and he booked it to Park Industries straight from the airport. He figured he wouldn’t run into anyone because of how early it was, but there you were, hunched over your laptop while Jake One was attempting a handstand on the other side of the workspace.
Jake spluttered something incomprehensible, dumbfounded. “You—!” That streamline of speech trickled into nothingness.
Jake One’s kick-off was unsuccessful. He straightened up to turn to Jake, looking smug while the sound of the door slamming reverberated throughout the room, and then he looked in your direction. “Told you he’d be speechless.”
With your gaze now fixed on Jake, with zero consideration for how you made his heart leap to his throat, you hummed absently. “Well, I guess you know yourself best, don’t you?”
Your mouth curved into a smile and you stood up to make your way over to him. Something went fuzzy in Jake’s ears. Incredible. You were incredible. Hearing it over the phone was one thing, but seeing it in the flesh? You actually pulled it off… and Jake thought he could lean over and kiss you on the spot.
“You look good,” you mused, reaching forward to straighten his loosely-fixed tie. You were so close that he could smell the powdery, floral notes of your perfume. The compliment almost flew over Jake’s head because his breath caught when you tightened the knot with careful hands. “How was your trip?”
Completely distracted by the sight of your fingers on his chest, Jake wound up spluttering some unintelligent response that he didn’t give you time to respond to. He immediately turned the question back on you.
“I really wasn’t sure you were telling the truth about creating a clone at first, but he’s so much like you. All the same memories, too. You actually created a fully functional duplicate of yourself!” you gushed, your scheming fingers trailing down the length of his necktie, even as you kept your eyes on him. “He’s had to be on IV drips because the repair process must’ve been really hard on his body—actually, he isn’t supposed to be doing handstands over there—I’ll go tell him to rest later—but I seriously couldn’t—”
Somewhere amidst that spiel, Jake let his duffel bag fall to the ground.
He gripped your face with both hands and pressed his lips to yours in a rush. There was, to his pleasant surprise, no fight in you as your mouth sank deep against his. He kissed you before—just once—but this was different. There was no shyness, no first time nerves; it was so all-consuming and familiar. It was almost desperate in the way your fingernails dug into his shoulders and he breathed sharply around intervals of mindlessly chasing your lips, longing for lungfuls of your scent.
Jake pulled away with a groan, looking down at the floor because he knew he would be a wreck if he caught sight of your flushed face. You were still so close, your breath hot against his neck, and he wanted nothing more than to keep you there with him. A dangerous thought crossed his mind; he would shut himself away from the world to be with you, if he could, but that was exactly the path he told himself he wouldn’t go down.
“This is amazing,” he was finally able to start, speaking through shallow breaths, all the while peppering kisses all over your face. “This is all so… you’ve really outdone yourself, Y/N.”
You let out a breathless sort of laugh, flustered. “Please, I was just nervous the first time we kissed. When was that, two years ago?”
“No—I mean, that applies, too—but I’m talking about your nanobots.” He pressed a kiss to your ear and ran his hands down to your hips. “We can really make this work.”
When he met your gaze, your eyes were filled with such sincerity that he nearly leaned closer and kissed you again.
“I think so, too.”
And when Jake took you out to dinner that night, he reserved a private room for you two to celebrate the milestone. Unlike the usual company formalities, however, dinner ended with a lot more kissing and an invite back to Jake’s penthouse.
The next day, when his ceiling-high windows breathed in morning light, Jake’s eyes fluttered open to see your bare body bathed in the sunlit glow.
Strange. Jake wasn’t one to believe that concepts like “true love” existed, but as he watched your chest rise and fall, he couldn’t help but wonder that maybe God didn’t play dice. Maybe you two were puzzle pieces born to fit each other.
Maybe love was never something Jake needed to solve.
It wasn’t the sort of equation he could piece together with integers and formulas. Rather, if he thought deeper about what an equation was in the first place, the obvious answer was: two mathematical expressions that were equal to each other. That would only mean that love wasn’t an equation; it was the solution—two expressions, possibly structured without much cohesiveness, finding a balance together.
He pulled the covers back over you and pressed a kiss to your hair, careful not to wake you because he felt bad keeping you up until dawn. Jake could’ve laid beside you forever, committing the fine details of your features to memory, but too soon did he feel the sharp sting of time that prompted him to get ready for work.
PROMETHEUS PROJECT / JAKE-001 LOG:
07:19:33 // Jake One fucking died
It happened like this: Jake walked into his laboratory, far too excited about his duplicate being successfully resuscitated; he found the space to be eerily quiet when he called out to the clone, so he went looking around the floor to see if Jake One had been sleeping; and there was his double, on the ground, right next to the prototype—lifeless.
His limbs were all folded under him, stiff and cold, and his neck was bent at an awkward angle. It was almost as if he died… doing a handstand. Jake’s blood thrummed in his ears. Then it was all too much for him to think about, and with zero preamble, he burst into hysterical laughter. It was ridiculous—so ridiculous—to think that a fucking handstand was the reason his clone met a tragic ending.
It was like Jake had been shot straight through the heart in a single blow, and his manic laughing died down when he realized tears were streaming down his face.
There was a dead body on the floor.
His dead body on the floor.
A prick of dread started at the base of his neck.
It crept across his skull. It trickled down his spine. It spread through each limb.
Feeling the world slide out from under his feet, Jake pressed his hand to his mouth, swallowing back a sickening wave of nausea. Not a single helpful thought ran through his head—just a mantra of fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!—until his brain was about to explode from the stress.
Fumbling for his phone, Jake found himself dialing your number with shaky hands. One hand came up to fist in his hair as he waited for you to pick up.
“Hey. What’s up?” you answered, and he could hear the wind whipping in the background. You must’ve been on your way to Park Industries.
Jake’s throat felt like sandpaper, but he swallowed, trying to dislodge his heart from his throat. “Y/N, you, uh…” He sucked in a shaky breath. “Your nanobots can’t bring people back from the dead, right?”
“No. They still have to be… um… sorry, there was someone walking by—they have to be alive.” There was another pause, then you ventured, “Why? Did something happen?”
“I-it’s just—I don’t know how to—”
“Shit—sorry for cutting you off—Wonyoung’s already waiting for me. I’ll be there in ten minutes, Jake. I don’t know what’s going on, but if it’s serious, you should probably tell your intern to take the day off.”
And you hung up.
Okay.
Okay.
Jake could do that. It was a simple task, wasn’t it? Look away from the corpse, message Sunoo, wait for you. Look away from the corpse, message Sunoo, wait for you. Look away from the corpse. Look away from the corpse. Look away from the corpse. Look away from the corpse. Look away from the corpse.
Why couldn’t he simply look away?
His chest heaved against the weight of panic pushing down on him. Nothing dulled the horror that spread across his chest like a thick, murky fog. That was his face. His face that shouldn’t have been looking back at him, slack-jawed and empty.
Jake stumbled backward, shaking all over, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off Jake One. He never thought about what it would be like to see his own dead body, and it made him feel like he was peeling away from reality, detaching himself layer-by-layer.
That was when you burst into the lab.
“Jake?” you asked, frantic. He could hear your footsteps against the epoxy flooring. “Jake! What the hell hap—” You stopped short when you saw Jake One’s still body on the ground, crumpled into himself so helplessly. “Oh my god. Oh my god, he’s…”
“Dead,” Jake finished for you, his own voice sounding foreign and hollow in his ears. “Fuck.”
“Oh my god.”
“I know.”
“I think I’m gonna throw up.”
He inhaled sharply. “I called you here to help.”
“And I will,” you hissed, “but holy shit, Jake! What is this, manslaughter? Negligence? Is he… is he even considered one of us?”
“One of us?”
“You know—a human.”
“Of course he is!” Jake’s words ran like water, spilling out with any proper thought. “Look at him! That’s my face, Y/N!”
You looked uneasy. “Jake, but he’s not…” You stopped, re-evaluating your choice of words before you continued, “This is the first time someone’s replicated human life. We don’t have laws for this. If he’s considered a human, then fuck, we’re screwed. But if he’s not, then, well…” You didn’t finish that sentence, much to Jake’s relief because he was already sick to his stomach at the thought of dealing with a dead body.
Jake felt torn. They were walking blind on a legal tightrope, but his whole goal was replicating human life, so why would he discredit himself by considering his creation as anything less than himself? On the other hand, to consider his clone as equal to him would mean that Jake had blood on his hands. Human blood on his hands.
He didn’t want to keep thinking about it, though. Any moment spent thinking about Jake One only let that cold fear sink its jaws deeper.
“He’s human,” was the only stubborn conclusion Jake could come to. “He has my memories, my DNA, my fucking face—he’s human. He’s not some lab rat.”
A long-suffering sigh slipped from your lips. “Okay, sure, let’s say he is human. That means you and I are in a closed lab with a dead guy who doesn’t exist on any record, and we’re the only witnesses. No one else can even prove he was ever alive.”
“What are you saying?” Jake asked, but he already had an awful feeling he knew what you were getting at.
“We hide the body… and move on.”
He was shaking his head before you could even get through your words. “That’s psychotic, Y/N.”
“It’s the only option we’ve got! What, do you want us to lose our jobs and go to prison? And it’s not just that, Jake—they’re gonna shut down our projects. They’re gonna take away your prototype, and they’re gonna take away my nanobots—to take all the credit for themselves, probably! We’re getting locked up and left to rot while someone else’s name is all over our work.” Then, pointedly, you tacked on, “Probably Jay’s.”
“That’s quite the scenario you’ve created in your head.”
You gave him a grim look, steely-eyed. “Yeah? And how are you so sure that’s not exactly what’s gonna happen? Maybe it won’t be the case for you, but I haven’t even gotten my funding approved for years now, Jake! This company doesn't give a shit about me. You don’t get it. I've watched my female coworkers drop like flies here, while people like Heeseung get promoted doing half the work a woman does.” You jabbed a finger at his chest. “But you… you shouldn't get too comfortable, either. You think Jay’s gonna bail you out of this one?”
That was, in fact, exactly what Jake thought. He decided he wouldn’t vocalize it out of spite.
And since Jake's situation was such a laugh that the universe thought it would be hilarious to doom him even further, a knock came at his door seconds later—the distinct ‘shave and a haircut’ pattern that Jay always used.
Your eyes widened. “You didn’t send your intern home?”
“It’s not him,” Jake replied (admittedly, he also did forget to message Sunoo), “it’s just Jay. I’ll tell him right now’s not a good time.” He approached the door and pressed the intercom. “Fuck off for a bit, Jay. I’m busy.”
“Jake,” came Jay’s voice from the speaker, cold and stern, “let me in right now.”
Ignoring the bewildered look you were giving him, Jake scoffed. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“You want me to explain a two-letter word to you?”
“Go ahead, seeing as you’re struggling with ‘let me in,’ smartass.”
Before Jake could press the intercom button again to fire back another rebuttal, you grabbed his wrist to stop him.
“You’re making yourself look even more suspicious,” you said through gritted teeth. “I’ll hide the body—just stall him ‘til then.”
The body—not Jake One, but the body. It sent a shiver down Jake’s spine.
“But the machine!” he protested weakly. You gave him a knowing look, as if to say it was about time Jay found out. Or maybe you were banking on Jake lying through his teeth for that, too. Whatever it was, he wasn’t sure he was ready. “Okay, fine, but be quick.”
“Jake, open this door right now,” Jay warned again, “or I’m using the master key.”
That, of course, wasn’t going to happen. Jay entrusted the master key to Jungwon, who safeguarded it closely because the CEO had butterfingers. The idiot also kept forgetting that he left it with his personal assistant. Still, Jake pressed his body against the door in a completely unnecessary attempt to keep it shut.
“Wait—please, just—just wait a moment. I’ll come outside myself.”
“Too late. I’m pulling out the key! Shit, this is my credit card… oh, wow, I thought I lost my Amex… receipts, receipts, license… oh, sweet, it’s my punch card for that frozen yogurt place! I’ve been looking for this everywhere! Phenomenal froyo, seriously. Hey, Jake, you remember that store with the really good froyo, right?”
Jake promptly decided to ignore him and asked, “Um, so did you find the key yet?”
“Oh, right.” He was able to count around a minute of silence until Jay confirmed, “No.”
“Well, have a good day.”
“Jake,” Jay started, sharper this time, “your intern brought something worrying to my attention, so I’d advise you to open up before we have to escalate this.” Jake’s blood went cold at his words, and he turned to you like a deer caught in headlights. Your eyes were saucer-wide just the same. “I didn’t bring Jungwon, just so you know. It’s just me.”
This was it. Sunoo reported him, Jay was going to find out about Jake One, Jake was going to be kicked to the curb, and you—
But, oh, Jake’s brain supplied as he scanned the perimeter, you hid the body.
He just had to get through this one conversation with Jay before his friend picked up on a faint whiff of rotting flesh. Jake would just have to shed his skin of shame and lie his way out of this mess—the same way he did for all those board meetings.
He smoothed his sweaty palms down his pants before opening the door. Jay, wearing sunglasses indoors as one from his tax bracket would—a serious inconvenience, really, because Jake couldn't tell where he was looking—shook his head disapprovingly as he walked into the laboratory. You stood off to the side, wringing your wrists.
“Jake, I…” Jay sighed and tutted. “Jeez. I don’t even know where to start.”
“I don’t know what Sunoo told you, but—”
“You should’ve told me what was going on,” Jay cut him off. “I’m not just your boss. I’m your friend, too. I’m supposed to be here for you, man. You can push your intern away—who cares about that guy, y’know?—but you don’t have to push me away.” He gave Jake a calculating once-over before he continued, “I did wonder, why’s he spending more time with Dr. L/N than me? Why her? So inconspicuous, so unassuming”—(this was when your jaw dropped, almost comically, and Jake had to put a hand on your shoulder to keep you from lunging at Jay for his… cavalier choice of words)—“much like a shadow. Or maybe a cloud rolling by, blending in with all the other—”
“Alright, I think you’ve made yourself clear. Can you get to the point now?” you interrupted, scornful.
Jay wore an almost convincing look of shock. “See? I didn’t even notice she was here. Bless her, what an underwhelming presence.” He promptly ignored your offended gasp and continued, “Anyway, I went ahead and booked us a guy’s trip—one week in the Swiss Alps. You can make up for last year’s embarrassing ski trip. Oh, and actually, it’ll be four days, not a week. Jungwon nearly had a heart attack when I asked him to clear my schedule for five days, so I just settled for a Thursday and Friday sometime next month.”
Now Jake was sure they were on completely different pages. He knew his friend through and through, so it was clear as day that this show of faux concern was just a ploy for Jay to entertain himself.
“You threatened me and insulted Y/N,” started Jake, slowly, “because you want to do a guy’s trip?”
“Hm, yes, exactly… I don’t like your phrasing, but that’s the gist of it, yeah.”
“You used my intern as leverage!” Jake exclaimed. Jay only snickered in response to that, which made Jake feel partly irritated and partly relieved that Sunoo hadn’t grown that tired of him. “So… he never said anything to you, then?”
“Not to me—or, well, at least not directly.”
Jake’s eyebrows furrowed. “Not directly? What do you mean?”
You peered over Jake’s shoulder when Jay handed over his phone.
r/antiwork • 2 hr. ago
jack_of_some_trades
HELP! my boss HATES my guts and wants me to DIE
i (23 m, 5’10”) scored the craaaziest post-op so i thought i was pretty set for life ??? but now i think it’s time for me to start thinking about a career switch and maybe moving to a different country because it’s become quite obvious to me that my boss regrets taking me as an intern and is waiting to fire me :/ let me explain:
so, it all started when we were working on this super top secret thing together. can’t really explain what it is exactly but let’s just call it our prototype. at first everything was going good but now he’s been pushing me away and letting me take days off. isn’t that REALLY BAD like I’M GETTING BLACKLISTED FROM THE COMPANY level BAD???? i thought the prototype was like…… our thing :((( well it’s mostly his thing but i’m a big part of it too!!! i think?? i’m his only intern!!! (could he be seeing another intern behind my back...? can someone tell me if this is a thing that happens) my friends say it’s normal that an intern doesn’t have much to do but getting days off feels so weird…. i thought us interns weren’t supposed to be treated with kindness or given freedom so i don’t like this at all
also. he said something very concerning. i mentioned how i felt like i wasn’t being given enough work and he said he wants me to “get on good terms with the other interns” because “maybe some of them will be your future coworkers” …. ???? is he telling me to make connections to prepare for unemployment???
idk if i’m the problem but i want this to work out really bad. is our communication the problem here?? are we just growing distant because we don’t spend enough time together?? should i ask him to get dinner or something?? please give me advice or just let me know if i’m overreacting :(
tldr: boss wants me to kill myself
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BigShotCEO55 • 1h ago
Oh yeah he 100% hates your ass
jack_of_some_trades OP • 55m ago
u think so ? :(( do u think it’s weird if i text him about it
BigShotCEO55 • 47m ago
Not at all. I think that’s very normal
BigShotCEO55 • 46m ago
Also ngl I didn’t read any of that
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Jake grumbled. “Can you please stop harassing my intern on your Reddit burner? This is so obviously you.”
“But he’s so fun to mess with,” Jay said, with clearly no intention of stopping.
“How do you even know that’s Sunoo’s account?” you asked.
With a shrug, Jay answered, “I like doing wellness checks on my employees.”
Translation: He was so curious about Jake taking in an intern that he found Sunoo’s Linktree through his Instagram. Apparently, along with the Reddit account discovery, Sunoo also streamed PUBG to his 15,000 Twitch subscribers when he wasn’t losing his mind over work.
Just when Jake thought he successfully evaded all grounds of suspicion, Jay followed up by asking, “So, what’s this prototype he’s talking about, anyway?”
The prototype was, in fact, the massive hunk of metal that was right behind Jake.
“Just something we’ve, uh, been working on. Nothing crazy,” he answered, stiffening, “but, anyway, the Alps—sure, I’ll go.”
It was a promising attempt at changing the topic, but Jake almost winced from how horribly unconvincing his delivery was.
Jay seemed to mull this over, which was odd considering he was the one who proposed it. “Hm… okay then,” he replied, in a peculiar way that left Jake feeling uneasy. “I’ll have Jungwon send you the details later.” His hand froze over the door handle, just as he was about to open it. “Oh, you should really open up a window in here, by the way. It smells like something died in here.”
Jake could hear his thundering heart now. He managed a courteous smile.
“Mm. Will do.”
You and Jake remained perfectly still even after the door shut behind Jay. It took a few more moments for Jake to find his voice again.
“That was close,” you breathed out.
“Too close,” Jake said. He half sat, half wilted into a nearby chair. “He’s definitely suspicious of us, but I don’t think he’ll act on it.”
“We can’t bank on that. We need to get the body out of here before anyone else notices.” You started to pace now, walking back and forth from the prototype to Jake. “What do you think we should do? Stuff him in a bag or something?”
Jake winced at the very thought. “That’s vile.”
“Well, we have to do something.”
You resumed your incessant pacing, and Jake could only bury his face in his hands. His brain was absolutely scrambled and the last thing he wanted to think about was hiding a body.
“I do have an idea, actually,” you said after a while, and you were nervously biting at your fingernails when Jake looked up again, “but you’re gonna have to trust me on this. Like, really trust me on this.”
Wary, he asked, “Well, what is it?”
“Wonyoung—my intern—her dad owned a crematorium, and—”
“No.”
“Jake—”
“No! Y/N, come on… are you serious? We’re already in deep shit and you wanna get your intern involved in this? She’s a—she’s a kid.”
“She's not a kid,” you said, “and I know she’d do anything for this.”
“That doesn’t mean we can just—” Jake tugged a hand through his unruly hair, frustrated. “Look, it’s already fucking me up that this even happened in the first place. It feels even worse that I had to involve you. Asking me to let an intern handle the dirty work? I’d never be able to forgive myself.”
“Jake.” You placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed—too firm to be comforting. “This isn’t about forgiving ourselves. It’s about cleaning up this mess before anyone else finds out—before it ruins us. This isn’t the time for your moral high ground.”
For the first time, Jake thought he was almost a little scared of you.
He could feel a pulse in his neck start to throb. Then it spread to his skull until it was pounding.
“This is—no, this is too much for me, Y/N.” His voice came out as a breath, and he felt like a bout of anxiety was oncoming.
Your eyes softened as you bent down in front of him, placing your hands on his knees. “Jake, there’s nothing morally wrong about medical advancement. This—yes, this sucks, but think about how many more lives you can save with your prototype when it’s complete. You have to understand that there are gonna be… bumps in the road like this.”
Then, you took Jake’s face in your hands and pressed your lips to his—and although kissing you was everything he ever wanted, your touch suddenly felt colder. Instead of making his heart beat faster, his blood ran cold.
“Do you trust me?” you mumbled the words against his lips, and he gave a half-hearted nod, though his head was elsewhere. “Then stay put. Let me handle this.”
PROMETHEUS PROJECT / JAKE-001 LOG:
07:43:18 // We’re going to try again
07:43:23 // END
However Jang Wonyoung managed to dispose of the body undetected, Jake was left completely in the dark about it. He was sort of in a rut, with his head not exactly screwed tight on his shoulders, and he kept staring off blankly into space and losing sight of what he was supposed to be doing at work.
You were all go, go, go about the prototype and your nanobots, but he was still so shaken up about Jake One dying like that. How could he not be traumatized? It was like watching his own self die in such a lonely, horrific way. But even though you were right by his side, he felt like he couldn’t talk to anyone about it. He couldn’t even explain how he felt to himself.
Every time he looked in the mirror, it was like seeing that corpse staring blankly ahead. Jake couldn’t help it; his mind became a centrifuge, spinning the image of Jake One in his head until he couldn’t separate himself from his clone.
He tried to anchor himself in the facts: I’m the original. (Or a fraud?) I’m the one who’s alive. (Was he?) I’m the real Jake Sim. (Prove it.)
He turned his personhood into a resource—something expendable, dilutable—and now he was paying the price.
Maybe all of this was a mistake.
Some days, looking at the Prometheus Prototype just made him feel sick. How was one supposed to preserve the very thing that was devouring them?
“I keep thinking,” he told you one day, flipping a wrench in his hand, “if I just… just calibrated the machine differently, maybe he wouldn’t have died like that.”
You two were holed up in his lab yet again, working into the late hours of the night. Jake was starting to feel time blur together at this point. The days were loose sand slipping through his fingers. It had only been a week since they cleaned up the incident with Jake One, but it felt like Jake lived through a lifetime.
You, on the other hand, held yourself together quite well. Maybe it was because someone had to, but Jake couldn’t help but feel uneasy about how calm you seemed on the surface.
“You have to stop thinking about it. What’s done is done,” you replied before swiveling your chair around to face him. “Look at me, Jake. You didn’t die. Your clone did. And you aren’t a clone. You’re a real person—flesh and blood.”
“But it felt like seeing my own dead body.”
“That’s your problem, Jake. You not being able to separate your identity from your experiments is clouding your judgement. You don’t have to feel this way.”
Anger rose like bile in his throat. “And you wouldn’t feel that way at all? Watching a version of yourself die?”
“I’m not saying that,” you said, trying to conciliate by placing a hand over his. “I think it’d be horrifying, of course, but I’d remind myself of what’s real and what’s not.” Something about the way you classified Jake One made Jake feel rather uncomfortable, but he stayed quiet as you continued, “You can’t test something just once. We’re gonna have to do this again, and again, and again. I need you to be ready for that. If you let yourself get like this after every experiment, then you’re gonna break before your prototype does.”
“So, what—I’m just supposed to become numb to it?”
“I mean—”
He threw his wrench to the ground, and it resounded throughout the lab. Regret immediately washed over him when you flinched.
“That’s bullshit, Y/N.”
You gave him a hard look. “Understand what you saw wasn’t you. It wasn’t a person. Think of it as a lab mouse—a sophisticated one, sure, but a lab mouse nonetheless. Its only purpose is to be experimented and tested on. You don’t mourn a lab mouse, Jake.”
Jake—who had, in fact, mourned lab mice in the past—sat with your words for a moment.
“And… if it bothers you so much,” you said, quieter now, “isn’t that more of an incentive to perfect your machine? Then you won’t have to watch any more of them die.”
He did want to perfect the prototype. It was more than just a moral crisis over seeing his own eyes with the light sucked out of them; if Jake’s machine was wired properly, then none of this would’ve happened. He simply wasn’t good enough. That scared him more than anything else.
“Watch them die… it’s like…” Jake trailed off, trying to find sense in his own words. “No, it was always when I wasn’t there… like I couldn’t be there to stop him. The fire, the stupid fucking handstand—his instincts were way off.” His eyes sharpened with clarity. “That’s why there was abnormal activity in his amygdala—his brain didn’t register danger properly! That’s why he was so… so…” He tried for a word that sounded humane enough, but nothing came to mind except: “So defective.”
He wondered if you would be satisfied with that verbiage. Him implied a person, but defective implied that Jake One wasn’t ever really a person. You made it very clear about what the clones were not, and judging by the look on your face, it seemed like you were finally satisfied that you and Jake seemed to be on the same page.
He still wasn’t sure that he was with you, but all that mattered was that you believed he was.
“Okay,” you said, a hint of encouragement pressing into those syllables. A smile was growing on your face. “Okay, so we can fix that, right?”
“I mean, we can try.”
“And you know that it might not be an immediate fix, right?” You paused, as if choosing your next words carefully. “It might take several attempts. You have to be ready for that.”
Meaning: Several failures. Several deaths.
Several bodies that Jake would have to grit his teeth through.
He swallowed thickly. “Right… I guess I’m just gonna have to push through.”
In the following three months, Jake only entered a depressive episode about five times. He puked his guts out double that amount, woke up in a cold sweat from bone-chilling nightmares almost every night, and was plagued with panic attacks about every other day.
Pushing through indeed proved difficult for him.
(He did begrudgingly go on that weekend retreat to the Alps. It was quite nice since Jay didn’t ask about the prototype once. Jake unfortunately ate shit on the slopes multiple times, which, according to Jay, didn’t make up for their last embarrassing ski trip.)
In other news, Jake-002 came to life.
Jake used the word “born” at first, but he could tell that it made you feel uncomfortable, like you thought he was going to get too deep in his head and spiral again. So, he settled for calling Jake Two sentient instead. It was disconnected enough of a word for your eyes to brighten at.
And he liked it when you looked at him like that. He liked a lot of things about you. Too much for him to dwell on how frustrated you made him that day—not that he would ever admit that. Maybe it was stupid and selfish, but Jake was okay with burying all those negative feelings so he could enjoy the bliss of your company.
Then, two weeks later after he was formed from machine and flesh, Jake Two intelligently decided to get his bread out of the toaster with a fork, of all things. It was a bit disheartening that a clone with Jake’s brains would think that was a good idea, but Jake Two electrocuted himself (nearly taking the whole power unit out with him) and died tragically.
Jake tried very, very hard to pretend like it didn’t affect him. It did—deeply—but he swallowed down the nauseating bile that rose up his throat and let you deal with it.
It was so wrong to leave something so sinful for a mere intern to clean up, but Jang Wonyoung never argued back. Every time Jake passed by her in the hallway, she put on a calm front, as if she were completely unbothered by what wicked deeds they were making her commit. He so badly wanted to ask her if she, too, felt like the guilt was eating her alive, but they always passed by each other without a word.
It went on like that. Jake Three, Jake Four, Jake Five—they were all getting themselves killed for ridiculous reasons. It then started to frustrate Jake that he simply couldn’t figure out how to fix the one thing that was screwing up all his clones. What did that say about him as a scientist? He was supposed to put an end to all these pointless deaths, but now it felt like all the corpses weighing down on him were getting heavier and heavier.
By the time Jake-012 came out of the Prometheus Prototype, Jake was almost convinced that he, too, was one of his doppelgangers that somehow managed to outlive him, that he succumbed to all the pain in his heart along the way.
At that point, he stopped hoping for them to stay alive. He knew their fate would catch up to them soon enough, and it was almost sadistic of him to keep the experiments going. Still, you were relentless with your pursuit of artificial life—more than he was.
Jake 12 had a much more innocent personality compared to the other Jakes—always smiling big and wide as you poked and prodded at him, always warming up to Jake despite being a shadow of the original. He stuck around a lot longer, too. That was why it broke Jake’s heart a little more when he walked into the lab one morning to see Jake 12 lying in a pool of his own vomit.
“Oh, man,” your voice sighed out from behind him. “I liked him a little more than the others, too.”
Jake just stared blankly ahead. “Yeah, same.”
“Well, I texted Wonyoung and she’ll… oh, Jake.” When Jake thought he simply just started tuning you out, your hands found his face and lifted his chin up. “Ah, you’re crying. Here, wait—” You pulled out a tissue from your front pocket and started dabbing at his wet cheeks. “You haven’t reacted like this in a while.”
Not in front of you, at least. He saved his breakdowns for the days he isolated himself.
“I’m fine,” he said, grabbing hold of your wrists and pushing them down. “Let’s just get him out of here before Sun—”
“What a mess.”
Jake jolted before he turned around, and you quickly stepped in line with him to hide the very obvious dead body behind you two.
It wasn’t Sunoo, though. It was Wonyoung.
Jake’s mind was too preoccupied with Jake 12 to wonder how she could’ve possibly gotten inside.
Wonyoung always looked impassive and closed-off whenever Jake saw her, even though she had delicate features that could come off as alluring if only she smiled a little more. This was the first time he was seeing raw emotion on her face—one that was stripped of her usual feigned politeness—and there was resignation settling in her eyes, like this was simply an added weight to an already heavy ledger.
Both of them—you and Wonyoung—looked composed in the way seasoned criminals did when they’d crossed the line far too many times for the guilt to settle in. Why was it that Jake couldn’t manage to be the same?
Floundering for words, Jake started, “This… this isn’t—”
“You don’t have to be nervous. I called for her,” you assured, though Jake felt none of it. Your hand squeezed his shoulder hard. “We both have meetings throughout the morning. We can’t afford to call out, but Wonyoung can take care of it, okay?”
He didn’t know. He really didn’t. What was the right thing to do? He couldn’t tell anymore. How could he just keep going with his day? Maybe he could die? Would that be any different?
What if, came the horrifying thought in the midst of his brain fog, I’m not even the original Jake anymore?
No, he was. He knew he was. He had all his memories, but… they all technically had his memories, didn’t they? They all had memories of the hardships he overcame, the successes he worked for, the moments he cherished—everything that made him human.
At this point, did it even matter who the real Jake was?
Wonyoung dropped the duffel bag onto the floor as she stepped aside to tie her hair up. It seemed almost procedural for her, the way she headed straight to the closet for the cleaning supplies. So familiar with the space, despite Jake never having seen her in it.
And then, a new voice cut through the air: “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Sunoo’s voice caught Jake completely off-guard. When did the door swing open? Had Jake just been completely out of it? That must’ve been the case, given the state he was in. The intern stood there, still as a statue, his very breath stolen from him. His eyes drifted from Jake, to you, to the corpse on the ground, and then to Wonyoung.
“You’re—you’re early,” Jake stammered out, sniffling sharply to get rid of the burn in his nose and throat.
“There’s a—that’s a—there’s… there’s… oh my fucking god, I’m gonna be sick.” Sunoo clamped a hand over his mouth, moaning feebly at the mere sight. He was pale as a sheet, and Jake was afraid that he’d collapse any second now.
“Sunoo, this isn’t—”
“Oh my god, I’m going to prison. We’re all going to prison. I’m gonna be held responsible by association and no one’s ever going to hire me!” The intern started hyperventilating by now, pacing back and forth in unsteady strides.
This time, you tried, “Sunoo, please calm down and try to understand.”
“Understand? Dr. L/N, respectfully, don’t tell me to understand! How could I just—how could I ignore—”
Jake stepped forward and grabbed Sunoo’s shoulders, grimacing when the boy flinched and froze in place. “Sunoo, she’s right. You need to relax. None of us are going to prison. I’m not gonna let that happen to you.”
“I knew it all along,” Sunoo said, letting out a curt and brittle laugh. From this distance, it looked like his pupils were shaking as he tried to keep himself together. “I knew this was happening right under my nose. I respect you a lot, Dr. Sim, but I’m not stupid. I saw this coming ages ago.”
Eyebrows pulling into a frown, Jake pulled back. “You knew? Since when?”
“Ever since you started letting me take days off, or you just didn’t have me come into the lab.”
Jake sucked in a sharp breath.
Then, Sunoo said, “You want Wonyoung as your intern, don’t you? Not me.” As if that wasn’t bizarre enough of a conclusion, he appended that with, “That’s why you told me to get off early and meet the other interns after I told you about how I felt about her. You just wanted her for yourself.”
Okay, no.
Jake wanted Sunoo to shut up for two reasons: the first being that the intern was completely and utterly wrong, and the second being that Wonyoung now looked extremely put off because Sunoo just made Jake sound like a total creep.
Maybe something was wrong with Sunoo, too, because this was an extremely odd complaint considering there was the stench of death in the air and a rotting corpse before them. He supposed there was madness that came with a certain level of genius, but this was just strange. Why was everyone so seemingly unaffected aside from him?
“No… no-no-no-no-no-no-no.” Denial spilled from his tongue like a torrent. Jake shook his head vehemently and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders again, gripping firmly. “Look, Sunoo, it’s true I’ve been hiding a lot from you about this project, but that was only because I didn’t want to drag you into anything dangerous, or something that would mess up the future you want for yourself.”
“There’s a dead freaking body in the lab!” Sunoo spluttered out. “It sounds like it’s already pretty fucked up to me!” There was a glint of betrayal in his eyes that pierced right through Jake’s chest. “That body looks… it looks exactly like you. You tested the prototype yourself, didn’t you? You told me it wouldn’t be in the testing stage for years. You just sent me off on useless errands while you worked on the whole thing yourself. You had me thinking I was part of something big, but the whole time I was just the useless intern they send out for coffee runs.”
What was Jake supposed to do? What was he supposed to say? What would make this situation any better? His blood was rushing hot in his head now, like his ears had a pulse of their own. Everything Jake had said to Sunoo up until now, despite believing he chose the right words, had proven to not reassure his intern in the slightest.
He was scared he was going to mess up again. He knew he wasn’t cut out for this. He never should’ve let Jay convince him to take in an intern, so why did he? Because he thought he could be a mentor of sorts? That was a laughable thought. Jake was sure he had a lot to offer in terms of knowledge, but he was never one to share it. Moreover, he didn’t exactly know how to share it.
His thoughts were thrown into a maddening spiraling. Getting out of hand. Like a void swallowing him whole. The kind of mentor Sunoo needed wasn’t him, was what Jake thought before he turned his head to glance in your direction, but you.
What would you do in his shoes? That was simple. Even though Jake hadn’t seen your intern around as much, Wonyoung was practically ubiquitous. You made sure she was deeply involved—so much that it almost scared Jake that he might’ve been blind to what else Wonyoung knew—but there was a trust between you and your intern that he hadn’t seen with anyone else. That was perhaps why Wonyoung was so successful, so well-known among this year’s batch of interns.
It was probably why Sunoo was so insecure about her.
Maybe all Jake needed to do was be brave and trust his intern, whether that was blindly or confidently. Maybe that was what a true mentor was supposed to do.
“You wanna be part of something big?” Jake asked. “Then I need you to do exactly as I say.”
Sunoo supposed he asked for this—begged for it, even—but he was starting to really regret putting his foot down in front of his boss.
He was in the car with Wonyoung, sitting in the passenger’s seat and doing his best to ignore the stuffed duffel bag on the floor of the back seat. He kept glancing nervously back at it, as if the corpse would come back to life, pry the zipper open, and strangle Sunoo from behind.
It wasn’t like he was in the right state of mind when he blew up in front of you and Dr. Sim. He just didn’t know how to react when he saw the dead clone and Wonyoung in the lab, and it felt like everything had come crashing down on him. If he knew that Jake was going to task him with getting rid of the evidence, he would’ve just resigned then and there.
Or, would he? He ultimately had the choice, right? It wasn’t like he was under the impression that Dr. Sim would try to silence him forever to take his secret to the grave. Sunoo wasn’t really thinking at all back then. He just went with it because he was so pathetically desperate to prove himself.
Wonyoung was driving down a long stretch of deserted road, with nothing but trees around them for miles. It almost felt like they would reach a dead end eventually, or they’d have to drive into the thick of the woods to find a path that led elsewhere. Neither of them dared speak to each other—and Wonyoung, in true psychopath fashion, drove without any music. (On second thought, music probably wouldn't be appropriate for this situation.)
Finally, off to the side in a clearing, there was an abandoned crematorium that looked weathered down from years of age. Sunoo wasn’t enthusiastic about going inside, but Wonyoung didn’t look the least bit hesitant as she turned off-road and parked by a couple of trees. He had so many questions for her, but judging by the way she swiftly avoided interacting with him, her glossy hair bouncing as she got out of the car, Sunoo knew he wouldn’t be able to sate his curiosity.
“Get the bag,” she ordered. That was the first thing to come from her mouth since they left Park Industries.
A dead body, with its limbs broken and crammed into a duffel bag, proved difficult to carry. Sunoo ended up dragging it by its handles, although he had to pause every several feet when the load inside shifted, forcing him to readjust his grip. It was bad enough that he had to haul it along grass and dirt, but once he got to the steps, Sunoo tried to block out the dense thuds as nylon dragged against the stone.
This all seemed routine for Wonyoung with how she unlocked the door and led Sunoo inside, down the hallways and past several doors. How many clones had they gone through by now? Why was this what they had to resort to?
It was only when Sunoo saw the cremator that there was some acknowledgement for the person that once inhabited the weight he had dragged this far. Was he considered a person? If he was living—flesh and blood—he had to be one, right?
It would be a much more comfortable thought if the clone wasn’t deemed a real human. Then, this would just be a simple cleanup. It would be like disposing of roadkill. Sunoo wouldn’t have to deal with that pit of anxiety in his stomach, or his shaking hands as he unzipped the bag (with great effort, as it kept getting caught on the corpse’s flesh), and he wouldn’t have to feel sick as he looked into the faraway eyes of someone who looked exactly like his boss.
To his surprise, Wonyoung helped him heave the body onto the cremation tray. She opened the loading door, and Sunoo pushed the tray inside until the chamber swallowed the corpse whole.
After Wonyoung turned on the machine, she said, “Now we wait.”
That queasy feeling returned. He supposed flesh and bone behaved the same no matter how it came into being.
“How long?” Sunoo asked.
“A couple hours.”
“A couple hours?”
She raised a perfectly threaded eyebrow. “How long did you think it took to incinerate a corpse?”
“Gee, I don’t know. This isn’t exactly a regular Tuesday for me.”
“We still have to burn its bone fragments after this, too.”
“And how long does that take?”
“Shouldn’t be too long. Depends on what’s left in the ash.”
“Great.” Sunoo sighed. He didn’t want to admit that the unsettling building was already doing a number on him. They lapsed back into silence until he bit the bullet and asked, “Can I ask you a question?”
She sounded more irritated than anything when she said, “What?”
“Why’d you agree to doing all this, anyway?” Sunoo asked, then proceeded to scoff when Wonyoung simply turned her back to him with her arms folded across her chest. “Or—whatever—don’t tell me.”
It was only after a stretch of long silence between them, filled only by the sounds of the blower and burner running, that Wonyoung asked him, “Do you know the story of Adam and Eve?”
“Uh… the gist of it, yeah.”
“A lot of people misunderstand the serpent,” she said, eyes downcast. “The serpent never tempted Eve with sin; the Forbidden Fruit was from the Tree of Knowledge. If you had to choose between gaining knowledge that could shatter everything you thought you were, or ignorance that would cost you everything you could ever become, which one would you choose?”
When Sunoo didn’t respond, only being able to stare at her with his brows drawn, Wonyoung answered for herself, “I’d choose eating the fruit every single time, because if I can’t amount to anything, then I might as well be nothing at all.”
What terrified Sunoo most was that he thought he’d do the same.
But that didn't mean he thought this was right.
After receiving word from Sunoo that he and Wonyoung took care of his mess, Jake went straight home after work and laid in bed with you until he had the strength to face reality again. He had more to say to Sunoo, of course. Their last conversation left him restless—so anxious to the point where he wound up crumbling in your hold after the interns left.
He quite enjoyed being with you, though. You were over at his place most nights now, and watching you pour wine and bring him dinner in bed was a feeling like no other. Jake was certain he wouldn’t even feel this blissful in Heaven.
You smiled when you caught him staring, setting the glasses of wine on the nightstand before you cozied back up to him. “What’s on your mind?”
Jake shrugged, idly dragging his finger along the curve of your shoulder, playing with the strap of your nightgown. “Just thinking about how pretty you are.”
“And nothing else? You sure?”
His full lips peppered kisses on the side of your mouth, along your jawline, and down your neck. “You don’t believe me?”
“Not”—you reached under the sheets and grabbed his knee, squeezing firmly to stop his nervous tic of repeatedly shaking his leg—“when you keep doing that.”
“I’m sorry.” He shuddered out a sigh.
You shook your head. “I just hate seeing you so stressed.” With a featherlight touch, you brushed his mussed hair off his forehead before he grabbed your hand and pressed more kisses to your knuckles. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“What do you think about…” you trailed off, biting your lip, then finished, “putting an end to all this?”
Jake let go of your hand and sat up. “What?”
“I don’t mean us,” you clarified. “I meant the prototype. I think we should stop all these experiments before it becomes a point of no return.” Jake thought they’d crossed the Rubicon ever since Jake One died, but then you tacked on, “And I’m worried about you, Jake.”
“But, Y/N, I spent years—”
“Trust me, I know,” you cut in. “I considered everything before I decided to ask. I’d rather keep it going, too, but seeing you like this isn’t worth it. You’re hurting. It’s like you’re losing more of yourself every time we bury another clone. We can put a stop to all of this now… before we end up in deep shit.”
“I told you how I felt the first time, but I can handle it now—really.”
“I know you want to.”
“If I can just figure out how to fix what’s screwing up their heads, then we can—”
“Jake, please.” You reached over to place a cold hand on his cheek, making him shiver. “Just think about it. Promise me you’ll at least think about it.”
He sighed, resigned. “Sure, yeah. I will.”
You gave him a small smile and turned to grab the glasses of red wine. “Cheers to our partnership, then?”
Jake took the one you handed to him and clinked his glass with yours. “And our future.”
And as Jake downed the drink in one go, a warm feeling in his chest suddenly erupted—delightful, dizzying, and hazy. He wasn’t sure if he dropped the glass or set it down properly, but he focused on the way your lips framed his name, and he tried to lean closer to profess his love for you in a drunken whisper.
His tongue, however, was heavier than stone when he tried to speak. Somewhere between wondering if he delivered the message and trying to pull the sheets back over him, Jake’s body felt like lead and his head spun until nothing felt real anymore. He was falling through the sky, hurtling through clouds, and the world shifted violently under him.
Jake felt as if he were slipping into a void of darkness, and then there was nothing at all.
After Jake came to, he felt his heart plunge into the depths of his stomach.
The flesh putrefies.
The Prometheus Prototype was alive and buzzing.
The machine rusts.
A dozen electrode sensors were attached to his body.
The divine corrupts.
Another Jake was sitting in the chair right beside him.
And so the rot remains supreme.
Before, all Jake had to do was press a button that generated another clone that would be ready to go within a few hours. He initiated that process with the full body scan of himself that produced a clone with his genetic data and his memories up until that scan. As a result, every clone had his memories from before he started duplicating his body.
The Jake before him—Jake 13, if he were to be specific—now possessed the memories of all his clones’ deaths. More specifically, how far Jake went to cover it all up.
Danger flickered in his eyes.
“You’re awake,” Jake 13 lilted, reaching over to curl a strand of his creator’s hair around his finger. There was a lazy smirk growing on his face. “Came here behind Y/N’s back, did you?”
“I didn’t—” Jake stopped himself short and looked down to see that he was wearing the same clothes that he wore to bed. His shoes were mismatched. His hair was scruffy. It was the middle of the night and he had no idea how he’d gotten to Park Industries. “I have to get back home. You have to go… you can’t…”
Jake 13 flashed a wicked grin. “Trying to dispose of me already?”
“No! No, that’s not it. I never wanted any of them to die, I just—”
“You just what? Felt bad before you started treating us like reusable waste?”
Jake didn’t respond. He let the words fester.
“You might’ve gotten rid of the other Jakes, but you’re not getting rid of me,” Jake 13 continued, sneering. “You know why? Because getting rid of me means perfecting the machine, and once the company gets their hands on our prototype, they’re gonna clone copy after copy after copy of you—endlessly. We’re the brightest minds they’ve got. Why wouldn’t they want more of us, huh?”
Jake still wouldn’t answer him.
“Admit it, Dr. Sim,” Jake 13 muttered darkly, “you’re completely replaceable, just like the rest of us.”
His chest constricted like a snake, boiling with anger, ready to strike.
“I’m born of flesh and blood—from my parents. The only reason you’re here is because I existed. I’ve never been replaceable.”
“Is that what you think?”
Jake just scowled at him.
Jake 13 then jutted his chin toward Jake’s chest. “We use that pen every single day, don't we? When’d we get it? Four or five years ago, if I remember correctly? Anyways, it's a good pen. Always running smooth and never bleeding through the page. But one day, if we lose that pen, what’re we gonna do? Maybe we’ll spend a few days poking around for it, but after it’s gone for good, we’ll just replace it, right? We’re gonna replace it with a random pen that might not be as good, but we’ll make do with it ‘cause it gets the job done.” He plucked the sharp-tipped pen right from the breast pocket of Jake’s lab coat. “Even if it’s the best pen in the world, it doesn't really matter because, at the end of the day, we just need a pen that works.”
“Well,” Jake started with an uncharacteristic venom coating his words, snatching the pen back, “you’ll be shocked to find out that I’m not a pen. People will notice if I’m gone.”
“But they won't.”
“They will.”
“They won’t,” he repeated, flatly this time. Jake 13’s smile was mocking and Jake so badly wanted to hit him. “Because you'll perfect the machine, Jake—we’ll perfect the machine. It’s just in our nature. We don’t leave projects unfinished, and we certainly don’t back down from what we started.” Jake swallowed thickly as Jake 13 leaned in closer to mutter, “And once the prototype’s perfect, it won’t matter if you’re the original or a clone.”
He was right, as much as Jake hated to admit it. Edgar Allen Poe said something about true geniuses shuddering at incompleteness—imperfection, and yeah, there was nothing Jake despised more than an unsolved problem. An itch that wouldn’t go away.
“You chose this,” Jake 13 said. “You made yourself replaceable.”
Jake didn’t go back home to you that night. He was too afraid of leaving the lab, of leaving Jake 13 alone with anything in there.
PROMETHEUS PROJECT / JAKE-013 LOG:
04:03:37 // Something’s very wrong with him
04:03:52 // I have to get rid of him
04:42:08 // I think I’m about to do something I might regret
05:01:22 // I can’t do it
05:03:13 // I won’t
Understandably so, you were outraged when you finally managed to reach Jake the next morning.
He had his head buried in papers up until you walked through the door. Jake didn’t even notice that he missed twenty calls from you because he was so consumed in doing exactly what Jake 13 predicted he would.
Finally, he cracked the code. After hours of recalibrating and tweaking the neural lattice, Jake managed to figure out why the Prometheus Prototype wasn’t giving him perfect clones. He spent all morning fixing the machine itself, and when you walked in, it looked like you were caught between anger and concern.
“You left in the middle of the night to come here?” Your expression was grim. “You said you’d at least think about putting an end to this.”
“I know, I know. I’m an idiot, and you can yell at me all you want after this.” He stood up, grabbing a cloth to wipe off the grime caked in his palms. “But I finally did it, Y/N. I fixed the prototype for good this time. No more cleaning up my messes.”
This, of course, immediately swayed you. Prodigious minds were fools to brilliance, after all.
“Seriously?” Your eyes darted to the messy scratchwork on his desk, and your brows furrowed as you looked over the pages. “How’d you do it?”
“Well, I…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I made another clone.”
“You what?”
“I don’t know how it happened. I think I just found my way here when I was blacked out. After I woke up, he was just there.”
A deep crease formed between your eyebrows. “Jake…”
“I know it sounds crazy.”
“Where is he?” you asked, looking around the lab whilst growing visibly anxious. “I don’t see anyone else here.”
That managed to snap Jake out of whatever science-induced trance he was in. He dropped his pen and jumped to his feet, following your gaze around the room. Shit. To be frank, he hadn’t thought of Jake 13 until he was prompted to tell you about him, and now that the clone was on his mind, Jake realized that he hadn’t kept track of his whereabouts for hours.
He raked his fingers through his hair, agitated. “This is bad.”
“I’ll go look for him,” you said. “You stay here. People are gonna freak out if they see two Jakes running around the place.”
His heart felt heavy. You were always cleaning up after his mess and taking responsibility, even when you had your own work to take care of. Jake just felt like a burden to you.
Still, there was nothing he could do but say, “Okay. Thank you.”
Just as you were turning around, though, the front door swung open. Jake froze up, but his blood turned cold when he heard familiar chatter—more specifically, Jay’s voice.
Even worse, Jake 13 was beside him. Jake wasn’t sure how horrified he looked, but the subtle smirk from his clone had him seeing red.
“—so early, I thought you’d…” Jay trailed off when he saw Jake’s face across the room—the real Jake, not the poser beside him—and started spluttering, looking between Jake and Jake 13 over and over again. Jake 13 simply looked pleased with himself. “Wait, but you’re—I thought—how did you—huh?” He blinked several times before admitting, “Look, I did do a bump of coke this morning, but I don’t think coke usually has me seeing more than one Jake. A bit too many Jakes than I’m used to, if I’m gonna be honest.”
Jake stood up, one hand still on the head of his chair, and glared at the clone. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hissed. “Are you insane?”
Jay looked a bit taken aback. “It was just a teensy, tiny pinch of coke—”
“No, not you—him!”
Jake 13 pointed at himself. “Me?”
“Yes! Obviously! Why’re you both so confused?”
“Well, I did snort some—”
“Enough with the cocaine! We get it!” Jake snapped.
Jay rolled his eyes and placed his hands on his hips. “Okay, can someone start explaining why I’m seeing two of the same annoying fucker?”
All the words were tangled and knotted in Jake’s throat. He played out this kind of situation in his head before, and he always knew exactly what to say, but now his mind was blank. The curve of Jake 13’s smile only made it harder for him to concentrate, for he was too caught up with thinking about how to choke the daylights out of him.
“It’s… complicated,” Jake finally said.
“I think I’ve gathered that by now. Thanks for nothing.” Jay scoffed before turning to you. “You—tell me what’s going on.”
Jaw tense, you huffed out a laugh. “I’m good.”
The door swung open again, and Sunoo’s voice came rambling through the opening before anyone could even see him walk in.
“Dr. Sim, I’ve been thinking about it, and I really don’t think it’s right to be using the prototype like this. I mean, getting rid of the bodies is just—” He abruptly fell silent when he saw that Jake wasn’t alone in the lab. The door slammed shut behind him. “Oh.”
Jake exhaled slowly before groaning into his palm.
Jay jerked his thumb in Sunoo’s direction. “Jake… what’s Anxiety talking about?”
(“Anxiety?” Sunoo mouthed, making a face.)
Jake sighed. “Nothing important. He’s just—”
“No, I want you to tell me now.”
The corner of Jake’s mouth twitched, but before he could blather out some pathetic excuse, Sunoo spoke up, “With all due respect, sir, Dr. Sim isn’t obligated to share any details of his project at this point in time.” His eyes were wide and frightful, but he maintained direct eye contact with Jay.
Jake blinked, surprised, swallowing past the tightness in his throat. Warmth spread through him despite the tension in the room. Maybe he hadn’t completely driven Sunoo away from him.
“With all due respect, soon-to-be-unemployed intern,” Jay started, smiling all good-natured, “you’re gonna tell me what’s going on here, or you’re getting fired. Choose wisely.”
“He made a cloning machine,” Sunoo answered quickly.
Well, there went the warmth.
“A cloning machine?”
Sunoo shot Jake an apologetic look. “Um, yeah… for humans.”
It took the CEO a moment to collect himself. He looked around the laboratory, staring at the machine in a new light, ogling at Jake and Jake 13 with a strange look on his face. Jake wasn’t sure if he was revolted or amazed by the clone.
“This is your clone, then,” Jay said, his voice sounding strangely distant. “It must be. It hasn’t opened its mouth to piss me off yet... and the real Jake would never invite me to his lab out of nowhere.”
“It?” Jake 13 scowled. “I’m a he.”
Jake felt an odd satisfaction in knowing that Jay could tell the real him apart, but he had to shake that off to appease his friend first.
“I was gonna tell you, really,” he tried. “I just—I just needed more time.”
“You’re telling me,” Jay thundered, his chest swelling with indignation, “all of this was going on without my knowledge?”
“No, no,” Jake placated. “I was just, uh… surprising you?”
His friend’s anger seemed to melt away almost instantaneously. “Really? You mean it?” Before Jake could take his words back, Jay’s face broke into a smile and he clasped his hands together. “What a nice surprise. This really made my day, man.”
Jake couldn’t believe he fell for that so easily.
“You know, this is great!” Jay continued enthusiastically. “Think about all the possibilities! All the money we could make! We could clone to harvest organs!”
You and Jake shared a horrified look. Even Jake 13 looked rather put off. Sunoo returned Jay’s zealous punch to the shoulder with a weak smile, rubbing the sore spot afterward. The depths of Jay’s imagination was truly fascinating.
“Oh, no, that’s… that’s pretty dark,” Jake replied, disturbed.
Awfully pleased, Jay ignored him and said, “I need to make a call.”
Like it was instinctual, Jake bounded forward as soon as Jay reached to pull out his phone. He grabbed it right out of his hand, just before his friend was about to unlock it. Jay returned a confused look, rolling his shoulders before he tried snatching it back, but Jake kept it out of his reach.
“What the hell’s up with you?”
“Jay, I don’t know what you’re trying to do right now, but it is absolutely paramount you don’t let anything about the prototype get out to the public,” Jake urged, stressing each syllable for good measure.
“Paramount? I don’t even have a Paramount subscription.”
“Not the—how does that even—” Jake bit back the rest of his sentence and groaned. “Paramount means important, you idiot.”
With an ill-concealed wrinkle of his nose, Jay scoffed before asking, “Well, why didn’t you just say that to begin with? Paramount—get a load of you, William Wordsworth.”
“It’s not my fault you have the vocabulary of a five-year-old.”
“I can tell you right now that no normal person uses paramount in their daily vocabu—”
“Will you two quit arguing?!” you yelled over them. All the while, Sunoo was quietly observing, as if he were watching a tennis match, though he looked a bit frightened. “My god, how do you guys ever get along with each other?”
Jay’s face curdled. “Why’s the situationship talking? We get along perfectly fine.”
“You have the self-awareness of a sponge,” you deadpanned, “but I guess that’s what happens when our CEO’s a personality hire.”
“Personality hire? You’re calling me a personality hire?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna have to side with Jay on this one,” Jake chimed in. “He has such an unemployable personality. Nepotism was his only chance.”
“Yeah!” Jay then thought on his friend’s words for a moment longer. “Wait, what?”
“Mm. Must be why you need Jake to keep this company afloat,” you said to Jay, disdain weighing heavy in your eyes. “Without him, Park Industries would’ve tanked years ago.”
The CEO shrugged. “Every team has its star player.”
“This isn’t a team if you only support one person.”
“This is starting to sound like a deeply rooted insecurity, Y/N. Park Industries offers free employee counseling services.”
You sneered. “How generous of you.”
“Okay, we’re seriously getting off topic here,” Jake cut in, then handed Jay’s phone back to him. “Jay, what’s important is you don’t leak anything about the prototype—not yet, at least. It could be dangerous if it falls in the wrong hands.”
“Then let it fall in my hands.”
“No! You’re the dangerous one I’m talking about, by the way.”
“Just let me borrow it,” Jay pleaded.
“No.”
“Forever.”
“I said, no! Why would you think that’s any better!”
Jay let out a drawn-out sigh and let his shoulders slump, flipping his phone horizontally, as if he were watching a video. “Please? Can I please have your cloning machine? I promise I won’t do anything evil with it. Not even a little evil. It'll be the least evil use of a cloning machine you've ever seen.”
“I can’t really trust that you won’t when you’re… wait—are you seriously playing Clash of Clans right now?”
“Yeah? Is there a problem?” His eyes were glued to the screen without a care in the world. “I’m an absolute legend in this game, by the way. They say no one upgrades a Town Hall like I do.”
(“Who’s they?” Sunoo muttered from beside Jake, but he gave up on trying to find reason in Jay’s words and simply shook his head.)
“Jay, we’re having a serious discussion here.”
“And I’m having a serious clan war.” He raised a brow. “I can’t multitask now?”
“He’s hopeless, Jake,” you said, sighing heavily. “Just let it go. There’s no getting through to him.”
“Ooh, giving up already? That’s rich, coming from you.” The corner of Jay’s mouth lifted slightly, but his eyes were still trained on his phone. “Maybe she doesn’t actually care about you that much, Jake. She certainly didn’t back down when it came to her own project.”
You fixed him with a hard look. “My project? The one you never funded?”
“Budget cuts, sweetheart. Nothing I can do about it.”
Jake, accredited with years of charity work that involved being Jay Park’s friend, knew when that moron was lying.
This was one of those times.
“Uh-huh,” you remarked brusquely. “You probably blew all the money to get a bowling alley installed in your office, anyway.”
“Funny.” He barked out a curt, suppressed laugh. Then, he exited the game. “Very funny, Y/N, but—for your information—I don’t have a bowling alley,” Jay snapped, sneering at you before turning around sharply. Holding his phone up to his ear, Jay lowered his voice to order, “Jungwon, I want a bowling alley in my office—as soon as you can get it done—yes, it’s urgent—yeah, yeah, whatever, we can just say we have budget cuts coming up.”
It happened all too fast. One second, Jay was walking back over to them, pocketing his phone; the next, a wrench came swinging down on Jay’s head. Jake, still saddled with the annoyance bubbling inside him, didn’t even have time to scream as Jay crumpled to the ground immediately, his limbs going slack. The culprit, Jake 13, stood over Jay’s limp body and looked from you, to Sunoo, then to Jake.
“Well,” the clone said, “that’s taken care of.”
“Y-you attacked the CEO!” Sunoo cried.
Jake let out a shaky breath and dropped to his knees, haphazardly searching for a pulse point to make sure Jay was still breathing. “Why the fuck did you do that?” he asked, voice strangled.
“Just so he’d shut up for a minute.” Jake 13 dropped the wrench and met Sunoo’s eyes. “Get me some rope, kid—or duct tape, whatever.”
“Jake, stop it,” you warned, gesturing for Sunoo to stay put.
When Jake looked up, only to see that you were looking at Jake 13, he shouted, “Y/N!” Your gaze flicked to his, and he frowned at you. “How could you call him that?”
You gave him an exasperated look. “That’s your name! What, you want me to use his number with it?”
Jake 13 only simpered. “I know exactly what he’s thinking. Y/N, the language you use is very important, you know? People don’t realize how much language shapes our reality, how it influences our own beliefs. Today I’m Jake 13, but keep calling me that, and one day I’ll just be Jake—and no one’ll question whether I’m a clone or not.” He stepped over Jay’s legs and circled around you. When he was right behind you, one hand trailed down your arm. “What really sets us apart is that number; otherwise, how are you gonna be able to differentiate us?” He dipped his head so that his lips were at the shell of your ear, his breath fanning your jaw. “Then who’s to say I’m not the original Jake?”
“I know you aren’t, and that’s enough for me,” you said stiffly. “What’s your goal here?”
“The same as his—mostly,” Jake 13 said. “But maybe I have goals of my own, too, and they don’t include Jay selling the machine under that Jake… and I guess they don’t include Sunoo being here, either.” His eyes fell on the intern now. “Why are you here, anyway?”
Sunoo gulped. “Um… I was… I was gonna tell Dr. Sim… making us hide his dead bodies is, uh… not great.”
“Dead bodies?” came Jay’s voice, and the other four whipped around to see him reclined on the floor, propping his head up on an elbow. “What the fuck were you even doing in here, man?”
“You’re awake!” Jake wasn’t sure if what he was feeling was relief that Jay was alright or sheer terror that he heard, but his emotions were rampant all the same.
“What am I supposed to do, lay here and get brain damage? None of you humanitarians seem to be in any rush to call an ambulance.”
You raised a brow. “How long have you been awake for?”
“Since that corny little speech,” Jay said. “By the way, you’re getting fired for that, Evil Jake. I seriously hope I’m concussed so I forget about it.” He turned to Jake with ostentatious worry drawn all over his face. “Can we circle back to the dead bodies now? Considering your Freakatron 3000 over there looks like he’s considering making me one!”
Freakatron 3000 rang a bell. Jake could see that you looked mortified upon the realization that you and Jay had a similar sense of humor.
“He calls me Jake 13,” the clone answered through gritted teeth. “That means there were twelve before me—twelve who were killed by him.”
“I never killed them! They just died!” Jake protested. “Jay, you gotta believe me. I was doing everything I possibly could to keep them alive.”
“You knew the chance of them dying was high, and you still experimented on them like lab rats!”
This was it. This was when Jay abandoned him for good. His heart was already sinking, preparing itself for his best friend of years to finally turn his back on him. Jake was a fool for thinking he could keep getting away with this; his invincibility complex had seen to that, and he truly hadn’t planned for what he’d do if it ever came to this.
Albeit visibly concerned, Jay reached over and squeezed Jake’s shoulder. Jake was almost to the point of quivering, so he remained stiff as he reluctantly made eye contact with him.
Jay leaned in, his mouth close to Jake’s ear so no one could see the words taking shape on his lips, and he muttered, “Get rid of this one, too, and I’ll pretend I never heard that.”
Oh, fuck. He really was going to get away with this once again.
As much as Jake tried to feel disgusted with himself, a sick smile threatened the corners of his lips.
Jay grunted as he got upright again. He patted down his slacks and inhaled deeply, his chest swelling for long enough to make it known that he was unnerved. That was right. Jay had his back. He’d always had his back, no matter the cost.
“It was nice, uh… nice—” The CEO cut himself off with a yawn, which he lazily attempted to hide in his fist. “—nice talking to everyone. Pleasant chat. Do fill me in on Jake’s murderous tendencies next time, or make it an email maybe. I’d really love to stay longer, but it’s time for my afternoon nap.”
You looked utterly baffled. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I seriously need a nap right now,” Jay said matter-of-factly. “What? Still worried about me keeping my mouth shut? I’ll stay quiet for now, but I’m giving you until tomorrow to set up a meeting with me. Otherwise, my hand might just slip.”
He swiftly made his way out of the lab. Jake was only relieved that Jake 13 didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping Jay on the way out. After all, Jake 13 still had the same emotions and memories that he possessed; he wouldn’t want to hurt Jay any further—at least Jake hoped not.
Jake turned on his clone, his eyes cold. “Why’d you bring him here in the first place? You know how Jay’s like. You know he’d want to get his hands on the machine.”
“Well, I thought that’d go a bit differently,” Jake 13 admitted, “but this is fine, too. Him finding out means you’ve already crossed that hurdle for me.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I’m gonna be the only Jake by the end of this. I’m gonna be the Jake behind the Prometheus Prototype.” He stepped closer. “You can’t give me the same ambitions and take away my dreams—and I know I can be so much better than you.” Jake 13’s eyes darkened as hot anger roiled in Jake’s gut. “I’m you without all the cowardice. Took twelve of you to get that out of your system, huh?”
So it wasn’t just him that was planning to get his hands dirty again; Jake 13 was also planning on killing Jake, laying his plans out in the open like a fool. Sure, he might’ve been braver than the others, but he was still a defective copy. He couldn’t discern what to keep to himself and what to share, but that was to Jake’s advantage now.
Jake 13 turned to you now. “Think about it, Y/N: My name on the prototype and yours over those nanobots.” He spoke with wonderment, moving to grip your shoulders firmly. You couldn’t say anything at first, as if you were struck by the fantasy that the clone was painting for you. “It’ll be both of us under the spotlight, for our own work.”
“And, Sunoo,” he continued, pressing on even as the intern flinched, “I’ll draft up that offer letter for you immediately. We get rid of him, and you’ll never have to question your place in this company again.”
Jake’s fingers twitched. He needed something sharp—anything. There was a crowbar in the closet and a couple utility knives laying on a table somewhere, but there was no time for Jake to get to any of them without raising suspicion.
And then it hit him.
His pen.
Certainly unassuming, but with enough force, Jake was sure he could ram the sharp tip into the side of Jake 13’s neck or something. He’d at least buy himself enough time to finish the clone off with something more effective.
Jake Sim would never be replaced.
Sunoo looked sullen. “I don’t know… I don’t think any of this is right—please stop, please.”
“You’re right, Sunoo,” Jake spoke up, placing a hand on his shoulder to force him to turn around, “so look away.”
Glowering, Jake 13 started, “What are you—”
In a flash, Jake’s body moved on its own. With one hand, he grabbed a fistful of Jake 13’s hair and yanked his head to the side; with the other, he drove the pen right into his jugular. He could hear yours and Sunoo’s gasps from behind him, but he was relentless. Where the sharp point pierced tender skin and spilled blood, Jake twisted the pen deeper into the doppelgänger’s neck.
“Jake!” you cried out, distraught.
They found themselves on the floor now, with Jake straddling the clone’s waist to hold him down. There was the terrible, eerie sound of squelching coupled with the blood Jake 13 was gurgling. The side of his neck and chest were drenched in crimson now.
And then Jake’s hands were trembling. He was sure it wasn’t fear this time. Rather, excitement pulsed through his body, but it also made him want to keel over and throw up all the bile in his stomach. He pulled the pen out, breathing ragged and heavy as he watched blood drop from the nib.
Jake 13’s hand flew to clamp over the wound, gripping tightly in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. It would be of no use, though. Without immediate attention, he’d bleed out to death on the ground, and Jake would ensure that no one would come to help him. Then, Jake 13 used his free hand to grab Jake’s throat, holding it like a vice. He squeezed around the one spot responsible for his airflow, and then Jake seriously thought he’d pass out if Jake 13 held on any longer. Without thinking, he slashed the pen around wildly, managing to nick his carotid artery.
The clone choked on his scream as blood splattered out. Sunoo let out a miserable, whimpering sound before he started to cry. Judging by the direction of the spray, he must’ve gotten Jake 13’s blood all over him. Jake couldn’t look behind him. Not now. He had to finish the job, and that meant holding Jake 13 down until he bled out for good.
“Fuck.” Your voice came out feeble and wavering. “Sunoo, go to the supply closet. Lock it from the inside and don’t come out until I come get you.”
Sunoo must’ve hesitated for a moment longer because it took a few more seconds for Jake to hear his footsteps trail off. The closet door slammed shut seconds later, and then the click of the lock echoed in his ears.
Helplessly, all you could do was retrieve one of the utility knives while Jake kept Jake 13 in a death grip. He watched the light leave his fearful eyes—slowly, dripping like molasses—and there was some sort of sick fascination in watching the clone draw in an unsteady, final breath.
Jake just stared at his own face for a few moments longer. His own face with the light in his eyes dimmed.
He didn’t realize he was crying until he noticed it wasn’t blood dripping onto Jake 13, but his own tears.
“Oh, Jake,” came that sweet, honeyed voice of yours, and despite everything, it was enough to pull him out of this moment.
“Y/N, I don’t know anymore,” he sobbed. “This is all so fucked up. Can I… is there even a chance for me to go back from this?”
He’d been staring at the pen for so long that he could make out his hazy reflection in the metal, though it was all distorted and stretched.
He couldn’t even tell if the person staring back at him was really his own reflection.
He couldn’t even tell if he was Jake anymore.
“It’s okay,” you whispered, kneeling down to embrace him—blood-soaked clothes and all. “He attacked you first, okay? That should be believable enough for the cops. You just acted out of self-defense.”
He buried his face into your shoulder and nodded. A few more tears slipped out. Jake thought that if he was shattered beyond repair, he knew that at least you would take care of his broken pieces and make him feel whole again.
This felt right. Being with you always felt right.
Then he felt a raw, searing pain at the base of his spine, and heat unfurled through his back.
Jake’s breath left him like a startled gasp. He realized dimly he’d been stabbed, but his body felt locked in shock.
“And then you stabbed him,” you murmured, seemingly ignorant of how Jake was gagging on the blood that was rising up his throat. “That’s our story, my love. You were wonderful till the very end.”
It couldn’t be. No, no, no, no, no, no, no—not you. He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew how your hand felt against his back. Anger flared up in him, hot and vengeful, before it collapsed into grief that struck him like a tempest. It was never supposed to be you. The wound hurt, but what hollowed him out was knowing whose hand clutched the blade.
He wondered when you stopped being on his side—and whether you ever truly were.
He gurgled, then coughed until blood splattered down your back. “B-but why—”
“Shh, it’s okay,” you cooed, keeping your voice low. “I’m right here.”
His vision was blurry, fading in and out. You pulled the cool blade out, bringing about a strange combination of relief and white hot agony, but Jake’s body sagged forward. You couldn’t support his weight anymore, so you gently pushed him off you, laying him down on the floor.
Pathetically, even though he was dying at your hands, mercilessly betrayed, Jake couldn’t help but think about how pretty you still looked. How funny. Perhaps you’d been shifty this whole time, and he was simply too blinded by love to notice it.
Weakly, he got out, “Y/N, p-please don’t…”
You tutted lightly. “Jake, I thought you knew.”
He garbled out a confused sound.
“I told you from the very beginning,” you explained, “you don’t understand the lengths I’d go to. I work ten times harder than anyone here, and it’s always a man getting the promotion I deserved. Always a man getting the funding I’ve been waiting for.”A tear slipped down his cheek. I know, he wanted to say. I know, and I hate them for it. You pulled back to look him in the eye, surprisingly gentle in the way you smiled at him. "But now? I'm taking it all for myself."
How could he say anything to you when he’d done nothing about it? How could he reason with you without sounding like he was just trying to save his own skin?
But, if he was going to be honest with himself, he was trying to save his skin.
He didn’t want to die.
He wanted more time for his grand legacy, to show the world how incredible he was. He wanted more time for the mundane parts of life—everything he’d been putting off until after he achieved greatness. He wanted more time for the mornings with you, the kisses before bed, and the blissful future he’d dream of.
Jake Sim didn’t want to die.
The thought floated by with less conviction this time, fraying at the edges. The world felt farther away now. He tried to anchor himself to your face and your voice, but he couldn’t hear the words your mouth was framing anymore.
He wasn’t ready for this. Jake always wanted to be the kind of person who would die ready, content after a long, fulfilling life; instead, the last, dismal thought he had was how badly he wished he could stay.
EPILOGUE
TWO WEEKS LATER
“You did a good job.” You placed a hand on Wonyoung’s shoulder while you circled around her to sit at the other end of the table—Jake’s table at his penthouse. Playing the mourning ex-girlfriend was the perfect cover for you to stay at his place for now. “I know this one was a hassle to clean up, but it’s all finally over.”
The intern set down her wine glass. There was a pinkish glow in her cheeks from the alcohol—or it might’ve been from your praise.
“It was really no problem,” she said, then hesitated. “Don’t you think pinning it on Sunoo was a bit much, though? I thought our target was Jay.”
You hummed, remorseful. “I was hoping we could just use Jay, but Sunoo being there sort of… complicated matters. When he got that clone’s blood all over him and hid in the supply closet, I knew it’d be much easier to convince the police he was behind everything.” The red wine swirled around in the glass you cradled. If you looked at it any longer, it would remind you of that day, with Jake’s blood all over you. “It worked out better this way, too. If we took Jay out, they’d just appoint another CEO that’s just as bad as him.”
"Don't you think he's still dangerous, though? He knows about the prototype."
You waved her off. "Even if he does, he won't say anything. He still blames himself for Jake dying. He thinks none of this would've happened if he didn't tell Jake to take care of Jake 13."
Before the cops received word of the incident, Wonyoung cleaned up and dealt with all the security cameras, all according to plan. Months prior, you registered Wonyoung’s fingerprint into Jake’s security system without his discretion. There were a few close calls, but he never seemed to catch on—and he never would.
You were left to deal with the contents in Jake’s phone; whereas Wonyoung took Jake 13’s body to the crematorium, burned him to nothingness, and then drove two hours to dispose of the knife you used to stab Jake. She dropped it off the edge of a bridge, watching it plunge into the sea and sink into the deep blue.
You, on the other hand, played the damsel in distress, holding Jake’s lifeless body and sobbing all the way until law enforcement arrived. With Sunoo locked in the closet, covered in Jake’s blood, it was almost hopeless for him to plead that he didn’t do anything—not that he even tried proving his innocence. Sunoo looked so traumatized that he trudged over to the police car without a single word, a faraway look haunting his eyes.
“Do you really think you’ll be able to take the position from him, though? I thought you and Jay were on bad terms.”
“We’ve been… consoling each other,” you said with a snort, “through our grief. Honestly, tolerating him is more painful—but after seeing Jake dead, his mental state was so shattered that he’s considering retiring early just to focus on recovering. If I play my cards right, his position goes to me.”
Wonyoung threw her head back to let out a delightful laugh. “You really thought this through.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you. Your idea to drug his drink and bring him to the lab? Genius. He fully thought he was the one who hooked himself up to the prototype.”
As for the machine, it was far too impressive of an invention to let go of. After you rolled out your nanobots, you were going to introduce the Prometheus Prototype to the world the right way, with proper approval and the testing stages that Jake completely ignored. (Yes, it was blatant theft, but you never said you were going to be a saint.)
Wonyoung flushed under the dim light. “Oh, please. It was nothing.”
“It was more than I could’ve asked for. I have something for you, by the way, but it’s not enough for everything you’ve done for me.”
She perked up when you pushed a piece of paper in her direction. She stared at it for a moment before snatching it to hold it against the light, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Seriously?” she asked, perfect lips curving into a rare smile as she examined the offer letter. “That’s a six figure salary.”
“You deserve it. Congratulations.” You raised your glass as a toast, and she eagerly followed. “It’ll be hard filling Jake’s shoes, but once I figure out how to rewrite his memories, maybe we can bring him back one day.”
She shrugged. “That’s probably the best way to persuade the Board to approve funding for the Prometheus Prototype.”
“And convince the public we weren’t involved in his death.”
“He brought that upon himself, Dr. L/N,” Wonyoung said lightly. “Whether you had a hand in it or not, he was becoming a madman.”
“I guess you’re right.” You then noticed Wonyoung shifting uncomfortably and raised a brow in question. “Everything okay?”
“I’m just worried,” she said. “What if they end up tracing it back to us?”
You simply smiled. “Then I’ll have a plan to get us out of the mess. You trust me, right?”
“Of course.”
“Perfect. They’ll never suspect us, anyway, and even if they do, men are too easy to deceive. You let them think they’re in control, and they’ll never notice the leash.”
AUTHOR'S NOTE ▸ thank you for reading if you made it all the way to the end !! support women's rights and wrongs amirite 💞 can you tell i had sooo much fun writing jay (the bias shows through and through) but wonyoung i really enjoyed too despite her shorter screentime !! cast her in yuri when🧎♀️ also please do check out the donation links at the top of this post and share awareness posts you come across when you get the chance 💗 have a wonderful 2026 everyone! i can't wait to work on more fics this year and share them with everyone !!
TAG LIST ▸ @fancypeacepersona @filmnings @jongseongbutt @doraemon02 @simpikeu @heejamas @prettygirlthings-world @amajinu
♡ when heeseung agrees to test jungwon’s new dating sim game, girlfriend simulator, he expects a dumb, half finished game, until he boots it up on his switch, the screen glitches, and he’s dragged straight into the world he just created. the “girlfriend” character, you, isn’t scripted at all; and heeseung has to figure out how to get out while accidentally developing feelings for a girl who inconveniently does not exist in real life.
♡ pairing: heeseung × fem!reader | ♡ genre: fantasy; romcom; fluff; comedy; light sci fi; college au; game simulator; slow burn; smut (mdni) | ♡ playlist: gameboy - katseye | jellyous - illit | super shy - new jeans | i am shampoo - bibi | turn it up - pinkpantheress | sun and moon - aespa | ♡ wc: 37k
♡ ronnie notes: hi guyssss!! hope you enjoy this fic 🫶 i wanted to make this as a little celebration for hitting 4k followers here hehe i’ve been writing this for a while and i lowkey think it’s about to become my little favorite / comfort fic around here!! i’ve always wanted to write something with a gaming theme because i am a gamer (derogatory) so huge thank you to my sister @iyoonjh and @hoonieyun and @jayflrt for helping me with everything league of legends related because yeah i was dumb enough to write league scenes without ever having played that shit myself lmaoo anyway i really hope you guys like girlfriend simulator
HEESEUNG'S FAVORITE PART OF ANY GAME WAS THE DIALOGUE OPTIONS. Little boxes that told you exactly what to say and exactly what would happen after. Real life should've come with that feature. would've saved him a lot of trouble. He wasn't completely hopeless, though. He had friends, he could hold a conversation if he had to. But there was always this gap between what he meant and what came out, or worse, between what he said and how people reacted to it. Like everyone else had gotten a patch update on social interaction and he was still running on the default version.
Maybe that's why dating never quite worked for him. Every time he tried, he felt like he’d missed a tutorial somewhere. He could talk, sure, and he could be funny when he wanted, but halfway through a conversation he always drifted, like thinking about assignments or projects or that interesting research thread he'd meant to look into. People would smile at him politely, the kind of smile that told him they’d already made up their mind: sweet guy, but not for me.
The last time he'd tried going on a date, he’d barely made it through an hour. He’d checked the timestamp afterwards and realized he’d spent exactly forty eight minutes pretending he wasn't thinking about a bug he’d found in his graphics project. He’d texted Jungwon: "bro i think i fumbled bad." Jungwon had sent back a voice note where he laughed so hard he hiccuped. Comforting, in its own way.
Jungwon was one of like three people Heeseung could be around without keeping a mental checklist of normal things to say. They’d been friends since first year when they got paired on a project and realized they both worked better at two in the morning with no one else around. Jungwon was quiet in the same way Heeseung was, but also completely unhinged when it came to code. He’d get an idea and just lock in for days. So one afternoon, while Heeseung was in the lab pretending to fix code he’d actually broken on purpose because he didn’t want to admit he didn’t understand it, Jungwon walked in with that mischief look. He sat down next to him, opened his laptop, and said, "ok, don’t make fun of me, but I made something."
Heeseung didn’t look up. "Is it stable this time?" which was generous, because Jungwon’s projects were never stable.
"Define stable," Jungwon said, clicking through a folder that had way too many warning icons. "Anyway, it’s a dating sim."
That finally made Heeseung look. "A dating sim? Why?"
"Research." Jungwon always said that when he’d clearly done something for fun and wanted it to sound academic. "It’s called Girlfriend Simulator."
Heeseung stared at him. "That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard."
Jungwon didn’t even blink. "Yeah, I know. But I need someone to test it, and you're the only person who’ll actually give me notes instead of lying to make me feel better."
Heeseung wanted to argue, but he was tired and they had a midterm coming up and honestly he didn't care enough to fight. So he sighed and pushed his chair closer. "Fine. Show me." Jungwon grinned like that was all he’d wanted since morning. He opened the build file, and the screen filled with placeholder art, branching choices, and a character slot labeled "y/n_default." And Heeseung, who was too distracted to think twice, just shrugged.
He had no idea that saying yes to that stupid looking game would end up being the most disastrous decision of his entire academic life.
He only agreed because Jungwon wouldn't shut up about it, and because even with all his complaints, he had this soft spot for him that made it hard to say no. Also, he didn’t have anything better to do on a friday night; the rest of their friends were out, and he wasn't in the mood to socialize. And, honestly, he liked games where he could pretend to be slightly less single than he actually was. It was pathetic, sure, but it wasn't like anyone needed to know.
So later that night, Heeseung sat on his bed with the lights off and his switch on max brightness, which was probably not great for his already questionable sleep schedule but whatever. Jungwon had sent him the build file with a message that just said "lmk if it crashes :)" which was not exactly confidence inspiring, but Heeseung had agreed to this so he couldn't really back out now.
The game booted with this weirdly soft 8 bit lullaby that sounded like it was trying to hypnotize him. The title screen was clean, minimalist, just the words "Girlfriend Simulator" in a font that looked expensive. Heeseung snorted. Jungwon had definitely spent more time on the typography than the actual game mechanics, which tracked. Character customization loaded next, and Heeseung had to admit it was smoother than he expected. The interface was intuitive, the options were detailed, and the hairstyle physics were suspiciously good for something Jungwon had supposedly coded in his free time between problem sets.
He made his character half heartedly. Messy hair because that's what he had in real life and he wasn't creative enough to imagine anything else. A hoodie because hoodies were safe. He picked "student" as his class, and when it came to stats, he maxed out "humor" because he genuinely thought he was funny, even if nobody else seemed to agree. Then he looked at "emotional intelligence" and left it at zero. Honesty was important, right?
The loading screen that followed was surprisingly elegant. Just a slow fade to black with some text that read "Your First Meeting" in delicate script. Heeseung settled back against his pillow, expecting the usual dating sim fare: a classroom, a coffee shop, maybe a cherry blossom tree if Jungwon was feeling cliché.
And then the screen flickered. Just once, quick enough that Heeseung thought maybe it was his eyes. But then it happened again and the lights in his bedroom pulsed in sync, like someone had wired his lamp to the game's framerate. "What the hell," Heeseung said to no one.
The switch started vibrating in his hands. Not the normal rumble feature, but something harder, more insistent, like the controller was trying to shake itself apart. On screen, a figure materialized. The girlfriend character. For a second Heeseung just stared because the sprite work was genuinely impressive. The lighting was too good, the shadows moved wrong. Everything felt almost real in a way that made his skin prickle.
And then the girlfriend, you, turned around. Slowly like you already knew he was watching. Your face came into view and Heeseung's brain did this weird stutter because you didn't look like a game character, you looked like a person, with the kind of detail you didn't get from placeholder art. Heeseung felt this uncomfortable twist in his stomach like he was the one being observed.
Then you spoke. Not with a text box, not with that awkward text to speech voice that indie games always used. Actual audio, clear and warm and way too close for his own good. "You're here!"
Heeseung's hands went cold. The voice didn't sound small or synthetic or compressed. It sounded like someone was standing directly behind him in his dark bedroom, breath on his neck, words in his ear. He whipped around so fast he nearly dropped the switch, but his room was empty. Just his desk and his dying succulent and his pile of laundry that he'd been meaning to deal with for a week. "What the—"
Before he could finish the thought, before he could even process what was happening, the lights in his room popped, like every bulb had blown at once. The screen went pure white, so bright it hurt to look at, and the controller in his hands went from cold to burning hot in the span of a heartbeat. He tried to drop it but his fingers wouldn't move, locked in place like the plastic had fused to his skin. The air pressure in the room shifted. His ears popped like he was in a plane taking off, and he felt this pull, this hook behind his ribs, yanking him forward with a force that didn't make any physical sense. He tried to pull back, tried to let go, tried to do anything, but the world was already dissolving.
The last thing Heeseung managed to think before everything shattered into pixels was that he was going to kill Yang Jungwon.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that the world was too bright. The grass beneath him looked like high definition fairy dust, each blade catching light in a way that grass absolutely should not. The sky was blue in that aggressive unnatural way that only existed in concept art. Everything was sharp and vivid and wrong. Heeseung sat up slowly, head spinning, and looked down at himself. His clothes had changed. Instead of his worn out hoodie and sweatpants, he was wearing the outfit his avatar had been wearing. The same hoodie he'd picked in character customization but real now, solid and heavy on his shoulders. His hands looked like his hands but also didn't. The proportions were slightly off, the lines a little too clean.
"What the fuck," he said out loud, and his voice sounded normal, which was worse. Everything else was strange but his voice was still his.
"You made it!"
Heeseung's head snapped up. You were someone standing a few feet away, watching him with this expression that was hard to read. Amusement, maybe, or curiosity. Like you'd been waiting for him and was pleased he'd finally shown up. except you weren't a sprite anymore. You were real, or at least as real as anything else in this place. You looked exactly like the character on screen but with dimension now, depth, the subtle movements of someone actually breathing. Your hair moved slightly in a breeze he couldn't feel. You were wearing something casual but put together in that effortless way that Heeseung had never managed to pull off.
You smiled at him, and he felt something weird in his stomach. "Hi," you said, like this was completely normal, like he hadn't just been ripped through a screen into a video game that shouldn't exist. "Nice to meet you!"
Heeseung opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. His brain was doing this thing where it tried to process too many things at once and ended up processing nothing at all. "What," he finally managed, which wasn't even a complete sentence but it was all he had.
"Sorry I'm late," you said, but you didn't sound particularly sorry. "Jungwon said you might be running behind. He's the one who set this up, by the way. Said we'd get along."
Heeseung blinked. "Jungwon... set this up?"
"Yeah, the blind date?" You looked at him like he was being slow on purpose. "He said you needed to get out more. His words, not mine."
And that was such a Jungwon thing to do that Heeseung almost believed it. Almost. Except he was still processing the fact that the world around him looked like someone had turned reality into a video game filter. "This is insane," he muttered under his breath. "This is the most realistic game I've ever—"
"Game?" You interrupted, and your smile faltered just slightly. "I'm not playing games with you."
The way you said it made Heeseung freeze. It wasn't defensive or annoyed, it was sincere like you genuinely meant it, like you had no idea what he was talking about. And that's when it hit him: You could hear him. Not just the dialogue options he was supposed to pick. Everything. his actual thoughts spoken out loud. "Wait," he said slowly, "you heard that?"
"Heard what?"
"Nothing. Never mind." Heeseung cleared his throat and tried to pull himself together. He could freak out later. Right now there was a person in front of him — a very real feeling and cute person — and he was being weird. "So. Blind date. Right. Jungwon's idea."
He really looked at you then. You were pretty, in this approachable, comfortable way that made him think maybe he could actually talk to you without saying something catastrophically stupid. You had this ease about you, like you weren't trying too hard, and your eyes had this spark that suggested you were probably smarter than you let on. Basically, you were everything he'd ever put on one of those hypothetical "ideal type" list.
"So," you said, cutting through his thoughts. "Jungwon mentioned you're into games?"
Heeseung tried not to laugh at the irony. "Uh, yeah. You could say that."
"Me too." You brightened, and it was genuine, not that polite interest people usually faked. "I've been replaying persona 5 royal for like the third time. I know, I know, it's excessive."
"No, that's— that's actually really cool," Heeseung said, and he meant it. "Most people don't get the appeal of replaying stuff."
"Right?" You gestured as you talked, animated in a way that made him want to keep listening. "Everyone's like 'you already know the story' but that's not the point. It's about the experience, the details you missed, trying different builds—"
A notification sound chimed softly in the air between you. Heeseung jumped. You didn't react. In the corner of his vision, barely perceptible, text appeared: romantic interest +5. common interests discovered.
Oh. Oh no. This was a dating sim. An actual, literal dating sim. And he was living it.
"You okay?" You asked, tilting your head slightly.
"Yeah, totally fine," Heeseung lied. "Just thought I heard something."
You nodded, accepting this easily, and then said, "Do you want to walk? There's this spot by the lake that's really nice."
"Sure," Heeseung said, because what else was he going to say?
You started down a path that looked hand painted, every stone deliberately placed, every flower color coordinated. You reached the lake, which was absurdly picturesque, and sat down on a bench that looked like it had been placed there specifically for this moment. Probably because it had. Heeseung sat next to you, not too close but not weirdly far either, and tried to act like this was normal. "Oh," you said suddenly, looking up. "Look at that." Heeseung followed your gaze. There was a flower growing on a low hanging branch, except it wasn't growing so much as hovering there, pulsing slightly with a soft golden glow. It bobbed up and down in a loop, the universal sign of an interactive object. You didn't seem to notice anything weird about it. "That's pretty," you said. "I've never seen a flower like that before."
Heeseung stared at it. The glow intensified slightly, like it was trying to get his attention, like it was waiting for him to do something. Oh god. This is a prompt. He was supposed to pick the flower and give it to you, that's how this worked. That's how you earned affection points or route progression or whateverJungwon had programmed into this thing. So he stood up. "I'll get it for you."
"You don't have to—"
"No, I want to," Heeseung said, and he meant it, which was somehow worse. He reached up and plucked the flower from the branch. It came away easily, and the moment his fingers closed around the stem, the glow faded into something softer, more natural. It looked real now. I mean, it felt real. He turned back to you and held it out, suddenly aware of how much this looked like a scene from every romance movie he'd ever suffered through, not that he suffered through many. "Here," he said.
You took it, and your fingers brushed his for just a second. You looked down at the flower, then back up at him, and your smile was so genuinely happy that Heeseung forgot for a moment that this was supposed to be a game. "Thank you," you said. "That's really sweet."
The notifications stacked in his peripheral vision, and Heeseung felt something between triumph and existential dread. "It's just a flower," he said.
"Maybe," you said, twirling it between your fingers. "But it's the thought that counts, right?" And the worst part was that you seemed to actually believe that. You weren't reading from a script or following programmed responses. You felt real, real enough that Heeseung was starting to forget why that should scare him.
You tucked the flower behind your ear, adjusting it carefully, and Heeseung had to physically stop himself from saying something embarrassing about how that was probably the prettiest thing he'd seen all week. He sat back down on the bench, leaving what he hoped was an appropriate amount of space between you. "So," you said, tilting your head. "What do you do for fun? Besides picking flowers for girls in parks."
Heeseung felt his face get warm. "I don't— that's not a thing I do regularly."
"Shame. You're good at it." You were grinning now, clearly enjoying his embarrassment. "Come on, tell me. What's your thing?"
"Uh. Games, mostly. I play a lot of games, like Jungwon said."
Your eyes lit up immediately. "Oh yeah! What kind?"
"Mostly League. Some RPGs. Anything competitive, I guess." He expected the usual response, the polite nod and change of subject that he got whenever he mentioned gaming to people.
Instead, you leaned forward, genuinely interested. "Wait, you play League? What's your main?"
Heeseung blinked. "You play League?"
"Obviously. Answer the question."
"I mean, I play mid usually. Zed, Leblanc, that kind of thing." He was still processing the fact that you not only knew what League was but apparently played it. "What about you?"
"Support. I'm a Janna main and i'm not ashamed of it." You said it with this defiant pride that made Heeseung want to laugh. "I know, I know, support is boring or whatever, but someone has to keep the ADC alive and it might as well be me."
romantic interest +10. shared interests discovered: league of legends.
Heeseung felt something shift in his chest. He'd never met someone who got it like this. Who understood that games weren't just mindless button mashing but actual strategy and skill. "What rank are you?" He asked.
"Plat 2. I was almost diamond last season but then I had finals and kind of gave up on the grind." You made a face. "What about you?"
"Diamond 3." Heeseung said, oddly proud of himself but pretending he wasn't.
"Oh, so you're actually good." You looked impressed, which made Heeseung feel ridiculously more pleased with himself. "We should play together sometime."
"Yeah, definitely," Heeseung said, and then remembered that this was a game and there probably wasn't a 'sometime' outside of this moment. The thought made something in his stomach twist uncomfortably. You shifted on the bench, getting more comfortable, and somehow ended up closer to him. And just like that, you were off. Heeseung found himself talking more than he had in weeks, and you had opinions, strong ones, and you weren't afraid to argue with him when you disagreed. But it wasn't hostile or competitive, it was fun. At some point, you started talking about other games too. You mentioned playing Stardew Valley when you wanted something relaxing, getting unreasonably invested in Hollow Knight, rage quitting dark souls three times before finally beating it. "I'm not good at souls games," you admitted. "I panic dodge. I know you're supposed to learn the patterns but my brain just goes 'roll roll roll' and then I die."
Heeseung laughed. "That's valid. I did the same thing my first playthrough."
"Really? You seem like you'd be one of those people who does no hit runs for fun."
"Absolutely not. I died to the tutorial boss in Elden Ring."
You gasped, mockingly scandalized. "No you didn't."
"I really did. it Took me like fifteen tries." You were laughing now, the kind of laugh that made your whole face light up, and Heeseung felt ridiculously proud that he'd caused it. There was something about making you laugh that felt like winning.
romantic interest +8. humor appreciated.
You kept talking, jumping from topic to topic with the kind of ease that Heeseung had only ever experienced with Jungwon or Jake at best. Except this was different because you were looking at him like everything he said was interesting, like you actually wanted to hear his thoughts on whether the Death Note ending was satisfying or if Eren from Attack on Titan was justified. The sun was properly setting now, painting everything in warm colors. there were fireflies starting to appear, floating lazily through the air in a way that was definitely too perfect to be natural. Heeseung watched one drift past your face, and you reached out to let it land on your finger. "Pretty," you said softly, watching it glow.
Heeseung was looking at you, at the flower still tucked behind your ear and the way the sunset caught in your hair and the small smile on your face as you watched the firefly. "Yeah," he said. "Really pretty." You glanced at him and caught him staring. For a second, Heeseung thought he'd made it weird, but then you smiled, almost shy, and looked back at the firefly.
romantic interest +15. moment shared.
The firefly flew off, and you watched it go before turning back to him. "Hey, can I tell you something?" He nodded so you kept going. "I wasn't really sure about coming today. I almost canceled, actually." You pulled at a thread on your sleeve, not quite meeting his eyes. "I'm not great at the whole meeting new people thing. I always feel like I'm going to say something weird and scare them off."
"You're not weird," Heeseung said automatically.
"You literally just met me. I could be extremely weird."
"Okay, but like, good weird. The kind of weird that's actually interesting." Heeseung ran a hand through his hair, trying to figure out how to explain it. "Most people just want to talk about surface level stuff, you know? But you actually have things you care about."
You looked at him for a long moment, and Heeseung couldn't read your expression. Then you smiled, soft and genuine. "You're really nice, you know that?"
"I'm really not," Heeseung said, but he was smiling too.
"Yes you are. You're nice and you're a good listener and you have good taste in games." You counted off on your fingers. "That's like, three whole good qualities. Most people don't even have one."
There was a moment of comfortable silence where you just sat there, watching the fireflies multiply in the growing dusk. Heeseung thought about how easy this felt, how he wasn't checking the time or looking for excuses to leave. How he kind of never wanted this to end.
You turned your head to look at him. "So do you want to do this again? Like, another time?"
Heeseung's heart did a weird jump in his chest. "Like another date?"
"Yeah. If you want. No pressure or anything." You said it casually, but Heeseung could see the hint of nervousness in the way you weren't quite meeting his eyes. "I just think it'd be fun to hang out more. Maybe we could actually play League together or something."
Every logical part of Heeseung's brain was screaming that this was a bad idea. That he should figure out how to exit this game and go back to real life and deal with the fact that he'd just spent hours in a virtual reality dating sim. But the less logical part, the part that was currently winning, wanted to see you again. Wanted to hear you laugh more. Wanted to keep talking about stupid stuff that mattered to him and apparently mattered to you too. "Yeah," he heard himself say. "Definitely, yeah, I'd really like that."
Your smile was so bright it could've competed with the fireflies. "Okay. It's a date then."
romantic interest +20. second date confirmed. route progression: 15% complete.
And then, without any warning at all, the world started to blur at the edges. The colors bled together, the sounds got muffled and distant, and Heeseung felt that same pulling sensation from before. Like someone had hooked a line to his chest and was reeling him back. "Wait— " he started to say, reaching out instinctively. You were looking at him with concern, mouth moving, but he couldn't hear what you were saying anymore. Everything was dissolving into static and white light and that horrible feeling of falling. The last thing he saw before everything went black was your face, still worried, still perfect, with that flower tucked behind your ear. Then he was gasping awake in his dark bedroom, switch controller still hot in his hands, his heart racing. The screen showed a save menu: progress saved. continue tomorrow?
His hands were shaking. "What the hell," Heeseung said to his empty room.
And he barely slept that night. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the park, the fireflies, your smile. he kept reaching for memories that felt too solid to be from a game. By the time his alarm went off, he'd already been awake for an hour, staring at his ceiling and trying to convince himself that he hadn't just experienced the most elaborate hallucination of his life.
He found Jungwon in their usual spot in the computer lab, hunched over his laptop with his headphones on, nodding along to whatever he was listening to. There were three empty energy drink cans next to him, which meant he'd probably been there since before sunrise. Heeseung dropped his bag on the desk with more force than necessary. Jungwon jumped, pulling his headphones down. "Jesus, dude. Learn to announce yourself like a normal person."
"We need to talk about your game," Heeseung said.
Jungwon's face lit up. "Oh my god, you played it! what'd you think? Was she cute? Did you get to the part with the—"
"Jungwon." Heeseung sat down, leaning forward. "What the hell did you put in that thing?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it was way too real." Heeseung ran his hand through his hair, trying to figure out how to explain something that sounded insane even in his own head. "It felt like I was actually inside the game."
Jungwon frowned. "Wait, you used a VR headset or something?"
"No, I just played it normally! On my switch, in my room." Heeseung could hear how crazy he sounded but he kept going anyway. "But it wasn't like regular gameplay. It was like the game pulled me in. I could smell things, Jungwon."
Jungwon stared at him for a long moment, then slowly took a sip of his energy drink. "Bro. You got that invested in it?"
"I'm not— that's not what I'm saying."
"You literally just described sensory immersion that doesn't exist yet." Jungwon was grinning now. "Holy shit, you're actually down bad. You played a dating sim for like two hours and now you're having full vivid memories about it."
"It wasn't like that," Heeseung insisted, but even he could hear how weak it sounded.
"Dude, you need to get an actual girlfriend. Like, a real one. Made of flesh and blood and everything." Jungwon was trying not to laugh and failing. "Look, I'm glad you liked it. Genuinely. But maybe we should set you up with someone real before you completely lose touch with reality." Heeseung slumped back in his chair. Maybe Jungwon was right. Maybe he had just gotten way too into it. Maybe his brain had filled in details that weren't actually there because he was that desperate for connection. "I'm not judging! Okay, maybe I'm judging a little bit, but I'm also proud. My game is so good it's causing psychological breaks from reality." Jungwon looked genuinely pleased with himself. "Okay, but if you're playing tonight, there's something you should know."
"What?"
"The second date has a mini game. Like, a fight sequence."
Heeseung blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"A fighting mini game."
"Why the fuck does a dating simulator have a fighting mini game?"
Jungwon shrugged. "I thought it'd be fun. Adds variety and keeps things interesting."
"That makes absolutely no sense. What am I supposed to be fighting?"
"You'll see," Jungwon said, and his smile was deeply suspicious.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer you're getting. I'm not spoiling my own game." Jungwon turned back to his laptop. "Just make sure you've been keeping up with your stats. You're gonna need decent strength and agility."
"I maxed out humor and left emotional intelligence at zero."
Jungwon turned around slowly. "You what."
"What! I was being honest about my abilities!"
"Heeseung. My guy. My dude." Jungwon looked pained. "You're supposed to actually try to build a good character."
"My character is fine."
"Your character is going to get his ass kicked." Jungwon pulled up something on his laptop, clicked around for a second, then shook his head. "Okay, you know what? It's fine. You'll figure it out. The game has adaptive difficulty anyway."
Heeseung really looked at Jungwon. "Adaptive difficulty in a dating sim."
"In the fighting portion, yeah. The dating part is all you, buddy. That's pure skill based."
Heeseung wanted to argue that there was something deeply wrong with Jungwon's game design philosophy, but he also kind of wanted to know what the hell happened on the second date that required combat stats. "Is she going to be there?" He asked. "During the fight thing?"
"Obviously. It's her date." Jungwon was smirking now. "Why, you worried about impressing her?"
"No."
"You're totally worried about impressing her. A girl who doesn't exist."
Heeseung threw a pen at him. Jungwon dodged it without even looking up from his screen. And the rest of the day dragged. Heeseung went to his classes and took notes and nodded at the appropriate times, but his brain was somewhere else entirely. He kept thinking about the park. About the way you'd looked at him when he gave you the flower. About how easy it had been to talk to you. He knew it was just a game. He knew you were just code, just a really well designed character or whatever that Jungwon had somehow made feel real. But knowing that didn't stop him from wanting to see you again.
By the time he got back to his dorm that night, he'd already decided he was playing regardless of how pathetic it made him look. He grabbed his switch, plugged in his headphones even though he hadn't used them last time, and loaded up the save file. The screen flickered once. Twice. Here we go again, Heeseung thought. And then the world tilted, and he was falling forward into light. When the world stopped spinning and Heeseung's vision cleared, he wasn't in a park this time. He was sitting in a desk chair, his own desk chair. In what looked exactly like his dorm room, except cleaner, way cleaner. His laundry wasn't on the floor and his desk wasn't covered in empty energy drink cans. His monitor was on, displaying his league of legends home screen, and his keyboard had that soft RGB glow that looked way more expensive than his actual setup.
"Okay," Heeseung said to the empty room. "This is new." His phone — or the game's version of his phone — buzzed on the desk. He picked it up and saw a discord notification.
you: you're online! finally
you: i've been waiting like ten minutes
you: i was starting to think you ghosted me
Heeseung's heart did that stupid jump thing again. He typed back quickly.
heeseung: sorry, just got on
heeseung: ready when you are
His discord pinged with an incoming call. He stared at it for a second, then clicked accept. "There you are," your voice came through his headphones, clear and warm and doing absolutely nothing good for his heart rate. "I thought you bailed on me."
"I wouldn't do that," Heeseung said, and he meant it, which was concerning considering you were a video game character.
"Good. Because I already said we were playing together and if you didn't show up i would've looked stupid." Heeseung could hear the smile in your voice. on his second monitor — since when did he have a second monitor? — a small window popped up showing your avatar. It was cute, some anime style drawing with the same flower from yesterday tucked behind the character's ear. "Okay, so I set up a custom game. Two versus two," you said.
"Sounds good. Who are we playing against?"
There was a pause. "Okay, so don't freak out, but it's my exes."
Heeseung's hand froze on his mouse. "I'm sorry, what?"
"My ex boyfriends. Both of them. They wanted a rematch from last time." You said it so casually, like this was a completely normal thing. "They're kind of toxic about League. They got really mad when I beat them."
"You want me to play League against your ex boyfriends?"
"Technically we're playing against them together as a team. Bonding activity!" You sounded way too cheerful about this. "Come on, It'll be fun. Plus i really want to beat them again. They've been talking shit in the group chat all week."
quest unlocked: defend your girlfriend's honor (in league of legends) | objective: win the 2v2 match | optional objective: make her exes regret queueing up
The notification appeared in the corner of his vision and Heeseung had to resist the urge to laugh. This was insane. This entire situation was insane. But he went for it anyway. "Okay," he said. "Let's do it." the invite popped up and Heeseung accepted. The lobby loaded and he could see the other two players: "toxicking" and "yourworstnightmare" which were possibly the most obnoxious usernames he'd ever seen. "Those are real people you dated?" Heeseung asked.
"Unfortunately. My taste in men used to be really bad." You paused. "It's gotten better though." Heeseung tried not to smile and failed completely.
The chat lobby loaded and immediately one of them started typing.
toxicking: oh look who showed up
toxicking: brought a new victim i see
yourworstnightmare: this gonna be quick lol
"They're always like this," you said, sounding tired. "Just mute them if they get annoying."
"I'm fine," Heeseung said. "I've dealt with worse in solo queue."
"Ooh, confident. I like it."
romantic interest +5. confidence appreciated.
You locked in Janna, just like you'd said yesterday. Heeseung hovered over Zed for a second, then switched to Leblanc. If this was going to be a two versus two, he wanted mobility and burst damage. The game loaded, Heeseung cracked his knuckles and adjusted his grip on his mouse. "Okay, game plan," you said. "I keep you alive, you delete them. Simple." The match started and immediately the other team was in all chat. Heeseung checked their champions. Yasuo and Yone. Of course they were playing the flashy high skill ceiling champions. He would've bet money they had mastery 7 emotes ready to spam. "They always play like this," you said. "Super aggressive, trying to outplay everything. It's kind of predictable once you get used to it." The minions spawned and both teams moved forward. Heeseung played it safe at first, watching how the exes moved, learning their patterns. And then suddenly, first blood!
"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT," you shouted, and Heeseung couldn't help but grin.
toxicking: wtf
toxicking: that was lag
yourworstnightmare: ur getting carried
yourworstnightmare: ur duo is doing everything
"He's salty," you said, laughing. "This is great." The match continued and it became increasingly clear that Heeseung and you had better coordination. You'd shield him right before he went in. You moved together like you'd been playing as a duo for months. "Behind you," you called out, and Heeseung instantly dodged. It wasn't even close. By fifteen minutes, the score was 15 to 3, and Heeseung had more kills than both of the exes combined.
toxicking: this is bullshit
toxicking: whoever this guy is he's probably smurfing
yourworstnightmare: yeah no way he's actually this rank
toxicking: fucking carried loser
"They're so mad," you said, and you sounded absolutely delighted. "Oh my god, they're so mad. This is the best day of my life."
Heeseung was grinning so hard his face hurt. "Should we end it?"
"Absolutely, yeah. Let's make it hurt." You pushed mid together. Heeseung went in first, deleting the Yasuo instantly. You polymorphed the Yone, and Heeseung finished him off before the polymorph even ended. The nexus exploded.
victory! +50 romantic interest. victory achieved. quest completed. achievement unlocked: better than her exes (at league of legends)
Heeseung leaned back in his chair, feeling more satisfied than he had any right to feel about a video game within a video game. "That felt good."
"Right? God, I've been wanting to do that for weeks." You sighed happily. "You're really good, by the way. You weren't kidding about being diamond."
"I don't really joke about my rank."
"Noted. Confidence is earned." There was a pause. "Hey, want to play another one? Just us this time?"
Heeseung absolutely should not spend more time in this game. He should log off and go to sleep and maybe talk to a therapist about why he was emotionally investing in a dating simulator. "Yeah," he said instead. "Let's play another."
You made a happy sound that did dangerous things to his chest. "Okay! I'll make the lobby.” Your laugh was bright and genuine and perfect. "I knew you were my type."
You played two more games and won both of them. When you finally left the lobby, Heeseung realized he'd been playing for almost two hours. His hands were sore from gripping the mouse and his face hurt from smiling. "Hey," you said, your voice softer now. "Thanks for playing with me. And for, you know, obliterating my exes. That was really fun."
"Anytime," Heeseung said, and meant it. "This was really fun. I don't usually have this much fun playing league."
"Me neither," you admitted. "Usually it's just people being toxic or trying too hard. But this was nice. You're nice." There was a comfortable silence, just the sound of both of you breathing through the discord call. Heeseung looked at his monitor, at the League client, at the clean version of his room that didn't exist in real life. "So," you said eventually. "Same time next week?"
Heeseung's chest tightened. "Yeah. Definitely."
"Cool. It's a date." You paused. "Well, another date. Our third date. Okay. Well. I should probably get going. Okay. Goodnight, Heeseung."
"Goodnight." The discord call ended and Heeseung sat there in the quiet of his too clean room, staring at his monitor. The screen started to blur at the edges, colors bleeding together again. Here we go again, he thought, again.
progress saved. route progression: 30% complete.
And this whole thing it became a routine faster than Heeseung wanted to admit. He'd go to class, take notes he barely remembered, nod at Jungwon when they crossed paths in the lab, and then he'd go straight back to his dorm. Dinner was whatever he could eat with one hand because he was already booting up the switch with the other. Jake, his roommate, asked him once if he was okay, and Heeseung said he was fine, just really into this new game. Which was technically true, even if it didn't come close to explaining what was actually happening.
The third date was at an arcade. Not a real arcade, obviously, but the game's version of one. You showed up wearing this oversized hoodie and jeans and you looked so genuinely excited to be there that Heeseung forgot for a solid minute that none of this was real. The mission was simple: win you a prize from the claw machine. Except the claw machine was rigged in that way that all claw machines are rigged, and it took Heeseung fifteen tries before he finally got the stuffed cat you'd been eyeing. When he handed it to you, you hugged it to your chest and smiled at him like he'd just won you something actually valuable, and the notification that popped up said his charm stat had increased by ten points. He was starting to understand how the game worked now; every interaction mattered and every choice added up.
On the fourth date, you took him to a bookstore, and the mission was to pick out a book for each other. You spent almost an hour wandering through the aisles, pulling out books and reading the backs and showing him things you thought he'd like. You picked him this SciFi novel about time loops and said it reminded you of him because he seemed like someone who'd want to figure out how to break the system. He didn't know how to tell you that he was currently living in something that felt suspiciously like a time loop, so he just took the book and thanked you. He picked you a fantasy novel with a really detailed magic system. When you read the description your whole face lit up and you immediately added it to your reading list. His intelligence stat increased and so did the romantic interest meter, which was now sitting at somewhere close to seventy percent.
Date five was a cooking challenge in your apartment, which Heeseung didn't even know you had until he loaded into the game and found himself standing in a kitchen that looked like it came out of an interior design magazine. You were already there, tying your hair back, explaining that you'd challenged him to see who could make the better pasta. Heeseung had never cooked pasta in his life that didn't come from a box with instructions, but he wasn't about to admit that. The mission objective said to impress you with his cooking skills, which seemed optimistic given his actual skill level, but he tried anyway. He burned the garlic immediately. You laughed at him but not in a mean way, more like you thought it was endearing that he was trying. You ended up helping him, standing close enough that he could smell your perfume, guiding his hands when he didn't know how much salt to add. Your pasta turned out better than his but you ate his anyway and said it wasn't that bad, and his cooking stat went from zero to fifteen which felt generous but he wasn't complaining.
By date seven Heeseung's character stats had changed completely. His confidence was maxed out now, sitting at ninety five out of a hundred. his charm was at eighty. Even his emotional intelligence had somehow climbed to sixty despite him never actively trying to level it up. The game was keeping track of everything, he realized. Every time he listened to you talk about something you cared about, every time he remembered a small detail you'd mentioned, every time he made you laugh, the numbers went up. He was being rewarded for paying attention, for caring.
Date seven was a hiking trail that wound up a mountain to a viewpoint. The mission was just to reach the top together, which sounded simple except the trail was longer than expected. Heeseung offered to take a break but you said you wanted to keep going, you wanted to see the view. So you kept climbing and Heeseung found himself naturally slowing his pace to match yours, offering his hand on the steeper parts, pointing out interesting rocks or plants just to give you reasons to stop and catch his breath, because the game kept showing pop ups of him showing that his hydration meter was almost on 10%. When you finally reached the top the sun was setting and the view was objectively incredible, the kind of thing that didn't exist in real life because real life didn't have rendering engines that could make every cloud perfect. You sat down on the bench at the summit and Heeseung sat next to you and you leaned your head on his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"This is nice," you said quietly. "I'm glad you're here."
"Me too," Heeseung said, and he meant it so completely it scared him.
"You know, when we first met, I wasn't sure if this would work out. I didn't like the idea of a blind date." You were looking out at the view, not at him. "But I think I was wrong. I think we make sense together."
The romantic interest meter hit ninety percent and a new notification appeared: relationship milestone approaching. prepare for confession sequence. Heeseung's stomach dropped. Confession sequence. That meant the game was building toward something, toward an ending. toward him having to either commit or walk away. He'd known this was coming, obviously, this was a dating sim, the whole point was to get to the confession. But now that it was actually happening he wasn't ready. He didn't want this to end. He wanted to keep going on dates and learning things about you and making you laugh and existing in this space where things made sense.
"Hey," you said, turning to look at him. "You okay? You got quiet."
"Yeah, I'm fine," Heeseung lied. "Just thinking."
"About what?"
About how you're not real, he didn't say. About how I'm going to have to leave eventually and you'll just be code again. About how I'm way too invested in something that was only supposed to be a game. "About how nice this is," he said instead.
You smiled and took his hand, lacing your fingers through his. "Yeah. It really is." You sat there until the sun finished setting and the stars came out, which happened too fast because game time didn't move like real time. When the world started to blur at the edges and Heeseung felt that familiar pulling sensation, you squeezed his hand once before letting go. "See you next time," you said, and your voice was already fading.
Heeseung woke up at his desk again, neck sore, hands cramped around the controller. His phone showed it was three in the morning. He had class in five hours. He should sleep. He should eat something. He should probably shower because he wasn't sure he'd done that today. Instead he looked at the switch screen. progress saved. route progression: 90% complete. next date: confession sequence available.
The next day, Heeseung found Jungwon in the same spot as always, corner desk in the computer lab with three monitors running different programs simultaneously. Heeseung dropped into the chair next to him hard enough that Jungwon jumped. "What happens after the confession?" Heeseung asked without preamble.
Jungwon blinked at him. "What?"
"In your game. What happens after the confession scene. I need to know."
"Oh, you're at that part already?" Jungwon's eyebrows went up. "Uh, I don't know if i should tell you though. Spoilers and all that."
"Jungwon."
"I'm serious! The whole point of a game is discovering it yourself. If I tell you what happens it ruins the experience." Jungwon was grinning now, clearly enjoying this. "You're supposed to go in blind and make your choices based on what feels right in the moment."
Heeseung resisted the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. "I just want to know what to expect. Is there a good ending? A bad ending? Multiple endings?"
"There are multiple endings, yeah. Depends on your choices throughout the game and your final stats." Jungwon tilted his head, studying him. "Why are you so stressed about this? It's just a game. If you get a bad ending you can just reload and try again."
"I don't want to reload," Heeseung said, and he could hear how intense he sounded but couldn't seem to stop. "I want to get it right the first time."
Jungwon stared at him for a long moment, then slowly set down his drink. "Okay, you need to be honest with me right now. How much have you been playing this game?"
"I don't know. A few hours a day."
"Heeseung."
"Okay, maybe more than a few hours."
"How many hours are we talking? Ballpark estimate."
Heeseung did the mental math and immediately regretted it. "I don't think that's relevant."
"Oh my god, you're obsessed." Jungwon leaned back in his chair, looking somewhere between amused and concerned. "Dude, it's a dating sim. A fictional dating sim. With a fictional girl who doesn't exist. You know that, right? You know she's not real?"
"Obviously I know that," Heeseung said defensively, even though there were moments when he forgot, when you felt so real that it didn't matter what you were made of.
"Do you though? Because you look like you haven't slept in three days." Jungwon was trying to be lighthearted about it but there was genuine worry underneath. "I made the game to be immersive but this is kind of next level." Jungwon paused. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask. Do you have the save file on your switch?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Can I see it? I want to check something." Jungwon was already pulling out a cable from his bag. "I've been trying to track some of the game metrics and I want to see how your playthrough data looks. Might help me optimize things for the final build." Heeseung hesitated for a second, then pulled out his switch and handed it over. Jungwon connected it to his laptop and started pulling up files, his eyes scanning lines of code that moved too fast for Heeseung to follow. "Okay so your save file shows you're at ninety percent completion, which tracks," Jungwon muttered, clicking through folders. "Romance points are maxed, most of your stats are really high except wisdom which is still somehow at like twenty, but that's on you for ignoring all the library study sessions —" He stopped mid-sentence. "Wait."
"What?"
"Hang on." Jungwon leaned closer to his screen, scrolling through something. his expression shifted from curious to confused to something that looked almost worried. "This doesn't make sense."
"What doesn't make sense?"
"These files. There are scripts here that I didn't write." Jungwon opened another window, comparing code side by side. "Like, entire dialogue trees that don't exist in my original build. And these asset files, I definitely didn't create these. The arcade date was supposed to be at a generic arcade but your file shows custom assets for specific machines."
Heeseung felt something cold settle in his stomach. "Maybe you forgot you added them?"
"I don't forget code I write, Heeseung. That's not how this works." Jungwon was scrolling faster now, opening more files. "And look at this, the dating locations are generating based on your preferences. I programmed like five set locations but your save file has seven different ones and they're all places that align with interests you've demonstrated in gameplay." He clicked on something else. "Oh this is weird. Really weird."
"What?"
"The dialogue system. I built it to pull from a database of pre written responses with some randomization for variety, but this–-" Jungwon gestured at the screen. "This is learning. It's analyzing your responses and generating new dialogue options that don't exist in my database. It's writing its own conversations."
"Is that bad?"
"It's not bad, it's impossible. I didn't program that. I don't even know how to program that." Jungwon looked up at him, and for the first time since Heeseung had known him, he looked genuinely unsettled. "Your game is developing its own code."
They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the hum of the computer lab's ventilation system and the clicking of someone's mechanical keyboard a few desks over. "Is that dangerous?" Heseung asked.
"I don't know. Probably not? I mean, it's still just a game. It's not like it can affect anything outside of itself." Jungwon didn't sound entirely convinced though. "But it's definitely something I need to look into. This could be a massive bug or it could be the framework doing something really innovative that I didn't anticipate."
"But the game still works, right? Like, I can still finish it?"
Jungwon gave him a look. "You're really determined to finish this thing, aren't you?"
"I'm ninety percent through. I'm not stopping now."
"Even knowing that the game is apparently developing sentience or whatever?"
"It's not sentient, it's just adaptive," Heeseung said, trying to sound convincing.
Jungwon sighed and unplugged the switch, handing it back to him. "Okay, fine. But I'm keeping a copy of your save data so I can analyze this more. And maybe after you're done we can talk about what's actually happening here because this is either a huge breakthrough in game design or a really concerning glitch and I genuinely can't tell which." Heeseung nodded, pocketing the switch. "And Heeseung?" Jungwon's expression was serious now. "Be careful with the confession sequence. I know you want to get it right but just remember that at the end of the day it's still a program. It's responding to inputs and generating outputs. It's not actually feeling anything."
Heeseung nodded, but he was thinking about the way you'd looked at him during the sunset on the hiking date or about how your smile seemed genuinely happy when he won you the stuffed cat. "Right," he said. "Yeah, I know that." Jungwon didn't look convinced, and honestly, Heeseung wasn't either.
By the time he got back to his dorm that evening, he'd made a decision. He was going to finish the game. He was going to do the confession sequence. And he was going to be honest, say what he actually felt, because even if you were just code, the feelings were real, his feelings were real. That had to count for something. So he sat down at his desk, picked up his switch, and loaded the save file. the screen showed the usual menu: Continue, Load, Settings. He selected continue and the familiar loading screen appeared with its soft music and the progress bar that now read ninety percent. The world loaded and Heeseung found himself standing in front of a location marker that hadn't been there before. It was highlighted in gold and pulsing softly, and when he walked up to it, a notification appeared.
final date available: confession sequence. proceed?
Heeseung took a breath, his actual physical breath in his actual room, and then pressed yes. The world reformed around him and he was standing outside an apartment building he recognized as yours. The sun was setting, painting everything in warm golden light. His outfit had changed without him doing anything; he was wearing a button up shirt now, dark jeans, shoes that were nicer than anything he owned in real life. His hair felt different too, like someone had styled it properly instead of his usual routine of running his fingers through it and hoping for the best. And then a notification appeared:
quest: the perfect date. objective: confess your feelings. bonus objective: make it memorable.
current stats — confidence: 95. charm: 80. emotional intelligence: 60. romantic interest: 90%.
Heeseung looked at the apartment door and a dialogue option popped up floating in his vision.
> knock on the door > text her that you're here > wait for her to come down
He selected the first option because knocking felt more personal, more intentional. He walked up to the door and knocked three times, and there was this weird moment where he could feel his heart actually racing even though he was pretty sure his real body was just sitting in a chair holding a controller. The door opened and you were there, and Heeseung forgot how to think for a second. You were wearing a dress, which he'd never seen you in before. It wasn't overly fancy, just simple and nice and it suited you in a way that made his chest tight. Your hair was down and you'd clearly put in effort and you looked nervous in a way that made him want to tell you that you had nothing to be nervous about. "Hi," you said, and you were smiling but there was something uncertain in it.
dialogue options: > you look really pretty > ready to go? > sorry, am i early?
Heeseung picked the first one without hesitating. "You look really pretty," he said, and his voice came out steadier than he expected.
Your smile got more genuine, less nervous. "Yeah? I wasn't sure if this was too much. You didn't tell me where we were going."
"It's perfect," Heeseung said, even though he also didn't know where you were going.
romance +5. successful compliment.
You grabbed your bag and locked the door behind you, and when you turned back to him there was this moment where Heeseung almost offered his hand but wasn't sure if that was too much. The game solved the problem for him by providing another choice.
action options: > offer your arm > walk beside her casually > hold her hand
He selected the first one, old fashioned but confident, and held out his arm. You looked at it for a second and then smiled and took it, linking your arm through his, and suddenly you were walking together down the street like this was something you did all the time. "So where are we going?" You asked, looking up at him.
"This place I found," Heeseung said, even though he hadn't found anything because this was a game and the location was predetermined. "I thought you'd like it."
The restaurant, when you got there, was the kind of place Heeseung had only seen in movies. Small and intimate with soft lighting and candles on every table and windows that looked out over the city. There was a host at the front who smiled at them like he'd been expecting them, and he led them to a table by the window without Heeseung having to say anything. You sat down across from him and looked around, eyes wide. "Heeseung, this place is really nice. You didn't have to do all this."
dialogue options: > i wanted to > you deserve it > it's not that fancy
He picked the second one. "you deserve it," he said, and you looked at him with this expression he couldn't quite read but that made something warm settle in his chest. The waiter came by with menus and Heeseung noticed that all the food options had little stat indicators next to them. Ordering the pasta would give a +5 to sophistication. The steak was +8 to confidence. The wine selection had various charisma bonuses. It was surreal, sitting in what looked like a real restaurant while video game mechanics floated at the edge of his vision. "What are you thinking about?" You asked, and Heeseung realized he'd been quiet for too long.
dialogue options: > just trying to decide what to order > thinking about how nice this is > thinking about you
The third option felt too direct, too soon, so he went with the second. "Just thinking about how nice this is," he said. "Being here with you."
You smiled and looked down at your menu, and Heeseung could see the faint blush on your cheeks. "Yeah. It is nice." You both ordered food and fell into easy conversation. You told him about something funny that happened in your class and he told you about nearly falling asleep during a lecture that morning. The food came and it was actually good, or at least the game's version of good, and Heeseung found himself relaxing into the moment.
Halfway through dinner, you reached across the table and stole a bite of his food without asking. It was casual and comfortable and exactly the kind of thing you'd done on previous dates, but this time when you pulled back, Heeseung caught your hand before you could fully retreat.
action options: > hold her hand > let go after a moment > bring her hand to your lips (high risk)
His confidence stat was at ninety five. He picked the first option and just held your hand there on the table, his fingers laced through yours, and you looked surprised for a second before your expression softened into something that looked almost relieved. "Is this okay?" Heeseung asked quietly.
"Yeah," you said, and your voice was just as quiet. "This is okay."
You finished dinner like that, hands linked across the table, and Heeseung had never felt more present in a moment that he knew wasn't technically real. When the waiter brought the check, Heeseung paid without looking at it, because, well, that wasn't his real money. And you didn't protest, just squeezed his hand once and smiled. Outside the restaurant, the city had transformed into its night version. String lights hung between buildings and the streetlamps cast everything in a warm glow. There was soft music coming from somewhere, ambient and atmospheric. "Do you want to walk for a bit?" You asked. "I'm not really ready to go home yet."
dialogue options: > absolutely > whatever you want > i was hoping you'd say that
Heeseung picked the last one. "I was hoping you'd say that," he said, and you laughed and pulled him down the street, still holding his hand.
You walked through the city without any real destination, just moving together, and Heeseung was hyperaware of every point of contact between you. Your hand in his, the occasional brush of your shoulder against his arm, the way you'd lean into him slightly when you laughed at something he said. Eventually you led him to a park that Heeseung didn't remember seeing before. It was mostly empty at this time of night, just a few NPCs scattered around looking decorative. There was a fountain in the center and benches arranged around it, and you pulled him toward one of the benches and sat down, tugging him down next to you. You didn't let go of his hand. "Can I tell you something?" You asked, looking at the fountain instead of at him.
"Of course," Heeseung said.
You took a breath. "I really like spending time with you. Like, really like it. You make me feel like I can just be myself and that's enough, you know? I don't have to try to be cooler or funnier or different. I can just exist and you seem to like that."
Heeseung's throat felt tight. "I do like that," he managed. "I like you exactly how you are."
critical moment approaching. romance threshold: 95%.
You finally turned to look at him, and your expression was nervous and hopeful and vulnerable in a way that made Heeseung forget that you were supposed to be code. "The thing is," you continued, "I don't usually do this. I don't usually let people get close like this. But with you it felt easy from the start and now I'm just —" you stopped, searching for words. "I'm really happy you're here."
confession sequence initiated. select response: > i'm happy too > i feel the same way > i need to tell you something
Heeseung knew this was it. This was the moment the whole game had been building toward. All those dates, All those conversations, all those stat increases and romance points, everything had led to this choice. He could play it safe with the first two options or he could go all in with the third one. His confidence was maxed out. He'd earned this moment. So he picked the third option.
"I need to tell you something," Heeseung said, and his voice was steadier than he expected. "I didn't really know what to expect when we first met. I thought maybe it'd be awkward or forced or like every other time I've tried to get to know someone. But it wasn't like that at all." You were watching him carefully, not interrupting, and Heeseung kept going. "You're the first person in a really long time who makes me want to actually try, you know? Like, I want to be someone worth your time. I want to hear about your day and your opinions on League of Legends and game mechanics or how you wanted to live on a farm one day. I want to keep doing this, all of it, for as long as you'll let me." Romance stats were at 98% now. "What I'm trying to say is —" Heeseung paused, and the game provided one final choice, the last decision that would determine everything.
final confession: > i really like you > i think i'm falling for you > i'm in love with you
Heeseung looked at you, at the way you were watching him with your full attention, at the hope in your expression, at how real you felt in this moment. He picked the middle option, the one that was honest without being overwhelming. "I think I'm falling for you," he said quietly. "Actually, I don't think. I know. I'm falling for you and I don't really know how to stop and I don't think I want to."
The world seemed to hold its breath. Even the ambient sounds of the park faded into nothing. You were staring at him with wide eyes and Heeseung's heart was racing and for one terrible second he thought he'd picked wrong, said too much, ruined everything.
Then you smiled, the kind of smile that started small and grew until it took over your whole face, and you said, "oh thank god."
"What?"
"I've been trying to figure out how to tell you the same thing for like days now." You were laughing, almost giddy with relief. "I kept overthinking it and planning the perfect moment and the perfect words and then you just — you just said it and it was perfect anyway."
"So," Heeseung said, because he needed to be absolutely sure. "Does that mean —" You didn't let him finish. You just leaned in and kissed him.
For a second, Heeseung's brain completely short circuited. This wasn't supposed to happen yet. He'd expected more dialogue options, maybe a choice prompt, some kind of warning that this moment was coming. But there was nothing, just the sudden warmth of your lips against his and the way his entire nervous system seemed to light up all at once. It wasn't dramatic or earth shattering or any of the things movies made kissing out to be. It was soft and brief and a little tentative, like you weren't entirely sure if you were doing it right. Your lips were warm and you tasted faintly like the wine from dinner and Heeseung could feel your hand trembling slightly where it was still holding his. He barely had time to process any of it, to kiss you back properly, before you pulled away, looking nervous again.
"Was that okay?" You asked, and your voice was quieter than before, uncertain. "I should have asked first probably but you were taking too long to —"
Heeseung cut you off by kissing you again, properly this time. He brought one hand up to cup your face and he could feel how warm your skin was under his palm, could feel the slight texture of it like actual skin and not polygons. His other hand stayed linked with yours and he squeezed gently, anchoring himself to you, to this moment that felt too real to be made of code. This kiss was different from the first one. Longer, more certain, like now that he knew what he was doing he could actually do it right. You made this small sound against his mouth, something between a sigh and a hum, and Heeseung felt it all the way down to his toes. He tilted his head slightly to deepen the kiss and you responded immediately, your free hand coming up to rest against his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
This has too much detail, Heeseung thought distantly. Games didn't work like this. He shouldn't be able to feel the way your breath hitched when he kissed the corner of your mouth. Shouldn't be able to notice how you leaned into him, closing whatever small distance had been between you. Shouldn't be able to smell your perfume or feel the way your hair brushed against his hand when you tilted your head.
romance: 100%. relationship established | achievement unlocked: first kiss | achievement unlocked: good ending route - mutual confession.
You pulled back just enough to breathe, and Heeseung followed without thinking, not ready to stop yet. You laughed softly against his mouth, the sound vibrating between you, and kissed him again. This time it was you who took control, you who pressed closer, and Heeseung let you, his hand sliding from your cheek to the back of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair. He could feel your heartbeat and that's what finally made his brain catch up to what was happening. His thumb was resting against your pulse point and he could feel it racing, quick and real and impossible. Games didn't simulate heartbeats. Games didn't need that level of detail. But he could feel it anyway, the proof that maybe you were here, that this was happening, even if it shouldn't be possible.
"Okay," you said quietly, and you were smiling. He could hear it in your voice even before he saw it.
Heeseung laughed, the sound coming out rougher than he intended. "That was better than okay."
You opened your eyes and looked at him, and Heeseung's breath caught because the detail was impossible. He could see the exact color of your eyes, could see the way they reflected the light from the streetlamps, could see the slight dilation of your pupils. This wasn't game graphics. This was too real. This was beyond anything Jungwon could have programmed. "You're staring," you said, but you didn't sound upset about it. If anything you sounded pleased, a little shy.
"Sorry," Heeseung said, but he didn't look away. "I'm just — you're really pretty."
You bit your lip, trying not to smile too wide, and Heeseung watched the movement with more attention than was probably appropriate. He wanted to kiss you again. He wanted to stay in this moment forever. He wanted to understand how any of this was possible. "Can I ask you something?" Heeseung said, his voice barely above a whisper because speaking any louder felt like it would shatter whatever spell they were under.
"Anything," you said, and your hand was still pressed against his chest and Heeseung wondered if you could feel his heartbeat too, if the game had coded that detail as well.
"Does this feel real to you?"
You tilted your head slightly, considering the question. "What do you mean?"
"This. Us. Right now." Heeseung knew he wasn't making sense but he needed to know, needed to understand if you felt it too, this strange impossible realness of everything. "Does it feel real?"
You were quiet for a moment, your expression thoughtful, and then you squeezed his hand. "It's the most real thing I've ever felt," you said simply. "Why? Does it not feel real to you?"
"No, it does. That's the problem." Heeseung couldn't explain what he meant without revealing that you were in a game, that this was all supposed to be simulation, that none of this should feel the way it did. "It feels too real."
"I don't think something can feel too real," you said, and you leaned in and pecked his lips, soft and quick. "Either it's real or it's not. And this is real." Heeseung wanted to argue, wanted to explain all the reasons why this couldn't be real, why you couldn't be real. Maybe it didn't matter. maybe real was just whatever felt like this. "Kiss me again," you said against his mouth, and it wasn't really a question. So Heeseung did. He kissed you until he forgot where he ended and you began, until the only thing that existed was this: You and him and this impossible moment that felt more real than anything in his actual life ever had.
Eventually though, the world started to glitch again. The colors began bleeding together and the sounds got distant and muffled. Heeseung felt that familiar pulling sensation and knew his time was up. "Hey," he said urgently, taking both your hands. "I—"
"It's okay," you said, and you were smiling even though your eyes looked sad. "I know you have to go."
"I don't want to."
"I know. But you'll come back, right?"
save data complete. route finished: good ending achieved. new game+ unlocked. additional content available.
"Yeah," Heeseung promised. "I'll come back."
You kissed him one more time, quick and desperate, and then the world dissolved completely and Heeseung was falling backward through light and color and static. He woke up gasping in his desk chair, controller clutched in his hands so tight his fingers had gone numb. The switch screen was showing the ending credits, rolling slowly with soft music playing. His face felt wet and he realized with some embarrassment that he was crying.
congratulations! you've completed the good ending route.
relationship status: official couple.
total play time: 51 hours, 23 minutes.
would you like to start new game+ with additional couple content?
yes / no
Heeseung stared at the options, his hands still shaking, his heart still racing. He thought about you, about your smile and your laugh and the way you'd kissed him. He thought about how none of it was real but all of it felt real, which was somehow worse. But there was more content. The game was offering him more time with you. More dates, more conversations, more moments. How could he say no to that?
His thumb hovered over the yes option for only a second before he pressed it. The screen went black. Heeseung waited. The switch made its usual loading sound, the soft hum that meant something was processing. He stared at the blank screen and waited for the menu to load, for the game to boot up, for something to happen. But nothing happened, the screen stayed completely black. No loading bar, no menu, no error message. Just his own reflection staring back at him in the screen's surface. He looked terrible, he realized distantly. His eyes were red rimmed and his hair was a mess and he looked like he hadn't slept in days, which was probably accurate.
"Come on," Heeseung muttered, pressing the home button. The switch menu popped up normally, showing all his other games, his profile, the usual interface. He clicked back into Girlfriend Simulator and the screen went black again. he waited another thirty seconds, nothing. He restarted the entire console. When it booted back up and he launched the game, the screen flickered once, twice, and then showed the title screen. Heeseung felt relief flood through him, almost dizzy with it. He clicked continue. The screen loaded for a moment, and then: game over. thank you for playing.
Credits started rolling. The same soft music from before, the same slow scroll of names and acknowledgments. Heeseung watched them pass in disbelief, his stomach sinking further with each line. When the credits finished, it kicked him back to the title screen. He clicked continue again. Same thing: game over, credits, title screen. "What the hell," Heeseung said out loud. He tried load game instead, pulling up his save files. They were all there, all his progress, all forty seven hours of gameplay. He selected the most recent one, the completed route with the good ending marker.
this save file has been completed | start new game+ to continue.
He clicked yes. Black screen. Then after a long pause: error: unable to load content.
"No no no no," Heeseung heard himself saying, clicking frantically now, trying every option, every menu, every possible path to get back into the game. Nothing worked. He checked the time on his phone. 3:29 am. He'd been playing for hours and now he'd been trying to reload for almost thirty minutes. His rational brain knew he should sleep, should deal with this tomorrow when he was thinking clearly, but his rational brain had apparently left the building several dates ago.
He pulled up his recent calls and hit jungwon's name before he could think better of it. it rang once, twice, three times. Then voicemail, Jungwon's voice cheerful and pre recorded telling him to leave a message. Of course Jungwon wasn't answering, it was almost four in the morning. Normal people were asleep at four in the morning. Normal people weren't having breakdowns over video games at four in the morning. Heeseung put his head in his hands and tried to remember the last time he'd felt this hollow about something ending. A relationship, maybe, though his dating history was sparse enough that he couldn't think of a good comparison. This felt worse somehow. The rational part of his brain that hadn't completely shut down was telling him this was ridiculous. Well, it could happen, people got attached to fictional characters all the time. The solution was obvious: take a break, get some perspective, maybe go outside and remember what actual human interaction felt like.
But the rest of him, the larger and louder part, was stuck on the way you'd looked at him on that park bench. The way you'd smiled when he gave you the flower. The way you'd kissed him like you'd been wanting to for a while and were just waiting for permission. The way you'd felt real, impossibly real, more real than most of the interactions he had in his day to day life. "It's not real," Heeseung said out loud to his dark room, his voice rough. "She's not real. It's just code. Just really good code that learned too well."
But his chest ached anyway. And somewhere around six am, Heeseung finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, his switch still sitting on his desk with the title screen frozen on the display. When his alarm went off three hours later for his morning class, Heeseung woke up feeling worse than when he'd gone to sleep. His eyes were gritty and his head hurt and his chest still had that hollow ache that he couldn't explain away as anything other than what it was.
Heeseung found Jungwon in the computer lab during lunch, exactly where he always was. "Hey," Heeseung said, dropping into the chair next to him. He pulled his switch out of his bag and set it on the desk between them. "The game broke."
"What do you mean broke?" Jungwon glanced at the switch, then at Heeseung, then did a double take. "Dude, you look terrible."
He decided to ignore that. "I mean I finished it. Got to the end, got the good ending, and then it asked if i wanted to start new game plus." Heeseung picked up the switch and demonstrated, clicking through the menus. "I said yes and then it just stopped working. Look, it keeps giving me this error or just showing the game over screen. I can load old saves but I can't progress forward."
Jungwon took the switch, frowning at the screen. He clicked through a few menus, tried the same things Heeseung had tried, and his frown deepened. "That's weird. The new game plus feature should be fully implemented. I tested it before I gave you the build."
"Well it's not working now."
"Yeah, I can see that." Jungwon was scrolling through something, his expression shifting from confused to concerned. "This is really strange. It's like the save file is corrupted but also not corrupted? Like it knows you finished the route but it can't load the post game content."
"Can you fix it?" Heeseung asked, and he hated how desperate he sounded but couldn't seem to help it.
Jungwon looked at him for a long moment. "I can try. I'll need to take this and run some diagnostics, see what's actually happening in the backend. But Heeseung, I need you to manage your expectations here."
"What does that mean?"
"It means this is a test build. That's literally why I asked you to play it, to find bugs like this. If something went seriously wrong with the code, if the file corruption is bad enough, I might have to rebuild the entire post game sequence from scratch. That's going to take time."
"How much time?" Heeseung asked, and his voice came out smaller than he intended.
"I don't know. Could be that I have to scrap this version entirely and start over with a clean build." Jungwon was being gentle about it but firm, like he needed Heeseung to understand the reality of the situation. "This is what testing is for dude, finding the breaking points before release."
Heeseung felt something sink in his chest. Weeks. Or maybe never, if Jungwon had to start over. "Okay," he said, because what else could he say. "Okay, just let me know what you find."
"Yeah." Jungwon pocketed the switch cartridge and gave Heeseung another concerned look. "Seriously though, are you okay? You're acting really weird about this."
"I'm fine," Heeseung lied. "Just frustrated. I was really into it and now I can't finish it."
"It's just a game though."
"I know that."
Jungwon didn't look convinced but he didn't push it either. "Okay. Well, go get some sleep or something. You look like you're about to pass out."
Heeseung nodded and left the lab, feeling hollow in a way that didn't make sense. It was just a game. Jungwon was right. He'd gotten too invested and now he needed to take a step back and remember that normal people didn't have emotional breakdowns over dating simulators. He went to his afternoon lecture and sat in the back and didn't retain a single word the professor said. He took notes anyway, his hand moving automatically across the page while his brain was somewhere else entirely. He kept thinking about you waiting in that park, kept wondering if you were still there or if you'd disappeared when the save file corrupted. Kept wondering if code could feel abandoned.
After class he went back to his dorm and tried to do homework. He opened his algorithms textbook and stared at the same problem for twenty minutes without making any progress. Jake came in around six, dumping his bag on the couch and immediately noticing something was off. "You good?" Jake asked, pulling off his jacket.
"Yeah, fine. Just tired."
"You've been saying that all week." Jake sat down at his own desk and spun his chair to face Heeseung. "You've been acting weirder than usual. What's going on?"
Heeseung considered lying but he was too exhausted to come up with anything convincing. "I was playing this game Jungwon made, got really into it and now it's broken and I can't play it anymore and I'm being weird about it."
"Oh." Jake processed this. "Was it one of those games with like, romance options and stuff?"
"Yeah."
Jake nodded slowly, like this explained everything. "Okay, those games are designed to get you attached, man, it's not your fault." He paused. "By the way, there's a party this weekend. Jay's throwing it at his place. You should come."
"I don't know," Heeseung said.
"Come on, it'll be good for you. Get out of your head for a bit. When was the last time you went to a party?"
Heeseung tried to remember and couldn't. "I don't know. Freshman year maybe?"
"Exactly. You need to socialize with actual human beings. No offense but you've been kind of hermiting lately." Jake was already pulling out his phone. "I'm telling Jay you're coming. It's saturday at eight."
"I don't —"
"Nope, you're coming. I'm not letting you sit here and mope about a video game all weekend. That's sad, even for you."
"What does that even—," Heeseung wanted to argue but he was too tired and Jake had a point. Sitting in his room thinking about you wasn't going to fix anything. Maybe going to a party would help. "Okay, yeah, fine," Heeseung said. "I'll go."
"Good. It's going to be fun." Jake turned back to his desk, already texting. "And who knows, maybe you'll meet someone."
Heeseung doubted that but didn't say it out loud. And saturday came faster than Heeseung expected, which was probably for the best because it meant less time to think about backing out. Jake had been monitoring him all day like he was afraid Heeseung would make a run for it, which was fair because Heeseung had definitely considered it at least three times.
By the time eight rolled around, Jake had already gone through Heeseung's entire closet and vetoed most of it. "You can't wear that, it has a stain. That one's too wrinkled. That shirt makes you look like someone's dad." Eventually they settled on black jeans and a dark blue button up that Heeseung had forgotten he owned, probably because he'd bought it for some family thing two years ago and never wore it again. "There," Jake said, looking satisfied. "You look like an actual person now instead of a sleep deprived computer science major."
"I am a sleep deprived computer science major."
"Yeah but you don't have to advertise it." Jake was already heading for the door.
The party was at some place off campus that apparently belonged to Jay's older brother, which explained why it was bigger and nicer than most student housing. The music was loud enough that Heeseung could feel it in his chest before they even got through the door. Jake immediately got pulled into a conversation with some people from his econ class, and Heeseung grabbed a drink from the kitchen just to have something to do with his hands. He wandered through for a while, recognizing some faces from classes but not really knowing anyone well enough to join their conversations. this was why he didn't go to parties. He always ended up standing awkwardly in corners wondering when it would be acceptable to leave.
"Heeseung!" Someone called, and he turned to see Beomgyu waving at him from the balcony. "Dude, I didn't know you went to parties. Come here." Heeseung made his way through the crowd to the balcony where Beomgyu was standing with Soobin and Riki, and the air was clearer out here, easier to breathe. Beomgyu was holding what was very obviously a joint. "Want some?" Beomgyu offered, holding it out. "It's good stuff."
Heeseung normally would have said no because he had assignments due and didn't really like losing control of his thoughts, but tonight his thoughts were the problem so maybe losing control of them for a bit wasn't the worst idea. "Yeah, okay."
He took it and inhaled, immediately coughed. It felt someone had turned down the volume on all his anxious thoughts. He passed it back to Beomgyu and leaned against the railing. They stood out there for a while, passing the joint around, and Heeseung felt himself relax in a way he hadn't in days. Eventually they went back inside and the party had gotten more crowded. Heeseung got another drink and let himself get pulled into a conversation about the upcoming finals with some people he vaguely recognized from his algorithms class. The weed was making everything feel softer and more manageable, like he could actually handle being around this many people without wanting to escape.
Jake found him around eleven and looked genuinely shocked. "You're still here. And you're smiling. Did someone drug you?"
"I drugged myself, actually. Beomgyu had weed."
"Good for you. See, I knew this would be good for you." Jake clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm going to get another drink. You good?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
And the weird thing was that Heeseung actually meant it. He was good. He was at a party and he wasn't hating it and he hadn't thought about the game in at least an hour. Maybe this was what moving on felt like, just slowly forgetting to think about the thing that had been consuming you.
He made his way toward where people were dancing, not to join them but just to watch, and that's when he saw you. Or someone who looked exactly like you.
You were in the middle of the crowd, dancing with a group of friends, and Heeseung's brain stopped. Same hair, same face, same smile he'd memorized over dozens of hours of gameplay. You were wearing a black dress and your hair was down and you were laughing at something one of her friends said, and Heeseung felt like he'd been punched in the chest. It couldn't be you. It just couldn't be. You weren't real. You were code, pixels, a character in a dating simulator that didn't even work anymore. But she looked exactly like you, moved like you, had the same mannerisms he'd come to recognize, and Heeseung couldn't look away.
He stood there frozen, drink forgotten in his hand, just staring. The weed was definitely not helping because it made everything feel surreal and dreamlike, like maybe he'd fallen asleep at the party and this was just his brain torturing him with what he couldn't have. You spun around to the music and laughed and Heeseung's heart was doing something painful in his chest.
And then, as if you could feel him watching, you turned and looked directly at him. Your eyes met across the crowd and the world seemed to stop. Your expression shifted from happy to confused to something Heeseung couldn't identify, like recognition but also shock, like you'd seen a ghost. A pretty one, actually. You stared at him with the same intensity he was staring at you, both of you frozen while people danced and laughed around them, completely oblivious to whatever moment was happening. And Heeseung's mind was racing. You seemed to recognize him, but that was impossible because you'd never met, because you were a stranger, because the person you looked like didn't exist outside of a video game.
Your friends said something to you and you blinked, breaking eye contact. You looked at them, said something Heeseung couldn't hear over the music, and then looked back at him one more time. That same confused, almost dazed expression. Then you turned back to your friends and kept dancing, but your movements were more mechanical now, less loose, like you were going through the motions while your mind was somewhere else. Heeseung just stood there, rooted to the spot, his drink sweating in his hand. His heart was pounding and his head was spinning and he couldn't tell if it was the weed or the shock or both. Probably both. He was high at a party and he'd just seen someone who looked like a video game character and convinced himself it meant something. He was hallucinating. He had to be hallucinating. Or the weed was laced with something. Or he'd finally actually lost his mind.
He turned and pushed through the crowd, Making his way to the bathroom. He needed to splash water on his face, Needed to get his head straight, needed to stop seeing you everywhere just because he missed the game. Heeseung practically fell inside and locked the door behind him. He turned on the faucet and let the water run cold, then splashed it on his face once, twice, three times. The shock of it helped, made everything feel more real and less dreamlike.
He looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were definitely red from the weed and he looked slightly unhinged, hair messed up from running his hands through it too many times. "You're fine," he told his reflection. "You're high and you're seeing things and you're fine. She just looks like her. Lots of people probably look like her. Jungwon probably based the character on some generic attractive person template. It doesn't mean anything."
Someone knocked on the bathroom door. He splashed more water on his face, dried off with a questionable towel that was hanging on the rack, and tried to pull himself together. He couldn't hide in the bathroom all night. He needed to go back out there, find Jake, maybe go home and sleep this off. Maybe in the morning this would all make sense or at least feel less overwhelming.
He opened the door and nearly ran directly into you. "Oh, I'm sorry," you said quickly, stepping back.
Heeseung froze. Up close you were even more exactly like the character from the game, every detail perfect, from the shape of your eyes to the way you were nervously adjusting the strap of your dress. You looked at him for a second, that same confused recognition flickering across your face, and then you moved to step past him.
"Wait," Heeseung said, turning before he could stop himself. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. "I'm sorry, do we know each other from somewhere?"
You stopped and turned back, tilting your head slightly as you studied his face. "No, I don't think so. I think I'd remember if we'd met before." You paused, and then your eyes widened slightly like you'd just heard what you said. "I mean, not that I'm saying you have a particularly memorable face or anything. Wait, that sounds bad. I'm not saying you're forgettable either, you're just— " you stopped yourself and took a breath. "Sorry, I'm making this weird. I don't think we've met but you do seem familiar somehow."
Heeseung just stared at you, his brain trying to process the fact that you were standing in front of him, real and solid and rambling nervously in the exact same way the game character had. The same mannerisms, the same voice, the same way of talking yourself into circles when you were flustered. It was you. It was actually you. "Are you okay?" You asked, looking concerned now.
"Sorry, yeah, I'm fine." Heeseung tried to pull himself together. "You just really remind me of someone."
"Good someone or bad someone?"
"Good someone. Definitely good someone."
You smiled at that, a small genuine smile that made Heeseung's chest ache because he'd seen that exact smile dozens of times through a screen. "Well that's good at least. I'm Y/N, by the way."
"Heeseung."
"Nice to meet you, Heeseung." You shifted your weight from one foot to the other, and Heeseung noticed your phone in your hand. The case had a photocard of a character that he recognized immediately — Janna from League of Legends, in her star guardian skin.
"You play league?" He asked before he could think better of it.
Your face lit up. "Yeah! How'd you know?"
"Your phone case."
"Oh my god, yes." You turned your phone to show him properly, looking pleased that he'd recognized it. "I'm a Janna main and I'm not ashamed of it." Heeseung felt something cold run down his spine. Those words. he'd heard those exact words before. "I know, I know," you continued, in the same tone, the same cadence. "Support is boring or whatever, but someone has to keep the ADC alive and it might as well be me."
Heeseung couldn't breathe. Word for word. You'd just said exactly what you'd said in the game, with the same inflection, the same defensive pride. This wasn't a coincidence. This couldn't be a coincidence. "What rank are you?" He managed to ask, his voice coming out rougher than intended.
"Plat 2. I was almost diamond last season but then I had finals and gave up on the grind." You were fully animated now, talking with your hands. "What about you, do you play?"
"Yeah. Diamond 3."
"Oh so you're actually good." You looked impressed. "We should play together sometime."
The world tilted. Heeseung was pretty sure he was having some kind of break from reality because this conversation had already happened. He'd already lived through this exact exchange in the game, and now it was happening again in real life with a real person standing in front of him saying the same things.
"Heeseung!" Someone called out, and Heeseung turned to see Jungwon pushing through the hallway crowd, looking genuinely shocked. "Holy shit, you actually came to a party. I didn't think I'd see this day." Jungwon reached them and then seemed to notice you for the first time. His expression shifted from surprised to confused. "Wait, you two know each other?"
"You know each other?" Heeseung and you said at the exact same time, then looked at each other in surprise.
Jungwon looked between the two of you, his confusion deepening. "Yeah, Y/N's in my game design class." He turned to you. "And Heeseung's my best friend, we're in the same program."
"Wait, so you're that Heeseung!" You looked at him. "He talks about you all the time, by the way. I know your entire sleep schedule at this point."
"That's concerning," Heeseung said.
"Very concerning," you agreed. "So what brings you to the party?" You asked Heeseung. "Jungwon made it sound like you're basically a hermit who only emerges for classes and food."
"My roommate forced me to come. Said I needed to socialize."
"Same, actually. My best friend is around here somewhere." You glanced back toward the party. "She has this theory that I spend too much time gaming and not enough time experiencing real life."
"Gaming is real life," Heeseung said.
"Exactly! That's what I told her." You seemed genuinely pleased that he understood. "But she's on this whole thing about how I need to make more friends and go out more and whatever. So here I am, at a party, making friends." You gestured between yourself and Heeseung. "Look at me, being social."
"Thanks, I'm trying." You checked your phone quickly. "Speaking of my roommate, she's texting me asking where I went. I should probably get back." You looked at Heeseung. "But seriously, add me on league. I meant what I said about playing together."
"Yeah, I will," Heeseung said, and he meant it even though his brain was still trying to process the fact that you were real and standing in front of him.
"Cool. See you guys around." You smiled at both of them and headed back toward the party, weaving through the people in the hallway.
The moment you were out of sight, Heeseung grabbed Jungwon's arm and pulled him toward the front door, outside where it was quieter and they could actually talk without shouting over music. "Dude, what the hell," Heeseung said the moment they were on the sidewalk. "You used her to make the character in the game?"
Jungwon blinked at him. "What? No. What are you talking about?"
"The character in girlfriend simulator. She's exactly like Y/N. Exactly like her, Jungwon. Same face, same personality, same everything."
Jungwon's confusion seemed genuine. "Heeseung, the character customization is completely random for each player. I'm still working on implementing a proper character creator but I ran out of time, so right now it just generates a random appearance based on some base parameters. I didn't use anyone specific as a model."
"That's impossible. She looks exactly like her."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah! I spent fifty one hours with that character. I know what she looks like." Heeseung could hear how unhinged he sounded but he couldn't stop. "And it's not just appearance. The way she talks, the things she said— it's all the same, like, word for word."
Jungwon was quiet for a moment, his expression shifting from confused to concerned. "Okay, I think you need to calm down for a second. I think maybe you played the game too much and now you're seeing patterns that aren't there. Like, you spent all week interacting with this character and now you meet someone who has some similar traits and your brain is making connections."
"Jungwon, I'm not making it up."
"I'm not saying you're making it up, I'm saying your brain might be filling in similarities that aren't actually there." Jungwon pulled out his phone. "Look, I don't even really know Y/N that well. We work on projects together but we don't like, hang out or have deep conversations. I definitely didn't use her as a base for anything."
Heeseung felt something cold settle in his stomach. "Then how do you explain the game knowing things about her? The league stuff, the personality, all of it?"
"The game generates dialogue based on common interests and gaming culture. Lots of people play league. lots of people main support. It's not that weird that there'd be overlap." Jungwon looked genuinely worried now. "Heeseung, I think the game messed with your head more than I thought it would. Maybe we should scrap it entirely."
"No," Heeseung said quickly. "No, I just — I need to understand what happened."
Jungwon sighed. "Look, I actually gave the game to Y/N to test too. A while back, before I gave it to you."
Heeseung's head snapped up. "You what?"
"There's an option in the loading screen. You can choose to play as the protagonist or as the girlfriend. I thought it would be cool to have both perspectives, make it more replayable." Jungwon was scrolling through his phone now. "You didn't see that option?"
"No. There was just a loading screen and then it started."
"Weird. It should have given you a choice." Jungwon pulled up what looked like a message thread. "Anyway, I gave Y/N a beta version to test like a month ago. But she gave it back to me after one day. Said it was too realistic and kind of freaked her out."
"What do you mean too realistic?"
"She said the immersion was too intense. She said it made her uncomfortable how real the boyfriend character seemed." Jungwon looked up from his phone. "Which, now that I think about it, is basically the same thing you've been saying about the girlfriend character."
Heeseung's mind was racing. "So she played it. She played the game from the other perspective."
"Yeah, but just for a few hours. She didn't finish it or anything." Jungwon pocketed his phone. "Why does that matter?"
"I don't know. It just — " Heeseung stopped, trying to organize his thoughts.
Jungwon was watching him carefully. "You look kind of freaked out right now."
Heeseung leaned against the wall of the building, suddenly exhausted. "I just spent a week falling for someone who I thought was just code. And now I find out she looks like a real person and I've been talking to her for the past fifteen minutes like a normal person and I don't know what to do with that information."
"Well, she gave you her discord. You could message her. Play some League together. Get to know the real her instead of the game version." Jungwon paused. "Unless that's too weird for you."
So when Heeseung was ready to leave the party, Jake and Jungwon looked almost disappointed but didn’t argue. They made their way through the crowd toward the front door, and that’s when Heeseung saw you again. You were standing on the sidewalk with two other girls, you were bent over laughing, that genuine kind of laugh where you forget to be self conscious about it.
Heeseung slowed down without meaning to, and Jake nearly walked into him. But then you looked up, like you could sense someone watching. your eyes met Heeseung’s across the sidewalk and you smiled, a smile that felt almost conspiratorial. Like you two were in on a joke that nobody else knew about. Which was insane because you’d met like half an hour ago and had one conversation in a hallway. One of your friends said something and you broke eye contact, still smiling, and climbed into the back seat of the car. Through the window Heeseung could see you saying something that made your friends crack up again. The car pulled away and you didn’t look back, but Heeseung kept staring at the taillights until they disappeared around the corner.
“Okay, what was that?” Jake asked.
“What was what?”
“That whole…” Jake gestured vaguely. “Moment. You guys were having a moment.”
“We weren’t having a moment.”
“You were definitely having a moment. Who was that?”
“Just someone I met. Friend of Jungwon’s.” Heeseung started walking toward their dorm and Jake followed, still looking suspicious.
“You met someone and had a moment with them? At a party? Did I slip into an alternate dimension?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious, this is unprecedented behavior from you. You don’t do moments with strangers.” Heeseung didn’t know how to explain that it hadn’t felt like meeting a stranger. It had felt like running into someone he already knew, someone he’d been thinking about for days. Which was objectively insane but that didn’t make it any less true.
When they got back to the dorm, Jake immediately went to take a shower, still talking about the party through the bathroom door. Heeseung sat down at his desk and opened his laptop, pulling up discord before he could talk himself out of it. He typed your name into the search bar. There were like fifteen results but he scrolled through until he found one account that matched your username, with a profile picture that matched; a cute drawing of what looked like a cat in a witch hat. He clicked on your profile and immediately started going through your connected accounts and activity like some kind of creep, but whatever, that’s what public profiles were for, right?
Steam account: 847 hours in League of Legends, which was honestly rookie numbers compared to his own. Recently played Roblox, which he wasn’t going to judge because he had his own embarrassing game collection. He’d been growing a garden in Grow a Garden for like six months now and his sunflowers were thriving, thank you very much. Stardew Valley with 234 hours, which was extremely respectable and also adorable. Unpacking with a lot of hours, which he’d never played but had heard good things about. And The Sims 4 with an amount of hours that suggested you had a serious problem with simulation games. Which, to be honest, he kind of had it now too.
Your Spotify was connected too and he could see you’d been listening to a lot of bedroom pop and indie stuff. Your about me section just said “life ain't cookies n cream lil fella,” which made Heeseung chuckle. You had a sense of humor, which is something he kind of already knew, even though he only knew the game version of you.
Heeseung realized he’d been sitting there scrolling through your profile for like ten minutes and definitely needed to actually send the friend request before this got any weirder. He clicked add friend and then immediately closed his laptop like it might explode. He tried to do other things. He checked his phone. He looked at his algorithms homework and immediately closed that because absolutely not. He reorganized the pens on his desk. He considered making ramen but wasn’t actually hungry. Until his laptop pinged. Heeseung lunged for it so fast he almost his water bottle off the desk. He opened discord and there it was: you accepted his friend request. His heart was doing something stupid in his chest. It was just a discord notification, normal people didn’t have heart palpitations over discord notifications. But Heeseung wasn't normal anymore.
But before he could stop himself, before his brain could catch up with what his hands were doing, he opened the dm and typed hey and then, because apparently he was determined to embarrass himself, he sent the little waving robot sticker that discord suggested unintentionally. He stared at what he’d just done in absolute horror. The waving robot. He’d sent you the waving robot sticker. “Oh my god,” Heeseung said out loud to his empty room. His fingers were already flying across the keyboard.
heeseung: sorry lol
heeseung: idk why i sent that
heeseung: the robot i mean
heeseung: anyway hi
He watched the three dots appear that meant you were typing. they disappeared. appeared again. Disappeared. Heeseung was going to have a heart attack.
you: no the robot was cute
you: very welcoming
you: really set the tone
Heeseung couldn’t tell if you were making fun of him or not.
heeseung: the tone being what exactly
heeseung: desperate?
you: i was gonna say endearing but sure we can go with desperate
Heeseung laughed out loud, an actual laugh that made Jake yell “You good?” from the bathroom. Heeseung didn't answer.
heeseung: cool cool cool love that for me
heeseung: starting strong
you: you’re doing great
you: so did you add me just to apologize for an emoji or was there something else
Heeseung stared at the message. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. He could play it cool, say something casual about League or whatever. Or he could be honest, which was terrifying but also the weed was still kind of in his system making everything feel less scary than it probably should.
heeseung: honestly i just wanted to talk to you more
heeseung: the conversation in the hallway was cool
The thing was, Heeseung felt bold saying that. Actually bold. This was probably the most direct he’d been with someone (in real life) in years, and he half expected you to think it was weird or too forward or whatever. But you didn’t. You just said “aw that’s sweet, me too!” with a smiley face and kept talking, and Heeseung felt something in his chest unclench. And you talked for hours. About games mostly, because that was the safe territory, the common ground. You told him about how you had been completely consumed by Pokemon Legends ZA, playing it every free moment you had. He admitted he’d loved Arceus when it came out but hadn’t gotten around to ZA yet, and you immediately started telling him everything he was missing out on, your messages coming in quick bursts of enthusiasm about the new mechanics and the Kalos region and how you’d already put in like sixty hours.
You asked him what his favorite games of all time were and he gave you his top five, and you had opinions about all of them, good opinions, the kind that made him want to keep talking just to hear what you’d say next. Somewhere around 1am you sent: “btw you seem really cool hee. we should play something together sometime if you’re down” and Heeseung stared at that message for long enough. You’d called him hee. You’d given him a nickname. And you wanted to play games together. His fingers hovered over the keyboard and he could feel his face getting warm, which was stupid because you couldn’t even see him, but his body didn’t seem to care about logic.
heeseung: yeah definitely
heeseung: i’d be really down for that
You sent back a heart emoji and said you had to sleep, and Heeseung said goodnight, and then he just sat there for a minute staring at the conversation like if he looked at it long enough he could figure out what was happening to him. He was down bad, really down bad. Which was insane because he’d been down bad before this even happened, down bad for a video game character that turned out to look exactly like you, and now he was down bad for the actual real you, and his brain couldn’t quite process the overlap. It felt like two separate situations that had merged into one extremely confusing situation that he didn’t know how to handle.
When he finally went to bed that night, he had that specific feeling you get when something really good has just happened and you’re lying in the dark replaying it in your head. That flutter in your stomach, that slight buzz of excitement, that sense that you’ve just met someone who’s probably going to matter. Someone who’s going to take up space in your life in a way you can’t predict yet but can already feel coming.
And he’d be lying to himself if he said he didn’t spend the entire next week looking for you on campus. Not in a weird way. Or maybe in a weird way, but he was trying to make it not weird. He’d just happen to walk past the design building between classes. He’d just happen to take a longer route to the dining hall that went by the areas where Jungwon said you usually hung out. He’d just happen to check the game design lab when he was meeting Jungwon, looking around all casual like he wasn’t actively scanning for your face.
Monday: nothing. Tuesday: he saw someone with similar hair from behind and did a weird half jog to catch up only to realize it was absolutely not you and he’d just chased down a complete stranger for no reason. Wednesday: he sat in the campus coffee shop for two hours pretending to do homework but really just watching the door. Thursday: more nothing. By friday Heeseung was starting to think maybe you were a figment of his imagination, maybe the whole party had been a fever dream, maybe he’d made you up entirely. So by afternoon Heeseung had given up. He was going to the library to actually do the algorithms homework he’d been ignoring all week, and he was going to stop being a weird person who wandered around campus hoping to accidentally run into someone.
Except then he walked into the library and saw you. You were tucked into a corner on the second floor, the quiet study section where people went to actually focus. Your laptop was open in front of you, headphones on, and you were doing that thing where you chewed on your pen cap while reading something on the screen. There were books and papers scattered around you in what looked like organized chaos, and your coffee cup said something in sharpie that Heeseung couldn’t read from where he was standing like a creep behind a bookshelf.
Okay. Okay, this was fine. This was a normal situation. You were here, he was here, both of you were in a library because that’s what students do. He just had to walk over there and say hi. Simple. Easy. Not weird at all. But what if you were in the zone? What if you were working on something important and he interrupted and you got annoyed? What if you didn’t actually want to see him and had just been being polite when you said you should play games sometime? He could just sit near you, not like right next to you, but in the general area. That would be natural. He needed to study anyway, it made sense to sit in the quiet section. So he picked a table that was close but not too close. Close enough that you might notice him but far enough that it didn’t look intentional.
He sat down and pulled out his laptop and his textbook, arranging them very carefully, very normally. Then he just sat there, staring at his algorithms homework. Not doing it, just staring. But five minutes passed and you hadn’t looked up. Heeseung opened his laptop. Closed it. Opened it again. He was being ridiculous. He should just get up and go say hi because that’s what normal people did. Normal people didn’t stage elaborate accidental meetings, they just walked up and said hello. He stood up, sat back down, stood up again. And then you finally looked up. Heeseung froze, half standing, half sitting, in the most awkward position possible. You pulled off your headphones and your face went from confused to surprised to happy in the span of like two seconds.
“Heeseung?” You said, keeping your voice library quiet. “What are you doing?”
“Studying,” Heeseung said too quickly, and then realized he was still in that weird half crouch position and sat down properly. “I mean, I was about to. study. I’m here to study.”
You smiled and Heeseung’s brain stopped for a moment. “Oh cool. Me too, obviously.” You gestured at your chaos of books and papers. "Working on this project that’s slowly killing me.”
“Do you want company?” Heeseung asked, and then immediately wanted to take it back because what if you said no, what if you were here specifically to study alone, what if—
“Yeah, actually that’d be nice.” You started clearing some space on your table, moving books and papers around. “I’ve been here for like three hours and I’m losing my mind. Could use a distraction.” So Heeseung grabbed his stuff and moved to your table, trying very hard to look like this was a normal thing he did all the time, sitting with people in libraries, being a person who had casual study sessions with other people. “So,” you said, once he was settled across from you. “What are the odds we both ended up in the same random corner of the library?”
You agreed, and there was something in the way you said it that made Heeseung think maybe you knew it wasn’t really a coincidence, maybe you’d seen him doing his weird laps around the second floor, but you were being nice about it. You settled into studying, or at least Heeseung pretended to study while you actually did work. You’d put your headphones back on but kept one ear uncovered, just in case he needed to ask you something about something, which he definitely wasn’t going to do because he wasn’t actually reading anything on the page in front of him.
Instead he was watching you, maybe in a weird way, but he couldn’t help it. Because sitting there across from you, seeing you up close in the quiet library light, Heeseung was hit with how much you looked like the character from the game. It wasn’t just the face, though that was uncanny enough. It was the mannerisms and the little things, like the way you bit your bottom lip when you were concentrating, eyes narrowed slightly at your screen. The way you’d tuck your hair behind your ear every few minutes even though it would just fall back. The way your nose would scrunch up a little when you read something confusing. He’d seen all of this before, dozens of times, in the game. I mean you had done all of these exact things, in the game.
You looked up suddenly and Heeseung’s eyes immediately darted to his textbook, pretending he’d been reading the whole time. He could feel you looking at him for a second before you went back to your work, and Heeseung let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. This happened like four more times. Very smooth. Very natural. Definitely not obvious at all.
Then you checked your phone and made a small sound of surprise. “Oh shit, I have class in ten minutes.” You started packing up your stuff quickly, shoving papers into your bag without any real organization. “I totally lost track of time.”
“Yeah, me too,” Heeseung lied, because he’d been very aware of every single minute.
You stood up, slinging your bag over your shoulder, and then you leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. Just like that. Casual and quick. Your lips pressed against his cheek for maybe half a second before you pulled back. “Thanks for keeping me company,” you said, smiling. “See you later, Hee.”
And then you were gone, weaving through the tables toward the stairs, and Heeseung just sat there frozen. His hand slowly came up to touch his cheek where you’d kissed him, like he needed to confirm it had actually happened. His face felt hot. His brain felt scrambled. You’d kissed him on the cheek. People did that, right? That was a normal friend thing? Except you barely knew each other so were you even friends? And why did his cheek feel like it was burning? And Heeseung realized he was just sitting there touching his face like a complete idiot and forced himself to put his hand down. He should pack up, he should go to his next class. He should do literally anything except sit here having a crisis over a cheek kiss. But he didn’t move, he just sat there, staring at nothing, replaying the moment over and over.
“You good, man?” Heeseung’s head snapped up. Jungwon was standing next to the table, looking at him with concern and also amusement, which was a terrible combination.
“When did you get here?”
“Like two minutes ago. You were very deep in thought.” Jungwon sat down and then casually tossed something onto the table. The switch cartridge, the Girlfriend Simulator cartridge. Heeseung stared at it. “I fixed the game.” Jungwon leaned back in his chair, looking proud of himself. “You can keep playing from where you left off. It was easier to fix than I thought it’d be, just had to rebuild some of the backend routing for the post game content.” Heeseung picked up the cartridge, turning it over in his hands. "The save file's intact," Jungwon continued. “All your progress is still there. The new game plus should work now. I tested it on my switch and it loaded fine."
"Thanks,” Heeseung said, and his voice came out quieter than he meant it to. He shoved the cartridge into his bag and stood up. “I’m leaving."
“Don’t you have that lecture in twenty minutes?”
“Don’t care. Bye.” He left Jungwon sitting there chuckling and headed straight out of the library, across campus, back to his dorm. Jake wasn’t there, which was good because Heeseung didn’t need any more people commenting on his alleged vibe. He sat down at his desk and just looked at the cartridge for a minute. He should think about this. should consider whether playing the game again was a good idea now that he knew you, the real you. Now that things were getting complicated in a way that made his head hurt. But he wasn’t thinking. He was just plugging in his switch, loading up the game, watching the title screen appear with its soft music and clean typography.
continue from last save? yes / no
Heeseung pressed yes immediately. The world materialized around him in that same disorienting rush, colors bleeding into focus, sounds filtering in like someone was slowly turning up the volume. When his vision cleared, he was standing exactly where he’d left off at the park. The fireflies were still drifting lazily through the air like they’d been paused mid flight waiting for him to come back. And you were still sitting on the same bench, looking at him with an expression that made Heeseung’s chest tight.
“You’re back,” you said, and your smile was so genuinely happy it hurt to look at. You stood up and walked over to him, and Heeseung noticed the way the game rendered every detail. The way your hair moved, the exact shade of your eyes, the slight flush on your cheeks. “I missed you.” The words hit him harder than they should have. Heeseung opened his mouth and closed it, trying to figure out what to say. In the game, no time was supposed to have passed. He’d left right after your confession, after the kiss, and now he was back and theoretically it should feel like seconds had gone by. But for him it had been days. Almost a week. A week where he’d met the real you, talked to you, sat across from you in a library, felt your lips on his cheek.
Dialogue options appeared: > i missed you too > sorry i was gone so long > it feels like it’s been forever
Heeseung picked the first one because it was the most honest. “I missed you too,” he said, and he meant it in a way that felt complicated and confusing.
You stepped closer, close enough that Heeseung could see the individual pixels that made up your irises, except they didn’t look like pixels at all. “I was worried you wouldn’t come back,” you admitted, your voice softer now. “After everything, I thought maybe you’d just… disappear.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Heeseung said automatically, and then felt weird about it because he kind of had done that, he’d been gone for days even if the game didn’t register it that way.
You reached up and touched his face, your hand warm against his cheek, and Heeseung’s brain short circuited a little because he could feel it. the texture of your palm, the slight pressure of your fingers. This level of detail shouldn’t be possible. “I really like you,” you said, looking directly into his eyes. “Like, a lot. Is that okay?”
Before Heeseung could pick a dialogue option for that, you kissed him. It wasn’t like the first kiss, this was different. Your hand slid from his cheek to the back of his neck and you pressed closer, and Heeseung forgot for a second that this was supposed to be a game. His hands found your waist automatically, pulling you against him, and you made this small sound that he felt more than heard. When you pulled back, you were breathing harder and your eyes had this look in them that Heeseung recognized from somewhere, that slightly dazed expression people get when they’re thinking about something they want. “Do you want to come back to my place?” You asked, your voice lower now, and your hand was still on the back of his neck, fingers playing with his hair in a way that was extremely distracting.
quest update: relationship progression available | warning: mature content ahead | proceed? yes / no | action options: > yes, i’d like that > maybe we should slow down > are you sure?
Heeseung stared at the options. What the fuck. What the actual fuck. This was new, this was definitely new. The game had never had anything like this before. Jungwon had mentioned adding post game content but he definitely hadn’t mentioned adding this kind of content. “Heeseung?” You said, tilting your head slightly. “You okay? We don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just thought—”
“No, I want to,” Heeseung said, picking the first option before he could overthink it. “I definitely want to.”
Your smile turned into something that could only be described as pleased, maybe a little mischievous. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
You took his hand, lacing your fingers through his, and started walking. The park dissolved around you in that smooth transition the game did, colors bleeding together and reforming into a new location, your apartment, and it looked different now, with softer lighting, more intimate somehow. There was music playing quietly from somewhere, something ambient and atmospheric. You let go of his hand and walked further, then turned to look at him. “You can sit down, you know. You don’t have to just stand there.” Heeseung moved to the couch and sat down, hyperaware of every movement, every detail. His hands felt sweaty and his heart was racing. This was insane, this was absolutely insane. He was about to have virtual sex with a video game character that looked exactly like a real person he’d just met and had a weird complicated semi crush on. You sat down next to him, close enough that your thigh pressed against his. “Can I ask you something?” You said.
“Sure.”
“Why did you come back?” Your expression was serious now, searching his face. “I mean, you finished the route. You got the good ending. You didn’t have to come back.”
dialogue options: > i wanted to see you again > i wasn’t ready to say goodbye > because i care about you
Heeseung picked the third option. “Because I care about you,” he said, and it felt true even though it shouldn’t, even though you were code, even though this wasn’t real.
“I care about you too,” you said quietly. Then you leaned in and kissed him again, and this time Heeseung didn’t think about the game mechanics or the dialogue options or any of it. He just kissed you back. Your hands slid under his shirt and Heeseung gasped slightly at the sensation, the feeling of your fingers on his skin. It felt real, too real, like impossibly real. You pulled back just enough to look at him, your eyes dark. “Is this okay?” You asked, your hands still under his shirt, warm against his stomach.
action options: > yes > this is more than okay > [pull her closer]
Heeseung picked the third option and pulled you closer, and you made this satisfied sound and kissed him harder. You shifted in his lap so you were straddling him, and Heeseung’s brain was trying very hard to process the logistics of what was happening. This was a Nintendo Switch game. This was running on a console made for Pokemon and Mario Kart. There was no way this level of content was actually programmed in here. You smiled and kissed his jaw, then his neck, and Heeseung felt his brain dissolve into static. Your teeth grazed his skin lightly and he made a sound that was probably embarrassing but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
intimate scene progression: 45% | continue? yes / no
current comfort level: high | romantic tension: maximum |achievement unlocked: relationship deepening
The notifications kept appearing in his peripheral vision and Heeseung tried to ignore them because they were extremely distracting and also kind of killing the mood, if a video game could have a mood, which apparently this one could. “Hey,” you said, pulling back to look at him. Your face was flushed and your lips were slightly swollen and you looked devastating. “You’re thinking too hard. I can tell.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
dialogue options: > nothing’s wrong > this feels really intense > i’m just overwhelmed > i keep forgetting this isn’t real
Heeseung wanted to pick the last option but that felt like it would break something, some unspoken rule about the game. So he picked the third one. “I’m just overwhelmed,” he admitted. “In a good way. You’re just really… a lot. In the best way possible.”
You softened at that, your expression shifting from concerned to affectionate. “You’re sweet, you know that?” You kissed his cheek. “We can slow down if you want. We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“No, I want this,” Heeseung said, and he did, desperately, even though he knew he probably shouldn’t. “I’m just trying to figure out how this is even possible.”
“How what’s possible?”
“You. This. All of it.” Heeseung knew he wasn’t making sense but the words kept coming anyway. “You feel so real. More real than anything I’ve experienced before. More real than most things I've experienced in actual life, honestly."
You looked at him for a long moment, something unreadable in your expression. Then you said, very quietly, "Maybe that’s because I am real.”
The world glitched. Just for a second, so quick Heeseung almost missed it. The lighting flickered, the textures of the room seemed to shift and resettle, and there was this sound, like static, like interference. You didn’t seem to notice. You were still looking at him with that same expression, waiting for him to respond. error log: reality sync mismatch detected | warning: boundary deviation exceeding normal parameterssystem status: unknown variable introduced
“What do you mean?” Heeseung asked, his voice coming out strained.
“I said maybe I’m real. Maybe this is real. Does it matter?” You touched his face again, gentle. "Does it change anything if I'm real or not real? You’re here, I’m here, this moment exists. Isn’t that enough?”
dialogue options:> yes, that’s enough > no, i need to understand what’s happening >i think something’s wrong with the game > [kiss her to avoid answering]
Heeseung stared at the options, his heart pounding. Part of him wanted to pick the second or third option, wanted to understand what was happening, wanted to figure out why the game was doing things it shouldn’t be able to do. But another part of him, the larger part, just wanted to stop thinking and exist in this moment with you, real or not real, code or person or whatever you were. So he picked the fourth option. His hands moved before his brain could catch up— one sliding to the small of your back, the other cupping your jaw — and he pulled you in, kissing you like the question itself might disappear if he just didn't let go. You made a soft, surprised sound against his lips, but it melted into something needier, as you kissed him back just as fiercely. His hands slid up your thighs, over the soft fabric of your dress, until his fingers found the hem. He tugged lightly, a silent question, and you answered by pressing closer, your body rolling against his in a way that pulled a rough sound from his throat.
action options: > pull her closer > slide hands under her dress > grip her waist and guide her hips > [kiss her neck]
Heeseung didn't even look at the options properly this time. He picked the third one instantly, fingers digging into your waist as he pulled you flush against him, guiding the slow, deliberate grind of your hips. You gasped into his mouth, nails scraping lightly down his chest through his shirt, and the sound you made was needy and it went straight through him. "Heeseung," you breathed, breaking the kiss just enough to look at him. your cheeks were flushed deep, lips swollen and wet, dress riding up slightly from the way you were moving in his lap. "You feel—"
He didn't let you finish. He kissed you deeper, harder, tongue sliding against yours like he needed to taste every part of you. One hand stayed firm on your waist, keeping the rhythm, while the other slipped higher under the hem of your dress, tracing the bare skin of your thigh. You shivered, thighs tightening around his hips, and he felt you press down harder, chasing the friction. You pulled back suddenly, just far enough to grab the bottom of his shirt. Your eyes locked on his, asking. He nodded once, barely, and you tugged it up and over his head in one smooth motion. The second it was gone, your hands were on him again, palms sliding over his chest, fingers tracing the lines of muscle like you were mapping him out. "Better," you whispered, voice rough now, and then your mouth was on his collarbone, kissing down his chest, teeth grazing just enough to make him hiss. Heeseung's head fell back against the couch for a second, eyes squeezing shut, before he surged forward again.
action options: > pull the straps of her dress down > flip her onto the couch > trace her back and pull her even closer > [let her take control]
He picked the third, hands sliding up your back under the thin straps of your dress, fingers splaying wide as he pulled you impossibly closer. Your chest pressed against his, skin on skin now except for the flimsy fabric between you, and he could feel your heart racing just as fast as his. You moaned softly against his neck, hips moving faster, more desperate, and Heeseung matched the rhythm, guiding you with his grip on your waist. Every roll of your body against his made his breath catch, made the heat coil tighter low in his stomach. Your hands were everywhere — his hair, his shoulders, nails dragging down his back— and he was losing it, completely losing it.
action options: > slip the straps down her shoulders > lift the dress over her head > tease the hem higher > [kiss her while undressing her]
He picked the first one, sliding the straps down slowly, watching as the dress loosened and slipped lower, exposing more of your skin. You didn't stop him, instead, you arched your back slightly, helping it along, your eyes locked on his with a look that dared him to keep going. The dress pooled around your waist, and Heeseung's breath caught at the sight of you, bare from the waist up, the soft curve of your breasts rising and falling with each breath. "God," he muttered, voice barely audible, and then he leaned in, mouth finding the sensitive spot on your neck. He kissed there first, open mouthed, then grazed his teeth lightly, sucking just enough to leave a faint mark. You tilted your head back, giving him better access, a low moan escaping your lips that vibrated against his skin. Your hands fisted in his hair, pulling him closer, and Heeseung felt that coil of tension wind tighter, his hips bucking up instinctively to meet your rhythm. The friction was maddening, too much and not enough, and he could feel himself hardening against you, the thin layers between you doing nothing to dull the sensation.
intimate scene progression: 92% | arousal level: peak | system warning: immersion threshold breached
A faint static hum buzzed in his ears for a split second, the room's edges blurring like a bad render, but it passed as quickly as it came. You didn't notice, or if you did, you didn't care — your focus was on him, on the way his mouth moved down your neck to your collarbone, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. You pulled back just enough to look at him, your face flushed, eyes glassy with want. "Heeseung," you said, voice husky and breathless, "Do you want to take this to the bedroom? We can… get more comfortable."
The action wheel popped up: action options: > carry her to the bedroom > pull her up and walk together > push her down on the couch instead > [deepen the kiss and decide later]
Heeseung picked the first one without a second thought. In one fluid motion, he stood, arms wrapping around your waist to lift you effortlessly. You yelped in surprise, legs wrapping around his hips instinctively. the sudden shift made you cling to him, arms around his neck, and Heeseung kissed you hard as he carried you, tasting the salt on your lips from the heat of the moment. The transition was seamless, the game dissolving the living room around you in that familiar bleed of colors, reforming into your bedroom. Soft lighting from a bedside lamp, sheets rumpled like they'd been waiting, the air thicker somehow. Heeseung lowered you onto the bed gently, following you down, his body covering yours as he settled between your legs. You looked up at him, hands sliding down his chest to his waistband, fingers teasing the edge. "Now where were we?" You whispered, pulling him closer.
Heeseung lowered you onto the bed gently, the mattress dipping under your combined weight as he settled between your legs. Your dress was already bunched high on your thighs, and the air between you crackled with anticipation. You looked up at him through half lidded eyes, hands tugging at his waistband, pulling him closer until his hips pressed against yours. The heat of you through the thin fabric was driving him insane — his hands braced on either side of your head, breath ragged as he leaned down to kiss you again, deeper, hungrier.
But just as his fingers brushed the hem of your dress to slide it off completely, everything froze. The world glitched hard; colors inverting for a split second, a low error chime ringing in his ears like a nintendo switch low battery warning. You froze mid motion, lips parted, eyes wide and unblinking, like a paused cutscene. The music cut out. Notifications exploded across his vision in a pop up that took over half the screen:
kink compatibility survey | new content unlock: personalized intimacy | please select preferences to optimize experience (this will not affect main storyline) > time remaining: 30 seconds
Heeseung blinked, staring in horror as a massive form materialized, checkboxes scrolling down like some deranged tinder profile from hell:
His face burning hotter than the tension from seconds ago. "What the fuck is this?" His thumbs mashed the joy cons frantically, heart pounding from equal parts embarrassment and urgency. Thirty seconds? He wasn't even thinking straight — he just spam clicked the safe ones to get it over with. Checkmark on praise kink. Oral focus (both). Dirty talk (why not, he was already losing his mind). Slider cranked to 7 because... yeah. No bondage — keep it simple, game. Vanilla only stayed unchecked because apparently this freakshow had layers.
The pop up vanished with a cheerful ding. You unfroze instantly, blinking like nothing happened, your hands resuming their path down his chest. "Hee?" you murmured, voice soft and teasing, thighs parting wider beneath him. "You okay?"
He swallowed hard, brain still reeling. "Yeah, yeah." You smiled, wicked and knowing somehow, and pulled him down into another kiss. His hands finally obeyed, pushing the dress the rest of the way off your hips, sliding it down your legs until you were bare except for your underwear. The sight of you all spread out hit him. He trailed kisses down your chest, mouth closing over one nipple, sucking gently as you arched into him with a gasp. "You feel perfect," he whispered against your skin, the praise slipping out naturally, and you shivered, fingers threading into his hair. His hand slid lower, between your thighs, fingers brushing over the damp fabric of your underwear. You moaned his name, hips lifting eagerly, and Heeseung pressed harder, rubbing slow, deliberate circles that had you writhing. "So wet for me already," he murmured, voice rough with want, testing the dirty talk, and god, it worked, because your breath was hitching beautifully.
You tugged at his pants impatiently. "Off. Now." He obliged in a blur, shedding them along with everything else until there was nothing between you. He hooked his fingers into your underwear, pulling them down slowly, eyes locked on yours as he tossed them aside.
action options: > taste her first > enter her slowly > tease with fingers > [let her guide]
He picked the first, Heeseung's mind was a haze of want and disbelief as he settled between your thighs, your legs parting wider for him like an invitation he couldn't refuse. The sight of you — bare, glistening, so ready —made his mouth water. This is a game, he reminded himself, heart pounding. Just a fucking game. I can do whatever I want. Things I'd never have the guts to try in real life. No judgment, no consequences. Just you, writhing under him, and the freedom to indulge every filthy thought he'd ever buried.
He hooked his arms under your thighs, pulling you closer until his face was buried between your legs. His tongue flicked out experimentally at first, tasting you, sweet and tangy, like nothing he'd imagined, but better. You bucked against him with a sharp gasp, and that sound flipped a switch. Heeseung groaned against you, the vibration making you whimper, and he dove in deeper, tongue flat and broad as he licked a slow, deliberate stripe from your entrance to your clit. "Fuck, you taste so good," he murmured, voice muffled against your skin, dirty words spilling out because why the hell not? In real life, he'd be too shy, too careful, but here? He could be filthy. "So wet for me already, dripping down my chin. You like that, huh?"
You moaned louder, hands fisting the sheets, then tangling in his hair to pull him closer. "Yes god, Heeseung don't stop." Your voice was wrecked, breathy and desperate, and it fueled him. He sucked your clit into his mouth, rolling his tongue around it in circles, then flicking fast and hard, alternating with long, sloppy licks that had you trembling. His fingers dug into your thighs, holding you open, spreading you wider so he could bury his face deeper, nose pressing against you as he devoured you like he was starving.
He picked the fourth mentally, because fuck it, this was his chance to let loose. "Tell me how good it feels," he growled, pulling back just enough to blow cool air over your slick folds, watching you shiver. "Tell me you want my tongue fucking you deeper."
"Please," you gasped, hips grinding up toward his mouth, chasing the contact. "Heeseung, your tongue— fuck, it's so good. Deeper, I need it deeper."
He plunged his tongue inside you, thrusting it in and out, mimicking what he wanted to do with his cock later. His thumb found your clit, rubbing firm circles while he tongue fucked you, the wet sounds obscene in the quiet room. You were soaking him, face, chin, and he loved it, lapping it up greedily, humming in approval at how messy it was getting. "You're gonna come on my face, aren't you?" He taunted, voice rough and low, pulling back to suck your clit again, harder this time, teeth grazing just enough to make you cry out. "Do it. Come for me, show me how much you love my mouth on this pretty pussy."
You arched off the bed, a broken moan tearing from your throat as the orgasm hit, waves crashing through you. Heeseung didn't stop, licking you through it, drawing it out until you were oversensitive and twitching, begging him to ease up. only then did he pull away, lips shiny and swollen, grinning up at you with a wicked, satisfied look. "Good girl," he praised, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, though he didn't really want to, part of him liked the mess, the evidence. you were panting, eyes hazy as you reached for him. He crawled back up your body, capturing your lips in a kiss that let you taste yourself on his tongue, another thing he'd never dare in real life, but here it felt right, hot. "You taste yourself? So fucking dirty," he whispered against your mouth, positioning himself at your entrance. "Ready for more?"
"Yes please," you begged, nails digging into his shoulders, your voice a needy whine that made his cock twitch against you. You were so wet, slick from his mouth and your own release, and Heeseung could feel the heat radiating from you, pulling him in. But before he could thrust forward, the game intervened again again:
position selection: customize your intimacy > missionary (classic connection) > doggy style (deeper access) > her on top (let her ride) > against the wall (intense standing) > [spooning (gentle side entry)]
Heeseung stared at the options, a mix of arousal and exasperation flooding him. Jungwon, you pervert, he thought, adding a fucking position menu? He timer was ticking— 15 seconds — and you were frozen mid breath, eyes locked on his with that desperate, submissive Gaze that made him want to wreck you. He picked the third option fast, because fuck, the idea of you riding him, taking control but still under his command? Yeah, that was it. The menu vanished with a satisfied beep, and the scene resumed seamlessly. You blinked, as if nothing happened, but your hands were already pushing at his chest gently, urging him to lie back. "Let me... let me ride you," you murmured, voice soft and obedient, like you were reading his mind, or the game's script. "Please? I want to make you feel good."
Heeseung grinned, dark and dominant, shifting onto his back and pulling you with him until you straddled his hips. His hands gripped your thighs hard, fingers digging in possessively as he looked up at you, flushed, eager, completely at his mercy. "Yeah? You wanna ride my cock like a good girl?" He growled, the words coming easier now, dirtier, because this wasn't real life. No holding back.
You whimpered, hands bracing on his chest, your hips grinding down instinctively against his length, coating him in your wetness. "Please, Hee... I need you inside me so bad. I'll be good."
Fuck, he thought, she's so subby, so perfect. The game's kink sync must've kicked in, amplifying everything — your voice trembling, eyes wide and pleading, body arching like you were made to submit. Heeseung's hands slid up to your hips, guiding you, lifting you just enough to position himself at your entrance. "That's my girl. Sink down on me slow— let me watch you take every inch." You obeyed instantly, lowering yourself onto him, the head of his cock pushing past your folds, stretching you open. It was agonizingly slow, and Heeseung groaned low in his throat, feeling the tight, wet heat envelop him inch by inch. You were so fucking real, hotter than any game should allow, clenching around him like velvet, your walls fluttering as you took him deeper.
"Oh god you're so big," you gasped, head falling back, eyes fluttering shut as you adjusted, a shiver running through you. It felt too real, the stretch, the fullness, the way he throbbed inside you, every vein and ridge pressing against your sensitive spots. Heeseung could feel it all, amplified, like the game had cranked the sensitivity to max. Sweat beaded on his skin, your thighs trembling around him, and for a second, he forgot it was code — this was you, real you, riding him.
intimate scene progression: 98% | dominance level: high | submission sync: optimal | warning: haptic feedback overload
A faint glitch rippled through the air — the lamp flickering, your moan echoing with a digital edge for a heartbeat — but it only made him thrust up harder, hands gripping your ass to pull you down rougher. "Ride me, baby. Bounce on my cock," he commanded, voice gravelly and demanding, slapping your ass lightly to spur you on. "Faster, come on."
You moaned louder, hands on his chest for leverage as you started moving up and down, hips rolling in circles that ground your clit against him. "Like this? Fuck, Heeseung it feels so good— you're so deep." Your voice broke on a whimper, body obeying his every cue, riding him harder, faster, tits bouncing with each thrust.
Heeseung bucked up to meet you, thrusting deep enough to make you cry out, one hand sliding up to wrap around your throat gently. "That's it, take it all. You're mine in here, aren't you? My perfect little girl, creaming all over my cock." You clenched tighter, nodding frantically.
"Yes—fuck, Heeseung, I love it. You're so deep, so big...." Your voice was breathy, submissive, breaking on moans as you submitted completely, body moving exactly how he wanted, faster when he slapped your ass, slower when he pulled you down hard.
action options: > thrust up harder > put a finger in her mouth > choke lightly > [pull her hair]
Heeseung picked the second without hesitation, his thumb tracing your lower lip before pushing it into your mouth. You sucked on it immediately, tongue swirling around it like it was his cock, eyes half lidded and locked on his, so obedient it made his dick twitch inside you. "That's it, suck it like a good girl," he rasped, your wet lips wrapped around his finger, drool starting to drip. "Imagine it's my cock in your mouth while I fuck this tight pussy. You'd take both, wouldn't you?" You moaned around his thumb, sucking harder, hips stuttering as the added sensation pushed you closer to the edge. Then, in the corner of his screen, a new notification flickered: partner preference update: increase roughness? yes / no | affinity: high for dominant play
She likes it rougher? Heeseung thought, a smirk tugging at his lips as he mentally selected yes. Wow, this is way easier than in real life. The game adjusted instantly, your moans turning needier, body arching more desperately as he ramped up the intensity. "You want it rougher, huh?" He taunted, pulling his thumb from your mouth with a wet pop, strings of saliva connecting it to your lips. He grabbed your hips hard enough to bruise — if this were real— and thrust up sharply, slamming into you with more force. "Beg for it then. Tell me how bad you want me to wreck this pussy."
"Please—fuck me harder, Heeseung," you cried out, leaning forward to brace on his shoulders as you rode him faster, chasing the roughness.
intimate scene progression: 99% | climax indicator: approaching for both | options: prolong / climax now / switch position
The bar flashed red in his peripheral, both your arousal meters pulsing near max. He could feel it too, the coil tightening low in his gut, your body starting to tense and shake. But Heeseung wasn't ready to end it. He selected prolong and switch position, flipping the script. He rolled you both over, pulling out just long enough to maneuver you onto your side, spooning behind you. His chest pressed to your back, one arm wrapping around your waist to hold you tight, the other lifting your thigh high. "Not yet," he whispered hot against your ear, nipping the lobe. "Gonna fuck you like this now." You nodded weakly, pushing your ass back against him. Heeseung thrust back in from behind, the angle hitting deeper, his cock dragging against your g-spot with every slow, rough pump. His hand slid between your legs, fingers circling your clit fast and hard, while his other arm pinned you close. "That's my good girl," he growled, pounding into you now, the spooning position letting him grind deep. "Taking it so well." Your moans turned into desperate sobs, body arching back into him.
Heeseung's thrusts were relentless, his cock dragging deep inside you with every slow, powerful snap of his hips. You were a whimpering mess against him, back arched, ass grinding back to meet him as his fingers worked your clit in tight, fast circles. "Fuck you're so tight like this," he growled, teeth grazing your shoulder, leaving a mark that made you shiver.
intimate scene progression: 99.5% | climax indicator: critical for both | options: prolong / climax now / switch position
The meters were flashing urgently now, his own arousal bar teetering on the edge, but Heeseung still wasn't done — he wanted more, wanted to push the limits of this insane game until it broke. One more switch, he thought, selecting prolong and switch position again. The game responded instantly, a soft chime echoing as he pulled out, flipping you onto your stomach with rough hands. You gasped at the sudden movement, face down on the bed, ass up as he positioned himself behind you, knees spreading your thighs wide. "On your stomach, baby— ass up for me," he commanded. He slapped your ass hard, the crack echoing, your skin blooming red under his palm, and you cried out, pushing back eagerly like the subby little thing the game had turned you into. "That's right, take it. You love being fucked like this, don't you?"
You nodded into the sheets, voice muffled and needy. "Yes—god, yes, Heeseung." The game's encouragement popped up in his vision — dominance boost: activated | roughness level: max | achievement: total submission unlocked — and it spurred him on, like the system was egging him to go further, deeper into the filth.
He thrust back in from behind, burying himself to the hilt in one rough stroke, the angle hitting even deeper, making you scream into the pillow. His hands gripped your hips bruisingly, pounding into you with brutal force, skin slapping loud and obscene. "So fucking wet, dripping all over me," he snarled, spanking your ass again, harder this time, alternating cheeks until they were stinging red. You arched higher, offering more, moans turning into sobs of pleasure. He tangled one hand in your hair, yanking your head back to expose your neck, lips brushing your ear as he growled, "look at you, taking my cock like a good girl. Beg for more — tell me how much you need me to ruin this pussy."
"Please—ruin me, Heeseung," you begged, voice breaking. The game flashed more incentives — rough play affinity: 100% | continue for bonus immersion — and Heeseung lost it, spanking you in rhythm with his thrusts, pulling your hair tighter to arch your back, fucking you rougher, faster, the bed shaking under the force. Glitches were hitting harder now, but it only made him thrust deeper, the hyper real sensations overwhelming: the sting of your skin under his palm, the tight ripple of your walls around him, your sweat slicked back against his chest.
intimate scene progression: 99.99% | climax indicator: imminent | warning: system overload detected
He was right there, teetering on the edge, cock throbbing inside you, but you twisted slightly, looking back at him with glassy, desperate eyes. "Heeseung — cum inside me, please," you implored. "Fill me up, I need it."
For a split second, his brain stopped. Wait, cum inside? What if— but then reality (or unreality) hit him comically hard. It's a game, dumbass. Pixels can't get pregnant. He almost laughed mid thrust, the absurdity breaking through the haze, but he shoved it aside, diving back. "Yeah? You want me to breed this tight pussy?" He growled, slamming into you harder, spanking one last time for good measure. "Beg for it louder—"
"Yes—fuck, Hee!" You cried, clenching around him desperately, body trembling on the brink. "Cum inside me, please— breed me, make me yours!" That did it. The climax hit like a wave, crashing over you both at once. Heeseung thrust deep one final time, groaning loud as he spilled inside you, feeling the hot pulse of his release mix with your own orgasm, walls milking him dry. You screamed his name, body convulsing under him, the shared peak amplified by the game — sensations exploding, vision blurring with pleasure and glitches alike.
As your body shuddered through the aftershocks, Heeseung collapsed beside you, pulling you close against his chest with a gentleness that felt worlds away from the roughness just moments ago. His arms wrapped around you protectively, one hand stroking your hair softly, fingers threading through the tangled strands like he was afraid you'd disappear if he let go. The room was still glitching faintly, but he ignored it, focusing on you, on the way your breaths synced with his, slowing down together.
Heeseung pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, then your temple, his voice dropping to a whisper, sweet and caring, laced with concern. "Hey... you okay? I got carried away back there. I'm sorry if I hurt you."
You looked up at him, eyes soft and hazy, a small smile tugging at your lips as you snuggled closer, head resting on his chest. "No, Hee... I liked it. A lot. It was perfect." Your fingers traced lazy patterns on his skin, voice turning playful, like the dynamic lingered just a bit. "You made me feel so good. Don't apologize."
He chuckled quietly, relief washing over him, and he hugged you tighter, hand rubbing soothing circles on your back. "Good. I just... want to take care of you now." The game prompted options in his vision, soft and glowing: aftercare options: > hold her closer > kiss her gently > whisper sweet nothings > [offer water/snack] -- he picked the third, leaning down to murmur against your ear, "you're amazing, you know that? So beautiful, so perfect for me. I could stay like this forever." You hummed contentedly, body relaxing fully into his, the contrast hitting him. The glitches were fading, but notifications kept pinging: comfort level: maximum | post intimacy glow: active | save progress? yes / no
You shifted slightly, looking up at him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Affectionate, but something deeper, almost knowing. "Heeseung..." your voice was quiet. "See you out there."
He blinked, confusion creasing his brow. "What do you mean?" He sat up a little, heart picking up again, but before you could answer — or before the dialogue wheel could pop up — the world started dissolving. colors bled out, the room flickering violently, static roaring in his ears like a system crash.
Everything went black. Heeseung jolted upright in his chair, the Switch still clutched in his sweaty hands, the screen dark and powered off. His room came into focus: the dim light from his desk lamp, posters on the wall, the faint hum of his pc in the background. His heart was racing, breaths coming fast, and then he felt a sticky, warm mess in his pants, soaking through his boxers. "What the—" he muttered, voice cracking as the full reality sank in. His face burned hotter than ever, cheeks flaming red as he shifted in the gaming chair. He'd actually cum inside his pants. For real. Not just some weird dream or an asleep fantasy — no, full on, pants ruining orgasm from a Nintendo Switch Girlfriend Simulator game. "Holy shit."
Heeseung stared at the dark screen in his hands, the console now completely powered off, innocent looking with its cute joy cons and pastel buttons. It looked so harmless sitting there on his lap, like it hadn't just mind fucked him for hours and then physically fucked him back. He finally set the switch down on his desk, pushing it as far away as the cords allowed. He groaned, dropping his face into his hands.
After cleaning himself up in the bathroom — which involved avoiding eye contact with his own reflection because he couldn't handle the judgment he knew he'd see there — Heeseung collapsed onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. His body felt loose and tired in a way that should have been relaxing but instead just made him feel deeply, profoundly embarrassed.
The worst part was that he wanted to do it again. That was what really got him. Not the fact that it happened, but the fact that his brain was already thinking about when he could play next, or well, when he could fuck you next. He felt like a teenager who'd just discovered something he definitely shouldn't have and was now completely obsessed with it.
He'd spent most of his Sunday in his room alternating between staring at his Switch and telling himself he absolutely was not going to play it again, which had been moderately successful except for the part where he'd picked it up four different times before forcing himself to put it back down. So on that week, he started walking across campus toward the engineering building, head down and hoodie up because he felt like everyone could somehow tell what he'd done just by looking at him, when he saw you. You were sitting on one of the benches outside the library with your laptop open, clearly working on something, your hair pulled back and you were wearing an oversized hoodie that had some game logo on it he couldn't quite make out from this distance. Heeseung immediately changed direction.
He took the long way around the building, added an extra five minutes to his walk, and showed up to lecture slightly out of breath. He was very deliberately not thinking about the fact that he'd just actively avoided you. Which was ridiculous. You hadn't done anything, you didn't even know what had happened. You probably hadn't thought about him at all since that day at the library, were probably just sitting there doing homework like a normal person while Heeseung was having a complete psychological breakdown over a video game.
The problem was that every time he thought about you now, his brain immediately supplied images from the game. The way you'd looked at him, the way you moaned, the sounds you'd made, the way you came, the way it had felt so impossibly real that his body had reacted like it was actually happening. And now he couldn't separate that from the real you, the person he'd met at the party who'd been nice and funny and way too easy to talk to. The rest of the week continued like this. He saw you everywhere now, which was ironic because before the party he'd never noticed you once and now you were apparently in every building he entered. Tuesday you were in the coffee shop in the student center. Wednesday you walked past him in the hallway between classes. Thursday he saw you in the library again, this time on the second floor, and he'd actually turned around and walked back out.
His switch was on his desk, fully charged, basically taunting him. He'd managed to avoid playing it all week, had told himself he was being responsible and mature about the whole situation. But he couldn't stop thinking about it. Every time his mind wandered, it went right back to that night, to the game, to you. And his body was betraying him too, which was mortifying. He'd be sitting in lecture and think about the game for half a second and suddenly he'd have to adjust his laptop to hide the fact that he was getting hard in the middle of algorithms class. It happened during study sessions, during meals, during completely random moments when his brain decided to remind him that the game existed and he could play it whenever he wanted.
He felt disgusting. He was kink shaming himself, which he didn't even know was possible, but here he was, lying in bed at two am feeling like a creep for being attracted to a video game character who happened to look exactly like a real person he'd met. But he also couldn't stop thinking about playing again. About whether it would be like the first time or if there were other features, other scenarios. His brain kept supplying possibilities and his body kept responding and he felt trapped in this cycle of shame and want that he didn't know how to break.
And then on friday afternoon, Heeseung was in his dorm trying to focus on an assignment that was due monday when someone knocked on his door with the kind of aggressive persistence that could only be Jungwon. He considered pretending he wasn't home but Jake had already opened the door before Heeseung could say anything. "Oh hey Jungwon," Jake said. "He's here but he's been weird all week so good luck."
"Thanks for the warning," Jungwon said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He went to Heeseung's room and looked at him, who was very deliberately staring at his laptop screen. "Okay, we're going to Five Guys. Get up."
"I'm busy."
"No you're not." Jungwon grabbed Heeseung's hoodie off his chair and threw it at him. "Come on. We're getting burgers and you're going to tell me why you've been ignoring me all week."
"I haven't been ignoring you."
"You answered my texts with one word responses and you've avoided me on campus. That's ignoring me." Jungwon crossed his arms. "So either you come willingly or I'm going to make a scene. Your choice."
Heeseung knew Jungwon well enough to know he absolutely would make a scene. "Fine. But I'm not hungry."
"You're never not hungry. Let's go." And twenty minutes later they were sitting in Five Guys with their orders, the place mostly empty since it was that weird time between lunch and dinner.
Heeseung had been hoping the walk would give him time to figure out what to say to Jungwon, but instead he'd just spent it thinking about the game and feeling more and more uncomfortable. Because the thing was, if Heeseung had done what he'd done in the game, that meant Jungwon had programmed it. Jungwon had sat at his computer and coded in all those options, all those scenarios, all those very specific and detailed features that Heeseung had discovered. Which meant either Jungwon was way more perverted than Heeseung had ever given him credit for, or something else was going on.
"Okay, you're doing it again," Jungwon said, interrupting Heeseung's spiral. "You're being weird and quiet and you won't look at me. What's going on? Is it about the game? Did something break again?"
Heeseung knew he had to say something because this had gone too far. Because if the mature content was intentional, then they needed to have a very different conversation about boundaries and warnings and maybe Jungwon's concerning lack of shame. And if it wasn't intentional, if this was some kind of glitch or malfunction, then that was somehow even worse because it meant the game was doing things beyond anyone's control. Either way, Heeseung couldn't keep avoiding this. Jungwon was his best friend. If he couldn't talk to Jungwon about this, even if it was mortifying, then what was the point of having a best friend? So Heeseung admitted: "Yeah, it's about the game."
"Okay, so tell me." Jungwon looked at him.
"Look, you could've just... you could have warned me that it had adult content." Heeseung forced himself to look at Jungwon. "Like, explicit that I wasn't expecting in a dating simulator."
Jungwon blinked at him. "What?"
"I'm just saying, a heads up would have been nice. I know you're trying to make it realistic but I wasn't prepared for how detailed it was going to get."
"Bro, what are you talking about?"
And then it all came out like Heeseung couldn't stop himself. "I'm talking about the fact that the game has very explicit scenes with very detailed options and I don't know if you've ever actually looked at what you programmed but it's intense, Jungwon. Like the dialogue options were insane, I could say basically anything and the character would respond and some of those options were really freaky. And the action options were even worse, there were so many of them and they were all very specific and very detailed and I'm not going to list them but oh my god and then there was a whole section where it asked me about preferences and kinks and I thought that was just for character building but no, it actually used that information! And there were position suggestions. Position suggestions, Jungwon! With fucking diagrams, man. Why did you add diagrams?! And the whole thing was just very immersive and very realistic and I had a physical reaction that I'm not going to elaborate on but I think you can figure out what I mean and I've been avoiding you all week because I didn't know how to have this conversation without wanting to die of embarrassment."
Heeseung finally stopped to breathe and realized Jungwon was staring at him with an expression of complete bewilderment. "Heeseung," Jungwon said slowly. "I didn't add any of that content."
"What."
"I didn't program explicit scenes. There's no adult content in the game. It's a dating simulator not a porn game. The most intimate it gets is like, hand holding and maybe a kiss at the end if you get the good ending." Jungwon set down his burger. "What are you talking about dude?"
"Don't fuck with me right now."
"I'm not fucking with you, I'm being completely serious." Jungwon was looking at him, shocked. "I didn't add any of that stuff. I wouldn't even know how to program half of what you just described. Like what the fuck is even a kink questionnaire?!"
Heeseung felt cold. "Then how did I experience it, man?!"
"I don't know!" Jungwon was still shocked. "But this actually makes sense now. Y/N's been avoiding me too this week, even more than you have. She won't answer my texts and she literally ran away from me in the hallway yesterday. I thought maybe she was mad at me about something but what if she experienced the same thing you did?"
"What do you mean?"
"Okay, last Friday, remember when you were studying in the library and Y/N left suddenly? I texted her right after she left asking if she wanted to try the updated version of the game and she texted back immediately saying yes and that she was coming to get it right then." Heeseung remembered that day, your phone had buzzed and you'd looked at it and your whole expression had changed, you'd packed up your stuff so fast, muttering something about being late for class even though Heeseung was pretty sure you didn't have class at that time. "She took the game and left," Jungwon continued. "I didn't hear from her after that until she texted me the next day saying she was returning it and that she didn't want to play anymore. And now she won't talk to me."
"What time did she take the game?" Heeseung asked, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.
"I don't know, maybe around four? Four thirty?" Jungwon paused. "Why?"
Heeseung felt like the world was tilting. "I picked up the game from you around four forty five. Remember?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So we both had the game that night. We both played it that same night." Heeseung's mind was racing, putting pieces together. "And you're saying there's no adult content programmed into the game. But we both experienced something intense enough that we're both avoiding you. And we both played it at the same time."
Jungwon's eyes widened. "Oh my god."
"What if—" Heeseung stopped, because what he was about to say sounded insane. But everything about this situation was insane. "What if the game connected us somehow? What if when we both played it at the same time and it put us in the same… I don't know, session?"
"That's not possible because I didn't program any multiplayer features."
"You also didn't program explicit content but I definitely experienced it, man!" Heeseung put his head in his hands. "Jungwon, the character in my game looked exactly like Y/N, exactly like her. And you said the character customization was random."
"It is random. I didn't—" Jungwon stopped. "Wait. She actually said something similar. When she gave the game back she mentioned that the boyfriend character looked really realistic, like someone she could actually know."
Heeseung felt like throwing up. "Did she say who?"
"No, she just said it freaked her out how real he seemed."
Heeseung was pale now. His brain was doing that thing where it tried to process too much information at once and ended up just kind of spinning in place. You had played the game, you had seen a character that probably looked like him. You had found it so realistic it freaked you out. And then you'd played it again last friday, the same day he did, probably around the same time. And Jungwon was sitting here swearing he hadn't programmed any of the content that Heeseung had definitely experienced. Which meant one of two things: either Jungwon was full of shit, which didn't make sense because why would he lie about this, or the game had somehow done something it wasn't supposed to do. Connected two players who didn't know they were playing together, made them interact without telling them, let them do things with each other while both of them thought they were just playing a single player game with really good immersion.
And if that was true, if you'd actually been playing together, then the character Heeseung had been with wasn't just some algorithm. It was you, making choices and responding to him. Doing all those things that he'd been replaying in his head all week. Which meant you'd been doing those things with him, or with a version of him, and you probably had no idea it was real either. So Heeseung stood up so fast his chair scraped against the floor. "What's Y/N's dorm?"
Jungwon blinked at him. "What?"
"Her dorm. Which building is she in?"
"Uh, west campus. Building C, I think? Room 304, why?"
"I gotta go." Heeseung was already grabbing his hoodie.
"Ho where? Heeseung, what—" but Heeseung was already walking, he heard Jungwon call after him something about texting him later but he wasn't really listening. His mind was too busy spiraling through everything he needed to say to you, everything he needed to ask, everything that didn't make sense.
The walk to west campus took fifteen minutes but it felt both longer and shorter than that. Heeseung's hands were shaking and he shoved them in his pockets. He tried to figure out what he was going to say. Hey, so I think we accidentally had virtual sex through a Nintendo Switch last week and neither of us knew it was real. Yeah, that would go over great. Or maybe, hi, remember how we both played that game? Turns out we were playing together. Surprise! Yeah, also worse.
By the time he got to building C, he still hadn't figured it out. Heeseung stood outside the door and realized he couldn't actually get in without a key card or someone letting him in. He was standing there trying to figure out his next move when the door opened and two girls walked out, laughing about something on one of their phones. Heeseung caught the door before it closed and slipped inside. Probably not his finest moment in terms of dorm security, but he was past caring about minor rule violations.
He stood in front of your door for a solid thirty seconds, hand raised to knock, unable to make himself actually do it. This was insane, he was insane. He should turn around and leave and text Jungwon and let Jungwon handle this because Jungwon had made the game and this was technically his responsibility. But he didn't leave, he knocked. And nothing happened for a long moment. Heeseung was starting to think maybe you weren't home, or maybe you were home but ignoring the door, when he heard movement from inside. Footsteps and then a pause. Then your voice, muffled through the door.
"Who is it?"
Heeseung's mouth was dry. "It's Heeseung."
Another pause, longer this time. He could picture you on the other side of the door, probably frozen, probably panicking, probably wondering why the hell he was at your dorm right now. Then the lock turned and you opened the door. You were pale, like actually pale, but you smiled anyway. "Hi Hee. Is… everything alright?"
Heeseung looked at you. You were in pajamas, soft looking sweatpants and an oversized hoodie with some faded band logo on it. Your hair was up in a bun that was more mess than anything else, strands falling out around your face, no makeup. You were standing there at your door at five pm on a friday looking comfortable and real and so pretty it made his chest hurt. He knew he was down bad already. Had been since the game, since the party, since the moment you'd turned around in that park with a flower behind your ear that he'd picked for you except it hadn't actually been you, or maybe it had been, he didn't even know anymore. But looking at you now, in your actual dorm with your actual face and your actual voice saying his name like that, soft and a little worried, he realized the game version hadn't even come close. This was better because this was real.
"Well, yeah, I mean, technically no," he said. Then stopped. "I mean yes. I mean, I need to ask you something and I don't want to sound crazy but I'm probably going to sound crazy anyway so I don't know how to do this without sounding crazy."
Your expression shifted. Something in your eyes changed, like you knew exactly what he was going to say but didn't want to believe it. You stepped back and pulled the door open wider. "Come in."
Heeseung walked into your dorm and tried not to look around but he couldn't help it. The space was small but you'd made it yours, there was a Janna poster on the wall near your desk, the star guardian skin, same one you had on your phone case. Next to it was a persona 5 royal poster that looked like it had been put up carefully. Your Switch was sitting on your desk next to your laptop, the joy cons that soft pink and blue that came with the Animal Crossing edition. Your bed was unmade, blankets pushed to one side like you'd gotten up in a hurry. There were books stacked on your nightstand, a pair of headphones tangled on top of them. A stuffed cat that looked old and well loved sitting on your pillow. It was so much like the apartment in the game that Heeseung felt dizzy. The colors, the vibe, the way things were organized. But also different and better because it was lived in and messy in ways the game couldn't replicate.
"Do you want water or something?" You were standing by your mini fridge, hand on the door, looking at him with that same careful expression.
And then Heeseung opened his mouth and everything just came out.
"Jungwon gave me this game to test Called Girlfriend simulator and I thought it was stupid, like, the most desperate thing I could possibly do, like an actual certificate that I'm way too single for a guy my age. But I played it anyway because I can't say no to Jungwon and also because I was curious and I went on this date with this girl and she liked League of Legends and I had to pick this flower that was glowing and she loved it, and this firefly landed on her hand and she smiled at me like and then we played league together and destroyed her ex boyfriends, and we cooked pasta and she helped me because I was burning the garlic and the game kept giving me dialogue options but then I started just talking and it kept responding like it knew what I was going to say. And then things got really intimate, like really intimate, in ways I'm not going to describe because I'll die of embarrassment but you can probably guess what I mean. And the girl, she... she looked exactly like you. Not kind of like you, exactly like you. same face, same voice, same everything. and i talked to jungwon today And he said there's no adult content in the game, that he never programmed any of that, and that you played it too, last friday on the same night I did. And I think we were playing together and I think we were in the same game, in the same session or server or whatever, and I think the characters we were playing with weren't just game characters and I think they were each other. So I need you to tell me right now, does the boyfriend character in your game look like me?"
You were staring at him. Your hand was still on the mini fridge door but you weren't moving. Your face had gone from pale to flushed and your mouth was slightly open like you wanted to say something but couldn't figure out what. Heeseung's heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat and his hands were shaking and he'd just word vomited the entire situation at you without taking a single breath but he couldn't take it back now. You closed the mini fridge. Didn't get water, just stood there looking at him like you were seeing him for the first time. Your eyes were moving across his face, his hair, his shoulders, like you were checking something or maybe confirming something.
"Yes," you said finally. Your voice came out rough, barely above a whisper.
The word hung in the air between you. Heeseung felt something in his chest crack open, something between relief and panic and a feeling he didn't have a name for.
"Yes he looks like you," you continued, louder now. "Exactly like you and I thought I was going crazy and I thought Jungwon had somehow used photos of you without telling me, or that I was seeing patterns that weren't there, or that I'd just completely lost my mind. But it was you."
Heeseung took a step closer without meaning to. "You played it last friday."
"Yes."
"Around six thirty."
"Yes."
"And things got—" he stopped, couldn't say it.
"Intense." You finished for him. Your face was completely red now.
"So it was real." Heeseung's voice sounded strange. "We were playing together. We were with each other and we didn't know it."
You were breathing faster now. He could see your chest rising and falling under your hoodie. "So when I— when we—"
"Yeah." The room got quiet after that. You looked at him and he looked back and there it was again, that pull from the game, except now there was no screen between you. Just him standing in your dorm with his messy hair and that hoodie you'd seen in the character creator, and you knowing exactly how his hands felt even though you'd never actually touched him before. Your breath caught. His did it too, you saw his chest hitch. Neither of you said anything, you both just moved, like someone had pressed play at the same time. He leaned in, you tilted up, and your mouths met in the middle.
You kissed at the same time.
His mind was racing: this is real, this is actually happening. No reset button, no save file, and he could not stop it even if he tried. Your lips were soft and moving against his in a way that made his hands come out of his pockets and find your waist, pulling you in a bit. You felt his fingers press into the fabric of your hoodie, and you responded by sliding your hands up to his shoulders, gripping the soft material there.
The kiss deepened, his tongue brushed yours lightly, exploratory, and you leaned into it, your back arching off the mini fridge as he stepped closer, bodies pressing together now. A small sound escaped you, not a moan exactly, but something involuntary, and Heeseung reacted by tilting his head more, his hand moving up your back under the hoodie, fingers splaying against your skin, warm and calloused a little. His hands shook a little on your hips, and thank god there were no pop up flashing with options like "kiss deeper" or "pull away," and no dialogue tree to pick from.
You broke for air just a second, foreheads touching, both of you breathing hard. "this is way better than the game," he muttered, voice low and rough, with a tiny grin pulling at his lips.
You huffed a laugh, your hands still on his shoulders. "Shut up."
You pulled him back in before he could say anything else. This kiss was different, harder, more sure. Your teeth caught his bottom lip and he made a noise he'd be embarrassed about later. His hand came up to your face, thumb against your cheek. Your fingers tangled in his hair and tugged and he pressed you back against the fridge hard enough that the door rattled. He kissed down your jaw, taking his time, and you tilted your head to give him room. Your breathing was coming in short bursts. He got to your neck and stayed there, face buried against your skin, breathing you in. You made a sound that kinda sounded like a purr and that did something in him. In his head, he was scrambling, piecing together bits from the game, like the survey thing, where things got rough, when he knew you liked it rough. But now? No way, he wanted this slow, careful, the way you deserved. He slowed his kisses on your neck, his thumb tracing small circles on your side under the hoodie. Don't rush, idiot, his brain nagged, you're not on a timer here.
He pulled back just a bit, forehead against yours, and said, "Sorry, this was kinda... out of nowhere."
You shook your head, still trying to catch your breath. "It wasn't."
He looked at your mouth, then back up to your eyes. "If this is weird for you though. With everything. I can stop."
"No." You said it fast, then quieter. "I want this."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." you paused, then added quieter, "I haven't stopped thinking about it. Or… you. I can't stop thinking about you."
His brain glitched hard at that. wWait, she what? Holy shit, okay, don't screw this up. And he leaned in again, kissing you deeper now, hands sliding up your back, pulling you flush against him. He nipped at your lip, testing, as things heated back up, his pulse loud in his ears. You pushed him back gently, hands on his chest, guiding him across the room step by step until his back hit the wall with a soft thud. The kiss turned messy then, tongues clashing, breaths mixing in quick gasps, neither of you holding back anymore. Your lips moved to his jaw, nipping lightly, then down to his neck, sucking at the skin there.
He let out an uncontrolled whine, his hands tightening on your hips. That sound made you bolder, so you slipped one hand under his hoodie, fingers tracing the warm skin of his stomach, feeling the muscles tense under your touch. You pulled back up to kiss him again, fast and urgent, teeth grazing his lip. He bent his knees a bit, hands sliding down to your thighs, and lifted you up in one smooth motion. Your legs wrapped around his torso automatically, and he spun you around, pressing your back against the wall now. No action option popped up in his head, no prompt telling him what to do next — he'd done it all on instinct, and that made a quick flash of pride hit him, like he was finally off script, just going with it.
Between kisses, you murmured against his mouth, "Hee, you feel so good."
"You too, god" he breathed back, voice rough. He pressed in closer, his body flush against yours, the bulge in his pants obvious now between your legs. You let out a quiet moan, your head tipping back against the wall. He kept you pinned there against the wall, his hips rolling slow against yours in a rhythm that matched your breaths, each grind pulling a small gasp from you. His hands slid up under your hoodie, fingers spreading wide over your ribs, thumbs brushing the underside of your bra as he kissed you deeper, tongue sweeping in like he couldn't get enough. You arched into his touch and nipped at his earlobe, then soothed it with your tongue. He shivered, a low groan escaping him, and you felt him harden more against you, the friction sending sparks up your spine.
He lowered you slowly to the floor, knees bending as he guided you toward the bed, never breaking the kiss. You tugged at his hoodie, pulling it over his head in one messy motion, his hair falling wild as it came off. His skin was warm, flushed, and you ran your hands over his chest, thumbs circling his nipples until they peaked under your touch. He laughed softly, a little breathless, as he peeled your hoodie off next, tossing it aside. His fingers traced the strap of your bra, slipping it down your shoulder before leaning in to kiss the exposed skin.
You pushed him back onto the bed, climbing onto his lap, your thighs straddling his as you ground down slowly, feeling his erection press right where you needed it. His hands gripped your hips, guiding the motion. As his fingers worked the clasp of your bra, letting it fall away, Heeseung's mind clicked into place: this was infinitely better than any simulator. In the game it was all presets, like surveys and options that guessed at what you liked, scripted responses that felt good but flat. Here, he could watch your reactions for real, feel the way your body tensed or relaxed under his hands, discover the spots that made you squirm without a pop up telling him what to do. No algorithms dictating the pace; just trial and error, his lips on your skin, learning from every shiver, every moan. Why settle for a program when he could map you out himself, piece by piece?
Things picked up then, his mouth closing over one of your nipples, tongue flicking slow at first, then sucking harder when you arched into it, your fingers tangling in his hair. "Hee, yes— like that," you breathed, grinding down firmer, the wet heat between your legs soaking through against his sweatpants. He switched sides, hand cupping the other breast, thumb rolling over the peak. He helped you take your sweatpants off, and then his free hand slipped between you, fingers pressing over your clit through your panties, rubbing in tight circles that had you moaning louder, hips bucking. You reached down, palming him through his pants, feeling the outline of his cock twitch under your hand. "You're so hard already," you said, squeezing gently, watching his face contort. He thrust up into your touch, a whine slipping out as he pulled you in for another kiss, messy and deep.
His fingers dipped under your waistband now, sliding through your slick folds, one dipping inside you slow, curling just right. "So wet, fuck," he whispered, adding another finger, pumping steadily as his thumb found your clit again. You rocked against his hand, breaths coming faster, and tugged at his sweatpants, freeing him enough to wrap your fingers around his length, stroking slow from base to tip, thumb swiping over the precum beading there. He bucked into your grip, groaning into your mouth, the sound vibrating through you. "Keep going," he panted, fingers speeding up inside you, hitting that spot that made your toes curl.
You sped up your strokes, matching his rhythm, the slick sound of your hand on him mixing with the wet push of his fingers in you. He dropped his head to your shoulder, mouthing at your neck, teeth grazing skin as his free hand gripped your thigh hard enough to leave marks. You rolled your palm over the head on every upstroke, spreading the precum down his length, and he thrust into your fist harder, a low whine catching in his throat. His hips stuttered, thrusts into your hand getting erratic, and you felt him swell thicker against your palm. Suddenly he grabbed your wrist, stopping your movement, chest heaving. "I can't— fuck— I'll cum so fast like this."
"Yeah," you breathed, nodding quick, "Fuck, okay." He kissed you hard once more, then pulled his fingers out slow, bringing them to his mouth and sucking them clean while looking right at you. You bit your lip, heat rushing lower. You shifted back a bit, still catching your breath. "You got a condom?"
"Oh shit," he muttered, eyes widening. He reached down to his sweatpants, still tangled around one thigh from your handjob. And dug into the pocket, fumbling for his wallet. You leaned in, kissing along his neck slow, tongue flicking the spot that made him shiver earlier, just to keep him distracted. He huffed as he finally pulled out the foil packet. He glanced at it, then chuckled under his breath, shaking his head. In the game you didn't need this shit — couldn't exactly knock up pixel pussy.
He tore the packet open with his teeth, rolling it on quick but careful, hand stroking himself once to settle it. Then he nudged you back onto the bed, settling between your legs as you lay on your back. He kicked off the sweatpants fully, nearly tripping when they caught on his ankle, and you both grinned at the awkward shuffle. He hovered over you, one hand bracing by your head, the other guiding himself, tip brushing through your folds once, twice, coating in your wetness. "You okay?" he asked, voice low, eyes locked on yours.
"Yeah, fuck, please," you said, wrapping your legs around his hips, pulling him closer.
He pushed in slow, the head of his cock breaching you first, that initial stretch making him grit his teeth; tight, wet heat wrapping around him like a vice, slick from all the buildup, but still enough resistance that he had to ease forward inch by inch. His breath caught sharp in his throat, eyes squeezing shut for a second as the sensation hit him full force: warm walls fluttering around him, pulling him deeper, the condom dulling it just a bit but not enough to hide how perfectly you fit, how your body gave way but clung at the same time. He bottomed out with a low groan, hips flush against yours, and stayed there, pulsing inside you, the fullness making his thighs tense.
This was miles better than the game. In the sim, it was all smooth, predictable friction, coded to feel good but always a step removed, like jacking off to a video. Here, though, buried deep in you, he felt every twitch, every squeeze of your cunt around his cock, the real heat radiating through him, the way your wetness coated him completely, Making each tiny shift send sparks up his spine. It was messy and raw, just the obscene reality of how soaked you were, how his balls pressed between your thighs, heavy and tight, begging for more. He started moving then, slow pulls back and thrusts in, the wet slap of skin filling the room as he found a rhythm. You arched up to meet him, nails digging into his shoulders, leaving red lines he could feel stinging already. "Fuck, you're taking me so well," he muttered, voice wrecked, as he snapped his hips harder once, watching your tits bounce with the impact. He leaned down, mouth latching onto your neck, sucking hard enough to bruise while he ground deep, cock dragging along your walls, hitting spots that made you clench tighter around him.
Your legs tightened around his waist, heels pressing into his back, urging him faster, and he obliged, thrusts turning rougher, the bed creaking under you both. He could hear the squelch each time he buried himself balls-deep, your pussy gripping him. "So fucking wet," he groaned against your skin, one hand sliding down to grab your ass, pulling you onto him harder. You moaned louder, fingers tangling in his hair, tugging as he pounded in, the angle shifting so his pubic bone ground against your clit with every thrust.
He flipped you over suddenly, hands on your hips yanking you up onto all fours, and slid back in from behind in one smooth push, deeper this way, his cock curving just right to make you gasp. He started railing you, skin slapping loud, his balls smacking against you with each brutal thrust. You pushed back against him, meeting every snap, your walls fluttering around him, milking him tighter. He reached around, fingers finding your clit, rubbing messy circles while he fucked you harder.
His mind flashed back to the game then, that kink survey popping up, how you'd picked options that leaned heavy into rough. He wondered if it carried over, if real you craved that edge too. Testing it, he drew back a hand and landed a smack on your ass, not too hard, just enough to sting and make the flesh jiggle under his palm. The sound cracked through the room, sharp over the wet slaps of his thrusts. You moaned low, pushing back harder against him, your pussy clenching tight around his cock like a reflex. That reaction lit him up — okay, she likes it — and he felt bolder, the dom side kicking in without overthinking. "Yeah, you take that so good," he groaned, rubbing the spot he smacked, soothing the heat before landing another, a bit firmer this time, watching your skin pink up.
He kept pounding in, deep and steady, the angle letting him hit that spot inside you that made your knees buckle a little. Reaching forward, he grabbed your wrists, pulling your arms back and pinning them at the small of your back with one hand, your chest dropping lower to the mattress. It arched your ass higher, letting him drive deeper, his free hand gripping your hip hard, fingers digging into the soft flesh there. The restraint made everything tighter, your walls hugging his cock obscenely, slick dripping down his balls with each thrust. "Fuck, I can't take it anymore," he panted, voice breaking as he felt you flutter around him, the build-up coiling tight in his gut.
"Hee—close, I'm so close," you gasped, face pressed into the sheets, hips grinding back desperate now. He picked up the pace, thrusts turning frantic, skin slapping louder, his balls tightening as he railed you harder. "Come on, let go for me, you feel so good clenching like that," he muttered, leaning over you, breath hot on your back. The friction built fast, your moans turning high and broken, and he felt you shatter first, your pussy spasming hard around his cock, milking him in waves, wetness gushing out and coating his thighs. That pushed him over, his hips stuttering as he buried deep one last time, groaning loud as he came, pulsing inside you, the condom catching every thick spurt while your bodies locked together, shaking through it.
You both stayed like that for a minute, chests heaving, sweat cooling on your skin, the room thick with the smell of sex. He was still buried inside you, pulsing faintly with aftershocks, but he didn't want it to end yet. Slowly, he eased out, the condom slick and heavy as he tied it off and dropped it on the floor beside the bed. His hands loosened on your wrists, letting your arms fall forward as you collapsed onto your stomach with a soft groan. He leaned down, lips brushing the small of your back, tasting the salt there, then lower, kissing along the curve where your spine dipped. His teeth grazed the swell of your ass, biting just hard enough to make you twitch, then soothing it with his tongue. You pushed back slightly, thighs parting on instinct, and he took the invitation— hands spreading you open as he dragged his tongue slow from your asshole down to your entrance, lapping up the mess you'd both made. The taste hit him full: tangy, musky, mixed with the latex from the condom and your arousal, thick and real coating his tongue. He groaned into you, diving deeper, tongue pushing inside your pussy, curling to scoop out more, nose buried against you as he ate you out sloppy from behind.
Your hips started rocking back, muffled moans into the pillow, fingers gripping the sheets. He kept going, alternating broad licks up your slit with flicks over your clit, then back to spearing his tongue inside, feeling your walls flutter again. His face was soaked now, chin dripping, lips swollen, as he sucked your clit into his mouth, humming low. You tensed hard, thighs shaking, and came again with a broken cry, pushing back against his face, wetness flooding his mouth as he licked you through it, not stopping until you sagged limp.
He pulled back finally, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand but mostly just smearing it, face shiny and wrecked. He flipped you over gentle, onto your back, and just looked; your cheeks flushed deep red, hair stuck to your forehead, neck and thighs dotted with fresh bruises from his mouth and grip, chest rising fast. You looked completely fucked out, eyes half lidded, lips bitten raw. His gaze dropped to himself: cock half hard again already, hanging heavy, the used condom on the floor bloated with his load, cum visible through the latex. This was nothing like the game. There, everything reset clean, no mess, no lingering taste on his tongue, no actual bruises blooming on skin. Here, he could smell you on his face, feel the ache in his jaw from eating you out, see the evidence of how hard he'd fucked you. Way better. Infinitely better.
He crawled up beside you, collapsing half on top, one leg tangled with yours, hand resting on your stomach as you both caught your breath again. The air was still thick, sheets twisted around your ankles, and Heeseung shifted a little closer, propping his head on one hand to look at you. He picked up your hand, fingers tracing over your knuckles before bringing them to his lips, kissing each one slow, like he was checking they were real. "Hey," he said soft, "was is... good for you?"
You glanced away for a second, cheeks heating up again, then nodded. "Yeah. Really good." Your voice came out quieter than you meant, thumb brushing his wrist. He smiled small, relieved, and pressed another kiss to your fingertips. You swallowed, still coming down, and mumbled, "want some water?"
"Yeah I'll get it," he said quick, already pushing up. He swung his legs off the bed and stood, then paused mid step, one hand going to his lower back with a quiet "Ow—shit." He stretched a bit, wincing. Last time he'd moved like that was... well, in the game and pixels don't pull muscles. He huffed a laugh at himself and shuffled over to the mini fridge, the floor cool under his feet.
He grabbed two bottles, cracked one open for you first, and came back, sitting on the edge of the bed close enough that his knee bumped yours. You sat up a little, taking the water, and he reached out, fingers threading through your messy hair, smoothing it back gently while you drank. His touch was light, almost absent minded, but steady. You lowered the bottle and just looked at him— hair sticking up, lips swollen, a faint red mark on his neck from earlier. You let out a soft laugh, nose scrunching. he raised an eyebrow, grinning. "Hi."
"Hi," you said back, still smiling.
He tilted his head, thumb brushing your cheek. "You need to pee."
You snorted, covering your face with one hand. "Yes, I know." He didn't even hesitate, just slid his arms under you, one behind your back, the other under your knees, and lifted you up like you weighed nothing. You yelped quietly, arms looping around his neck on reflex. "Hee—"
"I got you," he muttered, carrying you across the room to the bathroom door, stepping carefully around the clothes scattered on the floor. He set you down gentle inside, kissed your forehead quick, and pulled the door almost shut behind you. "Take your time." You heard him flop back onto the bed with a dramatic groan, probably rubbing his back again, and couldn't help smiling to yourself in the mirror.
When you came back, he was sitting on the edge of your bed, boxers pulled on, knees apart, elbows resting on his thighs. He looked up as the bathroom door opened and gave you this small, lopsided smile, half awkward, half couldn't-hide-it-if-he-tried glad. His hair was still a mess, sticking up where your fingers had been, and he rubbed the back of his neck like he didn't know where to put his hands now. You walked over and sat next to him, close enough that your thighs touched, the mattress dipping a little under both of you.
For a second neither of you said anything, just the quiet hum of the mini fridge and the faint rustle of sheets when you shifted. He glanced at you sideways. "So... that happened."
You huffed a small laugh, pulling your knees up. "Yeah. It did."
He was quiet for a moment. "Was it—" he stopped, started again. "I don't want you to think that's why I came here. Or that I expected—"
"I know."
"Because we don't really know each other. Like, actually know each other. And I don't want you to feel like this was too much or—"
"Don't we though?"
He looked at you. "What?"
"Know each other." You tucked your hair behind your ear. "I lived all of it with you. In the game."
"Yeah but that wasn't—"
"The date in the park," you said. "You picked that flower for me. The one that was glowing.” Heeseung was very still now, watching you. "And we played League together," you continued. "Destroyed my exes, even though they don't even exist in real life. Also, you were so smug about it, kept emoting after every kill, I thought you were so cute. And then we cooked pasta at my place and you almost burned the garlic and I had to help you and we ended up just—" you stopped, smiled a little. "It felt easy and natural like I'd known you forever. And the dates after that. Like the arcade, that hiking trail." You were looking at your hands now. "And then the park again at night. You told me you were falling for me. I remember it all too well. It was the most real thing that's ever happened to me." You finally looked at him. "And when I met you at the party and realized you were an actual person, I freaked out. Because how was I supposed to deal with the fact that I'd already fallen for you before we'd even met?"
"You—" his voice cracked slightly. "You fell for me?"
"Yeah." You said it simple, like it was obvious. "In the game. I didn't know it was you, but I felt everything. And then when Jungwon texted me about the update, I couldn't — I had to play it again. I had to see you again, even if it was just in the game. I thought it was just the game being really immersive and really realistic and I didn't think you were actually there."
Heeseung let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "I thought the same thing but I couldn't figure out what else it could be."
"And then we both avoided each other for a week." You laughed, dropping your head against his shoulder. "We're idiots."
"Complete idiots." He leaned his head against yours. "But like, in our defense, how were we supposed to know we were accidentally having virtual sex through a Nintendo Switch?"
You snorted, shoulders shaking with laughter. "Please never say that sentence again."
"Which part, the virtual sex or the Nintendo Switch?"
"Both. That whole thing."
He was grinning now. "But it happened."
"Ynfortunately yes."
"And it was—" he stopped.
"Really good," you finished.
He pulled back a little, just enough to look at you, his fingers sliding up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. His touch lingered, thumb brushing your cheek. "Yeah. It was. But this way is better." You smiled, he did too. But then he paused, and said quieter, "We don't have to figure it all out right now, you know. The whole... what this means. But," he swallowed, hand dropping to lace with yours on the sheet. "If you want to. If you're down... I'd really like to try this for real. Like, dates that don't require a Switch cartridge. Real hiking and a real arcade. And the boring real stuff too."
You turned your hand over, squeezing his fingers. "Boring real stuff sounds good."
"Yeah?" His smile went soft, relieved, and he shifted closer, knee bumping yours. His free hand came up to your waist, pulling you gently until you were half in his lap, legs tangled again. He kissed you slow then, nothing rushed, just lips moving soft, his hand splaying warm on your back. You kissed back, fingers threading through the hair at his nape, tugging lightly when he deepened it a bit. He pulled away just enough to breathe, lips still grazing yours. "This okay?"
"More than okay," you murmured, chasing his mouth for another quick kiss. He smiled into it, then another, hand sliding up your spine, thumb tracing lazy lines. You broke apart for air, but stayed close, foreheads together. "So," you said, poking his chest. "First real date. You picking or me?"
"I owe you that glowing flower," he said, fingers playing with your hair. "But like, from an actual field this time."
You laughed softly, kissing the corner of his mouth. "Deal. But you're still helping with the garlic."
He groaned dramatically, flopping back onto the pillow and pulling you with him so you landed half on his chest. "Fine. But no emoting when I burn it."
You settled there, ear over his heartbeat, his arms wrapping loose around you. "We'll see."
And you did see, because you saw him burn garlic three more times over the next month, and you emoted every single time, just to watch him get flustered and defensive about it. And the dates weren't like the game. There were no perfectly timed sunsets or fireflies that landed on cue.
Your first real date was at a diner near campus at two in the afternoon because that's when you both had free time between classes. He ordered pancakes and you stole half of them. The syrup was too sweet and the coffee was burnt and it was perfect anyway. You went to an arcade on a Tuesday night because you both thought it would be funny and all the good machines were broken. Heeseung spent twenty bucks trying to win you a stuffed cat from the claw machine and failed every time, just like the game. You ended up buying one from the prize counter with your own money and he carried it around for the rest of the night looking mildly offended. The hiking trail he took you on wasn't the picturesque mountain path from the game. It was a local trail that was mostly flat and next to a highway. You could hear cars the entire time. He tripped over a root and almost took you down with him. But he held your hand the whole way and pointed out a bird he thought was cool, and when you sat on a bench to rest, he kissed you and it tasted like the granola bars you'd been sharing.
You learned things about him that the game had never shown you. That he was grumpy in the mornings and needed at least ten minutes of silence before he could form coherent sentences. That he had a specific way of organizing his desk and got stressed when things were out of place. That he laughed at his own jokes before he finished telling them and it was the most endearing thing you'd ever seen. Meanwhile, he learned that you talked to yourself when you were concentrating, narrating your own thoughts out loud without realizing it. That you had strong opinions about which anime openings were skippable and which were sacred. That you stress baked at midnight and would show up at his dorm at one am with cookies that were still warm and slightly misshapen.
You played League together and he actually did run it down once and you flamed him for fifteen minutes straight. He took you to his favorite boba place and you hated the drink you ordered but drank it anyway because you didn't want to admit you'd made a mistake. He noticed and switched cups with you without saying anything.
And the domestic stuff was better than any game could've captured: grocery shopping together and arguing about which brand of ramen to buy; him falling asleep on your shoulder during study sessions in the library; you stealing his hoodies and him pretending to be annoyed but leaving them at your place on purpose. The way he'd text you random memes at three am just because he thought you'd find them funny. The way you'd save the last bite of your food for him without thinking about it. It was real and messy and nothing like the perfect dates the game had generated. It was so much better.
Three months in, Jungwon decided he wanted to do a pizza night at his place. Make-your-own-pizza, he'd said. It'll be fun, he'd said. He'd assigned everyone tasks and you and Heeseung got stuck with grocery shopping because apparently you were the only ones who could be trusted not to forget something important. Which is how you ended up in the pasta sauce aisle of the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon, having an increasingly heated debate about pizza sauce. "This one has basil already in it," Heeseung said, holding up a jar.
"But that one's too sweet. We need the plain one so we can add our own seasonings." You grabbed a different jar.
"Nobody's going to taste the difference."
"I'm going to taste the difference!"
"Yeah, that's because ou have the most specific opinions about things that don't matter."
"Excuse me, pizza sauce matters. This is important." He looked at you, standing there in your hoodie and jeans with your hair falling out of your bun, holding a jar of pasta sauce like it was a matter of life and death, and he felt something in his chest shift. You'd been arguing about groceries for ten minutes. Before that it had been flour — he'd grabbed all purpose and you'd insisted on bread flour even though Jungwon probably wouldn't care. You had strong opinions about olive oil brands. You'd spent five minutes reading the labels on different types of cheese. It was so mundane and domestic and real and he was so gone for you it was ridiculous.
Heeseung caught your wrist and pulled you back. You turned, surprised, the jar of sauce still in your hand. "What?" He just looked at you for a second. The fluorescent grocery store lighting was terrible and someone's kid was screaming two aisles over and the store radio was playing a compressed version of some pop song from five years ago. Nothing about this moment was romantic or special or anything like the game would've generated.
"You know," he said, "if this was a cooking game, you'd be picking all the wrong action options right now."
You laughed. "What?"
"The wrong sauce. Insisting on fresh garlic when the jarred stuff is right there. Making this way more complicated than it needs to be." He was smiling now, pulling you closer. "You'd be failing the efficiency route."
"Good thing this isn't a game then."
"Yeah." His other hand came up to your face, thumb brushing your cheek. "Good thing." You were looking at him with this soft expression, waiting for whatever he was going to say, and Heeseung realized he'd been waiting for the perfect moment for weeks now. The right time, the right place, the right words. But standing in a grocery store on a random Saturday arguing about pizza sauce felt more right than any perfectly rendered sunset could've been. "I love you," he said.
You went very still. "What?"
"I love you." He said it again, steadier this time. "And I want to finally beat fuck ass Girlfriend Simulator. Make it official."
"Heeseung—"
"I want to complete the Girlfriend Simulator route," he continued, and he was grinning now because he could see you trying not to smile. "Get the good ending. Unlock the girlfriend achievement."
You laughed. "You're such a nerd."
"Yeah, I know. so?" He squeezed your hand. "Will you be my girlfriend? For real this time?"
You set the jar of sauce down on the nearest shelf, not even checking if it was the right spot, and kissed him. Right there in the middle of the grocery store with terrible lighting and screaming children and elevator music playing overhead. His arms came around you and you could feel him smiling against your mouth. When you pulled back, you were both grinning like idiots. "Yes," you said. "Obviously yes.”
And you kissed him. His arms came around you and you could feel him smiling against your mouth. You pulled back just a little, hands sliding up to rest on his chest, fingers curling into his shirt. The kiss turned slower then, softer, your lips brushing his again and again like you couldn't quite stop. He made this quiet hum, one hand coming up to cup the back of your neck, thumb stroking the skin there while the other stayed firm on your waist, keeping you close. Some lady pushed her cart past you both, wheels squeaking on the linoleum, but neither of you moved.
When you finally broke apart, foreheads still touching, you were both breathing a little harder. "I love you too," you said, voice low but steady. "Obviously. And I'm really glad I beat Boyfriend Simulator."
He laughed soft, nose bumping yours. "Wait." His face went serious all of a sudden, eyes narrowing. "That was the name of your game? Boyfriend Simulator?"
"Yeah." You bit your lip, trying not to grin too big. "Jungwon said it was different from Girlfriend Simulator because this one has a multiplayer option."
He shook his head slow, arms still around you, holding you there in the aisle like he wasn't planning on letting go anytime soon. You both just stood there, wrapped up in each other between the shelves of pasta sauce, carts rumbling by, some kid yelling about cereal in the distance. Heeseung stared at you, processing, then let out this quiet groan, dropping his forehead to your shoulder. "I'm going to kill Yang Jungwon."
You laughed into his hair, fingers threading through it at the nape of his neck. "Get in line."
[GAME COMPLETE] GOOD ENDING UNLOCKED: REAL LIFE ROUTE ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: GIRLFRIEND.EXE NEW GAME+ AVAILABLE: THE REST OF YOUR LIVES
